Episode 257 (Transcript): Big Ideas | The Beatitudes
Episode Transcript
Many thanks to listener Amanda Gunderson for her work in transcribing this episode!
This episode can be found on any podcast app or can be listened to here on our website as well. All the notes and resources we cited in the episode are found at this link as well:
CW: And about that Barbara Brown Taylor, she said “It has been 2000 years and the poor are still with us. Those who hunger for justice are still hungry. The mournful are still blowing their noses and the excluded are still waiting at the border. The Beatitudes may work for people who can wait until they die for their reward, but meanwhile, there are other people who have lost faith in Jesus’ promises, they aren’t feeling the joy they need Heaven now.”
SH: Hello, I’m Susan Hinkley.
CW: And I am Cynthia Winward.
SH: And this is At Last she Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things and the title of today’s episode is Big Ideas, the Beatitudes. Hello, Cynthia.
CW: Hello, Susan. Are you ready to have a big, big idea and maybe a big, big convo about it too.
SH: I mean, I gotta be honest, like, I am. Okay. I love this conversation and it’s because I’m hanging on by my fingernails in this one. This is, this just feels to me like slightly, like just enough, slightly above, my head that I have to run to keep up with this big idea.
CW: And oh, same.
SH: I love being in that situation. Yeah. So I’m excited to have it.
We have tons of stuff. Should we just dive in?
CW: Let’s just dive in. So, I’ve been wanting to have this episode for a year. I feel like I’ve mentioned it to you here and there probably ever since I read Richard Rohr’s book, Jesus’ Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount, and he just had so many good ideas, that I was like, let’s do this episode. But, you know, because we have so many other ideas, not every episode gets to happen when we actually think about it, right? So, so I’ve had an extra long time to think about this, and after I read Richard Rohr’s book, I couldn’t help but remember, that the very first time I did a deep dive into the Beatitudes was when I was taking New Testament at BYU and some people who are my age might remember, there was like this really big orange manual, and I remember in that manual, under the Beatitudes, it talked about how the beatitudes are basically the list of an exalted person.
SH: Okay.
CW: I’m sorry, I’m already laughing because I know, huh? I know what you’re thinking, Susan. Like really exaltation, perfection.
I mean that is not what I would think of now when I think about the Beatitudes, but in the moment I was like, okay, this is what I’m being told we…
SH: I always thought of them as aspirational, like, I mean, I thought that was what I was supposed to be aiming for.
CW: Okay. Well, even aspirational, is better than exaltation and perfection. I don’t know. We just dial it up to 11.
SH: Always.
CW: In our church. Always. Right, right, right. Now also, I know we just had an episode on piety and in that episode we talked so much about focusing on our own holiness, spotlessness, cleanliness, all of the above. And then, you know, we had an episode earlier this season on purity culture. So just taking those two episodes, kind of bundling them with this one, I can’t help but think of, like a more insular take on the Beatitudes than to make it about perfection and exaltation. So that’s why we’re filing this under big ideas, because I wanna take a bigger take, Susan, and I want you to go on that journey with me. So let’s do this because after working on the notes for this episode, for days. I basically said to myself, why can’t we take the Sermon on the Mount, which is where the beatitudes are found. Why can’t we make that a more serious topic for us in the church? I mean, you know, every few years, in Come Follow Me, we study it for probably one lesson or something.
SH: Right. Right.
CW: But in preparing this episode, I, you know, I’m out on the worldwide web reading this, reading that, reading books from our favorite thinkers, and I read an article about a church that studied the Sermon on the Mount, so the entire sermon, not just the Beatitudes, for 18 weeks, Susan.
SH: Wow.
CW: 18, four months, over four months. And then Rob Bell, he did 22 sermons on them when he was at his church, Mars Hill in Michigan. 22 sermons straight on the Sermon on the Mount.
SH: They don’t have as many books of scripture to get through as we do, Cynthia.
CW: In our defense, that is true.
And also, come on.
SH: Yeah.
CW: I want to spend that kind of time on the Beatitudes. Today, we don’t have that kind of time. We’ll give it an hour and some change, but
SH: We did come up with 15 pages of notes though, so I feel like we’re taking a run at it.
CW: We are. [00:05:00] But I’m just glad that you and I get to sit down and kind of chew on this together because after all, speaking of other books of scripture, Susan, they are, the beatitudes are found, pretty much word for word in the Book of Mormon in 3rd Nephi. So come on, doctrinally important speaking. I know, doctrinally speaking we should, I feel like we should be taking them more seriously. If they’re found in more than one place. So let’s do that together. Why don’t we start out by actually reading the beatitudes and you’re gonna do that?
SH: Okay. I’m gonna read from Matthew chapter five verses one through 12, The NRSV,
