Drew Downs

Temptation and the Need for Discipline

American culture is actually counter-culture. Rebellion is normal here. Fitting in is square, uncool. We glorify revolution as the response to taxation without representation. With these as common ideals, it is hard to do discipline.

“I don’t want to,” seems like a complete argument.

“Who’s gonna make me,” does, too.

It makes it hard to hear the word discipline without a desire to reject it. It is our associations with authority, power, and independence that rule us.

We have so many devil’s advocates, we can’t see the irony.

What I’m trying to say is that we have a pretty tortured relationship with discipline. Those that love it, seem to love it for the wrong reasons. And so many others just hate everything about the word.

The other part of the problem is definitional.

It isn’t just that we seem to be constitutionally built to rebel. It is also that we don’t entirely get what we’re rebelling against.

What actually is discipline?

One of its most common uses is as a euphemism for corporal punishment. In these cases, to discipline is to strike a child, to enforce the rules, to teach through behavioral reinforcement.

The data is abundant and clear that this doesn’t work. But it doesn’t stop some from continuing to embrace this approach to parenting as an essential part of their tradition and culture. And perhaps this latter reason is why it is so dangerous to be a child in the US.

The other common use of the word discipline is to speak of a particular sort of obedience and rule-following most common with top-down command organizations like the military. We speak of discipline as rigid, uncompromising, and total.

In both understandings, discipline requires one who enforces discipline on others. Someone who is above the one receiving the punishment or reinforcing the rules. An overseer. A judge, commander, parent. One who never, themselves receives “discipline.”

In the church, discipline is different.

Discipline isn’t punishment. Nor is it militaristic rule-following. For Christian tradition, discipline is centered around devotion, life, and relationship!

We need to let go of the torturous and narrowed visions of discipline which prevent us from faithfully encountering God in our present moment. Visions which have us rebelling against the creative freedom of Jesus for the oppressive convenience of modern life.

In Christ, discipline is better understood as creating an opportunity in our lives for reflection, for learning, and for communing with God. It is about actively participating in our lives with intention — to be the kind of people we want to be. Not because anyone is making us, but because we’re missing out on something great when we don’t. Because the practice of study and prayer can shape our lives in the very ways we want them to.

In Lent, we come to recognize discipline as a virtue. Not in spite of pain or frustration, but because the point is the learning, the becoming, the awakening to life, to joy, to the beauty that is growing around us, below the surface, just waiting to burst through, in bloom.

Feb 17, 2026
Mountain Talk — Command and Love In a Time of Fear

Command and Love In a Time of Fear
Epiphany LastA | Matthew 17:1-9

Jesus goes with three of his disciples up a mountain where he is transfigured, Moses and Elijah show up, and God speaks. Then they go back down. That is what we call eventful. A lot of stuff is going on. But I’m struck by the opening words, which compel us to remember the wider context. The first words of the passage, of the seventeenth chapter of Matthew are “Six days later, Jesus took with him,” and now we need to know what happened six days ago and why we should compare that to these events as if they are happening on the seventh day, on the Sabbath.

Six days ago, Jesus started talking about his impending death by crucifixion at the hands of Rome after his brutal arrest by Judean elders. And when Peter heard this, he got so upset, so afraid for Jesus, that he stepped out of line, pulled Jesus aside and had a heart-to-heart with him. The kind of move only a good Number Two could do, like Riker to Picard. This is a bad strategy and could ruin the whole thing. We can’t let it happen. That is what Peter wants to communicate and Jesus responds with fury, like Peter is being insubordinate. This is how we could see that moment.

But what Jesus does is remind everyone of the mission. That it isn’t about strategy, coercion, or even living and dying. It’s about loving. And the temptation to protect ourselves — that is how the adversary, how Satan tempts us to use power that isn’t ours.

The Turning Point

We’ll talk about that encounter soon enough, but for today, let us note that it is the central turning point in the three synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It represents the turn toward Jerusalem, which brings with it more than a literal shift in direction, but a metaphorical and spiritual shift as well. A shift that draws disciples from thinking only of God’s generous love toward an additional concern for the dangerous abuse of empire. To remember the Kin-dom of God and compare it with the kingdoms Earth.

