We are the poor in spirit

 What does it mean for us as ordinary people and Christians to live righteously and faithfully as a person of God? All our readings have god asking things of us, but arguable, they are ordinary things. We are not asked to be heroes, but good common people. In many ways it is looking only to heroes for these things that leaves us ordinary people feeling that ‘goodness’ is just out of our grasp. Yet you are good people. The beatitudes are not aimed at extraordinary people. They describe ordinary people.

We are the poor in Spirit, we are the ones who mourn, who hunger and thirst for righteousness and peace. We are the ones who can show mercy and even purity. When Jesus spoke from the mountain, he chose to speak in a public place, not the synagogue where he might get the intellectuals or the righteous, but in a place where the ordinary people came to him. Jesus was speaking to ordinary people, not heroes, just us.

And isn’t his message so different to that of John the Baptist. John screams out “Repent! You bunch of no-hopers , or you’ll rot in hell.” And Jesus begins his ministry by saying “you are blessed”.
It is an interesting exercise to read the beatitudes from the first person. We are the poor in spirit, I am the poor in spirit. We presume it is others, the somehow perfect, but see how it feels to say it and own it.