Text used – Luke 10:25-37

• Reminder of summer sermon series on Beatitudes
  • Dive deeper into one Beatitude each week
  • Today’s Beatitude: Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.[1] → And I feel like, of all the Beatitudes – the ones we’ve already covered and the ones yet to come – this is the one that’s the most deceptively simple.
    • Maybe it’s the repetitiveness of it? (Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy”)
    • Maybe it seems the most obvious, so it’s easier to gloss over it?
    • Maybe we just think mercy is a no-brainer? Like, of course we should be merciful … okay, next?
    • But despite the seemingly-simple language of this particular blessing that Jesus gave, there’s some much deeper depths to plumb here.
• So to start off with this morning, let’s all gather around the same definition of mercy.
  • Looking at the original languages
    • Gr. = admittedly relatively simple → “mercy” = sympathy, pity
    • Heb. “mercy” = much deeper, more complex word à goodness, favor, kindness, faithfulness, loyalty
    • Now, you might be saying, “But the New Testament was written in Greek? Why are we bringing the Hebrew word into this particular linguistic occasion?” Yes, the New Testament was written in Greek … but we have to remember that Jesus was a Jew most likely speaking Aramaic, a very close linguistic relative to Hebrew, when he actually declared these words of blessing to the crowd. As a practicing Jew, Jesus’ particular understanding of mercy would have been inextricably interwoven with what he said.
      • Concept of “mercy” = prominent throughout the First Testament à particularly prominent in the Exodus story and the Psalms
        • Almost exclusively used for humans seeking God’s mercy OR to describe God’s mercy for the people → Fr. Casey Cole: To understand why God acts with mercy, it’s helpful to consider the Hebrew word most used to describe God: hesed. While most often translated into English as “mercy” or “kindness,” the word suggests something far greater than a mere outward show of niceties. Imbedded in the word is a sense of steadfast fidelity and overwhelming generosity. This is the essential story of the Old Testament; it’s a story of a people coming to know and obey a God who chooses them and remains faithful to them even when they are not faithful to him. … When God reveals hesed, [God] is not just being nice; [God’s] acting from a commitment that [God] cannot break. When God shows hesed, [God] isn’t just doing random acts of kindness; [God] is showing love for a people intimately connected to [Godself]. In other words, when God acts in this way, [God] does so, not because of who Israel is, but because of who [God] is in relation to Israel: faithful and generous. [God] knows that they are all in this together.[2] → This discussion of mercy highlights two essential elements of mercy – elements that we have to keep in mind as we explore this particular Beatitude this morning.
          • First = abundantly generous, unearned nature of mercy
          • Second = communal quality of mercy → This communal quality is one of the things that sets this Beatitude apart from the others. All of the other blessings that Jesus declares can be solitary acts of faith or are acts of faith that can be shared intimately between God and an individual believer. But this one – Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy – requires relationship. It requires interaction. It requires the Other.
            • Can’t be merciful on your own à to show mercy, someone else has to be the recipient
• That’s why I turned to one of the most well-known Scripture stories this morning: Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan.
  • Story of intentional, inescapable relationship
  • Story of mercy → more particularly, it’s a story of mercy from unexpected places
  • Begins with back-and-forth btwn Jesus and one of the legal experts – text: A legal expert stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to gain eternal life?” Jesus replied, “What is written in the Law? How do you interpret it?” He responded, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.” But the legal expert wanted to prove that he was right, so he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”[3] → 2 important things to notice in this intro
    • FIRST = legal expert’s intentions → Scripture makes it abundantly clear that there are ulterior motives here.
      • Text said the legal expert “stood up to test Jesus” → Gr. = try or tempt → same word used to describe Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness → The legal expert isn’t just innocently asking Jesus a question. He isn’t bringing this rising-star-rabbi a question that’s been burning in his heart and soul. There is a deeper, less benevolent purpose brewing here.
