St Mary's

Today Talk from Nigel

1st November 2026

A few years ago, we went to the place where Jesus gave the sermon on the Mount, the northern end of the sea of galilee. The path leading from the car park passed a number of stones each inscribed with each of the beatitudes. May we pray, God of our days and years, we set this time apart for you, form us in the likeness of Christ, so that we may learn of your love, and that our lives may give you glory, Amen.

We have eight blessings to cover, each comes in three parts, an announcement i.e. Blessed is, second a vocation i.e. the poor in spirit, and thirdly a promise i.e. for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The Beatitudes are a short but profoundly beautiful and influential collection of sayings by Jesus. They sum up his teaching about what it means to live as a child of God’s Kingdom. They appear at the beginning of a long teaching by Jesus known as the sermon on the Mount. Matthew presents Jesus as a new kind of Moses. So just as Moses taught the people of Israel from the mountain after he had received the law, so Jesus begins His ministry by going up a mountain and teaching his disciples.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

What does it mean to be poor in spirit?

Like most of the beatitudes, the meaning is not obvious. Does it mean it is good to be poor? Or does it mean that there are different sorts of poverty?

The invitation of the Christian life is to live our lives in communion with God. This is the way to find fulfilment, peace and happiness. This is also the way to find riches, though they are unlikely to be the sort of wealth the world holds dear.

Jesus has come to make communion with God possible. Therefore, to be blessed is to receive the blessing of God through relationship with Jesus and by living our lives in the way God directs.

Therefore, when Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” he is very definitely not talking about material poverty. Jesus does have a great love for and affinity with the poor. He himself comes to us as a servant. But he also sees the evils and injustice of poverty, and asks us to join with him in building a better world. Rather, Jesus is speaking about the attitude we have to God and to ourselves in relationship with God and with God’s world.

So, you could put it like, Blessed are those who know they need God, or Blessed are those who receive and live life as a gift from God.

Poverty in the spirit is about acknowledging right relationship with God. We are all created by God. We owe God everything. God is not another object in creation, but the one upon whom the whole creation, and all life depends. God is the source of life, and God is the one whose endless outpouring creativity sustains life. In comparison to God, we are nothing, and yet through God’s great love for us in Christ, we are everything. We are the object of God’s love. God wants to make us rich, by enabling us to live our lives well. And to live well means living in relationship with God and with one another. God wants to bless us, but there is only room for God’s rich blessing in our lives if we recognise our own poverty and invite him in. Thus, when we are poor in spirit, when we recognise our need for God, when we live a right relationship with God, the blessing we receive is nothing less than the kingdom of God itself.

What will poor in spirit look like? It will mean recognising that although we must strive to embody and live the Christian virtues of patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness and self-control. These fruits come to us by the holy spirit; they grow naturally when we root ourselves in Christ. So, it is the attitude of poverty, our recognition of our need for God’s gifting and blessing, that matters most. We come to God as ones who are poor and in need. We ask God to give us what we need to live our lives well, and also enable us to persevere so that the fruits of God’s richness and goodness are manifest in our lives. Because we are poor in spirit we will catch hold of God’s vision for the world.

The second beatitude is Blessed are those who mourn, which means Blessed are those who cry out to God for the injustices and sorrows of the world. And the blessing we receive will be strength to persevere and go on seeking God’s will and God’s solutions.

But we must choose to be poor in spirit. And we never move on from it. It defines all our relationships. It means being in touch with the pain of the world. It affects and shapes all our relationships and the way we approach each person, each day and each encounter. It leads to great joy as well as great challenge, as we enter into the mind and purposes of God for our life and for the world. Poverty of Spirit means being rich in God. Yours is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

The Greek word meek could be better translated as gentle, kind or humble which might give a better understanding of what Jesus meant, blessed are those who don’t fight for their own rights, blessed are those who treat others with gentleness and humility. We can only really understand what Jesus meant when we read the two beatitudes together.

Thus, the phrase concerning hungering and thirsting for what is right is counterintuitive. Hungering and thirsting are a natural part of being human and what are bodies do. When we need to eat, we hunger, when we need to drink, we thirst. We have little control over these sensations but they are what cause us to look after ourselves, to care for our bodies. When Jesus says, Blessed is those who hunger and thirst for what is right, he is saying that we should seek for what is right with as much zeal and concentration as when we are driven to look for food when we are hungry or drink when we are thirsty. We should allow ourselves to be driven with a desire that is primal and almost beyond our control not for our own welfare, but for the welfare of others.

Hungering and thirsting for what is right can mean that we end up in conflict with those who interests are tied up in what is not right. Jesus calls us to stand up with gentle dignity to those people and to continue to call for justice.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Over the years the Church has identified ways of behaving that are destructive. There are things that we all do which not only diminish others, but also harm us in the process, I’m referring to 1 John 5 verses 16 – 18 the seven deadly sins. Pride has always been considered the first and worst sin. There is a good side to pride, for example taking pride in one’s appearance. Not to do so may be a sign of poor self-esteem. But pride becomes deadly when it leads us to think that we are better than others and always right. The sin of greed alerts us to the danger of never being content. Then there is lust, sloth, gluttony, anger and envy. They are called deadly sins but are better termed deadly motives. Taken together they help us identify the good from the not so good, and help us spot what is destructive before too much damage is done.

Life is complex, and we all have mixed motives. Our loving in even the best of us can be shot through with selfishness. It is why Jesus taught his disciples Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. When we pray for purity of heart, we allow God access to our inner conflicts so that he can sort us out, so that one day we can look him in the face.

Mercy is not a popular virtue in a culture of self-assertiveness. But the journey Jesus invites us to make in his company includes the transformation of our relationships. Mercy reaches beyond mere toleration to forgiveness and acceptance.

We cannot always choose what we feel about people or situations, but we can choose what we do, what we say, and how we say it. Jesus invites us not only to pray for purity of heart, but also for the grace to re-order our lives and priorities so that mercy reaches deeper into our world.

Being people of mercy means that we pay attention not to what we feel but what we do, and that we reorder our lives with actions of compassion and love.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus calls us to seek peace peaceably. This intension peaceful search for peace reflects the deep character of God who also always and everywhere seeks peace for the world.

The eight beatitude raises the topic of persecution, which in the gospel might point to physical or verbal abuse. The type of persecution being one that is brought on because of righteousness.

Seeking righteousness may mean that we encounter persecution, but this reminds us of the cross and the fact that despite his own great suffering, Jesus rose again.

In his ministry Jesus announced that the kingdom of God was near and called his followers to live as citizens of his kingdom. This means that God’s rule of justice and mercy is breaking into the world and we should live through this is a reality, only by the help of God enables us to do this. We are to do this whole heartly.

May we pray

Jesus’ lord of time

Hold us in your eternity Jesus image of God

Travel with us the life of faith

Jesus’ friend of sinners

Heal the brokenness of our world

Jesus’ lord of tomorrow

Draw us into your future. Amen.