The Sermon on the Mount in Our World, Part 1: Blessed are the Poor

This is the first of a semi-daily blog series about the Sermon on the Mount. I want to go through the Sermon from Matthew 5 teaching-by-teaching and talk about each teaching in the context of today's world. This being a blog about Christianity and politics, these modern-day applications will of course focus on public policy and governing. This will come from Matthew 5:3-7:27, and the translation is the NRSV, although I will reference others as well (noted in parentheses throughout.)

The stained glass series presented throughout the Beatitudes comes from Saint Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Seward, Nebraska. The story behind these beautiful pieces of art can be found here. The captions under each come directly from the St. Vincent de Paul's website.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." -Matthew 5:3

The Crown and Scepter symbolize the Kingdom of Heaven; the dove the Holy Spirit; the hand reaching from the flower symbolizes humility.

Jesus opens his Sermon with the Beatitudes, a set of blessings commonly found in Hebrew writings. Jesus, however, shakes things up from the start by pronouncing blessings on a very unlikely group of people. His first: the poor in spirit, or the hopeless (CEV).

In first century Palestine, this encompassed a very large part of the population. Most people in ancient Palestine lived in abject poverty. They lived hand to mouth, and had to constantly worry about the whims of the Roman proconsul or legionnaires. The tension, stress, and want they lived with engulfed them in a poverty of spirit, a lack of hope. Nothing had ever been good for them. Why would anyone ever think it would?

So Jesus making them the very first line of his great Sermon is huge. Immediately, he is reaching out to people listening, most of whom lived in despair and without hope. Immediately, he told them they are blessed before all others. What a way to get them listening!

Who are the poor in spirit in our world today? Notice Jesus doesn't just say "the poor" here. Now, I'll admit, when I first began embracing progressive Christianity, this bothered. I thought it must be a mistranslation. Wouldn't it make more sense for Jesus to just say "the poor?" I never quite understood it.

But by saying "the poor in spirit," Jesus casts a wider net in today's world. There are many people who live in poverty. There are many more who suffer not just from a lack of wealth, but from depression, or mental illness, or addiction, or loss. This is the poor in spirit in our world.

And yet, they are often the most forgotten. I wrote just today about how the mentally ill are becoming the first victims of states' refusal to accept federal dollars for Medicaid expansion, as safety net hospitals are forced to turn away patients. When it comes to living up to Jesus' first blessing, we are failing miserably.

Two-thirds of the homeless population in the United States are mentally ill. Over 90% of suicides involve a someone suffering from a mental illness. Since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, over 100,000 veterans have been treated by the VA for mental illness. 57% of children with mental health issues come from families living under the poverty line.

And yet, our nations leaders continue with a push for brutal austerity that inevitably falls hardest on those who need help the most. When cuts happen to federal and state budgets, they don't fall on corporate subsidies and perks. They fall on Medicaid, on DHS, on CHIP, on addiction counseling. Every time we cut more and more in a effort to stop the "takers," we are leaving behind thousands of the mentally ill and needy. We are leaving behind the poor in spirit that Jesus spoke of with his first breath in the Sermon.

If the poor in spirit are so important that Jesus felt compelled to name them first, why do we make them the last in our society today?