"Welcomed-By-God"

 Matthew 11:1-6

⁴ Yeshua answered, “Go and tell Yochanan what you are hearing and seeing — ⁵ the blind are seeing again, the lame are walking, people with tzara’at are being cleansed, the deaf are hearing,^[a] the dead are being raised,^[b] the Good News is being told to the poor^[c] — ⁶ and how blessed is anyone not offended by me!”

a.         Matthew 11:5 Isaiah 35:5–6
b.         Matthew 11:5 Isaiah 26:19
c.          Matthew 11:5 Isaiah 61:1

 

My gloss from the Greek:

Go and report to Yochanan what you hear and see— the obtuse see again; the laggards are catching up; polluted hearts are being cleansed; the dull can now understand; the alienated are being roused; the poor are getting the announcement of good news— and  how ‘welcomed-by-God’* is (the one) who isn’t getting offended because of me.

*makarios

The phrase ‘not offended’ was what started me off today, but then the word makarios reached out and grabbed me, and after that a whole slew of other Greek words started complaining to me about being misunderstood and mistranslated. I’m not going to expound about each of them, but I am going to talk about how we can help this passage escape from being clichéd and trite. (I mean, we have all heard these words over and over: ‘blind,’ ‘lame,’ ‘deaf,’ ‘dead,’ ‘blessed,’ and we’ve gotten jaded to the point that they don’t really mean anything to us anymore.)

I read the translations very carefully, and I’m feeling good about my very non-literal version of the passage. At least, when I read it over, I get a good feeling. I’m excited about the possibilities.

I mean, we don’t ever see actual deaf and blind people suddenly get cured. And we certainly never hear of truly dead people suddenly being restored to life.

But, we do see stubborn and obtuse people who have blinded themselves in one way or another, and we do sometimes see them getting their eyes opened, and hear them say, “Oh, I see!”

We do know of people who ‘limp along,’ held back by anxiety or depression, who’ve managed to learn how to step out more freely, with confidence and trust.

We do hear about people with a kind of ‘spiritual sickness’ (which is not from the Greek, but from the Hebrew— tzara’at— a malady of the inner being, and not the disease we call ‘leprosy’ at all) and we’ve certainly heard of addicts “getting clean,” and learning to recognize “stinkin’ thinkin’,” haven’t we?

And how cool would it be for those of us who’ve gotten swallowed up in boredom or apathy, until the whole world seems dull and muffled and far away, if we suddenly felt a keen breeze of awareness and understanding blowing all the cobwebs out of our minds and hearts?

None of us can deny that sometimes people can despair, and ‘die inside,’ or be so alienated that the whole world becomes dead to them, and we all know it’s perfectly possible to be roused from despair, to come back from the other side of alienation, to be “given a new lease on life.”

So, that is good news! And who gets the message of the good news?

Us ‘poor’ ordinary people are the ones who get that message, because we know that it’s possible for any one of us to be dull and obtuse; or be a foot-dragger; or be sick-at-heart, dull-witted, or deadened by despair.

We are the ones ‘welcomed by God’ (‘makarios’) because we don’t get offended at being told that we might be blind, deaf, lame, or sick-at-heart, and we are the ones who get all excited because we would like very much to be able to see clearly and hear keenly; to be spry and agile and adept; to be clean-spirited and whole-hearted; to be fully alive to God and to the world.

 

 

Oh and by the way, if we substitute “welcomed-by-God” for the usual translation of ‘makarios’ as ‘blessed,’ we get a whole new take on the Beatitudes: 

Welcomed-by-God are the poor—

Welcomed-by-God are those who mourn, who are gentle, who hunger and thirst for fairness.

Welcomed-by-God are the compassionate, the clean-hearted, and those who pursue integrity.*

*(or are pursued for the sake of integrity)