This lesser-known sermon of Jesus, the so-called Sermon on the Plain versus the better-known Sermon on the Mount, blesses those who are aware of their existential need. As Jeremiah says in the first reading, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose hope is in the Lord.” So, too, with Jesus, blessed are those who are poor, hungry, weeping or hated. To be living in these very-real economic or emotional states is to know that you need help: dependence on God, interdependence with others.
Time and time again, there’s no one more pathetic in the Bible than the person who needs no one, not even God. So it’s not really a surprise that, in his sermon today, Jesus also casts woes on those who are self-satisfied.
Back to the blessed person. Jeremiah uses an interesting image. For him, the blessed person “is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream.” This is an image of connectedness and vitality. So our Scriptures today call us to a receptivity and openness to the life that flows from God and others. It’s a call to be both “spiritual” and “worldly.” To be connected to the power and presence of God in our midst, AND connected to the world we live in, its suffering, injustices and sorrows. It’s a call to develop our kindness, compassion, humility and gratitude. It’s a call to live the Gospel to the fullest. As the writer CS Lewis once said, in what could be a one-line summary of today’s Gospel: “Aim at heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’; aim at earth and you will get neither.”