Sermon on the Mount – Practical Theology Today

A New Appetite

Hungry for the Kingdom

Few desires are more powerful than hunger and thirst.

Most of us rarely experience either for very long. If we’re hungry, we open the refrigerator. If we’re thirsty, we turn on a tap. But Jesus’ first audience knew what it meant to wonder where the next meal would come from or to travel distances under the hot Middle Eastern sun in search of water. Hunger and thirst were daily realities.

That is the image Jesus chose. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

Jesus did not say, “Blessed are those who appreciate righteousness,” or even, “Blessed are those who try to do the right thing.” He spoke of a longing as intense as hunger after days without food or thirst in the heat of the desert.

What Does Jesus Mean by “Righteousness”?

If you asked most Christians what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness, many would answer in terms of personal holiness. That’s not wrong. It’s just not the whole picture.

Jesus’ Jewish audience would have heard echoes of the Hebrew word tsedaqah – a word that speaks of life lived rightly under God’s covenant. It includes faithfulness to God, justice toward others, integrity, compassion, and relationships restored to the way God intended them to be.

The BibleProject summarizes biblical righteousness with a wonderfully simple phrase:

Doing right by God and others.

That captures far more than personal morality. It is life lived under God’s reign. It is loving God wholeheartedly and our neighbors faithfully. It is the Kingdom taking root in ordinary people.

Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, righteousness is inseparable from God’s Kingdom. Later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will say,

“Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness…” (Matthew 6:33)

Those are not two separate pursuits. God’s righteousness is simply what life looks like when His rule shapes every part of life.

The Turning Point

That has been Jesus’ message from the beginning – “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Repent. Believe the good news.

Now, in the Beatitudes, Jesus begins describing the kind of people who naturally flourish under God’s reign.

The BibleProject makes an observation I find particularly helpful. Rather than reading the Beatitudes as eight unrelated blessings, they suggest reading them as three movements.

The first movement (poor in spirit, those who mourn, and the meek) describes people who recognize their need before God.

The second movement begins here. Jesus starts describing the kind of people God is forming under His reign. They hunger and thirst for righteousness. They become merciful. They grow pure in heart.

The final movement turns outward as these Kingdom people become peacemakers who remain faithful even when that faithfulness brings persecution.

Whether or not this was Jesus’ intended literary structure, the progression is compelling. The Beatitudes are not merely a list of virtues to admire. They describe the kind of people the Kingdom of God is producing.

The first movement leaves us empty-handed. The second gives us a new appetite.

Those who have come to the end of themselves begin longing for something entirely different. They hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness – for His will to be done, His Kingdom to come, and His ways to shape every part of life.

What Kingdom People Hunger and Thirst For?

Notice what Jesus does not bless. He does not bless those who believe they have already become righteous. Nor does He bless those who hunger for success, influence, comfort, or even religious achievement.

He blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

There is profound humility built into this beatitude. Hungry and thirsty people admit they still need what they seek. They know they are not yet satisfied.

Hunger is satisfied by bread. Thirst is satisfied by water. Yet Jesus says the deepest needs of the human soul are satisfied by righteousness.

That is a startling claim.

We often assume our deepest needs are security, success, comfort, love, or significance. Jesus points us somewhere else. He suggests that we were created to flourish when our lives are rightly ordered under God’s reign – when we are learning to do right by God and others.

Perhaps that is one of the clearest marks of Kingdom people. The more they experience God’s grace, the more they long for His character to shape their lives and His justice to shape the world. Their deepest desires begin to change.

They Will Be Filled

The promise is as remarkable as the hunger.

“They will be filled.”

God begins satisfying that hunger now as He reshapes our hearts. We increasingly learn to love what He loves and desire what He desires. Yet the promise also points forward to the day when His Kingdom comes in all its fullness, and everything broken is finally made right.

Jesus suggests that we were created to flourish when our lives are rightly ordered under God’s reign.

The Rest of the Sermon Begins Here

This beatitude also serves as a bridge into the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus is about to show us what righteousness looks like. It reaches far beyond external behavior. It confronts anger as well as murder, lust as well as adultery, love for enemies as well as neighbors, hidden generosity as well as public religion. The King orders every part of life.

The rest of the sermon is simply Jesus answering the question raised here: What does it look like to hunger and thirst for righteousness?

Or, as Jesus will soon say, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness…” (Matthew 6:33).

In other words, they began wanting what the King wants.

The poor in spirit discovered their need. Those who mourn grieved what is broken. The meek surrendered control.

Now Jesus describes the desire that begins to shape every citizen of His Kingdom. Empty hands become hungry hands – for life under God’s reign.

And those who hunger most deeply for His Kingdom discover a remarkable promise.

They will be filled.

Blessed Are the Meek

A Word We May Not Understand

If there is one word in the Beatitudes that has almost disappeared from our vocabulary, it is meek.

We simply don’t know what to do with it.

To many of us, meek sounds timid. Passive. Weak. It describes someone who avoids conflict, gets overlooked, or lacks the confidence to lead. And if we’re honest, meekness doesn’t seem like much of an asset in today’s world. We live in a culture that rewards confidence, celebrates self-promotion, and admires people who know how to take charge.

Yet Jesus looked across a hillside full of ordinary people and said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”(Matthew 5:5)

Nothing about those words sounded obvious then, and they don’t sound obvious now. Perhaps that is because it may be one of the most misunderstood of Jesus’ Beatitudes.

Strength Under Control

The Greek word translated meek is praüs. It never meant weakness. It referred to strength under control – power that had been disciplined rather than diminished.

One of the clearest pictures of praüs came from the training of Greek warhorses. Trainers selected the strongest, most spirited stallions – not the weakest. Through months of disciplined training, those horses learned complete responsiveness to their rider without losing their courage or strength. When they reached that point, they were described as praüs.

