The Beatitudes - a 'doormat' kind of religion?

 

 

                                         

February 1, 2026

Friedrich Nietzche once argued that the eight Beatitudes that Jesus propounds in today’s Gospel, invert traditional  noble values like strength, pride and power into evil, and encourages a passive or doormat type of morality.

At first glance it does seem like Nietzche has a point. For example, the call to be meek and celebrating those who mourn seem to call  blessed those who are submissive (meek) and those who are constantly only sorrowing or whining (mourning) instead of doing something to change one’s situation. But  Jesus himself was anything but meek, when he stood up to the religious establishment of his time, calling them a brood of vipers, hypocrites and whitened sepulchers, and openly challenged their understanding of the Jewish scriptures.  And he certainly was not somebody who just complained or whined about how bad things are, but he went about trying to mitigate the suffering around him, doing good and healing people even when he was fully aware that his ‘works’ upset the religious establishment. 

So, what did Jesus mean when he asks us to be poor or meek and in mourning?  But before I get into that, allow me to suggest that, according to me, there is a tendency to lump all eight Beatitudes together, with the result that the ‘tone’ of the first three which encourages poverty, meekness and mourning, has a dampening effect on the latter five.  Because, in actuality, the remaining five types of ways of living call for an immense amount of courage, as Gandhi, who loved the Beatitudes, demonstrated in his life. Because these latter five speak of those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; those who have the generosity of heart to be merciful even to those who have harmed them; those who live life with a pure heart in a world where it is so easy to choose what is suitable to oneself rather than what is right; those who are peacemakers in a world where ‘war’ is the common way we, as individuals or nations, deal with those who disagree with us; and those who are persecuted for standing up for what is right. If this is true then we need to ask ourselves whether there is a complete disjoint between the first three and the remaining five Beatitudes, or rather whether the first three have to be understood in the context of the other five.

Let me today then explore the two terms ‘meek’ and ‘mourn’ as I have already explored the phrase ‘blessed are the poor’ in a previous blog  (Can a Camel go through the eye of a needle).  It is helpful to remember that the term that is translated as 'meek',  refers in the original Greek not to powerlessness, but to what we could call 'power restrained', i.e. interacting with others without violence, arrogance or self-seeking, avoiding retaliation - all qualities that Jesus modelled in his own life. It is the ‘meekness’ of the gentle giant, the gentleness of one who has much power, and doesn’t need to flaunt or use it to coerce or frighten others. It is the opposite of the kind of power that is being flaunted today in the political world, both nationally and internationally. It is the deep kind of strength that Jesus demonstrates when the soldiers of the high priest led by Judas come to arrest him, and one of the disciples takes up his sword to defend him, and Jesus tells him: “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.  Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?’’ And then turning to those who came to arrest him, he asks, quietly, confidently: “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me.’’ Or when he stands in dignified silence before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, answering only when he chose to answer, so that one can easily get the impression that it is not he who is on trial, but the high priest and Pilate. That is the kind of meekness that Jesus is talking about, the complete opposite of the kind of braggadocio that many leaders offer today.

As for those who 'mourn', it refers to those who experience great grief at the suffering in the world and among humans, the kind that Jesus himself felt when he wept over Jerusalem and lamented: Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. (Mathew 23:37). For it is often the case that we create scabs to cover our hearts, as a shield to prevent us from getting hurt further, - for we sense that if we allowed the grief of the world to enter our inner being, then we might find it difficult even to breathe.  And so we refuse to see, and so we refuse to mourn, living our lives as if everything was OK, so that we can continue to live our own insular lives unhindered by the sorrow of the world around us.

In other words, like the other Beatitudes, these two are also qualities that we need so much in our world today. In a world where as the Canadian PM Mike Carney said at Davos, ‘’the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must’’ we do need the kind of ‘meekness’ that Jesus advocated and showed in his life, the restrained strength of standing up to power, though not with arrogance and threats of violence.  In a world,  as Carney again said, where ‘great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests’’, we need those who can call out the reality that we must all grieve for, mourn for, and not pretend that all is well with our world. And we must have the courage to cry out aloud, so that those who are deaf, can hear our mourning, and be encouraged to open their hearts and moved to do something with us.

If these are the meanings that Jesus intended, then all eight Beatitudes challenge us not to a doormat type of living, but to a life that is actively involved in working for the salvation of the world, the coming of the Kingdom. 

First Reading: Zephaniah 2:3 & Zephaniah 3:12-13

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,    
you who do what he commands.
Seek righteousness, seek humility;
    perhaps you will be sheltered
    on the day of the Lord’s anger.
 
But I will leave within you
    the meek and humble.
The remnant of Israel
    will trust in the name of the Lord.
They will do no wrong;
    they will tell no lies.
A deceitful tongue
    will not be found in their mouths.
They will eat and lie down
    and no one will make them afraid.”
 
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,  so that no one may boast before him.  It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.  Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
 
Gospel: Mathew 5:1-12a

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.  He said:
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.