This Sabbath, up the mountain, resting, Peter’s rejection by Jesus is fading. He is chosen to have this special time, nearly alone, with the other inner circle. With James and his brother John. And that seems to be the order, he probably thinks. At least I’m still first, right? The favorite. Above my brother and James’ brother. James, too.

And it is a very Sabbathy response that Peter makes to an incredible encounter: let’s stay here — we’ll make a place to rest, Jesus, for you and Moses and Elijah. It is most generous and thoughtful. A very earnest “Martha response” we might say. To do the work instead of waiting, watching, listening. Jesus doesn’t scold him this time, because the Adversary isn’t present, tempting, preventing Jesus from his mission.

The voice breaking in is surely God’s. It breaks in a second time. The first at his baptism, saying “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” This comes to us like an echo: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” It is nearly identical, but with a command: “listen to him!”

Before Listening

Before we get into what they are or are not listening to and for, let’s note how the lectionary pairs the Transfiguration this week with Moses at Mt. Sinai in Exodus. When he spends a liturgical season — forty days — up a mountain with God. And he spent that time together with God listening to what they are to do as a people. To prepare for their moving from there, taking God with them. And how to order their society. God gave Moses tablets, written by the finger of God, which declare the ten essential commands, the Decalogue, that the people would understand the core of this project, to be the children of God, starts with love and respect and commitment to our common decency.

And then, when Moses comes down the mountain, he finds total blasphemy, as the people had at some point in those forty days chosen to abandon their faith. Out of fear. Fear that Moses wasn’t coming back. It doesn’t make any logical sense, which is how you know it’s true, right? They’re like, you were gone forever, so we melted down some gold and formed it into a calf and started worshipping it because we didn’t know what else to do!

We’re supposed to think of the mountaintop and those left at the basecamp in both stories. Because the zenith is intoxicating and on the flat ground is fear of screwing up and running from our obligations.

That’s what we see when Jesus and those three disciples descend the mountain: the rest are failing to heal a child. They don’t know how to do it anymore. They could last week. Literally. Now, on the Transfigured Sabbath, they can’t. The power, they argue, has abandoned them.

Now Listen

God’s command on the mountain is directed at those three disciples. That is for sure. But it is also for us. And I suspect it is listening to Jesus the same way St. Francis encourages us to proclaim the Good News, sometimes with words. So we speak with our mouths and our hands and our eyes and with our very presence. I expect we can listen with our ears, yes, and with our eyes and in our reading and watching and feeling and knowing the love of Jesus in the world around us.

So we take the words of Jesus directly here when he says to them “Get up and do not be afraid” because they are on their hands and knees in worship, full of awe and fear. And he is speaking to us, isn’t he? Literally sitting, yes. But are we on our metaphorical or spiritual knees right now? Are we afraid of what is going on in the world or our community or families right now? Is there need to be told by Jesus to “Get up and do not be afraid”? My guess is yes.

And in the verses after this, the disciples ask Jesus about Elijah as they descend the mountain and he says “Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things, but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but they did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.”

Listen to him.

And finally, when he comes to the base, a man brings his son to Jesus saying that the disciples have been trying to heal him and can’t. And Jesus calls the generation perverse, expresses his frustration, but heals the boy. And after they leave the disciples ask Jesus why they couldn’t do anything, he says “Because of your little faith.”

Little Faith

Rather than an insult, however, Jesus is describing the possibility of their faith. He says that with faith the size of a mustard seed you can tell a mountain to move and it would move. Without spelling it out completely, he wants them to own their faith because it can do amazing things.

And because we have our listening ears on, hear it further: that believing that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God does not give us telekinesis. We don’t lift mountains with our minds. Jesus says that if one with faith as small as a mustard seed, the tiniest of seeds, were to tell a mountain to move, it would move. This isn’t domination over the mountain, moving it against its will. It is communication, encouragement, perhaps even persuasion. In short, the mountain would listen to you.

Do you hear that? Like that game of telephone. Listen and speak, listen and speak.

And I suspect the reason the disciples couldn’t heal the boy was that they were struggling to listen — to Jesus, yes, but to the man, to the boy, to one another. Like Peter, they were afraid, stuck on their hands and knees, not knowing what to do, worried about the future, about the mission, about this thing that they were building, about rent and insurance and fixing the roof and having enough people and paying bills and rising costs and Jesus says “Get up and do not be afraid.” And they want to but they don’t think they can. The fear holds its grip on them — they’re avoiding their little faith. They aren’t listening so they can’t speak.