Their power had not disappeared. It had been mastered.

Perhaps a simple definition of meekness is this: Meekness isn’t strength that can’t do harm. It’s strength that won’t do harm. That changes everything.

Jesus was certainly not weak.

He confronted religious hypocrisy. He challenged political powers. He overturned tables in the temple. He spoke with authority that astonished crowds and terrified His opponents.

Yet His strength was never driven by ego or the need to win. It was always tethered to the will of His Father and directed toward the good of others.

That is why Jesus could describe Himself with these remarkable words: “I am gentle and humble in heart.” (Matthew 11:29)

Interestingly, this is the only place in the Gospels where Jesus explicitly describes His own character. Gentle. Humble. Meek.

Trust Instead of Grasping

Perhaps nowhere is strength under control seen more clearly than in Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Satan repeatedly invited Him to grasp what the Father had already promised – to seize power instead of trusting God to provide it in His own time.

Jesus refused every shortcut. He trusted rather than grasped. That is meekness.

I wonder if this is where many of us struggle. We say we believe in God. But do we trust Him? Those aren’t always the same thing.

It is possible to believe all the right things about God while quietly depending upon ourselves for security, recognition, success, or control. We pray for God’s help while keeping a firm grip on the outcome.

Maybe that’s why meekness feels so foreign. It requires open hands.

We cannot receive the kingdom while our fists are clenched around something else.

Our world still confuses forcefulness with faithfulness. We are drawn to people who project confidence, command attention, and accumulate influence. But Jesus never blessed those who demanded control.

He blessed those who surrendered it.

An Inheritance, Not a Possession

Which brings us to His surprising promise: “They will inherit the earth.”

Notice the language. They don’t conquer the earth. They don’t seize it. They don’t purchase it.

They inherit it.

An inheritance is received, not taken. Maybe the meek are the only people prepared to inherit the earth because they already know it never belonged to them in the first place (cf. I Almost Bought the Farm).

Everything is gift. Everything belongs to the Father. Everything is received with gratitude.

Eugene Peterson captures the spirit of this Beatitude well:

“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are – no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”

Jesus isn’t blessing weakness. He is blessing people whose strength has been surrendered to the Father – people who no longer need to prove themselves because they trust Him to provide, defend, and accomplish His purposes.

That is exactly what we see in Jesus.

The Character of the King

Paul would later describe Jesus this way in Philippians 2. Although Jesus possessed every right and every privilege, He did not grasp for them. Instead, He emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, humbled Himself, and entrusted Himself completely to the Father. His path was not one of self-assertion but self-giving love.

Meekness is what power looks like after it has been surrendered to love.

That sentence doesn’t simply summarize this Beatitude. It previews the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.

As we continue listening to Jesus, we’ll discover that every command He gives – loving our enemies, turning the other cheek, forgiving instead of retaliating, serving instead of being served – flows from this same kingdom character. They are not isolated moral commands. They are portraits of a life transformed into the likeness of the King.

And that King is meek.

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)

Sooner or later, there comes a hush in every person’s life – that moment when the unthinkable happens and we are left alone with our thoughts.

What then?

What happens when the phone call comes? When the diagnosis is confirmed? When someone we love is suddenly gone? When a relationship cannot be repaired? When the future we had carefully imagined disappears before our eyes?

We grieve.

When Grief Finds a Voice

Grief is the internal experience of loss. It is what happens within us when something – or someone – we deeply value is taken away. Grief can leave us exhausted, disoriented, angry, numb, confused, or unable to imagine life ever feeling normal again.

Mourning is something slightly different.

If grief is the inward experience of loss, mourning is the outward expression of that grief. We grieve within; we mourn when we give our grief a voice. Mourning happens when sorrow finds expression through tears, lament, prayer, silence, stories, rituals, or simply the willingness to admit:

Something precious has been lost, and life will never be quite the same.

In our culture, grief is often treated as something private – something to process quietly and eventually move beyond. We may be given permission to grieve for a while, but sooner or later there can be an unspoken expectation that we will get back to normal.

The biblical world understood mourning differently.

Throughout Scripture, mourning was visible, embodied, and often communal. People tore their clothes, wore sackcloth, sat in ashes, fasted, wept aloud, and gathered together in sorrow. Their mourning was not hidden or hurried. It created space to acknowledge that something was terribly wrong.

When Jacob believed Joseph had died, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for many days (Genesis 37:34–35). When David learned that Saul and Jonathan had been killed, he composed a public lament and invited the people to join him in remembering what had been lost (2 Samuel 1:17–27). When Nehemiah heard that Jerusalem remained broken and its gates had been burned, he sat down and wept. For days, he mourned, fasted, and prayed (Nehemiah 1).

Biblical mourning was brutal honesty. It was the refusal to pretend that everything was fine when everything was not fine.

Blessed Are the Mourners?

Perhaps that is why Jesus included mourning among the Beatitudes.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Once again, Jesus’ words sound strange to us.

We naturally assume that the blessed life is the life untouched by sorrow – the life in which our families remain healthy, our relationships flourish, our plans succeed, and tragedy keeps its distance. We often use the word blessed to describe the moments when life turns out the way we hoped.

But Jesus declared the mourners blessed.

The Greek word translated “mourn” is pentheō. It describes deep sorrow or grief that is openly expressed. Pentheō carries the sense of lament – the kind of sorrow that can no longer remain hidden.

Jesus was not saying, “Blessed are those who feel sad.” He pronounced blessing upon those willing to face loss and brokenness honestly – those who refused to numb their sorrow, deny their pain, or look away from suffering.

Eugene Peterson paraphrased the Beatitude this way in The Message:

“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”

Peterson captured something deeply human in Jesus’ words. Loss has a way of stripping away our illusions of control. When what is most dear to us is gone, our usual explanations may no longer satisfy us. The things we depended upon to make life feel secure suddenly seem fragile.

