A Good Life (Mt.5:3-12)

A “good life” is a function of the vision of the life that informs it. A good life for an athlete will be different from that of a businessperson from a wealthy trust fund person from a doctor from a drug dealer from a politician and so on. Jesus too has a vision of a good life. It’s found (but frequently misunderstood) in what we call the Beatitudes, the very first part of the Sermon on the Mount.

This section is frequently misunderstood because the word usually translated “Blessed” (or “happy”) is not rightly interpreted.  Jonathan Pennington, in his book The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary, has led the way to a more biblical understanding of this word.

“Blessings (and the corresponding negative, curses) are divine, effectual speech,” he writes. Something he performs in us or on us. But the Greek word we find translated as “blessed” or “happy” (as here in the Beatitudes) is makarios. This word is “Macarisms (and the corresponding negative, woes) are human, descriptive speech . . . Macarisms and woes are invitations to living based on sapiential (wisdom-type) reflections, not divine speech of reward and cursing.” (53)


Pennington translates the opening of the Beatitudes as “Flourishing are . . .” I would paraphrase it as “A good life is lived by . . .”


The Beatitudes then describe what Jesus takes as the good life for a follower of Israel’s God. More particularly for a follower of Israel’s God who has embraced his final and greatest prophet’s (Jesus) word of what it means to be God’s genuinely Abrahamic people as opposed to other major options among the people at that time (Pharisaic, Sadducean, Zealot, Essene). Jesus announces the arrival of God’s kingdom as the last and final chance for Israel to choose to its true destiny or face divine judgment for its persistent failure to do so (in the form of the coming Roman devastation of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple in 70 a.d.


In such a contested environment and threatening external situation Jesus articulates what God’s good life looks like in such circumstances.

“The good life is lived by the person who is poor spirit . . .”

“The good life is lived by those who mourn . . .”

“The good life is lived by the meek . . .

“The good life is lived by those who hunger and thirst for righteousness . . .”

“The good life is lived by those who are merciful . . .”

“The good life is lived by the pure in heart . . .”

“The good life is lived by peacemakers . . .”

“The good life is lived by those persecuted for righteousness stake . . .”

“The good life is lived by you when you are reviled, persecuted . . .”

There are those who are living such a life (the “you” of the last Beatitude). Other such folk will be found among those who respond to Jesus’ gospel announcement. One does earn their way into Jesus’ fellowship and God’s good graces by practicing such things. Nor is Jesus’ description of them a veiled call to increased moral achievement of these things. Jesus is simply announcing a description of what the good life of a 1^st century Jewish follower of Israel’s God under the crisis situation of that time looks like. It was for Jesus. And it will be for those who embrace his way of being Israel. One might say it’s the “small print” of the gospel of the kingdom of heaven he brings.

Here’s how Pennington puts it:

“True human flourishing is only available through communion with the Father God through his revealed Son, Jesus, as we are empowered by the Holy Spirit. This flourishing is only experienced through faithful, heart-deep, whole-person discipleship, following Jesus’ teachings and life, which situate the disciple into God’s community or kingdom. This flourishing will only be experienced fully in the eschaton, when God finally establishes his reign upon the earth. As followers of Jesus journey through their lives, they will experience suffering in this world, which in God’s providence is in fact a means to true flourishing even now.” (14-15)

Well, that’s a scholar’s way of putting it. And a good way. If you want to live in relation to Israel’s God and follow the way of his last and final prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, in a world threatening to come apart at the seams (hence Jesus’ “end of the world” talk in the gospels) that is what communion and union with him will look like. You don’t have to live like it already or strive to live that way. You just stick close to Jesus and that how it will work for you. And that communion and closeness to God in Jesus makes the suffering to this way bearable, indeed, dare I say it, even joyful!

We are not 1^st century Jews living under the threat of national annihilation by the biggest, baddest empire of the day. We do not stand, then, in the exact relation to Jesus’ description of the good life that they did. But as part of that Jewish-(now largely) Gentile body of his people, living this side of the cross and resurrection, we (Christians) are now live “in Christ,” in communication, communion, and community with God in Christ. And this in a world of a few superpowers with the ability to “end our world” (in iteral and figurative ways) of human existence. In this conflicted and dangerous situation, in which our world (literally or figuratively) could “end” at any time, we (Christians) are called to live this “beatitude-nal” way of life as a demonstration of the victory Christ won for us. A way that God continues to use and draw his wayward world to him. A way in which hope and suffering are inextricably intertwined, joy and hurt walk arm in arm, and the good life and human fulfilment embrace. A way that St. Paul describes in 2 Cor.4:

^7 “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. ⁸ We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰ always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. ¹¹ For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. ¹² So death is at work in us, but life in you.”

I know we do not hear this “small print” of the gospel announcement much these days. And we’ve embraced and preached an inadequate or even false gospel. But Jesus has told us this small print in the Beatitudes. I think we ought to listen to him. You?