God Told Us to Listen.

Not to fear. Reject. Avoid. Listen. Just listen.

And we get the example from the disciples of how they struggle with listening so that we can see the way we do the same. The way we forget to listen. Forget to participate in this life of faith together, in partnership. As disciples and apostles.

This isn’t a lesson about what more we could do if we had more faith. It is a story about what we block ourselves from doing with our little faith. A faith that is for loving God and our neighbors. Showing as much commitment in protecting those around us as we protect ourselves.

No, this isn’t a story of how. Jesus isn’t telling us how to do this. But that isn’t the issue. That’s another obstacle that prevents us from doing; an element that connects with our fear of doing things wrong, of not being perfect. No, the question isn’t what we do but that we do.

Listen to him. When he tells us to get up and to not be afraid. When he speaks about the outrageous selfishness of power. Or when he names the incredible power of the smallest faith.

This is our command, friends. To Listen. Listen when he tells us to “Get up and do not be afraid.” We need each other’s small faith. The world needs it too. Because there are mountains that need a good talking to.

Feb 15, 2026
Forgetting to Listen — for Epiphany LastA

For Sunday
Epiphany LastA

Collect

O God, who before the passion of your only begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Reading

Matthew 17:1-9

Reflection

There is much that draws our attention in this passage we call the Transfiguration. The dazzling light, the appearance of other people, Peter’s response, the voice of God! And yet, it is hard not to center our own response on the words of God! When God speaks, we must listen!

The words we receive match the words at the baptism: God calls Jesus “beloved” and speaks to being pleased. But the final statement is new: “listen to him.” And it these words which, I think, draw out a deeper question within us than we care to consider. Does this statement not imply that, either up till this point or at this very moment, they aren’t? Or, perhaps, that we, in our own lives, reading this gospel today — and not just in the sense of centuries later, but in the literal sense, today — are not listening or are in danger of missing something?

When I hear “listen to him” I get literal and figurative and metaphorical. I try to hear it all! And so I listen for the words that Jesus will say in the next moments and in the coming days. Like a disciple, watching and ascribing meaning to everything I see, thinking, yes, but what does he mean by this? and so on. And Jesus’s immediate words are “Get up and do not be afraid,” which are fantastic. Because they are on the ground and he is telling them to quite literally get off of the ground and subdue that fear impulse. And also — we are there, too, being told the same thing. To get up. And not be afraid. And I think most of us need to translate that a bit, but can come up with a pretty solid response that is better than “do I have to?” Yep. God says listen.

But the listening shouldn’t end there. A lot of stuff is happening around them in the story and the disciples are getting distracted and thinking they know better than Jesus and are getting awfully full of themselves, declaring other people heretics. And this message to listen — listen to him! — keeps being the message that the disciples struggle to hear. Do we?

Feb 11, 2026
Transfigure — where seeing meets believing

In the modern world, seeing, the observation of our environment, is often a fundamental requirement of faith. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” we say. We’re all a bit like Thomas.

And yet we also will say “I’m seeing things” to imply that we are not only able to observe what is real, but ought not trust our sight because it can deceive us! We want to speak to some kind of objective reality that is beyond our sight, alone, but exists as matter in time and space.

This is a function of modernism, of enlightenment thinking. This is only worth the chasing down the rabbit trail if we’re willing to entertain that there is more to truth than absolutes and material conditions. Or at least, if we can mind how our minds work. That we trust what we can see while also ascribing a physical permanence to all things. Even to time.

Strange thing then, having to wrestle with the highly improbable — with the visual and the experiential of the Transfiguration. A moment in which nothing seems to change materially and yet we are left to consider that, in fact, everything has changed.

It isn’t just appearance or light which obscures the disciple’s vision of Jesus momentarily, but, as we will see later in the story, that it is themselves who obscure their own vision of the Jesus before them.

In the end, it is their own vision that is faulty. Their own experience that they will need to contend with — and will — for the rest of their lives.

Feb 10, 2026
Just a Little Bit Better — on the low bar of faith

On the low bar of faith
Epiphany 5A | Matthew 5:13-20

Last week, we dove into the Beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the hungry for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted. We heard Jesus speak of blessing in conviction, in alignment with the Way of Love, in neighborliness and support. And this week, the gospel continues straight from that moment. Hear it together:

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.”