And there, in the quiet left behind, we may discover that God is not standing at a distance. He draws near. Not with platitudes. Not with easy answers. Not by minimizing our loss or rushing us through our pain.

He meets us in our mourning.

Mourning What Is Broken

But Jesus’ words likely reached beyond the personal grief we experience when we lose someone or something we love.

Throughout Scripture, people mourned not only death but also sin, injustice, oppression, exile, violence, broken relationships, and the consequences of humanity’s rebellion against God. The prophets mourned what had become of Israel. Ezra mourned the people’s unfaithfulness. Nehemiah mourned the broken condition of Jerusalem.

They looked honestly at the world and recognized that it was not as God intended it to be.

Kingdom people do the same. They mourn what sin has done – to themselves, to others, and to God’s good creation.

They mourn when children suffer. They mourn when the vulnerable are exploited. They mourn when violence becomes ordinary. They mourn when power is used to protect the powerful rather than serve the powerless.

Mourning is what happens when we stop looking away.

It is what happens when we allow the suffering of others to affect us. It is what happens when we become honest about our own failures. It is what happens when we remember that the world we experience is not yet the world God intends.

This Beatitude naturally followed the first: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Those who recognize their spiritual poverty also begin to recognize the depth of the brokenness within them and around them. Once we stop pretending that we have everything together, we become free to see more clearly.

And what we see causes us to mourn. Kingdom people have learned to see!

They Will Be Comforted

Yet Jesus did not end the Beatitude with mourning.

“For they will be comforted.”

The comfort Jesus promised was more than reassurance that someday we would feel better. His promise pointed toward the kingdom of God – the restoration of all things.

The prophets had spoken of a day when God would comfort His people, bind up the brokenhearted, rebuild what had been devastated, and exchange their mourning for joy (cf. Isaiah 40:1–2; 61:1–4; Jeremiah 31:13). Jesus announced that this long-awaited kingdom had drawn near.

And one day, everything that causes mourning will be made right.

Until then, Jesus invites his followers neither to deny sorrow nor to be overcome by it. He invites us to bring our grief into the presence of God – to mourn honestly while trusting that sorrow would not have the final word.

Sooner or later, the hush comes for all of us. The unthinkable happens. We find ourselves sitting with questions that have no easy answers. What then?

We mourn. We name what has been lost. We refuse to pretend that everything is fine. We bring our sorrow into the presence of God.

And somewhere within that sacred space, we discover the promise hidden inside this unlikely blessing:

“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”

Everyone Knew Their Place

It occurred to me that it might be important to grasp the first-century Jewish “pecking order”¹ to better understand the beatitudes and the rest of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Such and Understanding helps us appreciate just how radical Jesus’ ministry and the Sermon really were.

Though not a “caste system,” like the rigid hereditary structures of places like India, first-century Judaism did have a well-defined hierarchy of religious, social, economic, and political status that shaped people’s lives. One’s standing in society depended on a combination of birth, occupation, wealth, ritual purity, education, and proximity to the Temple.

The Priestly Elite

At the top stood the priestly aristocracy, especially the families associated with the Temple in Jerusalem.

The High Priest occupied the highest religious office.
A small number of wealthy priestly families controlled the Temple operations.
Many belonged to the wealthy Sadducee sect.
They worked closely with Roman authorities to preserve stability.
They controlled enormous economic resources through sacrifices, offerings, and Temple commerce.

These were the nation’s religious and political elite.

The Levites

Below the priests were the Levites. They were descendants of Levi but not of Aaron, so they could not offer sacrifices. Their Temple responsibilities included:

music
guarding the Temple
maintenance
assisting priests
teaching

They possessed honor because of their ancestry but not the authority of priests.

The Torah Scholars and Religious Teachers

Not everyone with authority inherited it. The scribes and rabbis earned influence through education. Many belonged to the sect of the Pharisees.

Their authority came from:

expertise in Torah
teaching
interpreting Scripture
guiding everyday religious life

Although some were wealthy, many were respected primarily because of their learning.

The Ordinary Israelites

A vast majority of the first-century Jewish population belonged in this grouping.

These included:

farmers
fishermen
craftsmen
shepherds
merchants
laborers

Some owned land. Many lived close to subsistence. Most faithfully practiced Judaism but had little influence. These people were referred to as the “people of the land”. The Hebrew term am ha’aretz (“people of the land”) had become something of a social label.

They lacked formal Torah education, could not always observe the purity laws perfectly, and were viewed as religiously uninformed.

Jesus spent nearly all His ministry among these people. These were the people he grew up with. Many of Jesus’ followers were “ordinary Israelites.”

The Tax Collectors and Other “Sinners”

Certain occupations carried social disgrace.

Tax collectors fell in that category and were despised because they worked for Rome and often became wealthy through exploitation. They were viewed as traitors. The Gospels frequently pair them with “sinners.”

“Sinners” did not simply mean immoral people, though some certainly were. It often referred to those who lived outside accepted religious norms or whose occupations made full participation in religious life difficult.

Jesus repeatedly ate with such people.

The Marginalized

At the bottom socially were people with little protection or status:

widows and orphans
the poor and beggars
the disabled and diseased
resident foreigners

(The Old Testament repeatedly refers to these groups as those requiring God’s special concern.)

Jesus consistently elevated them.

The Gentiles

Outside Jewish society altogether were Gentiles.

Although many Jews interacted with Gentiles daily through commerce, Gentiles remained outside God’s covenant people unless they became proselytes.

Roman occupation heightened tensions between Jews and Gentiles throughout the first century.

Honor and Shame

Overlaying all these categories was the prevailing culture of honor and shame. Status was measured by ancestry, education, wealth, religiosity, and public reputation.

People constantly evaluated where they stood relative to others. Honor was a limited commodity; one person’s gain often implied another’s loss.

