The 1st Reading gives a taste of what blessing should be and it is not linked to abundance. Instead, geopolitical considerations played a role in Jeremiah’s harsh and forbidding language. Between the Southern Kingdom of Judah and the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Judah was economically the poorer of the two. As the less developed of the two nations, Judah was fearful of the future as the Assyrians, Eygptians, and Chaldeans grew more menacing. Instead of humility, repentance and trusting in God, they disregarded the Lord’s commandments and the result of their disobedience was disastrous. In other words, Judah wanted protection from a greater power and hoped to achieve it through the formation of alliances with others. Whereas Jeremiah counselled the King against placing faith in human agency, he urged Judah to trust in God who has never failed to provide.
It has been the coherent counsel of the long line of prophets that we should trust God’s providence. This begs the question in whom we place our trust. Blessing flows from trusting that God alone will protect and provide. In fact, Jesus in the Gospel seems to suggest that God’s favour is almost non-material. In teaching the crowd, He addressed His disciples directly indicating that He expected those who follow Him to utterly abandon themselves to the God who is providentially faithful.
In the Beatitudes, Jesus describes how blessings and woes are applied to different people. The poor, the hungry, the mourners, the hated are blessed whereas the rich, the full, the happy and the popular have had their rewards. The woes which are directed to those who are creaturely comfortable—enough to eat, drink and enjoy—can lead to a hasty or unfair condemnation of those who are materially more well-off. In this age of glaring disparity between the elite and the marginalised, where the “equality of outcome”[1] becomes a burning issue for social justice, the elite are easily demonised as the “bête noire” of socialism.[2]
Inequality aside, what is evident in the Beatitudes is that plenitude is not the measure for God’s blessing. There is relationality in blessing and it would be myopic to restrict the notion blessing to the merely material realm. Thus, in the context of the Lunar New Year and our captivation with prosperity and wealth, it would be good to deepen our understanding of blessing.
Firstly, in proposing the Beatitudes, we are encouraged to embrace good and proper behaviour. It is an exhortation to be the best of who we are—an encouragement to virtuous and ethical conduct.[3] Good and proper behaviour is essentially relational in nature. Thus, the Beatitudes are a blueprint for righteous relationships.
Secondly, the idea of justice inherent in the Beatitudes is fruit of our faith in God. Justice will never be achieved if we place our trust in material well-being. We delude ourselves thinking that only when we have “enough” will we begin share with others. It is akin to the proverbial receding horizon. The more we accrue, the more we tend to hoard. Only when we are able to peer beyond the veil of material fulfilment that we will begin to appreciate the blessedness of poverty or deprivation. This is not a glorification of abject poverty because for some people, a meal is that thin line between life and death. The context for the blessedness of nothingness is found beyond having enough to eat, drink and enjoy. When we transcend this insatiable drive to accumulate and to hoard materially, we begin to treasure that the vacuum does not annihilates us. Instead, this gaping hole of incompleteness which often compels the need to acquire is the original emptiness placed there by God Himself. He is the only possession that can fully satisfy us.
Thirdly, if God alone suffices, then we will have to disabuse ourselves of the idea that blessing is a sign of God’s favour. It is not always the case. Some of us hold a perspective that blessing is synonymous with wealth. Take for instance “fú, lù, shòu” (福祿壽) otherwise known as the gods of fortune, prosperity and longevity. They reveal that our concept of blessing glides along a material plane. If not, look out for the “rotund cat with the forearm waving”, the Japanese “maneki-neko”, prevalent in Chinese and Catholic homes which beckons wealth and good fortune.
When we are focused on material plenitude, we may fail to appreciate the true nature of blessing. So often we forget that the Devil can bless too. Remember how Satan brought Jesus to the top of the mountain? There, Satan tempted Jesus to bow down and worship him. For that Jesus would be rewarded with the Kingdoms of the world. Jesus reminded Satan that authentic blessing flows from an authentic relationship with God. Plenty and abundance are not always signs of God’s favour for if they were, imagine how blessed Najib, Rosmah and all their corrupt cronies are.
It does not mean that we should stop asking God for His blessings. We dare to ask because it is an expression of our dependence on Him and yet we also know that the relationship between us should never be defined materially. If blessing equals wealth, then our relationship is not with God but with His creation of which God is simply the vending machine that provides all these. Blessing flows when we trust in God but it does not have to be material. If God does not answer our prayers, it is not because He condemns us.
Finally, blessed are the poor could well be a definition of an attitude and not a description of deprivation. Happy are those who have a relationship with the Lord for their lot or portion will be overflowing! Sad are those whose faith is not in God, but instead in their own machination, believing that wealth, prosperity and fortune are enough for life. In this unequal society, to address injustice or the skewed distribution of wealth, we need to tackle first this central issue that blinds us from recognising that the basic equation of life is our relationship with God[4] and only then, with the world of created goods. While possession of wealth is a kind of relationship, the Beatitudes recognise that people are more important than things, relationship with God and man more central than possession of wealth.
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[1] We need the equality of opportunity to level the playing field for individuals to gain progress. We also need to be aware that equal opportunities do not guarantee equal outcome because there is such a thing as systemic inequalities. For example, children from richer families generally have better connexion. Thus, the equality of opportunity provides a measure of how equal our chances of success are whereas the equality of outcome is a measure of how successful we actually have been in making sure that the playing field is level.
[2] This is not quite true. "Au contraire", in today’s social structure, those who control the story will have the wherewithal to demonise anyone who dares to stand apart from the approved narrative. Take for example, “Blackface PM” who has no problem vilifying any lorry driver who takes part in the protest convoy as racist, misogynist and white supremacist. The PM actually belongs to an elite dynasty because his father was formerly the prime minister. Complicit in his attempt to steer the narrative is a compliant mainstream media. The challenge is how one perceives of the way events are being described is dependent on where a person stands on the political spectrum.
[3] Our idea of being the best of who is more virtual than virtuous. Being good is not as important as looking good. In other words, looks matter more than substance.
[4] In an effort to right the wrongs, that is, to remedy injustice we may miss the point that in order to alleviate inequality, we may have to remedy the other first, that is, return to trusting God. Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and the rest will fall in line. When we are in God’s hands, we will be a blessing for others in every sense of the word. When we love God, justice will follow.
