Blessed Are the Poor

Reflection

The Beatitudes turn our instincts upside down. The world blesses the strong, the self-sufficient, the happy, the winners. Jesus blesses the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. He pronounces favour precisely on the people we might assume God had overlooked. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." To be poor in spirit is to come to the end of your own resources — to know, deep down, that you have nothing to bring and nothing to prove. Far from disqualifying you, this is the doorway into the kingdom. God gives his kingdom not to the self-made but to the spiritually bankrupt who know their need. Each Beatitude works this way. It is the mourners who are comforted, the meek who inherit the earth, the hungry who are filled. The kingdom of God runs on a different economy than the kingdom of self. Here, admitting your emptiness is the first step toward being filled. This is strangely liberating. You do not have to perform your way into God's favour or pretend to have it all together. The very things you might be ashamed of — your weakness, your grief, your longing for things to be made right — are the places where God delights to meet you. Blessed are those who know they need him.