Why This Matters for the Beatitudes

This social world provides essential context for the beatitudes and the entire Sermon on the Mount. For example, when Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” he immediately challenged prevailing assumptions about who enjoyed God’s favor.

Rather than climbing the social ladder toward honor, Jesus redefined honor itself. The question was no longer who society admired, but whom God declared to be flourishing under His reign.

That reversal helps explain why the Beatitudes would have sounded both astonishing and deeply hopeful to Jesus’ original audience.

¹ The term “pecking order” originated in the 1920s from behavioral studies of barnyard chickens. Norwegian zoologist Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe observed that poultry flocks maintain strict dominance hierarchies where top-ranking birds can peck subordinate birds without retaliation.

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Who Finds Life in God’s Kingdom?

Jake Porter never earned his touchdown. That’s exactly why everyone remembers it.

For three years, Jake suited up for every football practice at Northwest High School in Ohio. He loved the game. He wore the uniform. He encouraged his teammates. But because he was born with Fragile X syndrome, everyone assumed he would never experience what every football player dreams about – Scoring a touchdown.

Near the end of Jake’s final game, his coach asked the opposing coach if Jake could enter for one play. Instead of simply allowing Jake to kneel and end the game, the opposing coach gathered his defense and quietly instructed them not to tackle him.

Jake took the handoff. Overwhelmed by the moment, he wasn’t sure which direction to run. Players from both teams pointed him in the right direction. Soon, teammates and opponents alike were running behind him, cheering as he crossed the goal line.

The stadium erupted. Not because Jake had scored a touchdown. But because everyone present had witnessed grace. Football is usually about earning your place. For one beautiful play, it became about receiving a gift.

I wonder if that’s how Jesus intended his first Beatitude to land on his listeners.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

The Announcement No One Expected

In recent posts, I suggested that the Beatitudes are less like commands and more like announcements. The Greek word behind “blessed” echoes the Hebrew ashrei – a word that describes the flourishing life of someone who has discovered the goodness of living under God’s reign.

Jesus was announcing who was discovering life in the kingdom.

If the Sermon on the Mount was a constitution of God’s kingdom, then the Beatitudes were its preamble. Before Jesus described how kingdom citizens live, He identified the surprising people who belong there.

And His opening sentence must have left the crowd speechless – “The poor in spirit.”

Really? Not the religious experts? Not the morally accomplished? Not the spiritually elite?

No. The poor in spirit.

Empty Hands

We often misunderstand this phrase because we tend to hear it through modern ears.

Jesus wasn’t describing a lack of confidence or a poor self-image. He was describing the posture of those who had stopped trying to qualify for God’s kingdom. Unable to approach God with a résumé of accomplishments, all they possessed were open hands ready to receive His grace.

The kingdom belongs to such.

One translation captures the idea well: “Blessed are those who realize their spiritual poverty.”

Again, the Great Reversal

Every kingdom has its values, and you don’t have to read its constitution to discover them. Just watch who gets applauded. Our world celebrates achievement – credentials, influence, power, wealth, and success. Those are the people we assume have discovered the good life.

Even our religious instincts can mirror the kingdoms around us. We begin measuring spiritual success by visible accomplishments, assuming that those who pray more, know more, serve more, or sacrifice more must occupy the seats of honor in God’s kingdom.

Jesus’ first Beatitude gently but firmly overturns that way of thinking. The kingdom isn’t awarded to those who have done enough; it is received by those who know they never could.

That is the great reversal we see running through the entire Sermon on the Mount. The poor in spirit are flourishing not because poverty itself is virtuous, but because they have reached the only posture from which the kingdom can actually be received.

Open hands can receive gifts. Clenched fists cannot.

You Start Seeing Them Everywhere

As we read, we begin noticing “poor in spirit” people throughout the Gospels…

A Roman centurion quietly confessed, “Lord, I am not worthy… Just say the word.” (Matthew 8:5-13)

A desperate Canaanite mother threw herself entirely upon Jesus’ mercy. (Matt 15:21-28)

A tax collector stood in the Temple and simply prayed, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” (Luke 18:9-14)

These people had little in common socially, politically, or religiously. What they did share was something far more important. Each came to Jesus with empty hands.

None tried to impress Him. None pointed to religious accomplishments or moral credentials. None assumed they deserved His attention.

They simply trusted Him.

Ironically, those who struggle most to receive Jesus are often the people most convinced they already possess what He came to give. The religious leaders measured themselves by their knowledge, their discipline, and their performance.

In the Luke parable, the Pharisee confidently recited his spiritual résumé while the tax collector could only plead for mercy. Jesus’ conclusion was startling: “All those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

That should give us pause.

The greatest obstacle to entering God’s kingdom may not be our sin but our imagined self-sufficiency.

The Doorway into Every Other Beatitude

This first Beatitude isn’t merely the first in the list. It’s a doorway into all the others.

I cannot mourn over my sin until I recognize my need. I cannot hunger for righteousness until I know I don’t possess it. I cannot become merciful until I realize how much mercy has been shown to me.

This is why I suggested in an earlier post that the Beatitudes answer who before they answer how. They are not eight virtues we develop so God will welcome us. They are eight portraits of people who have surrendered to the reign of King Jesus.

Everything that follows grows out of this first beatitude.

The King Who Lived the Beatitudes

Perhaps the most beautiful thing to consider is this: Jesus isn’t asking us to become something He was unwilling to become Himself. Every Beatitude first describes the King.

Paul tells us that although Jesus existed in the very nature of God, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. He entrusted Himself completely to His Father. (Philippians 2)

The King Himself lived with open hands. Every Beatitude finds its fullest expression in Him. And because we belong to Him, His life slowly begins to take shape in ours.

Jake Porter crossed the goal line because dozens of people chose grace over merit.