If you were focused mostly on the first line about people reviling and persecuting and saying awful things, I don’t blame you one bit. That stuff is distracting. I mean, when people talk trash it shuts me right down.

And if you were focused on the salt part, I get that too because you might be on heart medication and your doctor is like “cut out the salt” and “stop eating the fried foods” and this is triggering because they may as well be telling you to stop tasting your food. I get it.

But if we’re focusing on the discomforts, we’re bound to miss the arc of what Jesus is saying here. He’s comparing all of these people to the prophets. All of them. Not the special, the elect — the ones who were picked to memorize the Torah. No, the crowds of nobodies and no-names; the fishermen, the women, the disabled and ostracized.

They are like the prophets.

So then, how does the world treat the prophets? Well, that’s a little complicated. Temple leadership likes the prophet — as long as they say good things about the Temple. As long as they speak of its greatness and how much God blesses them. When the prophets don’t, however, they turn, condemn, destroy.

But the Temple leaders aren’t “the world”. The people regard the prophets with awe and respect. And, depending on how much they depend on the Temple for their safety, their own experience of the prophets is often tied into keeping them happy.

So, if we’re being honest, people don’t like the truth when it doesn’t align with our values, our desires, or our vision of how the world should be. Prophets are truth-tellers. And not as the common synonym for having poor social skills or a bad habit of being a jerk to people because you can’t keep your mouth shut. Truth-telling in the most difficult way possible: a way that doesn’t align with political parties, national interests, or the blessed independence of pure individualistic ideology. Prophets tell the truth about God and why we’re always screwing up that relationship.

Jesus is telling the people gathered that this wisdom that prophets have, that reveals the truth, that shares the divine reality with humanity, is here. They have access to it right now. It is good! And the powerful will hate it!

Don’t Lose It!

Jesus calls them the salt of the earth — a phrase that is often used to describe somebody’s proximity to the earth, to nature, to normal — a groundedness we might say. We treat it as a specific kind of humble compliment. Much like “middle America” is the preferred American, the true American, the kind of American we’re told we’re supposed to be. As extrapolations go, this is probably C-level work. I’d give it a passing grade, but it is thoroughly uninspired and missing a lot of context.

Salt is extraordinary. It is essential.

In Salt Fat Acid Heat, Samin Nosrat describes salt as the definition of seasoning. You season at every stage of the process — because it changes the molecular composition of the dish each time. You season the vegetables before you put them in the fat. You season them when you put them on heat. And you season them when you add the acid. It isn’t something you merely toss on at the end, but what brings vibrant life out of the food.

When Jesus warns about losing our saltiness, he’s speaking to vibrancy, excitement, the very essence of living. The kind of thing utilitarians treat as expendable — that life itself is worth living. What Jesus refers to as Eternal Life.

Don’t lose it, because when it’s gone, it’s gone.

The Light of the World

It’s a different metaphor, but “the light of the world” is adjacent to “salt of the earth”. Jesus is “the light shining in the darkness” and “the light coming into the world.” Jesus is now telling the people that they, too, are light. The very light that illumines the world. It shouldn’t be lost on us that Jesus, the light, is calling the people the light. This, too, is connected to the meek inheriting the world, the peacemakers being the children of God, and the poor in spirit and the persecuted possessing the kingdom of heaven. It is mutual ownership through humility, compassion, and love. A commitment to living and embracing the need for our neighbors to live too.

It is easy to treat the light of the world like a burden. Like something embarrassing or uncouth. Our public separation of church and state and the mythical culture war make talking about anything Jesusy in public like pulling teeth. We often cast this as a matter of hiding the light that the old song tells us we need to let it shine.

Our being light has little to do with quoting Jesus and everything to do with being like Jesus in the world. And what does he spend his time doing? Telling stories to outcasts about how awesome the world will be when we get our junk together. He heals the sick and eats with people. A lot. Eating with people is one of his favorite things. And once in a while he breaks the rules in a synagogue or makes a ruckus in the Temple. For the most part, though, he shows what the world can be. Who we can be.

Exceed the Low Bar

All of this is within the Law, Torah. Not as new teaching or replacement. Fulfillment.

