The Beatitudes are awesome. Top 5 Scripture here.
The experience of reading this series of blessings, however, is something between excitement and frustration. Which is probably par for the course for the human condition.
The biggest challenge of the Beatitudes (and the Sermon on the Mount as a whole), it would seem, is that they split us between the sympathetic and empathetic. The virtues of these two approaches psychologically notwithstanding, it would seem Jesus is encouraging us to feel.
It is easy enough to read about the poor in spirit, the mourners, and the meek and make that be about someone else. Then read about hungering and thirsting for righteousness and go “but he doesn’t mean ‘social justice’…” And merciful and pure of heart? Totally me.
By the time we get to peacemaking and persecution, we’re thinking about things other people do that erodes unity.
While it is easy to read the Beatitudes this way, it is almost incomprehensible to argue Jesus is saying any of this.
The Sermon on the Mount seems to begin, not with judgment, but with empathy. Not evaluating what others are experiencing, but feeling with them in it.
And the fact that we are more inclined to want to stand up for others when we know the experience seems to be a big part of the point.