The kingdom of heaven begins the very same way. Not with people who have finally become good enough. But with people who finally discover they never had to.

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Who Does Jesus Call Blessed?

When Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount, He started with a word that most of us think we understand.

“Blessed”

Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are those who mourn.
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

The problem is that the word “blessed” can be misleading. For many of us, it has become a religious catch-all term. We use it to describe a new job, a healthy family, a successful ministry, or a season when life seems to be going our way.

But Jesus’ listeners would have heard something much richer.

The Greek word for blessed in the Beatitudes is makarios, which echoes the Hebrew word ashrei. This is not the usual Hebrew word for blessing. That word is barukh, which refers to the blessing that God gives. Ashrei is something different. It is a wisdom word. It is the word someone uses when looking at another person’s life, saying, “Now that’s the good life.”

The book of Psalms opens this way: “Blessed (ashrei) is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked…” (Psalm 1:1)

The idea is not that God is pronouncing a blessing. Rather, the psalmist is observing a life that is flourishing under God’s care and saying, “Look at that person. What a fortunate way to live.”

For centuries, ashrei pointed to people whose lives looked enviable. They were secure. Stable. Flourishing. They had found life as God intended it.

Then Jesus stood before a crowd of ordinary Galileans and started applying the word to people nobody envied. He took this familiar word and turned it upside down.

Or perhaps right side up.

The Surprise of the Beatitudes

Imagine standing on that hillside in Galilee. Who had likely gathered around Jesus? Not Rome’s elite. Not the wealthy landowners. Not the religious leaders. Not the people everyone assumed were especially favored by God.

The crowd was filled with ordinary people. Many were poor. Some were sick. Others carried grief, disappointment, shame, or uncertainty. They lived under Roman occupation. They lived under the heavy-handedness of the religious system. They struggled to make ends meet. Most would never have been considered examples of the good life.

And then Jesus began speaking. “Ashrei are the poor in spirit.”

What?

What if Jesus were not primarily describing virtues to achieve? What if He were identifying people who assume they don’t qualify for God’s kingdom? Dallas Willard suggested that the Beatitudes are less about spiritual achievement and more about kingdom availability.

Jesus continued: Ashrei are those who mourn. Ashrei are the meek, etc.

Nobody looked at a grieving person and said, “That’s the good life.” Nobody looked at the powerless and said, “That’s who I want to become.” Nobody looked at the persecuted and thought, “They are the fortunate ones.”

Yet Jesus did.

Why?

Because he was not simply describing people’s circumstances. He was revealing what God was doing in their midst.

More Than a List of Virtues

Many Christians read the Beatitudes as a list of virtues to pursue.

Be humble. Be meek. Be merciful. Be pure in heart.

There is certainly a place for that reading. The qualities Jesus describes should characterize His followers.

But I do not think that was Jesus’ starting point.

The Beatitudes were not addressed to spiritual superstars. They were addressed to people who may have assumed they were disqualified. The people who look at their lives and thought, “Surely God’s kingdom is for someone else.”

Jesus said otherwise.

The kingdom belongs to these people, too. In fact, it is arriving among them. One of the most fascinating aspects of the Beatitudes is that Jesus identified people whom society would not normally associate with flourishing.

The Beatitudes are a list of the kingdom’s surprising citizens.

Even more, they are a list of surprised citizens – people who never imagined they would find themselves included in God’s kingdom

A Word for the “Disqualified”

Perhaps this is why the Beatitudes can continue to resonate so deeply. Many of us spend our lives feeling like we are on the outside looking in.

We compare ourselves to others. We measure our spiritual lives against people who seem more mature. We assume God’s favor belongs to those who are stronger, wiser, more successful, or more put-together.

The Beatitudes challenge those assumptions.

Jesus began His most famous sermon by identifying people who do not appear blessed and declaring that God’s kingdom was arriving among them.

Not someday. Now!

The Good News of Ashrei

The primary question Jesus is answering is not: “What qualities should I develop?” The primary question is: “Who belongs in the kingdom of God?”

The Beatitudes are an invitation to see the world through kingdom eyes. They reveal that God’s definition of flourishing differs dramatically from our own.

This is why the Beatitudes can never be reduced to something other than what they are – kingdom announcements. Jesus declares that God’s reign is breaking into places where people least expect to find it.

Before He tells us what kingdom life looks like, He tells us who the kingdom is for. And the answer is wonderfully surprising.

The people least likely to claim a seat at the table are often the very people Jesus invites to sit down first. That is the scandal of the Beatitudes. That’s the scandal of the Kingdom.

And that is the good news. Very good news!

Before We Climb the Mountain

In the coming weeks, we’ll be digging into Jesus’ Manifesto, the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon is arguably Jesus’ most famous body of teaching. Even people who know very little about Christianity have heard pieces of it.

“Blessed are the peacemakers.”
“Love your enemies.”
“Turn the other cheek.”
“Do not worry about tomorrow.”

These words have shaped cultures, inspired movements, challenged assumptions, and comforted countless people through the centuries.

Yet familiarity can sometimes keep us from hearing what Jesus was actually saying. Before we begin walking through the Sermon itself, I think it will be helpful to spend a little time considering the context.

Some Context…

So, let’s spend a little time considering the four narratives that house the story of Jesus – the four Gospels (remembering that gospel = euangelion = good news). Where did these four accounts come from, and who were the evangelists who authored them?

The four Gospels were written within the lifetime of people who had seen and heard Jesus.

An important thing to consider.

Matthew was not merely an observer of Jesus’ ministry; he was one of the disciples personally called by Jesus. His Gospel reflects the testimony of someone – a hated tax collector – whose life had been profoundly altered by the One he followed.

Mark likely recorded the recollections of the apostle Peter, another disciple personally called by Jesus. His life, too, was profoundly transformed by Jesus. Luke carefully investigated the events he recorded, drawing upon eyewitness testimony and earlier written accounts. John, writing later than the others, offered the reflections of yet another eyewitness who had spent years walking with Jesus.