The “this” in that statement isn’t just Jesus. It is about the whole Christ Event — the Jesus Project. It is how the people are like the prophets of old, the salt of the earth and the light of the world. They are the embodiment of the Law in Jesus. They are how the Good News is shared and the Kin-dom becomes our world. The people.

And to truly get this, we have to understand that some people are in the way of this reality. Not bad people. Not demons of stories. Neighbors who have chosen to keep the Kin-dom as idea, a perfect dream that could never be realized. Who choose the way of earthly power and a commitment to violence, wealth, and oppression.

Jesus tells the crowd of thousands gathered at the base of a mountain that they are the light already. They just have to clear the low bar set for them by these cynics and supposed realists. The Temple leaders, Rome enablers, and imperialist oppressors — all those who teach the people, the very light of the world, that they live in darkness. Who teach them not to love God and neighbor as themselves. Who teach them to reject the refugee and shun the immigrant. These are commandments they are subverting.

And today, we hear the same teaching, couched as faithful, don’t we? Always a backwards vision of love that feels like abuse, or somehow supporting immigrants by shunning them. Demonizing our neighbors and calling it locker room talk.

Jesus says to exceed that low bar. Be better than that.

Better

I really don’t like that phrase, to be honest. When people say to one another “be better.” It is scolding, condescending, and almost always lacks the clarity of how. It is neither generous nor inclusive. But what Jesus is doing here is different — and rhetorically useful. He has quite literally told them to be better than the people who come in last. Place in front of them. We might say to each other: strive for what this good group of people is doing and you’ll be fine.

We might also invoke the message Jesus says later in the gospel of John, when speaking of the Way that he is going, Thomas asks how they will know the way and Jesus says they already know. They know because they are following him now. Listen, and you’ll figure it out.

Being better than the hypocrites, the haters, and the violent oppressors is really quite easy. It really is just not doing that stuff!

But it can feel harder than that because we might feel alone or unsupported. We might be tempted to do what everyone else is doing or what we were taught to do, by parents, school, or mentors. Or, as we’re seeing, we can get all tied up in partisan politics and think it is binary: one or the other.

And to this, Jesus assures us: we are salt and light. Prophets. Children of God, inheritors of the earth. We are these things in the truth, in the living, in being the very love of this blessed world. In the sandwiches we make and the casseroles we bake, in the cans of soup, the bags of rice, and the ramen noodles we collect for the food pantry. We are light when we show compassion. When we let our guard down and reach out in love or when we show up to protect the innocent.

Jesus shows us the way. And we already know how to follow. The rest is just showing up.

Feb 8, 2026
More Than Salt and Light — for Epiphany 5A

For Sunday
Epiphany 5A

Collect

Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

Reading

Matthew 5:13-20

Reflection

Salt and saltiness, light and lamp, the Law and least. Remember that these words come immediately after the Beatitudes to begin the Sermon on the Mount, which we read last week. That collection of blessings which highlight a sensitive disposition to one’s neighbors, of growing sense of responsibility to them, and the need to sometimes stand up to protect them from abuse, to receive abuse ourselves. This colors how we ought to read these words. About conviction and call, about participation in the kin-dom here. And not wasting what has been given to us. Like we have been entrusted with the keys to the Kin-dom and maybe we ought to take that seriously.

I am very conscious of how often we are tempted (or encouraged) to read the gospel in this segmented fashion and turn these teachings into universalisms about all people throughout time, the order of things in a general, predictable world. This approach might lead us to binary conclusions about types of people — the ones we declare are good or bad — as a permanent, descriptive state, rather than a narrative one, full of action and consequence. Context has a way of peeling away this false binary, though, which is essential for a passage like this one, which might compel us to consider in absolute terms rather than relative. Terms that are relative to the persecutors of the meek children of God are those going to war against their own people.

Jesus speaks to being salt and light in tasteless and dark times. That this is our responsibility as children of God — to serve and love and share the grace of God — because there are others who are defying this work and teaching others to be selfish, to hate, and to condemn. And Jesus says that this is the bar his followers must clear. It is a ridiculously low bar, folks. We can do it. As long as make the heart of Christ the heart of our work, we’re going to clear it. But those are the terms. And it means there are a bunch of people claiming to do the Lord’s work who aren’t clearing the bar. And most of those people are the ones making it harder for those who are.

