A Year-Long Journey Through the Sermon on the Mount: Week 10

Chapter 10 – Purity of Heart

 

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” (Matt 5:8)

 

Things like the law of purity and purity culture have been awful ways of telling people how to live. You must be perfect, pure, sinless, faultless, etc or you won’t be allowed into heaven. What an impossible way to live!

 

But is that really what’s meant by Matthew 5:8? Do we really have to be clean and pure in order to be accepted into heaven? I’m pretty sure that God is fully aware of how imperfect we are. Humans make mistakes, make errors in judgement, lie, cheat, steal, and so on and so forth. The people who do these things have their reasons and it’s not our place to judge.

 

And what about purity of the body? Sex before marriage, or not? Tattoos and piercings, or not? Plastic surgery, or not? Is God really sitting there on the heavenly throne checking off naughty and nice boxes like Santa Clause? Does God truly expect perfection in order to open heavens gates?

 

In this chapter, Thomas Merton is quoted as saying, “When we have a right intention, our intention is pure….Only a person who works purely for God can at the same time do a very good job and leave the results of the job to God alone.” (60)

 

God knows we are imperfect people, but God also knows when we are trying our best to live out God’s commandment to love one another as God loves us. To be pure in heart is not to be perfect. To be pure in heart is to “Renounce everything that is heavy, even the weight of your sins. See only the compassion, the infinite patience, and the tender love of Christ.” (62)

 

We have already been given the gift of eternal life through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We no longer have to earn access to heaven by being perfect people. God only asks that we are pure in our intentions towards one another from now until the end of our days.