February 1 2026 Epiphany 4
Micah 6.1-8 Psalm 15 1 Corinthians 1.18-31 Matthew 5.1-12
We know the beatitudes well, but sometimes we read them as saying that unless we are ‘hungry’ or ‘poor’ or ‘mourning’, etc, there is something wrong with our attitude. But can I suggest that in this passage from Matthew, Jesus is telling his disciples, his followers, how to recognise blessedness, not instructing them to ‘be like this’.
Matthew’s ‘Sermon on the Mount’ differs from Luke’s version where Jesus delivers it ‘on the plain’. For one thing, Matthew has Jesus going up the mountain and taking only the 12, whereas Luke has him preaching to a great crowd. The crowd may well be present in Matthew’s version, but they remain in the background, it is the 12, Jesus’ core group, to whom Jesus is speaking.
Society, we, struggle with the term blessedness. According to society standards, if you are blessed you are rich, happy, successful, you have everything going for you. We do not, usually, refer to the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who thirst for righteousness as ‘blessed’. Society judges blessing in material terms. But Jesus is instructing the disciples along a different way of thinking. He is teaching them, teaching us, to see how God calls blessed those who are down and out, those whose circumstances leave them distressed, those passionate about promoting righteousness and working for peace or those persecuted for doing the right thing. Jesus urges his disciples, and us, to view people in ways that differ from the ‘societal norm’. Instead of judging according to ‘what they have’ we are asked to see ‘who they are’, see their character; instead of taking pity on their losses we are asked to enter into them; instead of despising weakness we are asked to see in it the truest point of meeting between God’s children. God reveals God’s self most clearly and consistently when we are at the point of greatest need.
What would it be like if our churches became places where we recognised that God always comes to those places and times we least expect God to be. God comes in the middle of our brokenness in order to bless what the world refuses to bless; God comes to love what the world despises, to redeem what the world sees as unworthy of saving. What would it be like if we left here today looking through those new eyes, ones that were able to see the needs of those around us not as a nuisance or even something to be pitied, but as marks of blessedness to which we are privileged to attend.
And if we were able to do that, we might get close to being like the discipleship community Jesus founded, fashioned by God’s grace to be places of forgiveness, mercy, grace and goodness. And we might even find that people want to join us. Jesus points us, in this passage, to recognise that God’s kingdom is not a ‘far away’ place, it is everywhere that we honour each other as God’s children, where we bear each other’s burdens, where we bind the other’s wounds, and meet them where their need is. Being human leaves us inescapably fragile and vulnerable, but God does not reject our fragility and vulnerability, God gathers them into a divine embrace.
In our first reading, the prophet Micah criticised the religious conformity in favour of a truly revolutionary life: “Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God”. Can you imagine how revolutionary this was then and is now. Can you imagine kindness on the floor of the stock exchange, or humility in the upper echelons of high society, or justice in politics. And the Beatitudes describe a genuinely counter-cultural style of life too. In a world of wealth and war, Jesus tells us blessed are the poor and the peacemakers. Instead of violence and vengeance, blessed are the mournful, the meek and the merciful.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the pure in heart, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and those who are persecuted on Christ’s behalf. It is a lot to take in. And blessed are those who see the blessings of God in their neighbour’s need and give thanks that they were privileged to meet them. It is not easy to accept, but it has the capacity to transform, create, and grant new life, and it will take us off the grid, figuratively if not literally. Martin Luther King Jr once called this a life of ‘transformed non-conformity’. And its permutations are as numerous as our individual personalities and life situations. Paul describes it as a life that chooses the foolishness of God over the wisdom of the world.
So let us all prepare for transformed non-conformity, choose the foolishness of God, and see the blessings of God in the needs of those around us and give thanks for the privilege of meeting them.