Feb 4, 2026
Salt — messy metaphor in an age of heart disease

From as long as I can remember, salt was treated as something to limit. To moderate. Heart health, blood pressure, and all those connected concerns — they are always associated with a need to reduce sodium intake. I’ve had to learn that the word “season” in the cooking world means to salt the dish. That salt unlocks flavor. And that salt, remember, is the original preservative. It is why jerky is so salty and also a way to keep meat safe to eat unrefrigerated.

This all makes the metaphor of disciples as the salt of the earth such a strange one. Stranger when Jesus goes into salt losing its saltiness. It makes it sound like a threat — that we could become empty husks, useless.

It is not an existential metaphor, suggesting that this is how humans are to be, but one describing relationship, flavor, joie de vivre! The notion of salt is relative to the Beatitudes that came before it. So, who are we to our neighbors? Do we enhance the world? Make it more livable? Just? Hopeful? Loving? To all of this, make it a yes!

Feb 3, 2026
Blessing is an Invitation to Build Something Better
together
Epiphany 4A | Matthew 5:1-12

It may be a warm day in the Jerusalem market. A young woman is buying bread for dinner when she overhears something that tickles her thoughts. It’s a conversation about a man saying crazy things. The kinds of things you’re used to hearing from doomsday preachers and the politically connected. Change or die. That kind of thing. This young woman has never been taken in by this kind of talk. It is all conspiracy theories or the rants of lunatics — or worse, the politically expedient.

Something about this one gives her pause, however. It’s that she just heard something like this on her way into the market. And by the time she leaves, she’ll hear about it again. And it is that third time that leads her to follow the whispers out the city gates, into the wilderness near the Jordan, where she discovers she isn’t alone. She is following the lead that thousands of others are too, hearing a call away from the assumed safety of the city. Out to the river.

The message she hears mirrors Isaiah’s words: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” This is what was promised. She anticipates the Messiah’s arrival. And when he comes to be baptized! Then disappears! What is she supposed to do with herself now?

A New Word

Word comes to her again after six weeks of silence. The Messiah has been spotted with some fishermen. She tracks him down north of the city. And by this time she sees people bringing their sick parents and spouses and children and siblings and neighbors to him and she witnesses a miraculous healing and then another and another and by now she is following him and his followers like a small child chasing her older brother and just wants to be close to him. There is something strong and righteous in his eyes. She can see it.

When she looks at the man, she sees power. An actual future. For herself and all of her people. A future not overwhelmed by the Roman Empire, exploited by the Temple leaders. She sees hope. For once.

The man walks up the side of a mountain to get some distance, to create an amphitheater to project his voice. He has something to say and there are so many people now. She can’t wait. It is bound to be inspiring. Telling them about this future of freedom from occupation. When they will drive the evil occupiers out of their city.

He says “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and she wonders where this could possibly be going. And the list is not uplifting.

“Blessed are those who mourn . . . the meek . . . who hunger and thirst for righteousness . . . the merciful . . . the pure in heart . . . the peacemakers . . . who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” And then he says that she is blessed, she and everyone else, when they are reviled and persecuted and people spit “all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” None of it was making any sense! And he continued “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

It sounded a lot like take one for the team.

The Team Leader

I know how we feel when we hear Jesus’s opening to the Sermon on the Mount. But how people must have heard it the first time! It must have sounded negative, backward; like the inverse of expectations. Blessings are good things, not bad things now for good things later. This, however, doesn’t tell the whole story.

The concept of blessing was already a theological dispute that went back centuries. A common understanding — that we are rewarded by God in this life for good behavior — was widespread and somewhat anchored in scripture. Similarly anchored in scripture was the counter that God absolutely does not do that. Precisely because such a depiction has nothing to offer the world with regards to the problem of evil. Absolutely nothing but wrongheadedness.

So when Jesus offers some baffling blessings at the beginning of the sermon, the wise shouldn’t be surprised because they would already know that God doesn’t reward us with wealth in this world, precisely because ancient teaching taught that wealth is an abomination to God and an exploitation of one’s neighbors. One cannot be blessed by God for the suffering of one’s neighbors. They would know that.

But perhaps this is why wealthy robber barons like Andrew Carnegie didn’t just subscribe to the idea that wealth is blessing, but promoted it with his Gospel of Wealth. He famously argued that his profound wealth proved his personal superiority: superior intelligence, wisdom, and morality. He argued that we should trust him over any of our neighbors for the simple fact that he is rich and therefore invested with superiority by God.

