“Sermon on the Mount” by Aurel Naray. Image: http://www.hungarianartmastergallery.com
Blessed are the destitute, the desperate,
the bankrupt and impoverished,
the penniless, insolvent and exhausted,
all those who know they lack.
Blessed are those who bleed,
cut by the knives of race and class;
blessed are the aberrant,
eccentric, odd, and offbeat,
peculiar, queer, or freakish.
What, though, of the stiff and solid,
punctilious and diligent,
respected and presentable;
what of those who sit on
straight-backed chairs counting silver,
stashing it in sacks?
Which group will be welcomed
into the coming kingdom of rejoicing seas,
elated fields, and delighted, singing trees?
In the teeter-totter world
where the lowly are uplifted
and the pompous are pushed down,
open my hermetic seal to let
the pressured air of pride hiss out.
In emptiness alone
can I be filled.
Life Assays 
November 30, 2020 at 11:50 am
Artfully stated, Bob, and I think that the challenge of the Sermon on the Mount to affluent Christians and those who adhere to the prosperity gospel is how to let this sermon impact us. Certainly to detach from the pride of success and become spiritually impoverished is one way. I wonder if Jesus meant more as in his instruction to the punctilious, respected, diligent and presentable rich young ruler who wanted to inherit eternal life…which was, “sell everything you have and give it to the poor and follow me.” For a long time I let the beatitudes direct me to “being Jesus” to those who are marginalized, now I wonder if the challenge is to join them in some literal fashion as did Saint Francis of Assisi?
Thanks for sharing!
Peter Everts
December 1, 2020 at 10:31 pm
Thanks, Peter. I suspect that Jesus wasn’t so much trying to create a hurdle for the rich young ruler or any of us to jump over as he was pointing out a hurdle that is already present in our lives despite our blindness to it. Maybe some of us can see the danger full well, while others would actually have to literally join the poor in some way before our eyes could open.