The Poor in Spirit – Open to Receive
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
January 19, 2025
Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. Our scripture for this morning is the first of the Beatitudes from Matthew 5:3 from the New Revised Standard Version.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Friends, this morning as we delve into the Beatitudes, I think it is appropriate to acknowledge how these teachings were at the core of the Beloved Community that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned. King believed that the Beatitudes challenged conventional wisdom and were a guide for living a good life. This morning, as we explore the first of the beatitudes, may they be our guide to creating the beloved community in our place.
For a season in my spiritual journey, I spent a lot of time basking in the writings of Trappist Monk, writer, theologian, and mystic, Thomas Merton. During a personal retreat one year, I was reading the Thomas Merton Reader and came across the following quote which had me contemplating deeply. Merton says,
“At the center point of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and illusion, a point of pure truth, a point of spark which belongs entirely to God.”
At the time, I was dabbling with moving from Anglicanism to being a Quaker and began more and more hearing Merton’s mother, who was a devout Quaker and artist speaking through his life and spiritual experiences. I have found the more Merton one reads, the more one will notice this.
During this retreat, I was also wrestling with the complexities and similarities of the theologies of Imago Dei (or Image of God), which I had grown up with in my Lutheran and Anglican backgrounds and the Quaker understanding of “that of God within all people.” Today, I see them as almost synonymous.
Both my Quaker faith and Thomas Merton have taught me that spending time in silence, solitude, and devotional contemplation calms the voices of the world blaring loudly in my ears and helps me be more receptive, open, and able to hear and acknowledge the Divine’s voice.
It also draws me to that center point of my being, that point of Truth, that place in me which belongs to the Divine – or as I would say today, “that of God within me.”
This is part of what Friends seek in waiting and unprogrammed worship, in retreat, in personal mediation, even on a walk in nature – a connection to the depths of the Divine deep within us. Then after making this connection, it results in a turn outward in service to our neighbors and community.
Folks, I believe this is at the core of the first of the Beatitudes that we are looking at today.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Scholars have debated intensely what was meant by the “poor in spirit.” Because in English we have interpreted the word as poor, we get hung up on the monetary or financial aspect.
Then “in Spirit” is added and we put on the breaks. Our siblings in more prosperity-focused churches often avoid these scriptures. Actually, the beatitudes have fallen into obscurity by many churches and Christians, today, because many of them have embraced a prosperity, power, us vs. them, and right-answer-only gospel, which in a way makes being poor a threat.
Yet, Jesus decides to start his “stump speech” with blessing the poor in spirit, which directly engages this exact mentality by getting to the attitudes and mindsets behind it.
I kind of see what Jesus is doing as a reality check for Christians in his day as well as still, today. He is taking them back to the root of their being, their core and center point and reconnecting them to God and their neighbor.
So, if Jesus was not talking about poor in the monetary or financial way, what was he talking about.
Let’s start with Cynthia Bourgeault, in her classic The Wisdom Jesus, she says that the phrase
“’poor in spirit’ designates an inner attitude of receptivity and openness, and one is blessed by it because only in this state is it possible to receive anything.”
Richard Rohr in one of his daily devotions on this Beatitude goes a bit further. He says,
“’Poor in spirit’ means an inner emptiness and humility, a beginner’s mind, and to live without a need for personal righteousness or reputation.
It is the “powerlessness” of Alcoholics Anonymous’ First Step.”
The Greek word Matthew uses for “poor” is ptochoi, which literally means, “the very empty ones, those who are crouching.” They are the bent-over beggars, the little nobodies of this world who have nothing left, who aren’t self-preoccupied or full of themselves in any way.
Jesus is saying: “Happy are you, you’re the freest of all… The “poor in spirit” don’t have to play any competitive games; they are not preoccupied with winning, which is the primary philosophy in the United States today.
Jesus is recommending a social reordering, quite different from common practice.