    • SECOND = broader definition of neighbor from the outset → Throughout the millennia, the word “neighbor” has come to mean that people that live on my street. As a kid who grew up in the country, I always told people we didn’t have any neighbors because nobody lived “next door.” But this Greek word is significantly more expansive than that.
      • Gr. “neighbor” just means “near” or “close by” → even expands as far as simply meaning “fellow human being” in various parts of the NT
  • To drive that point home, Jesus tells the impertinent legal expert this story about an injured man and his unexpected rescuer.
    • Man traveling the road from Jerusalem to Jericho → notoriously dangerous road, especially for a lone traveler
    • Man = accosted by thieves who “stripped him naked, beat him up, and left him near death”[4]
    • 3 very particular people encountered the man as he lay there bleeding and dying on the side of the road
      • Priest
      • Levite (both holy men → various levels of priestly class/religious hierarchy)
      • Samarian
        • Reminder: Samaritans despised as children of mixed unions btwn Jews and Assyrians who conquered Israelites in 732 BCE → As the people of Israel were instructed by God not to intermarry with other nations, the Samaritan – living, breathing, walking, praying proof of those forbidden unions – were looked down on as less than … inferior … abominations.
      • Both the holy men – those you’d expect to “know better” – walked right past the broken and bleeding man
      • Samaritan stops and helps → But he does more than just giving the man a hand up and a cursory piece of clothing. – text: A Samaritan, who was on a journey, came to where the man was. But when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, tending them with oil and wine. Then he placed the wounded man on his own donkey, took him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day, he took two full days’ worth of wages and gave them to the innkeeper. He said, ‘Take care of him, and when I return, I will pay you back for any additional costs.’[5]
        • Notice – text: “he was moved with compassion” → Gr. “compassion” = very closely related to “mercy” → They aren’t the exact same word, but they share the same root. So this pull to mercy moved the hands … the feet … the heart of the Samaritan.
        • Also notice the overabundance of provision from the Samaritan
          • Approach the beaten man (more than anyone else had done so far!)
          • Bandaged his wounds, “tending them with oil and wine”
          • Put him on his own donkey
          • Took him to an inn
          • Cared for him (for how long? → doesn’t say)
          • Paid a significant amount of money to the innkeeper to continue caring for him
  • Story of the good Samaritan = story of generous abundance in relationship = STORY OF MERCY
    • Mercy unexpected
    • Mercy unearned
    • Mercy given anyway
• Today’s Beatitude = flip side to last week’s Beatitude
  • Last week = Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled[6] → talked about how righteousness = justice and how God calls us to act for justice
  • Catholic priest and international peace/nonviolence advocate John Dear sheds light on the connection btwn justice and mercy: While we struggle for justice on the one hand, Jesus says, we offer mercy with our other hand, especially toward those who have hurt us and those declared by the culture of violence not to be worthy of mercy. He calls us to show mercy every day of our lives, to make mercy our way of life, and to help create a new culture of mercy. As we do, he promises, we too will be shown mercy.[7] → In order to be able to enact that justice in a way that is pleasing to God – in a way that is aligned with God’s heart and God’s definition of justice – mercy has to be a part of that action … to drive and infuse that action.
    • Mercy unexpected
    • Mercy unearned
    • Mercy given anyway
      • Given even when we find it uncomfortable
      • Given even when we can’t understand it
      • Given even (and especially) when what we’d rather see is retribution
      • Given to others … because that’s how God continues to give to us each and every day: generously … lovingly … fully
      • Cole: This is what it means to show mercy. It’s not about ignoring justice or allowing ourselves to be treated like doormats; it’s about being so permeated by God’s fidelity and generosity to humanity that we show the same commitment to others. It’s about widening the circle of people we call our own. When we are able to love so inclusively that our generosity knows no bounds, that no one can approach us without receiving our mercy, we are on the way of Beatitude.[8] → Truly, friends, blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Amen.

