November 1, 2026; Matthew 5:1-12a; Feast of All Saints
Among those who study the scriptures, there is a general agreement that the heart of Jesus’ teaching, the centrality of his message, can be found in the Beatitudes. Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with these pithy statements of blessedness. We have just heard the Beatitudes in today’s gospel. They are a litany of holiness, a series of assertions about those who are blessed, who are valuable and important to God. The Beatitudes are the foundation of Jesus’ message, the blueprint for the kingdom of God. So, if we want to know what is important to Jesus and what Jesus expects of us, we turn to the Beatitudes.
But this is not as easy as it seems, because the Beatitudes take what we think and turn it upside down. The Beatitudes are profoundly anti-cultural, giving value to things that we think are unimportant and undermining the things that we admire. Our culture admires wealth and holds up billionaires for praise. But Jesus says blessed are the poor. Our society bends toward power and those who promote themselves as influencers. But Jesus says blessed are the meek and the lowly. Our culture defines strength as the ability to bend others to our will, but Jesus says blessed are the peacemakers and the merciful.
The radical nature of the Beatitudes has caused many sincere people to conclude that they are unrealistic and, therefore, useless in our lives. They insist that the Beatitudes could never work in the real society in which we live, that being poor, merciful, meek peacemakers only allows ourselves to be crushed by the rich, powerful, vengeful and violent people who frequently control our world.
So, what are we to do with Jesus’ Beatitudes? We are to struggle with them. We are to allow them to remind us that the way that the world runs does not have to be the way it runs today, that it is possible to move our society closer to justice, integrity, and recognizing the value of the least among us. Jesus calls us to take the Beatitudes into our relationships so that when we are tempted to bully or manipulate another person to do what we want, they can remind us that kindness and compromise are also a possibility. And when we are inclined to dismiss someone who is unattractive or weak, they can warn us that Jesus holds the lowly close to his heart. Jesus asks us to take the Beatitudes into our politics. Now there is not a candidate or political party who would ever adopt the Beatitudes as a platform. They would not even make it to the ballot. But when we vote this week, the Beatitudes ask us to consider which of the options before us is closer to Jesus’ vision to value the poor, to promote honesty, to find a way toward peace.
The Beatitudes may be unrealistic, but Jesus asks us to struggle with them so that the real world in which we live might become closer to the world God wants it to be.