The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

Influential Ambassadors, Part Three:  Mt.5:7 – 8

^5:7 Blessed are…

In her church community, Erica met a handsome Korean-American man named Frank Kim, her soon-to-be husband.  A student at Harvard, all Frank’s plans revolved around working in the business world.  But shortly before graduation, he felt led to become a minister.  The two married and took ministry assignments in France and then Japan, where their ministry spread through Southeast Asia.  In 1991, Erica and Frank’s passion for world missions led them to become founding board members for HOPE (Helping Other People Everywhere) Worldwide, an international charity ministering to the poor and needy.  

By the late 1990s they were the directors for projects all over Southeast Asia:  They set up a prostitute rehabilitation center in Thailand, where a school was launched to teach professions to girls who wanted to change their lives.  Though conversion wasn’t the center’s primary goal, the Kims were gratified when many of the young women came to know the Lord.  Other ministry initiatives include projects in ‘Smokey Mountain,’ a Manila garbage dump that was turned into government-assisted housing; helping underground house churches in Vietnam, and starting a hospital in Cambodia. 

⁷ Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

          In Israel’s experience, God commanded Israel to be like Him:  in delivering people from enslavement (to debt) like He delivered Israel from Egypt, and giving them a portion of the garden land like He gave them a new garden land.  ‘Mercy’ was an expression of love shown by forgiving another person’s debts, sharing with the needy, and defending the dignity of the vulnerable (Lev.25; Dt.15:1 – 18; 24:10 – 24).  God had told Israel that He would show them mercy – in the form of rain and harvest – as they showed others mercy (e.g. Dt.11).  In reality, God had already shown Israel mercy.  Their ongoing experience of His mercy hung on showing mercy to others.  Similarly, Jesus called his people to live by mercy, to live in the realm of his mercy especially towards others.  For Jesus himself is God’s mercy, to us and to others.  So we cannot separate our receiving mercy and our sharing mercy, as if we could divide Jesus up and take him in pieces. 

          Living in the experience of God’s love means singlemindedness in us.  ‘Pure in heart,’ said Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish Christian philosopher, ‘is to will one thing.’  As I read the story of Erica and her husband Frank, I’m struck by how their love for Jesus is manifest in all their endeavors, large and small.  We are to will the love and life of Jesus, however that looks for us.  Jesus called that ‘the kingdom of God’ because the reign of God over human beings, and in human beings, started with Jesus himself.  While Israel knew of the ideal of being ‘pure in heart’ (e.g. Ps.24:3 – 4), ultimately, only Jesus perfected the human heart in himself, thus inaugurating the new covenant (e.g. Jer.31:31 – 34 quoted in Heb.8:8 – 13).  So as we allow Jesus to live out his life and love through us by his Spirit, we participate in his purity of heart.    

Living with Jesus, we will see God at work in ourselves and others.  For God keeps calling out to everyone through our consciences (Rom.1:20; 2:14 – 16), simply because we are all made in His image (Gen.1:26 – 27).  Don’t we all desire love, justice, beauty, meaning, etc. even if we don’t know what exactly they are?  We will see how people are drawn to Jesus, in part through our experience of him.  They might also resist him, and sometimes resist us (Jesus will get to that in the next pair of beatitudes), but something in them will also be curiously drawn to him and us. 

(Erica Shinya Kim’s story was distilled from an article in Christianity Today by Claudia Cangilla McAdam, http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/2007/002/10.24.html)