[1] Mt 5:7 (NRSV).

[2] Casey Cole. The Way of Beatitude: Living Radical Hope in a World of Division and Despair. (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2022), 59-60.

[3] Lk 10:25-29.

[4] Lk 10:30.

[5] Lk 10:33-35.

[6] Mt 5:6 (NRSV).

[7] John Dear. The Beatitudes of Peace: Meditations on the Beatitudes, Peacemaking and the Spiritual Life. (New London: Twenty-Third Publications, 2016), 71.

[8] Cole, 67-68.

Text used – Isaiah 58:6-12

• Reminder of summer sermon series on Beatitudes
  • Dive deeper into one Beatitude each week
  • Interesting: the more we dive into these, the more we see just how challenging and countercultural Jesus’ blessings were/continue to be
• So this morning, we’re going to start our conversation about the 4^th Beatitude by talking about language. More specifically, we’re going to talk a little bit about the fluidity of language – about how language evolves and changes over time.
  • Indeed, there are new words being added to the English language all the time. I looked up the most recent additions to Dictionary.com[1] (from winter 2023), and they ranged from the serious to the silly.
    • Cakeage: the fee charged by a restaurant for serving a cake brought in from outside
    • Nearlywed: a person who lives with another in a life partnership, sometimes engaged with no planned wedding date, sometimes with no intention of ever marrying
    • Rage farming: the tactic of intentionally provoking political opponents, typically by posting inflammatory content on social media, in order to elicit angry responses and thus high engagement or widespread exposure for the original poster
    • Petfluencer: a person who gains a large following on social media by posting entertaining images or videos of their cat, dog, or other pet
    • All of these are words or terms that had absolutely no meaning just a few years ago. And yet, they’ve become accepted enough to be included in the dictionary.
  • Flipside = words that have fallen into disuse[2]
    • Beef-witted: slow-witted; stupid. According to the United Editors Encyclopedia and Dictionary, “beef-witted” implies “a heavy, ox-like intellect.” Other sources say it’s because back in the day, people believed that eating too much beef would make you dumb
    • Cockalorum: a braggart, a person with an overly high opinion of themselves
    • Fudgel: pretending to work when you’re really just goofing off
    • Growlery: The word “growlery” was created by Charles Dickens. It means “a place where you can retreat from the world when you’re in bad mood.”
  • And within the life of the church, I think we find ourselves in both an odd and privileged place when it comes to language. You see, the Church as an institution – as a wider body – has specific terms and phrases that carry particular meaning within the realm of faith and spirituality.
    • Words used outside the church world BUT words that carry particular weight and meaning within the church world
      • E.g. = grace → As Christians, we put a very strong emphasis on grace.
        • Definition on the PC(USA) website: Grace is defined as favor, blessing, or goodwill offered by one who does not need to do so. It is unearned and undeserved favor. In our sinful condition as humans, undeserving as we are of God’s love, it is God’s goodwill and favor reaching out to redeem us.[3] → If you go out into the world and use the word “grace” in a non-church context, people will know what grace is, but they may not be familiar with the nuances and particularities of the faith-based definition.
    • I said that the Church as an institution is in an odd and privileged place because the Church has also become sort of a museum for terms. To put it frankly, things don’t change quickly in the Church, and that includes language. So while the language outside the realm of the Church shifts quickly – adding new words to the dictionary every year while other words fall out of favor just as quickly – the Church has a tendency to hang onto words in a way that has actually become pretty exclusionary.
      • Exclusionary because they’re so foreign – so unfamiliar – to anyone who didn’t grow up in church → Sometimes, it can be like listening to a conversation among military personnel. No one loves a good acronym or abbreviation like the military … but the church comes close!
        • E.g. – I can tell you that my husband’s rank listed on his DD214 was an E4 PFC and his MOS was 11B, though the unit he was with at the time of his ETS was 12B unit.
        • Church e.g. – language in the bulletin → A number of years ago, we made the conscious choice to take a lot of the “churchy” language out of the bulletin to make it easier to decipher.
          • Assurance of Pardon → God’s Promise of Grace
          • Prayer for Illumination → Prayer to Open Minds and Hearts
          • Benediction → Blessing
• We’re diving deeply into language and meaning today because I think that’s one of the challenges that we face with this morning’s Beatitude: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.[4]
  • Challenge = “righteousness” → I think “righteousness” is one of those church words that has sort of left us at odds with the world around us.
    • “Righteous” isn’t really used in the wider world much anymore → And if it is, it’s used in a way that’s facetious – said sort of tongue-in-cheek or sarcastically, more in reference to someone who thinks they’re righteous than someone who actually is And yet here it is in many translations of this particular Beatitude: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
