Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Mark Whittall
33 minutes ago
7 min read

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain. Does that remind you of anyone? It’s meant to. It’s meant to remind us of Moses. Matthew in his gospel is presenting Jesus as a new Moses, as the one who will speak God’s words to us. In the book of Exodus, after God has freed the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, they come to Mount Sinai and they camp there. Moses goes up the mountain. But the people were not allowed to go up the mountain. The people stood at a distance, afraid. When God began to speak from the mountain, they became terrified, and they said to Moses, “Do not let God speak to us or we will die.” And so, the people didn’t go up the mountain.

But when Jesus goes up the mountain, he sits down, and his disciples come to him. And so do the crowds who have been following Jesus.

I want you to put these two images side by side for a moment. The first is the image of Moses going up the mountain, but the people standing at a distance, terrified that God will speak, terrified of what might happen when God speaks. The second is the image of Jesus going up the mountain, sitting down, inviting his disciples to gather around him, and as he speaks, the crowd starts streaming up the mountain to join them, to hear the word of God.

When Moses spoke God’s words, they came out in the form of commandments, you shall do this, you shall not do that. But when Jesus speaks, the words that come out of his mouth are blessings. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Can you see the difference? Can you hear it? This is something new. And before we get into all the words of the sermon on the mount, let’s start with these two images, one of Moses going up the mountain, alone, pronouncing commandments, and the other of Jesus going up the mountain, surrounded by people, proclaiming blessing. When I hold them together, here’s what I get:

Jesus wants us to know that God is good.

The God that Jesus reveals to us is a God who is approachable and wants us to draw near. A God who wants what is good for us, what is best for each one of us. A God who loves us and looks upon us with favour. A God who blesses us and wants us to be blessed. A God who invites us to be with him on the mountain.

God is good. God loves us and looks upon us with favour. Jesus wants you to know this. He begins with blessing.

I could stop right there. If we could absorb this, if we could really come to know just this one thing, it would change an awful lot.

So, I could stop there – but you know I’m not going to. God is good. But we want to know more. And this is precisely where Jesus gives us more. Last Sunday we talked about how Jesus inaugurated his public ministry by proclaiming a vision: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The sermon on the mount that we begin today fleshes out that vision. It is Jesus’ manifesto: his public declaration of who God is and what God wants. It’s a manifesto that holds out for us a new way of life. And when we change our lives, when we live this way, the kingdom of heaven comes near. It becomes embodied, it finds expression in our lives and relationships, and those who see it will say, “so that’s what Jesus is talking about, that’s what the kingdom of heaven is.”

The kingdom of heaven, or kingdom of God, same thing, it is the central message and metaphor of Jesus’ ministry and teaching. It’s what we should be striving for. It is a deep insight, a call to action and a powerful movement. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” Jesus proclaims as he calls his disciples to follow him.

The disciples rightly ask “What is the kingdom of heaven?” They ask, even as they watch Jesus begin to embody it, teaching in the synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, healing those who are sick among the people. Maybe they expect a one-sentence answer. Instead, Jesus goes up the mountain, and sits down, and he teaches them, saying,

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn for they shall 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

Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Got it? Now, do we understand what the kingdom of heaven is?

No, not yet. But we’re getting a glimpse. The first thing I see is that the kingdom of heaven looks different from most of the world around me. I live in a world where the powerful get their way, where the wealthy and the healthy, the famous and the successful are assumed to be blessed. The kingdom of heaven is an alternative vision, a radical alternative. It is a call to see people differently, to upend our notions of what it means to flourish as a human being, to learn to favour those whom God favours: the poor, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of heaven is a now and not yet vision. It is a vision of what will be when all is the way God wants it to be, when God’s kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven. This creates a tension for us. The kingdom of heaven has come near but it is not yet fully realized.

Those who mourn will be comforted, but there are those who mourn who are not yet comforted. Yet even today they are blessed. God looks upon them with favour and will comfort them. The kingdom of God is a future vision, but one that is breaking into our lives and has the power to re-shape our present.

That power comes, in part, from the fact that by making public what God wants, Jesus presents us with a program for participating in its realization. This is a movement. Jesus’ manifesto calls us to a way of life. Being a disciple, a follower of Jesus is not so much about what you believe as how you live. He calls us to a changed life, for that’s what it means to repent. We are to be poor in spirit, aware of who we are before God, walking humbly with God, open to Jesus’ teaching, ready for grace. We are to be people who mourn, not just for loved ones, but for all who are the victims of injustice, for all the ways that our common life falls short of where God is calling us to be. We are to be meek, gentle with one another, loving kindness, considerate of others. We are to be people who hunger and thirst for righteousness, people who hunger to see a just society and thirst for wrongs to be made right, people who do justice. We are to be merciful, people who forgive one another, people who reach out with compassion and are steadfast in their love for others. We are to be pure in heart, people who love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and whose actions are guided by that love. We are to be peacemakers, those who strive to create God’s shalom, God’s peace, harmony, and well-being in the lives of those around us.

When this is what we seek, we are blessed. In the moments that we live into this vision, the kingdom of heaven breaks into our world, our present reality. And we get a glimpse of what Jesus is teaching, a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus holds out before us, that draw near.

And again, I could stop here.

But this year, this week, as I was reading the beatitudes once again, I couldn’t help but be drawn to what’s happening in the streets of Minneapolis.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who despair of what’s happening, who despair of the violence on their streets and yet still take to the streets, in frigid cold weather, walking their neighbourhoods, walking humbly with their God.

Blessed are those who mourn. Who mourn the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Who mourn the loss of those detained, deported and disrupted. Who grieve and long for things to be made right.

Blessed are the meek. Those who are strong but controlled. Those who reject violence. Those who endure oppression, who endure the pepper spray and tear gas of those with power.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Blessed are the merciful. Those who extend grace to others. Those who are steadfast in their kindness. Those who act in compassion, tending to the wounded, seeking to protect a woman shoved to the ground.

Blessed are the pure in heart, those who love God and their neighbours, who do justice and love kindness.

Blessed are the peacemakers, those who reflect God’s character, who seek de-escalation, who act to bring about the peace, the harmony, the well-being that God desires for all of us.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. For there is a cost to living this way. Some will be gassed or pepper-sprayed. Some will be arrested or detained. Some will be shot. Those in power will revile you, and persecute you, they will slander you on national TV and in social media, uttering all kinds of evil falsely against you.

This manifesto that we call the Sermon on the Mount, this vision that Jesus lays before us, it is as relevant today as it ever was. Jesus’ prophetic vision serves as a present call to action, a call to an alternative, counter-cultural way of life that has the power to re-shape the world around us. In the moments when we respond to that call, the kingdom of heaven breaks into our lives, and we and those around us get a glimpse of what it looks like. Yet, this creates a tension for us: the kingdom of heaven draws near but it is far from fully realized. We live in this tension. We mourn this tension.