What Rohr and Bourgeault are getting at is that we need to return and reconnect to our true nature, our original state, the depths of who we are at our core – that of God within us.
Throughout our lives, we become more and more influenced by the world around us. We are drawn by power, pleasure, competition, winning and those things slowly undercut, block, even mask our true nature and get between our relationship with God and our neighbors in whom God dwells.
If you did not notice, our world puts independence on a pedestal. In America, we celebrate it at least once a year on the 4th of July. Independence, individuality, and self-reliance are widely praised and sought after, today.
Yet, we have focused so much on it, that we have isolated ourselves from each other. The idea of “the church” was to be the community and people of God – but independence has literally put it within the walls of a building and divided us.
The more the church has become a building, and not the people, the more it has lost its dependence on the strength in community and in God.
This may be hard for some to grasp, but, especially in America, we have built our own empire called the church. We have merged it with politics and narrow thinking and lost the soul of what it was intended to be.
I don’t think this was God’s design. Thus, I am a Quaker. As we heard in my last sermon series, Friends have worked hard not to conform to the world’s ways, but to follow the original teachings of Jesus – which the beatitudes are core. And folks, this has made us counter-cultural, counter-religious, counter-the-church-in-America. Yet often when I look around, I sadly see a lot more conformity and not so much countering, today.
What Jesus is getting at in this Beatitude is that we were created for something more – and it has to do with community or what Jesus says is “theirs”- the kingdom of heaven – not the empires of this world?
This is why the "poor in spirit" signifies the act of admitting we cannot do it alone (independently), essentially recognizing our spiritual need for the Divine and that of God in our neighbors, rather than relying solely on our own abilities. It's about acknowledging our limitations and relying on God's power and our comradery with our fellow siblings and neighbors within whom God dwells.
The blessing of the “poor in spirit” comes when you and I take the time to meet God in our depths and then in response to that divine encounter engage our neighbors, spend time with others, help one another, work and play together, acknowledging that we need each other to complete our lives. This is what brings happiness and blessing. I believe wholeheartedly that God created us for each other. Whether that is through marriage, friendship, partnership, care giving, adoption – the power, the change, the blessing comes through engaging that of God in each other.
I want to close this morning with a poem that I have returned to on many occasions. It speaks of what this looks like in the present – how we can act on this beatitude and possibly even change our world.
The poem is titled, “Turning to One Another” by Margaret Wheatley
There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about
Ask “What is possible?” not “What’s wrong?” Keep asking.
Notice what you care about.
Assume that many others share your dreams.
Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.
Talk to people you know.
Talk to people you don’t know.
Talk to people you never talk to.
Be intrigued by the difference you hear.
Expect to be surprised.
Treasure curiosity more than certainty.
Invite in everybody who cares to work on what’s possible.
Acknowledge that everyone is an expert about something.
Know that creative solutions come from new connections.
Remember, you don’t fear people whose story you know.
Real listening always brings people closer together.
Trust that meaningful conversations can change your world.
Rely on human goodness. Stay together.
I believe this is the charge of the poor in spirit and it is how the kingdom of heaven is manifest in our lives. Maybe this week, you and I need to take some time to silence ourselves and center into the core of our being – that of God in us. Maybe you can begin that in waiting worship this morning. But after doing that, I wonder in what way the Spirit might nudge us to seek that of God in our relationships with our neighbors. And how spending time with them will not only bring us joy and happiness, but possibly some bliss in this crazy world. Oh, and it may also help us see that of God in our midst in their lives.
Let’s take a moment to center down this morning and tap into the core of our being, together. Here are some queries for you us to ponder:
· What could I do this week that would help me center on that of God in me?
· What things undercut, block, even mask my true nature and get between my relationship with God and my neighbor?
· Where am I embracing dependence on God and my neighbor over independence?
· Are there ways at First Friends that we embrace an empire mindset instead of a kingdom one as a meeting?