Why does this matter?

Take a moment and ponder the richness of these four narratives. Imagine the time spent recalling experiences, stories, and feelings – looking for the right words to express them. Imagine remembering and capturing three years of your life in a way that would inspire your readers? That’s what we have here – way more than information. So it matters!

For years, whenever I worked with students, I wanted them to wrestle with a foundational question: Who is Jesus Christ, and why might I want to follow him?

I wanted them to understand why the Gospels mattered. Simply telling them they were important wasn’t going to cut it. I wanted them to crawl into the stories and experience Jesus!

So, I would bring a box of my journals into the room and invite students to read entries from various years of my life. Afterward, I would ask, “What do you know about me now that you didn’t know ten minutes ago?”

(Their responses were always quite interesting.)

Then I would show them a photo of my grandchildren and pose a hypothetical question: What if something tragic happened to me and those grandchildren never had the opportunity to know me personally? How might they learn who their grandfather was?

Eventually, someone would say it. “They could read your journals.”

Mic drop!

The Gospels are not private journals, but they serve a similar purpose. They preserve the testimony of people who knew Jesus, walked with him, listened to him, and devoted the rest of their lives to telling others about him.

The Gospel writers were not detached observers. They were participants. They had encountered Jesus personally, and their lives had never been the same. And because of their testimony, we can still hear His voice today.

Jan Brueghel the Elder’s *Sermon on the Mount* (circa 1598)

More Than a One-Time Sermon

The Sermon on the Mount is found primarily in the gospel of Matthew, chapters 5–7, with a shorter but related version appearing in Luke 6. Only Matthew and Luke record such a sermon in this form.

Many of us have been influenced by Hollywood portrayals of the Sermon on the Mount. The popular television series The Chosen depicts it as a singular, dramatic event, and it may well have been exactly that.

But there is something important to consider.

The themes and teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount appear throughout the Gospels. We encounter them in various settings, conversations, and moments in Jesus’ ministry.

That should not surprise us.

Most effective communicators return repeatedly to their central message. Good teachers often have a handful of foundational themes that they express in different ways over the years. Jesus appears to have done the same thing.

The Sermon on the Mount may be the most concentrated collection of Jesus’ teaching, but it is not an isolated collection of ideas. Rather, it provides a window into the message he proclaimed throughout his public ministry.

As we move through this series, we’ll focus on Matthew’s version of the Sermon.

Reading the Sermon Through Kingdom Eyes

One more thing is worth mentioning as we begin: Our recent conversations about the kingdom of God must travel with us into this series.

One of the challenges of reading the Sermon on the Mount is that we can mistake it for a collection of moral instructions. We hear “love your enemies,” “do not judge,” or “turn the other cheek,” and immediately begin asking, How do I do that?

But before asking how, we should ask why.

Jesus did not begin his ministry by announcing a new ethical system. He announced that the kingdom of God had drawn near.

The Sermon on the Mount is rooted in that announcement. It describes what life looks like when God’s reign is welcomed and reveals the character of people learning to live under the loving rule of the King. The Sermon on the Mount is not primarily about what people should do. It is about the kind of people God’s kingdom is forming.

If the kingdom is the message, the Sermon is one of the clearest pictures of kingdom life.

An Invitation

As we begin this journey together, my hope is not simply that we will study a famous sermon.

My hope is that we will encounter Jesus.

We’ll wrestle with his words. We’ll allow them to challenge us. We’ll let them expose assumptions we didn’t know we had. And perhaps, along the way, we’ll discover that the Sermon on the Mount is not merely something to be admired.

It is an invitation into the life of the kingdom.

So, before we climb the mountain, let’s remember whose voice we are about to hear.

Jesus’ Manifesto

The Word Makes Us Nervous

The word manifesto makes some Christians nervous. It sounds political. Ideological. Revolutionary. Maybe even dangerous.

For many, the word conjures images of angry movements, cultural upheaval, or ideological extremism. In our modern moment, “manifesto” often feels politically charged before we even define it. Some immediately associate the term with revolutionary movements on the far left or far right, with propaganda, coercion, or attempts to seize cultural power.

And to be fair, history has certainly produced destructive manifestos. Some have fueled oppression, violence, nationalism, or utopian visions untethered from humility and love. So, the hesitation is understandable.

When we view a manifesto in a category that belongs exclusively to political radicals and cultural revolutionaries, rather than recognizing it more broadly as a public declaration of vision, convictions, and way of life, we have flattened the value of the term. It then becomes difficult to recognize that Jesus Himself spoke in ways that were deeply public, deeply disruptive, and deeply challenging to the social and religious assumptions of His day – manifesto-like.

I recently read about a pastor preaching a message focused on The Sermon on the Mount. Afterward, one of the church leaders confronted him about his “woke ideologies.” The pastor responded that he had simply been repeating the words of Jesus. The man replied, “Not my Jesus.”

Whether the story is apocryphal or not, it captures something revealing about our moment. We have become so discipled by modern political categories that the teachings of Jesus can sound foreign – even threatening – when heard without the filters we normally place on them.

A Domesticated Jesus?

Perhaps part of our discomfort is that we have grown accustomed to thinking of Jesus primarily in private and personal terms – as though His teachings were mainly about individual spirituality or moral inspiration rather than the announcement of an entirely different kind of kingdom and humanity. In a sense, we have domesticated Jesus.

When Jesus ascended a hillside in Galilee, sat down with His disciples, and began speaking about blessing, enemies, lust, anger, money, anxiety, prayer, power, integrity, retaliation, and the kingdom of God, He was not offering detached religious reflections for private inspiration. He was announcing an entirely different way of being human under the reign of God.

In many ways, the Sermon on the Mount reads like a manifesto.

