The Beatitudes in Light of Good & Pretti

Message for Epiphany 4, given Feb. 1, 2026, on 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, Matthew 5:1-12 at St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Richardson, Texas

When Jesus sees the crowd in Matthew 5, he does not begin with healings, commandments, parables, or even asking for someone’s lunch to feed the people.

He begins with blessing–telling people they are fortunate, lucky, smiled upon by God.

Jesus looks at the very people who feel small, afraid, disoriented, or heartsick about the state of the world, the chaos of their community, the crises in their families — and Jesus says, “You are not forgotten. You are not outside God’s favor. You are really the blessed ones. For you are exactly where the kingdom begins.”

Maybe we hear this differently today—because so many of us, so many in Minnesota, so many across the country, and the world, are carrying grief, anger, and fear.
Fear about violence.
Worry about civil unrest.
Distress about the use of force against those exercising their rights.
Fear about safety, and real confusion about the future of our communities and our country.
Some feel powerless. Some feel unheard. Some feel like the ground beneath us is shifting.
Jesus sees all of this on the faces in front him, including our faces today, and the grieving, angry, broken-hearted faces in Minnesota, across the country, and in our conflict-ridden, unsettled world,
And into all of that, Jesus does not offer a political slogan.
He offers a way of being human.

But, we struggle with his words, his solution, his vision.
Is this really the time and place for the Beatitudes?
Because honestly, the Beatitudes sound naïve at first, don’t they? (Can I say this outloud in church?)
Blessed are the meek?
Blessed are the merciful?
Blessed are the peacemakers?
In a world that seems driven by domination, force, and outrage, this sounds… foolish.

Which is exactly where the Apostle Paul meets us in 1 Corinthians.
“The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,” Paul says, “but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
The cross does not look like power.
It looks like losing. It looks like weakness. It looks like love that refuses to retaliate, or match violence with violence.

But Paul says, This is exactly how God works.
God chooses what the world calls foolish to shame the wise.
God chooses what the world calls weak to shame the strong.
God shows up not in domination, but in self-giving love (that in the end has the power to overcome death).

So when Jesus blesses the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek — he is not romanticizing suffering. Jesus reveals where God is already at work.

Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
This is not a command to feel sad. It is a permission to tell the truth. To mourn is to admit: things are not as they should be. Lives have been lost. Trust has been broken. Communities are afraid. People feel unseen, unheard, or unsafe. Mourning is not weakness. Mourning is spiritual honesty.
To mourn Alex Pretti and Renee Good is to demand honesty that things are not as they should be.

Jesus says the ones who dare to face reality without numbing, without pretending, without hardening their hearts — those are the ones who will encounter God’s comfort.

Not shallow reassurance, but the deep presence of a God who has also suffered, also wept, also been wounded by violence.
And there, you are fully human and fortunate, lucky and blessed to have the courage to live in the truth and the comfort of the God who holds you in the world that is not yet right. Because this is where God is at work in you and through you.

Jesus says Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness
Jesus does not say, “Blessed are those who are satisfied.”
He blesses those who hunger and thirst.

This is the longing for a world where people are treated with dignity.—not escorted to the car during an immigration arrest in their underwear, wrapped in a blanket in the dead of winter.
This is the hungering for a justice that applies to all human beings made in the image of God, even when an arrest is necessary. 
Where truth matters. Where power serves life instead of crushing it. This is a holy longing.

And here is where the cross reshapes us. Hunger and thirst for righteousness is not the same as hunger for revenge. It is not winning at all costs. It cannot be fueled by hatred. Our anger is channeled and transformed at the cross so we can be fueled by love for our neighbor — even the neighbor with whom we disagree.

This kind of righteousness can look slow. It grows like a seed rather than a burst. And yes, to the world, it looks foolish. Yet there, when you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you are fully human and fortunate, lucky and blessed—because you will be filled with a right relationship with God. You will know that Jesus’ relationship with you heals. You will know the righteousness of Jesus which restores us even now, even when the world has not yet come into the fullness of the kingdom. Because this is where God is at work in you and through you.

