Father John Dear reminds us that the Beatitudes are not polite blessings for private spirituality. It’s not chicken soup to nourish our souls during a quiet time with God.

The Beatitudes are Jesus’ nonviolent manifesto—a public declaration that God stands with the poor, the mourning, the meek, the justice-hungry, and the peacemakers.

Jesus was declaring a way of living that turns the world upside down, directly confronting every system that depends on fear and violence to survive. The Beatitudes unmask the lie that domination brings security and expose the myth that peace can be achieved through force. It is Jesus’ refusal to bow down to Herod, his rejection of religious nationalism, and, his insistence that the way of love—not fear, not coercion, not “comply or die”—is the only power that will heal this broke this world.

And yet, the reality is that most of us didn’t grow up hearing from that Jesus, the Jesus of the gospels: brown-skinned; Jewish; Palestinian; unjust law-breaker; anti-racist; one who was born poor and forced to flee racialized, state-sanctioned violence as a refugee in Egypt; one who was arrested and executed by the state for protesting and resisting systems that harm the least of these.

Instead, many of us were raised hearing about an alternative Jesus— a very white, privileged, moderate, capitalist Jesus, a “wise,” law-abiding Jesus shaped by flags, greed, and power. A Jesus who blesses order more than justice, silence more than truth, authority more than accountability, the privileged more than the vulnerable, and even violence if it preserves the status quo.

The version of the Beatitudes many of us were taught is the voice of what we might call “religious-nationalist Jesus.” It’s a voice that borrows Jesus’ name to protect systems that harm the vulnerable while protecting the privileged. I invite us to hear out loud what has already been speaking quietly to us for a long time.

It sounds something like something this…

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountain. He walked out on stage, flanked by uniforms and flags, and then spoke with the calm authority of one who never had to fear the law.

Blessed are the rich, for their hard work and great faith, God has given them the gift of prosperity.

Blessed are the strong, for they will never have to depend on anyone.

Blessed are the hard-hearted, for empathy clouds judgment.

Blessed are those who comply, for they will make it home alive.

Blessed are the merciless, for mercy interferes with enforcement, and that could get you murdered.

Blessed are those who do not mourn too loudly, for public grief makes people uncomfortable as it asks dangerous questions about deaths, cruelty, and suffering.

Blessed are the pure in heart who know how to stay in their place and keep their protests to themselves.

Blessed are those who do not hunger and thirst for justice, for justice is disruptive, and to the king, disruption looks like insurrection.

Blessed are the peacekeepers, not the peacemakers, but the ones who call pepper spray ‘domestic terrorist control’ and bullets ‘necessary force.’

Blessed are those who condemn protests in the name of civility, who call moral resisters “agitators,” “communists,” “Marxists,” and “antifa-types.”

But woe to you if you are poor, for you are obviously lazy and unfaithful.

Woe to you who are weak and need help from your neighbors.

And woe to you who march.

Woe to you who blow a whistle.

Woe to you if you block traffic.

Woe to you if you if you love your neighbor as yourself, if you dare to put your body between a masked agent and a woman shoved violently to the ground.

Woe to you if you bear witness to the truth you see with your own eyes instead of repeating the lies from those on high.

And blessed are those who echo the lies and blessed are ones who say, “well, there’s bad on both sides,” because bending the knee to power is safe, and neutrality feels like wisdom.

Rejoice and give thanks, for your reward is order without justice,
peace without righteousness, life without humanity, but a system that works exactly as it was designed.

And the crowds nodded, a few amens could be heard, because they knew their king would approve. It sounded like law and order. It sounded like good, common-sense, conservative values. It didn’t sound foolish at all. It sounded like the wisdom of the wise.

