Early in Jesus’ travels preaching, teaching and healing everyone who came to him, Jesus sits down on a mountain with his disciples and begins to teach the crowds. He lays out his vision, his values, his mission among them. Jesus isn’t trying and attract the attention or favor of the rich or the powerful or the well-connected by saying great things about them. He talks about people who are struggling. Who are vulnerable. Who are at risk.
Jesus says that these very people are blessed, happy, or fortunate:
-People who feel inadequate, for God’s world belongs to them.
-People whose hearts are broken, for God will comfort them
-People who don’t fight for themselves, for they will inherit everything God has
-People who are eager to have a “right relationship” with God and others, for they will reach that goal
-People who give mercy, for they will receive mercy from God
-People who have honest & clear motives, for they will see where God is and what God is doing
-People who help cultivate peace, for they are already doing God’s work
-People who are persecuted for faithful life choices, for God’s world is theirs already
-People who are persecuted for following Jesus, for you are among God’s very faithful followers.
This is not what we would usually expect from a great and powerful king. People of power and influence usually focus their time and action on people like them. Not this time. God is with people who are at their most vulnerable. Despite their struggles, they are blessed, because God is there, bringing an outcome of hope.
Turns out that God’s priorities are very different from ours. God’s vision for a world of peace and justice begins not with those who already have every advantage, but with the very people who need peace and justice most. Here at the start of his public ministry, Jesus is turning the world and its assumptions upside down. He is announcing that God sees those who are struggling and stands by them in their vulnerability, and intends to change the whole world.
Peace,