PREVIOUSLY, WE LOOKED at Jesus’ strange and counterintuitive statements about blessing in Luke 6. The poor and hungry, those who weep and are hated by others, are all pronounced “blessed.” Such words may not make much sense to people who assume that they’re already blessed, because they’re living what the world would consider a successful life. But according to Luke, Jesus’ words were first spoken to people who had come to him in great need. As Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann once put it, what Jesus teaches about blessing may be puzzling or even off-putting to the “haves” of society, but it’s good news for the “have-nots.”

The latter part of Luke 6 is sometimes referred to as “The Sermon on the Plain” because Luke specifically describes Jesus as standing “on a level place” as he speaks (vs. 17). That’s in contrast to the so-called “Sermon on the Mount” in chapters 5 through 7 of the gospel of Matthew, which Matthew introduces with the following:

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. (Matt 5:1-2, NIV)

Mountains (or sometimes what we might consider hills) are important in Scripture. Jerusalem, for example, sits atop Mount Zion. Jesus was transfigured before his astonished disciples on a mountaintop. And some interpreters believe that the imagery of Jesus going up a mountain is meant to echo the story of Moses ascending Mount Sinai to receive the commandments. It’s as if to say, with the writer of the book of Hebrews, that someone greater than Moses is here.

Like any good rabbi, Jesus sits down to teach, and on cue, his disciples come to him. The crowds come along too. Where did the crowds come from? The setup is very similar to Luke 6 and the Sermon on the Plain. Listen to what Matthew says just before the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount:

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him. (Matt 4:23-25)

Crowds of “have-nots,” in other words, are dragging their suffering and pain to Jesus, looking for relief. His reputation has already spread throughout Galilee and the surrounding regions. Jesus is not only proclaiming good news but enacting it through a ministry of healing.

And like in Luke 6, what Jesus says about blessing may be counterintuitive to the “haves,” but sounds like good news to the “have-nots”:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled. (Matt 5:3-6)

This is only the first half of the Beatitudes; we’ll look at the second half shortly. For the moment, note how similar his words here are to the corresponding passage in Luke. There, he speaks of being poor and hungry; here, he refers to being poor in spirit and hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

It’s important to keep both passages in mind, because it’s tempting to rationalize away the provocative nature of these beatitudes by over-spiritualizing them. Oh, he’s not talking about actual poverty, someone might say; he’s talking about poverty of spirit. And he’s not literally saying that we need to be hungry and thirsty to be blessed; he’s talking about a hunger and thirst for righteousness. You might be able to pull off that argument with Matthew 5, but not with Luke 6.

The more fundamental issue, though, is that we’re already misreading these verses if we come at them looking for some kind of spiritual self-help advice for getting more blessing in our lives. Jesus isn’t giving the crowd a list of step-by-step instructions for getting God to bless them, nor is he saying that there’s anything intrinsically wonderful about being poor, hungry, and the like. Rather, he’s saying something about who God is that he would bless such people.

And as God goes, so goes the kingdom.

IF THAT’S CONFUSING, then try this. For each of the promises in the passage we read, insert the phrase, “by the grace and mercy of God.” Here’s what you’d get:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for by the grace and mercy of God, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for by the grace and mercy of God, they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for by the grace and mercy of God, they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for by the grace and mercy of God, they will be filled. (Matt 5:3-6)

Do you hear the difference, the shift in tone and emphasis? I know it’s artificial to insert those extra words. But here’s the thing: I believe that’s how the people listening to Jesus that day would have heard it — if they feared God and were familiar with the Psalms and Prophets.

What Jesus is doing, in other words, is not teaching the path to blessing but echoing ancient wisdom about God, for one cannot understand the nature of the kingdom without understanding the character of its King. In the Psalms, God is repeatedly portrayed as the champion of the poor and needy, the destitute and oppressed. God is holy and righteous, which is also to say that he is a God of justice who ultimately will not let any kind of injustice stand, whether political, social, or economic.

To “hunger and thirst for righteousness” in the fourth beatitude, for example, does not mean to have a burning desire to get better at following the rules. The word “righteousness” in this context, might better be translated as “justice”: Jesus is describing those who long to see justice done, who ache for God to take everything that’s wrong and make it right.

We can see this in the third beatitude as well. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” is an echo of Psalm 37:11. The psalm is a word of wisdom for people who are tempted to lose it over all the ways the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer. Trust God, the psalmist teaches. Be patient and keep doing things his way; one day both the righteous and the wicked will get what they deserve.

IN THE FIRST half of the Beatitudes, then, Jesus is already challenging his hearers. The “have-nots,” hopefully, will hear what he says as the good news of a loving, merciful, and righteous God and want to hear more. But what about the “haves”? What about those who are relatively comfortable with their lives and come to hear Jesus out of mere curiosity? What will they do with the God who blesses the poor and hungry, the meek and mourning?

What will we do? For as I’ll suggest in the next post, if we want to learn anything from what Jesus says about blessing and the kingdom, we’ll have to come to his words humbly.