Try a thought experiment with me. Strip away the two-syllable pronunciation of blessed (“bless-ed”). Take away the expectations associated with the “If this, then this” formula. Write the beatitudes out as a letter to a friend. It might sound something like this:

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Dear friend.

You want to follow God.

But you feel like you have nothing to offer, like you are at a party where everyone else brings cool gifts, and you are still waiting for your last paycheck and so have nothing. You think about how you have done wrong and how often you have messed up, and it makes you want to cry. You watch other people push to the front with all the “right answers,” and you stand back along the edges of the crowd, scuffing the dirt with your toes, uncertain. You want to live the right way so much you can taste it sometimes. You have a dull ache in your chest because you so want to be clean, finally, really clean.

Everyone tells you to slap those, um, people who mock you. You know you want to, but you just can’t. You have this need to cut them slack. You try to stay clean. You try to do things for the right reasons.  When you look in the mirror and have questions about your motives, you don’t do whatever it is you are wondering about. (But doesn’t everyone think that way?)

You can’t stand watching people fight, and so you wade into the middle. But instead of just getting them to stop fighting, you start building bridges between them.

You do great stuff. You care deeply. And instead of thanking you, people pick on you. Mercilessly. Rudely. Maliciously.

You think all this is no big deal. You do it because it’s right. You don’t see the connection between any of this and following God.

But it is following God. Jesus says you are blessed. Jesus will comfort you and care for you and show you mercy and give you all of heaven.

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Matthew 5:1-10