This thinking is perhaps what prompted the Apostle Paul to quote the prophet Isaiah: “For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise…’ …For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

Paul does not try to rescue the gospel from the charge of foolishness. He embraces it. He leans into it. He says, in effect: Yes. I know this way of love that Jesus taught and embodied looks foolish. I know the cross doesn’t look like wisdom to an empire that measures strength through domination. A crucified Messiah doesn’t inspire confidence in a world that believes security comes from force and order comes from fear.

And yet, Paul dares to say that this so-called foolishness is exactly how God is dismantling the violent wisdom of the world, “abolishing the things that are,” he writes.

This foolishness, says Paul, is the power of God.

It’s not the power to crush enemies, but the power to expose their lies and cruelty. It’s not the power of coercion, but the power of love that refuses to disappear even when it nailed to a cross or murdered on a public street.

This is why the Beatitudes and the cross belong together. Both seem foolish. Both look weak and impractical. Both seem absolutely powerless when confronting those invested in keeping things exactly the way they are. And both announce that God is not impressed by what those in high places call “wisdom.”

Paul reminds the church: “Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth.” In other words, not many of you are respected by those in power today. Not many of you would be called patriots or even people who love their country. But God is not going to ask their permission to choose you. God is not going to wait until the next election to call you. God is calling you today to change this world.

In this very moment, I believe God is choosing the foolish. God is choosing the weak. God is choosing the despised. God is choosing the poor in spirit. God is choosing the mourners. God is choosing the meek. God is choosing those who hunger and thirst for justice. God is choosing the peacemakers who refuse to confuse peace with silence.

And because this is who God chooses, Jesus speaks with a wisdom that sounds like foolishness, feels like resistance, and looks like hope.

When the world says, “Be obedient,” Jesus says, “Be merciful.”

When the world says, “Keep the peace,” Jesus says, “Make peace.”

When the world says, “Respect authority,” Jesus says, “Blessed are those who refuse to bow to evil.”

This is why protest makes power nervous. Not because it might lead to violence, but because it tells the truth. It exposes the gap between our rhetoric of equality and due process and the reality of racialized suffering. It reveals who is expected to absorb pain quietly, so that the privileged can remain comfortable.

And when people who are supposed to be invisible refuse silence, the wisdom of the world begins to unravel.

Paul says God chooses the foolish and the lowly. And Jesus says they are blessed now.

This means that God is not neutral. God is not undecided. God is not standing above history waiting to see who wins. No, it means God is already present—among the crucified, the criminalized, the grieving, the justice-hungry, the meek, and the merciful.

That’s why Jesus does not say the poor will be blessed eventually, after they stop being poor. He does not say the mourners will be blessed once they move on. He does not say the justice-hungry will be blessed when they stop resisting and wise up to the ways of the world. He says they are blessed now.

And we see that blessing even now. You can murder Renee Good for defending her neighbors, and Alex Pretti for protecting a woman shoved to the ground, but instead of killing love, you only multiply it. You only make it stronger, wider, deeper, and fiercer.

So, hear the good news today: mercy is not weak; empathy is not foolish; compassion is not soft; and love is far from powerless.

These things are dangerous—to injustice.
These things are disruptive—to systems that depend on fear.

And these things are powerful enough to dismantle a world shaped by domination and supremacy.

Love looks weak—until it refuses to die.

Mercy looks small—until it spreads.

Empathy looks foolish—until it builds movements.

Compassion looks soft—until it organizes, makes signs, marches, chants, sings, and exposes the evil of a system that dehumanizes, divides, and demonizes so it can survive.

The poor are not powerless; they are positioned.

The meek are not losers; they are inheritors.

Those who hunger and thirst for justice are not wasting away; they are bending the moral arch closer to the Kin-dom of God.

And those of us who mourn today are not abandoned; but we are being held close to the heart of God and are being reassured that God’s reign of love and justice is coming.

Not through religious nationalism or enforced conformity, but it comes through a foolish, cross-shaped love that refuses to let violence have the final word.

And blessed are all who believe this, because you are already living into God’s future.

Amen.