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How could he? How could Jesus have said this? How could Jesus have actually told a crowd made up mostly of poor people: ‘Blessed are you poor’?  Worse than that, the Greek word usually translated into English as ‘poor’ actually means ‘destitute’. Jesus is more or less saying: ‘You’re a lucky bunch, you destitute people’. Imagine going into Gaza or Sudan with your soap box just now and saying that, and the reaction there would be.  In Jesus’s favour, though, was that he himself was poor, the son of man who was probably a jobbing builder rather than a skilled carpenter in a cosy workshop, in infancy a refugee, and, in his own words, someone with no-where to lay his head.

Jesus was, of course, prone to hyperbole, exaggeration, to make his points. But, even so, what he said must certainly have caught his audience’s attention.

How happy you are who are destitute, for yours is the kingdom of God.

How happy you are who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

This is St Luke’s version, as we heard it in today’s gospel.  St Matthew recorded things slightly differently:

How happy are the poor in spirit, for ­theirs is the kingdom of God.

How happy are those who hunger and thirst of righteousness, for they will be filled.

But I think St Luke is probably more authentic, for these reasons.  First, on the Occam’s Razor principle, Luke’s version is simpler and shorter. Second, Matthew may well have been dumbing down an uncomfortable saying by qualifying ‘poor’ with ‘in spirit’ and qualifying ‘hunger’ with ‘and thirst for righteousness’, in other words, spiritualising a hard saying. And, thirdly, whereas Luke had Jesus actually addressing the crowd with ‘yours’ is the kingdom of God’, Matthew made it more theoretical and impersonal with ‘theirs’ rather than ‘yours’, again reducing its immediate impact.

So Luke’s stark version is probably the original: ‘Blessed are you destitute’, etc. So what are we to make of it?  Well, the clue is in what comes after: ‘for yours is the kingdom of God’ and ‘for you will be filled’.  There was something about the desperation and needs of these destitute people, suffering under the Roman occupation of their land, that made them more ready for other things.

It wasn’t long since Jesus had been reading from the Hebrew prophet Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue, including the words:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

And then he announced: ‘Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’, and soon afterwards he told a crowd of people:

I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God . . . for I was sent for this purpose.

And the good news for the poor and destitute was that the kingdom of God was now present and was actually theirs, within their ready grasp. He was telling them, as he tells us, that they and we are potentially in the kingdom of God and part of the kingdom of God.  It’s an invitation to join, not a compulsion like living in the Roman empire with a ruthless emperor in charge. We’ve only to listen to Jesus and follow his way to have entered God’s kingdom.  God’s kingdom is where the principles intrinsic to God’s nature are paramount.   They are the principle of God’s love for humanity – for all of us, as Jesus demonstrated; and the principle of our commitment to the principle of love and care for one another and the world, so far as it lies within our power.  God’s kingdom is not God’s despotic control, and certainly nothing like a dictatorship, but rather God’s invitation to join in.

So that leaves a burning question that underlies all of this, and it’s a difficult question to answer honestly and without being trite: how can the poor particularly experience God’s kingdom. The destitute of our world today, just like the destitute that Jesus was addressing, are desperate, and they cannot but help recognise their need. I’m not materially poor, and most of us here this morning aren’t either, though some may be. But we do have needs, and possibly desperate needs. The recognition of needs, be they serious or less so, is the way to find some sort of ultimate satisfaction that the world at large can’t either give or take away.

Some people who are disadvantaged or destitute are likely to curse God or curse the idea of a god who leaves them in poverty and hunger.  God can cope with that. But we also know that Christian faith, and sometimes other faith, can blossom in individuals and communities in the most poverty-stricken circumstances.

The Jewish writer, Elie Wiesel, has written of his horrific childhood experiences in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps, where poverty and hunger prevailed to an unimaginable degree. He recalls witnessing how, in Auschwitz, three Jewish scholars set up a trial of God in a pseudo-rabbinic court. God was on trial for how terrible things were, with evidence uttered on both sides.  Eventually, there was the unanimous verdict: ‘The Lord God almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, was found guilty of crimes against creation and humankind’. Then, Wiesel recalled, there was an ‘infinity of silence’, before, guess what – the scholars turned to their evening service. God proved indispensable. That sounds like faith to me.  I suspect Jesus would have told them the kingdom of God was theirs.

These Jewish scholars experienced the depths of poverty and hunger: they were entitled to speak as they did and then to act as they did.  I am not qualified to do so, and probably neither are you. We have not experienced what they did.  But we have all had lesser sufferings, or perhaps the equivalent, as would many of the people in Jesus’s crowd.

How happy you are who are destitute, for yours is the kingdom of God.

How happy you are who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

So, after struggling with Jesus’s description of the blessedness of poverty and hunger, what I can offer is simply this.  The context of what he said is the promise of being part of God’s kingdom. This involves sacrificial and caring love, received by us and potentially given by us, putting everything in a new perspective.

So where does all this leave us?  I must admit, I have struggled with the concept of the blessedness of destitution and the blessedness of hunger. Maybe it’s a matter of perspective, a reversal of the world’s priorities. Horrific as poverty and hunger undoubtedly are, some of those experiencing them may be more ready to find and experience the love that comes to those enrolled in the kingdom of God.  Even if not more ready to find and experience life in this kingdom than other mortals, maybe they and we are blessed in another way.  And that is when we find the new perspective on life and aims for living that are implicit in the kingdom of God, more ready to find love and to share it.  In the end, it seems to me, that’s what it’s all about, what life is all about.

Remember Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz’? Dorothy followed the Yellow Brick Road towards the Wizard of Oz, gathering companions on the way. But this led only to acute disappointment and disillusion when she got there and found – more clearly depicted in the book than in the film – only a charlatan with nothing to offer.  The search for the kingdom of God will not be like that at all.  Despite the inevitable ups and downs of life, it will be productive, and leads to ultimate happiness – or blessedness. It’s a valid alternative way of being. The kingdom is already here, you and I have entered it.  The challenge, and invitation, is to enter into it some more!

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.