  • However, we have to remember that the Scripture we read is a translation, and anyone who’s ever learned or attempted to learn another language can tell you, translation is an imperfect thing because sometimes a word in one language either has no equivalent in the other language or has many equivalents!
    • E.g. – llunga in Kasai or Tshiluba language spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo → meaning: the ability to forgive a person for an offence or abuse the first time, to tolerate it the second time, but never a third![5]
  • Taking a look at this Beatitude, then, how else can we translate that word “righteousness”?
    • Gr. charity, justice, equity → element of salvation to this word
      • Shares same root as the word for deacon – ordained office in the church charged with the ministry of “compassion, witness, and service, sharing in the redeeming love of Jesus Christ for the poor, the hungry, the sick, the lost, the friendless, the oppressed, those burdened by unjust policies or structures, or anyone in distress.”[6]
  • So when we add that translation – that level of understanding – to this fourth blessing that Jesus laid out, we can see why Casey Cole paired this particular Beatitude with our centering prayer word this morning: longing.
    • Hungering and thirsting … longing … desire … desperation → Nowhere will we find greater longing or deeper desire than those suffering injustice … those hungering and thirsting for equity, for inclusion, for freedom, for their rights and their very existence.
• Reason I chose this particular Scripture passage from Is this morning → outright call for justice in all its forms
  • Speaks of injustices
  • Simultaneous speaks of ways that we can work against those injustices AND the blessing that comes from that work – text: Isn’t it sharing your bread with the hungry and bringing the homeless poor into your house, covering the naked when you see them, and not hiding from your own family? Then your light will break out like the dawn, and you will be healed quickly. … If you remove the yoke from among you, the finger-pointing, the wicked speech; if you open your heart to the hungry, and provide abundantly for those who are afflicted, your light will shine in the darkness, and your gloom will be like the noon.[7]
    • Heb. “afflicted” basically covers anything and everything that weighs down a person’s heart and soul
      • Things that suppress
      • Things that overpower
      • Things that violate
      • Things that humiliate
• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be filled. Truly, friends, we find ourselves in a time in history in which there is deep, desperate hungering and thirsting for justice.
  • Read portion from Cole’s The Way of Beatitude[8]
  • Friends, we live in a world in which so many of our friends, family members, neighbors, co-workers, and fellow human beings are not just denied their rights but denied their very selves. They are told over and over again in a thousand different ways that they cannot be who they are – that there is something wrong with who they are, that they must change, that they must adapt, that they must simply “deal with it because this is how it is.”
    • Injustice based on …
      • Color of their skin
      • Citizenship status
      • Gender identity
      • Sexual orientation
      • Religious affiliation
      • Ethnic background
    • Laws passed against them
    • Violence perpetuated against them
    • Hate speech ringing out from some of the highest halls of government (and the church!) and blasted from news outlets against them
      • To be honest, friends, it’s hearing these injustices perpetuated in the name of God that I find the most infuriating, the most sacrilegious. We are told in Scripture that all humanity is created in God’s image. We are told to love one another. We are told that it is God’s job alone to judge while it is our job to care for each other. And yet there are pulpits all around the country today spewing words of hate; words of exclusion; words of judgment and hypocrisy and shame; words that draw a thick, jagged, ugly line between “us” and “them,” between a very small group of people supposedly loved by God and everyone else.
• Through it all, we hear God’s call:
  • Jesus: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be filled.
  • Today’s text: Isn’t this the fast I choose: releasing wicked restraints, untying the ropes of a yoke, setting free the mistreated, and breaking every yoke?[9]
  • You see, even in the midst of blessing, Jesus promises justice. Even when we broken and imperfect humans can’t seem to get it right, Jesus promises justice. And yet even when we broken and imperfect humans can’t seem to get it right, God still calls us to do better. – text: If you remove the yoke from among you, the finger-pointing, the wicked speech; if you open your heart to the hungry, and provide abundantly for those who are afflicted, your light will shine in the darkness, and your gloom will be like the noon.
    • Cole: This is what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness. To be a disciple of Christ, we need not die of starvation or dehydration, but we must know what it feels like to be desperate. … As Christians, we are called to sit in the discomfort of our present age, to let the dissatisfaction of the way things are drive us to want something more. We mustn’t hide from it, and we mustn’t grow weary. Let the yearning in our hearts grow so painful that we cannot bear the thought of living another day in this day, and let that sense of urgency, guided by the light of faith, pour over into the life of the world. When we refuse to accept anything less than the kingdom of heaven, we are on the way of Beatitude.[10]
  • Truly, friends, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be filled.” Amen.