What Manifestos Actually Do

A manifesto is a public declaration of vision, values, convictions, and way of life. It names what is wrong with the present order and calls people into an alternative reality. Manifestos challenge assumptions. They form identity. They summon allegiance. They announce that another way is possible.

The Declaration of Independence functioned as a manifesto. It publicly declared that the existing relationship with the British crown was no longer acceptable, articulated foundational convictions about human dignity and governance, and called for an entirely new national identity to emerge.

Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses served as a manifesto for reform within the Church. What began as an academic dispute became a public challenge to corruption, spiritual abuse, and distorted theology. Luther was not merely complaining; he was calling people back to a different understanding of the gospel and authority.

Likewise, The Rule of Saint Benedict functioned as a manifesto for an alternative kind of community. Benedict laid out rhythms, values, practices, and shared commitments that shaped how people would live together under the lordship of Christ. It was not simply theoretical theology. It was an embodied vision.

The Manifesto of the Kingdom

Manifestos do not merely describe ideas. They seek to form people. And that is precisely what Jesus seemed to be doing in the Sermon on the Mount.

We can easily reduce the Sermon on the Mount to one of three things:

impossible moral standards meant to make us feel our need for grace,
inspirational sayings suitable for coffee mugs and wall art,
or ethical suggestions for especially serious Christians.

But Jesus presented the Sermon as none of those things. This was the manifesto of the kingdom of God. Jesus announced a new reality breaking into the world: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

God was indeed king.

And the Sermon on the Mount described what life looks like when people actually live under His reign. This manifesto was radically counter-cultural then, and it remains radically counter-cultural now…

Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Love your enemies.
Pray for those who persecute you.
Reject performative religion.
Tell the truth without manipulation.
Refuse vengeance.
Seek first the kingdom.
Do not store up treasures on earth.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

None of these fits neatly into modern ideological categories.

Jesus confronted both religious nationalism and moral compromise. He challenged hypocrisy and self-righteousness. He critiqued greed, status-seeking, lust for power, anxiety-driven accumulation, and hatred toward enemies. He called people into a life marked by humility, mercy, purity, courage, integrity, generosity, reconciliation, and radical trust in the Father.

That is not Republican.
That is not Democrat.
That is kingdom.

And perhaps that is why the Sermon still unsettles us.

More Than Private Spirituality

We have become remarkably skilled at admiring Jesus while explaining away the direct implications of His teachings. We sentimentalize the Sermon on the Mount because actually obeying it would require a profound reordering of our lives, priorities, politics, relationships, economics, ambitions, and identities.

Jesus was not merely offering spiritual guidance for getting into heaven someday. He was forming a people who would embody the life of heaven here and now – “On earth as in heaven.”

A manifesto.

Not enforced through coercion or violence.
Not advanced through domination.
But through surrendered hearts shaped by the reign of God.

In the coming posts, we will spend some time walking through the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus’ kingdom manifesto – not as abstract ideals, but as the invitation into an entirely different way of living in the world.

Silo-Filling

I have always loved autumn for a variety of reasons. In Minnesota, we get to experience warm days and cool nights. At night, the AC is turned off, and the windows are opened again, capturing all the outdoor sounds as we sleep. During the day I can fling open my shop doors and enjoy the smells of fall as I do my woodworking.

Growing up on the farm, autumn also meant harvesting the fall crops. After waiting all summer for our spring planting efforts to come to fruition, we enjoyed the fruits of our labor and patience (I think of Mark 4). By far, my all-time favorite harvest was chopping corn for silage, especially the associated smell of fresh chopped corn. It’s the same smell you get when husking out sweet corn.

When the corn stocks were still mostly green and the kernels beginning to dent, we took to the fields with a chopper and wagons to harvest the crop that would ultimately become silage (think sauerkraut). Wagonload after wagonload of chopped corn were taken out of the field and brought to the farm yard to be blown 50′ up into a silo. We called the whole process, “silo-filling.”

Part of the enjoyment of silo-filling for me during my junior high and high school days was getting to miss school for several days to man a tractor and wagon. I made several trips per hour out to the field, returning to the silo with a loaded wagon for emptying into the blower. I loved every bit of it and have great memories as I write this.

Year after year, I lived with one hope – that I would “happen” to be bringing a loaded wagon up to the silo at the same time that the school bus came by at the end of the day. How glorious to have my peers see me at work while missing school. I would strategically try to make it happen. It did happen, but only once. But it was glorious! I felt rewarded for all my work and strategy.

For the last several weeks I have been working my way through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel. I recently read Jesus’ admonition regarding prayer…

Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. (Matt. 6:5, CSB)

It’s my understanding that in the first century, at the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, Jewish religious practice and traditions included fixed times of prayer – morning, afternoon, and evening. Modern Hasidic Jews still observe the fixed prayer times. When we were in Jerusalem several years ago, we found ourselves at the western wall of the Temple Mount (the “wailing wall”) around 3:00p, where many Orthodox Jews had gathered for prayer. Interestingly, at the same time, Muslims were gathered in the mosque on the Temple Mount for their time of afternoon prayer.

In the first century, if a worshiper could not get to a synagogue for prayer, they stopped where they found themselves, faced the Temple, and recited their prayers. I was once on a train from Minneapolis to Chicago when at 9:00a several Hasidic Jews stepped out into the aisle to recite their prayers (known as davening), including the traditional rhythmic swaying back and forth.

I understand that in Jesus’ day, religious leaders would strategically position themselves for the best possible exposure at prayer time, hoping they might find themselves on a busy street corner for all to see. They were praying, as they should, but their motives were wrong. Their piousness was a pretense. Etymologically, pretense and pretend are connected.