Jesus says, Blessed Are the Merciful and the Peacemakers
Mercy does not mean ignoring harm.
Peacemaking does not mean pretending everything is fine.

Mercy means we refuse to let bitterness have the last word in our hearts. Because each of us requires grace at the end of every day—none of us are perfect—and the same is true for every other person on the planet, especially when we stop calculating that someone else’s sin as worse than ours. We all stand on equal footing, in need of grace and mercy.

Peacemaking means we work for a world where truth and reconciliation can meet. Jesus does not bless the peace-lovers. He blesses the peace-makers — the ones who step into tension without violence, who speak truth without contempt, who seek accountability without dehumanizing. This is hard. This peacemaking requires courage and the Holy Spirit. Because our instincts run toward outrage or withdrawal. 

We were in Orlando this past week visiting the most beautiful granddaughter in the world. At the airport coming home on Friday, some passengers told us the tension on their tram to get from the terminal to the gate was so high, two men almost got into a fist fight on the crowded airport train. They said a woman standing near them stepped between the 2 men, pushed out her arms to separate them, and said, “we’re not doing this here!” And a fight was averted. She was a courageous peace-maker, where God was at work.
On the cross, Jesus absorbed violence without returning it. He exposed injustice without becoming unjust.

This is not passivity. It is the strongest thing love can do. Jesus calls us into this kind of bravery: love that tells the truth while love refuses to hate.

And there, when you are merciful, when you are a peacemaker, you are fully human and fortunate, lucky and blessed because you are embraced by God’s mercy, and you see God so clearly, overcoming death with life through the cross working through you and in you.
This is what God has done for Renee Good, and for Alex Pretti. They see God. And even in the tragedy of their deaths, we trust God is still at work, bringing light where we cannot yet see it.

Jesus ends with this: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.”
When you feel misunderstood for choosing mercy…
When you feel out of step with a culture of outrage…
When you feel insignificant for choosing love over dominance…
You are not alone.
You are walking the same road Jesus walked.
The Beatitudes are not instructions for how to avoid suffering.
They are a promise that suffering for love is never wasted in God’s kingdom.

For the kingdom does not come through domination. It comes through the cross of Jesus Christ—a love so powerful that God defeated sin, death and the devil and rose again to bring resurrected life to Jesus and to all of us!

We trust the power of this eternal life and love of God which is more powerful than death itself!

So we trust that the kingdom comes through foolish, Beatitude-people filled with the love of Christ Jesus, and who are shaped by the cross.
Filled with this Spirit, we can

• tell the truth about our grief without losing hope.
• long for justice without surrendering to hatred.
• engage the world without becoming hardened or embittered by it.
• We pray.
• We listen.
• We refuse to caricature those who see things differently.
• We support what protects human dignity and the common good.
• We act in ways that align with the mercy we have received.

And we are filled with Hope. The Beatitudes are not wishful thinking. They are a map of where God is already working. 

Where people are honest enough to mourn — God is there.
Where people ache for what is right — God is there.
Where mercy interrupts bitterness — God is there.
Where someone steps between two angry people and says, “We’re not doing this here” — God is there.

This world began at the cross.
It is growing steadily, stubbornly, through ordinary people, like you and me, who choose the foolish, Beatitude way of Jesus.
And one day, Jesus Christ will finish what he started.

Until then, the kingdom comes like this:
Every time you refuse to hate someone who has made you afraid.
Every time you tell the truth without contempt.
Every time you choose mercy when outrage would be easier.
Every time you work for justice without losing your soul.

This week, I invite you to ask, “Where can I live the Beatitudes today?”
And you are most fully human and fortunate, lucky and blessed because that foolish, cross-shaped love —is where the kingdom is breaking-in through you.