[1] https://www.dictionary.com/e/new-dictionary-words-winter-2023/.

[2] https://www.k-international.com/blog/obsolete-english-words/.

[3] https://www.presbyterianmission.org/what-we-believe/grace/.

[4] Mt 5:6 (NRSV).

[5] https://www.getblend.com/blog/difficult-words-translate/.

[6] Book of Order, G-2.0201.

[7] Is 58:7-8a, 9b-10.

[8] Casey Cole. The Way of Beatitude: Living Radical Hope in a World of Division and Despair. (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2022), 45-46.

[9] Is 58:6.

[10] Cole, 55.

Text used – Luke 16:19-31

• Reminder of summer sermon series on Beatitudes
  • Dive deeper into one Beatitude each week
  • Pair Beatitude with another text as well as a focus word (centering prayer for the day)
  • A couple weeks ago – “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” – was a difficult one because of the way it’s been used to dismiss or diminish people’s grieving processes
  • And I think this week’s Beatitude can be another difficult one because of the ways it’s been used in the past.
    • Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.[1]
    • Used as justification for subjugation
      • In cases of slavery
      • In unhealthy relationships (abusive, manipulative)
      • In religious circumstances that keep women suppressed, subdued, and separate
      • But these are all ways that this blessing of Jesus’ has been twisted – twisted for harm instead of good.
• Much of our misunderstanding of this Beatitude comes from the way the term “meek” has come to be almost synonymous with weakness
  • What’s a stereotypical “meek” person?
    • Quiet
    • Small (personality/presence, not necessarily physically)
    • Unassuming
    • Passive
    • But the thing is, none of those things have anything to do with the Greek word Jesus uses in this particular passage. → Gr. “meek” = more about kindness, being gentle but strong, humility
      • Word that Jesus uses to describe himself 2 other times in Mt’s gospel
        • Mt 11:29: “Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble.”
        • Mt 21:5 (quoting prophet Zechariah as part of his entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week): “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘Look, your king is coming to you, humble and riding on a donkey’”
      • So right off the bat, as we consider and dig into this Beatitude, we have to set aside our preconceived notions of what “meekness” might be.
        • Beatrice Smith: Meekness is not to be confused with weakness. It is the exercising of strength under control – the demonstration of power but without being unduly harsh. The meaning of meek is to find the balance in exercising power with restraint, in which God is perfectly able.[2]
        • Another important layer of definition from Casey Cole: The reality is there is nothing weak or cowardly about being meek. Quite the opposite, actually. What makes someone meek is not fear, but rather unflappable courage. The meek person remains quite because they feel no need to speak; they respond with peace because there is nothing to threaten them.[3]
• It’s the flipside of this definition – a lack of courage and humility – that drew me to today’s Scripture reading from Luke’s gospel: Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus.
  • Parable = part of Jesus’ teachings about money in Lk’s gospel → end of larger section that begins: The Pharisees, who were money-lovers, heard all of this and sneered at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves before other people, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued by people is deeply offensive to God.”[4]
    • Jesus proceeds to tell story about the rich man and Lazarus
      • Lazarus = poor man with a chronic illness who lay at the gate of the rich man → Now, Jesus doesn’t give us any kind of timeframe or definitive timeline for this particular story. We aren’t told how long Lazarus lay at the rich man’s get. But we do get the impression that it was more than just a one-time visit.
        • Implications of ongoing nature in the tense of some of the Gr. words in this part of the text, particular when it says: Lazarus longed to eat the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table.[5] → The tense of that Greek word that gets translated as “longed for” is an ongoing word. It’s a word that implies continuous action as opposed to a one-off action. So however long he was laying there, Lazarus longed more than once for the crumbs from the rich man’s table.
      • But alas, Lazarus dies without any alleviation of his troubles. → “carried by angels to Abraham’s side”[6]
      • Rich man also dies → “and was buried”[7]
