Out of the depths

"Out of the depths I cry to you! Oh Lord hear my prayer. Listen to my cry for mercy. If you kept a record of sins who could stand before you? But with you there is forgiveness, so you are worshipped. I wait for the Lord and put my hope in his word. My soul waits for you, oh Lord, more than a nightwatchman waits for the dawn." Psalm 130: 1-6

The beatitudes intrigue me. They are beautiful and strange. They seem to sit at the core of Jesus' teaching, and yet they are very enigmatic statements. The first tells us more about the kingdom: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

I'm not sure exactly what it means to be poor in spirit. I wish I could remember what Yancey said in The Jesus I Never Knew but I have lent my copy to a friend! Maybe an understanding of what it it is to be poor could help. The current trendy definition of material poverty is "lack of choice", but I'm not sure how useful that is here. A more conventional definition of material poverty would be a substantial lack of the basic resources needed to daily living. So how does this translate into the spiritual realm?

The Message expresses this beatitude as "You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule." I love that. I remember reading it on a hill above Buttermere last summer and thinking that the end of my rope seemed a long way behind me.

I'm not sure about the accuracy of this translation, but the feel of it rings true to me. I think that spiritual poverty is more about acknowledgement than absolute status. Some people do not recognise the need for spirituality. Some think that they have it all figured out. Some shun help and struggle on with a brave face. It takes courage to admit spiritual poverty. Yet this scripture seems to say to me that it is only when we admit to it and looking for resources beyond our own that we start to see the kingdom.