So, Jesus rightly referred to these strategizers and hypocrites, as pretenders. The point Jesus made to his disciples and the crowd listening in this discourse was that the righteousness of the religious leaders was insufficient and incomplete. In God’s economy, the righteousness of kingdom people must (will?) surpass that of the religious leaders who did the right things but for the wrong reasons (see Matt. 5:20).

Here’s the thing that’s a bit scary to consider: the religious leaders did not see themselves as pretenders. They were faithfully practicing standard-fare pious acts religiously (giving to the poor, praying, fasting, etc). They were probably completely stunned to be called pretenders. And, as we discover, they were angered to no end.

Jesus encouraged pious practices but sans strategy. In the same section, Jesus discussed the practice of giving to the needy. In their “righteousness,” the pious leaders practiced giving to the poor. It was a good thing to do. But in their incomplete righteousness, they were doing the right thing but only pretending they cared about the needy. Jesus was teaching that in God’s economy, the righteousness of kingdom people will exceed that of the calculating religious leaders.

We think of hypocrisy as “saying one thing and doing another.” Jesus seems to view hypocrisy as doing something with wrong motives – pretending. And that’s scary because our motives are always a bit suspect. But there is good news. As kingdom people, we are being transformed into the image of the King in which a modus operandi of pretending fades. But when it does surface, we can declare confidently with the Apostle Paul…

Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 7:24-25, NLT)

God is Good. So What?

In the previous post, Taste and See, we started a conversation about God’s goodness, and what it means when we say “God is Good.” When leading small groups, I like to follow discovery with application – What we just discovered followed by “Now What?” or “So What?” In the last post, we discussed the intrinsic goodness of God. A great “So What” question might be…

How does one know and experience the goodness of God?

Let’s start by looking at something Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount related to God’s goodness:

⁷“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. ⁹“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? ¹¹If you, then, though you are evil (sinful), know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7-11)

This passage is notoriously misused, especially if we tend to lean toward a gospel of prosperity. “Ask and seek” followed by “receive and find” coupled with that statement of a Father in heaven who gives good gifts – we immediately assume this passage is about asking for and getting stuff from God.

A good Father doesn’t give his kids what they want. He gives them what they need, what is good for them. The Amplified translation helps us see how Jesus describes the goodness of God…

¹¹If you then, sinful by nature as you are, know how to give good and advantageous gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven [perfect as He is] give what is good and advantageous to those who keep on asking Him.

Keep in mind the context of Jesus’ words. They are part of the Sermon on the Mount. In that famous sermon, Jesus was describing to his followers what life in God’s economy looks like. And the life he described was proving to be significantly different from anything they had heard before from their religious teachers.

These words about asking and receiving are found deep into the “Sermon.” He had already told them of their call to be salt and light to the world. As salt and light, he suggested they love their enemies (likely the Roman occupiers). And by the way, if a Roman soldier forced them to carry his pack for a mile, he suggested they carry it a second mile. He had admonished his followers to not judge others. Oh, and also that they could live without worrying.

I can envision his followers looking at each other, wondering how they could live and operate in such a manner – an obvious question. A question anyone of us might ask. I wonder if Jesus might have been saying to his disciples (and to us) to ask and seek the answers to their questions about kingdom living. I wonder if Jesus might have been saying that God will honor your seeking and asking, giving you what is good and advantageous so that you can live without worrying or judging others; so that you can actually learn to love your enemies.

He wouldn’t suggest such things if he didn’t also provide a way for us to live thusly.

So, how does one know and experience the Goodness of God? What does that look like practically? In the last post, we looked at Psalm 34: Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him (34:8). Out of his experiences with God, David was saying to the rest of his religious community, “Taste and see if I’m not right. Taste and see for yourself that the Lord is indeed good.”

What does taste and see look like? What is something that you love to eat or drink that you had to develop a taste for?” We don’t acquire a taste by trying something once. It comes with time and consistency. And with surprise. I think that’s what Jesus was communicating in the Matthew passage…

Asking is not a one-off query. Nor is seeking or knocking. Ask, seek and knock are imperatives. An example of an imperative might be “Shut the front door when the air conditioner is on.” However, ask, seek and find are present imperatives as in, “Always shut the front door when the air conditioner is on.” So here it means ALWAYS be asking, seeking, knocking. The Amplified translation captures the essence of the present imperative…

⁷“Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you. (AMP)

David understood this as well when he said, I sought the Lord, and he answered me (Psalm 34:4). The Hebrew word for sought implies following, not a one-off query of God. David was a follower – he sought the Lord on a continuous basis. Thus David was able to experience the Lord’s presence and goodness in the midst of running for his life from King Saul.

Followership is key to knowing and experiencing the goodness of God. Unfortunately, we Westerners find following rather difficult because…

Following implies a life-long process of discovery. We would rather have the answers and outcomes now. My educator friends fully understand this! Standardized testing flies in the face of discovery.
Following is unpredictable because we are following a Jesus that is unpredictable. Remember The Chosen? “Get used to different.” By the way, though Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), he’s certainly not predictable.
Westerners prefer clarity. Following is about trust. Trust and clarity tend to be at odds with each other. Example…

Toward the end of his life, the late ethicist and professor Fr. John Kavanaugh, went to Calcutta to seek an audience with Mother Teresa. He was desiring to find out how to best spend the remainder of his life. When he met Mother Teresa, he asked her to pray for him. “What do you want me to pray for?” she replied. He then uttered the request he had carried thousands of miles: “Clarity. Pray that I have clarity.”

“No,” Mother Teresa answered, “I will not do that.” “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.” Kavanaugh said that she always seemed to have clarity, the very kind of clarity he was looking for. Mother Teresa laughed and said: “I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”

Trust is central to following. And following is central to tasting and seeing, knowing and experiencing the goodness of God. And the best way I know how to do that is by spending large amounts of time with the embodied goodness of God – Jesus.

Next: Babette’s Feast and how it relates to experiencing God’s goodness.