      • And this is where the rubber really meets the road for the rich man. Jesus describes him as being “tormented in the place of the dead” when he looks up and sees Lazarus and Abraham side-by-side, presumably in a place of comfort and safety.
        • Rich man begs first for his own comfort → denied
        • Rich man begs for Abraham to send someone to warn his brothers of their fate (in the same vein as the three spirits that visit Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol) → once again denied
        • And in Abraham’s dialogue with the rich man here, we see something interesting. Or maybe it’s the lack of something that’s interesting. Not once does Abraham condemn the rich man for his wealth alone. Not once does he say anything about money. What he does point out is that in his life, Lazarus received no compassion. Lazarus received no help. “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received good things, whereas Lazarus received terrible things.”[8]
          • Scholar highlights further the rich man’s lack of both empathy and humility: Not once does it dawn on the rich man to speak to Lazarus directly as a fellow human being. It does not happen when the two men are alive; it does not happen when they exist in the worlds beyond mortality. The rich man operate on the assumption that Lazarus is beneath him, a mooch sprawled out on his doorstep covered in sores. In death, even after the illusion of supremacy has dissolved around him to reveal the truth about the way his attitude tormented others, the rich man still does not understand.[9]
  • When we hold Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus up side-by-side with this morning’s Beatitude – Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth – we find a clear warning about where a distinct lack of meekness can lead. → meekness would have led rich man to be both humble and courageous enough to first see a fellow human being who was suffering, then to move past that suffering to offer help … to offer hope … to offer grace … to offer love
    • Fr. Jacques Philippe: Although [meekness] is one of the most precious expressions of love, it is unfortunately quite rare in today’s hard, competitive world. Yet it remains a powerful tool for attracting and opening hearts.[10]
• And when we roll all those ideas up into one – all those concepts that make up true meekness: humility, courage, and love – we come to our focus word for today: confidence.
  • Some might think of confidence as the polar opposite of meekness, but only if one is functioning with the passive, submissive definition of meekness → When we allow ourselves and our faith to embrace a definition of meekness that is more about humility and courage and love, it leads us to a place of recognizing where our truest confidence lies: not in ourselves and our own abilities but in the goodness and love of the God who created us.
    • A goodness better than us on our best day
    • A love stronger and purer than the deepest love we feel in our own hearts
    • Smith: The gift of meekness is not thinking more lowly or more highly of ourselves than we should – it’s the gift of being able to think honestly about ourselves. We must acknowledge our limitations, be honest about the parts of our lives that aren’t yet complete. But we must also be able to recognize our strengths and what we can We can learn to recognize where we are able to make a difference and to celebrate our victories. In short, we can bring our successes and our failures to God.[11]
      • “Free to Be Me” by Francesca Battistelli

• • In a very real way, it’s something we pray every time we lift up the Lord’s Prayer: Thy will be done. → True meekness includes both the confidence in our own gifts to act on our faith in ways that matter – ways that demonstrate God’s love in this world – and also the confidence to lay aside whatever control we have in the midst of a situation and say, “Thy will be done, God. Not my will. Thy will.” Truly, friends, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Amen.

[1] Mt 5:5 (NRSV).

[2] Beatrice Smith. The Beatitudes: Eight Reflections Exploring the Countercultural Words of Jesus in Matthew 5. (London: Spring Harvest, 2023), 16-17.

[3] Casey Cole. The Way of Beatitude: Living Radical Hope in a World of Division and Despair. (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2022), 31.

[4] Lk 16:14-15.

[5] Lk 16:21a.

[6] Lk 16:22a.

[7] Lk 16:22b.

[8] Lk 16:25.

[9] Leah D. Schade. “Luke 16:19-31 – Theological Perspective” in Feasting on the Gospels – Luke, vol. 2. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), 106.

[10] Jacques Philippe. The Eight Doors of the Kingdom: Meditations on the Beatitudes. (New York: Scepter Publishers, 2018), 101.

[11] Smith, 17.