Friday, July 10, 2026
Reflecting on the many ways the Beatitudes have been understood, author Debie Thomas clarifies what she believes the Beatitudes are not:
People who know little else about Jesus know the Beatitudes. Some folks read them as lines of poetry. Some consider them a rule of life. Others find them naïve and impractical. Having grown up in the church, I’m familiar with the ways the Beatitudes are often misread and misused. I want to start there, by naming what they are not:
The Beatitudes are not sentiments. It’s easy in our consumerist culture to allow a word like “blessing” to become greeting card fodder, bland and meaningless. (“I’m so #Blessed.”) But the Beatitudes are not meant to settle and soothe us; they’re meant to startle us awake. Yes, they are pastoral, and yes, they give us hope. But Christian hope is not a sedative. Christian hope gets us up and out the door.
The Beatitudes are not to-do items. They are not suggestions, instructions, commandments, or quid pro quos. There is nothing transactional about them, nothing that smacks of a “should,” a “must,” or an “ought.” It is emphatically not the case that if I try very hard to be poorer, sadder, meeker, hungrier, thirstier, purer, more peaceable, and more persecuted than I am right now, God will like, love, reward, and appreciate me more than God already does.
The Beatitudes are not shame tactics. The point is not to read Jesus’s litany of blessings for the poor and the disenfranchised and walk away feeling like an overprivileged wretch. The takeaway Jesus intends for his listeners is neither shame nor self-condemnation. The last thing Jesus’s Beatitudes should do is defeat us.
The Beatitudes are not permission slips for passivity. To use Jesus’s teachings about sorrow, meekness, poverty, and persecution to keep oppressed people oppressed is to distort his words and intentions. There is nothing in the Beatitudes that excuses injustice, nothing that relativizes abuse, nothing that frees us to tell suffering people that their suffering is God-ordained and redemptive.
Through Jesus’s example, we learn that the Beatitudes are a vocation for our lives. Thomas points out:
Jesus acts. He doesn’t simply speak blessing; he lives it. Through his words, his hands, his feet, his life, he brings about the very blessings he promises. Insisting that pain in and of itself is neither holy nor redemptive in the Christian story, Jesus works to bring healing, abundance, liberation, and joy to everyone who crosses his path.
This is the vocation we are called to. The work of sharing the blessings we enjoy is not the work of a distant someday. It is the work we’re called to now. The Beatitudes remind us that blessing and justice are inextricably linked. If it’s blessing we want, then it’s justice we must pursue.
Reference:
Debie Thomas, Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ (Cascade Books, 2022), 120–121, 123–124.
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John Chaffee – Five On Friday, 7-10-2026
1.
“You can save lives by giving someone a hug.”
– Father Greg Boyle, Founder of Homeboy Industries
Every morning at Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation program in the world, people gather to share updates, celebrate victories, and share a short reflection.
A recent reflection from their opening meeting included, “You can save lives by giving someone a hug.”
Without sounding too dark or morbid, there are people in this world for whom there was a lack of love shown. This creates a very wounded individual, and that contributes to their overall unhealth. And, from there, we all know that incredibly unhealthy people can do tragic acts in society.
It may very well be that showing kindness, giving loving attention, and a sincere hug may not just save the life of the person you are with, but also the lives of others whom they might harm if they did not receive love from you. Think of mass shooters, people who commit violence with a knife or gun, or anything else that your imagination might bring to mind.
I understand this might seem rather intense to start with, but I find this quite hopeful.
We can save lives by giving people a simple hug.
2.
“We don’t actually fear death; we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace.”
– TS Eliot, 20th Century British Poet
One of my deep wounds is the belief that I will not be missed.
I do not know where the thought originally came from, but there have been events in my life that have seemingly “confirmed” it to me.
Perhaps I am being melodramatic. Perhaps my Enneagram 4 wing is particularly strong on some days.
One of the ways in which I combat this diabolical thought is by remembering the people who have actually told me they miss me,g and also remind myself that I am perpetually in the memory of God. Sincere love is not to be taken for granted, and I am glad that my faith reminds me that I am not absent from God and that God is not absent from me.
3.
“Dispassion (apatheia) does not mean that the soul no longer feels the passions, but that it remains undisturbed when they attack.”
– Maximus the Confessor, 7th Century Syrian Monk
This past week, I finished Apatheia in the Christian Tradition: An Ancient Spirituality and Its Contemporary Relevance by Joseph Nguyen SJ.
It was a fascinating read. In some ways, it is more of a biography of a concept, tracing its evolution as it was passed from one generation to the next. Beginning with the Stoics, then Evagrius Ponticus, then John Cassian, then Maximus the Confessor, and finally Ignatius of Loyola, it traced how Christian spirituality used “apathy” as a spiritual discipline.
Apatheia is the practice of being appropriately detached from the strong emotions and passions that cause us and others pain and suffering. Contrary to modern thought, the early church’s teaching on Apatheia is not about being completely unemotional but about being detached from immature emotions and replacing them with mature love, wisdom, and joy.
If you are the kind of person whose emotions sometimes get the better of you, I highly encourage you to check out Nguyen’s book.
4.
“It’s not about right belief; it’s about right practice.”
– Cynthia Bourgeault, Episcopal Priest
I mean, let’s be honest…
Here is a theological question for you…
According to how we think about God, how wrong is “too wrong”?
This singular question came to me about 15 years ago, and it changed the way I thought about many things.
Jesus himself did not seem to place the same emphasis on doctrine, orthodoxy, or belief as we do today.
Jesus seemed more interested in orthopraxy. That is probably why he was able and willing to meet with people whom the religious elite of his day dared not associate with.
In The Parable of the Good Samaritan, the hero of the story is not the one with the “right orthodoxy” but the one with “right practice.”
Rather than trying to prove to ourselves, one another, or God of our own “orthodoxy,” perhaps we need to stop and look at our own lives and ask ourselves if we have the “right practice” of the Christian faith.
5.
“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”
– Fyodor Dostoyevsky in The Brothers Karamazov
According to my Kindle, I am 52% through my re-read of The Brothers Karamazov.
It took me almost a year to get through it the first time.
And, since then, I have failed at other re-reads, but this current one seems to be going well!
It is a fascinating read, even if it is difficult.
The quote above summarizes several of the book’s plotlines. Much of the story is about the love between brothers, sons and fathers, lovers and beloveds, God and humanity. For Dostoyevsky, love is not a simple, easy, or sentimental thing alone. Rather, it is the chief virtue that somehow holds the world together, forgives the world for being broken, and gives perpetual hope toward the rapscallions and ragamuffins.
Perhaps once I finish my re-read, I will share more about the book and what stood out to me this time around.