Blessing as Invitation

The Beatitudes reject such a cynical vision of creation. That our neighbors are lesser-thans who need to be subjugated, unworthy of responsibility, or entrusted with matters of value. In fact, Jesus will go on to suggest adults follow the wisdom of children. That is the polar opposite of Carnegie’s gospel of wealth as proof of superiority! Jesus seems to suggest Carnegie is the last person we should trust. Not because he is a bad guy but because wealth is not an indicator of moral superiority or blessing from God.

Blessing is invitation, revelation. It is a new light in dark times. It is a bottom-up surge in popular power that frightens tyrants and their wealthy benefactors. It is a reminder of our humanness and our common condition. It is joy and sadness, ease and toil. And because of this, blessing shows itself in our lives, not as reward or benefit or superiority over others, but as light, as wisdom, as opportunity.

When we step back from the beatitudes, we can see what they invite us into: love. By noticing what our neighbors are experiencing. And then allowing their pain to affect us. Their sorrow and meekness. Their suffering injustice and the accompanying desire for the scales to balance. We notice our common humanity. That they too have children, for example. Or, just as importantly, that they have children and we might not but we can sympathize with them anyway! Because we are willing to see our neighbors as human beings worthy of decency. To love them as we love ourselves, and we have a strong instinct for self-preservation.

Two Realities of Blessing

The young woman I invented to introduce the Beatitudes: how do you think she would have heard this? I think there are two things that are true at the same time.
1. The prophesied Messiah was assumed to be a military general, leading the people out of military occupation. So I suspect his words would confuse such a view. And, perhaps, disappoint.
2. Jesus’s words are liberating and speak directly to the material experience of the people. Part of the old problem was always that power leads to power and revolutions lead to new tyrannies. Jesus named the source of the problem: the unjust character of the powerful.
What we see is that Jesus’s following grows, even if they don’t fully comprehend what he is saying. And this is, in no small way similar to what we experience today. That people still believe in a gospel of wealth, even if they don’t admit to it. Mistaking the sense of blessing as some kind of reward for awesomeness.

It is also why people can love Jesus and cheer for the brutality of their neighbors. Or pick and choose which neighbors get to count as neighbors — with total indifference to the actual teachings of Jesus. And why some come up with excuses not to feel, not to notice, not to humanize or empathize or even demand respect for their neighbors, extending civil liberties and human rights to them, due process of law, even going so far as to to victimize entire cities, countries, or ethnic groups.

The Beatitudes Build

The Beatitudes build, Friends, from observing the pain of our neighbors to hungering and thirsting for righteousness, to stepping into the brink, standing between abusers and their victims, to accept the abuse that will come our way for it. There is a trajectory here that reveals something potent about Jesus’s Way of Love, about striving for the Dream of God. It shows that it takes courage. But not courage for the sake of power, but courage for the sake of the powerless.

Courage that starts out as something else. Poverty, sadness, meekness. It starts where we are. In a place of fear and intimidation. When we don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow or if there is anything worth looking forward to next week. It starts in that place of hopelessness precisely because Jesus is the way of hope, the light in the darkness. His name can inspire us with a whisper of it. He is the Word incarnate.

Blessing isn’t superiority! It is love! Compassion! Attunement to the pain of others. It is longing for more and striving to make it better. The supremacists all think they as individuals are smarter, better, greater — a master race. And Jesus says we should put the kids in charge instead. Follow their lead, not the wealthy or powerful or connected.

This is a message of hope. Of freedom. Freedom from tyranny, from the prison of supremacy, a prison we inherited and assumed was right. A prison that constantly tells us that we are not good enough, smart enough, strong enough, powerful enough. That we need a “daddy” to protect us. That we need kidnappings for safety. Violence for peace. Tyranny for freedom. Hate for love. And the lawless enforce the laws.

The opposite was always true. And we are blessed in seeing it. Blessed in seeing our neighbors, in connecting with them, loving them, crying with them, rejoicing with them. We are blessed because this is what the Kin-dom looks like, how the Kin-dom comes. It is how we are called to follow and it is how we understand our true strength. Being together. Like Jesus. Vulnerable. Like Jesus. Joyful. Like Jesus. Bringing the Good News to all of our neighbors. As disciples. Like Jesus.
Feb 1, 2026