4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Gospel – Matthew 5:1-12

Get It??

Mount of the Beatitudes

With all due respect to today’s Gospel, I offer this greatly ‘humorized’ version that I used in my Scripture classes!

Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain and gathered them around him.

He taught them saying:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are they that mourn.
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are they that thirst for justice.
Blessed are you when you are persecuted.
Blessed are you when you suffer.
Be glad and rejoice for your reward is great in heaven."

And James said "are we supposed to know this?"
And Simon Peter said "will we have a test on this?"
And Phillip said "I don’t have any paper."
And Bartholomew said "do we have to spell correctly?"
And Mark said "do we have to hand this in?"
And John said "the other disciples didn’t have to learn this."
And Matthew said "may I go to the toilet?"

Then one of the Pharisees who was present asked to see Jesus' lesson plan and inquired of Jesus:
"Where are your learning and assessment objectives?
What range of teaching strategies did you draw from?
Did you provide a differentiated provision?
Can I see a cross section of pupils’ work?

And Jesus wept.

I have to wonder!  Did the Apostles get it?  Did they understand?  Or perhaps did they understand all too well and were reluctant or fearful to carry out the message? Did Jesus have to spend more time and more detail to get it across to them?  

We are all called to be merciful, meek, poor in spirit, recognizing that we are dependent on God! We are called to be peacemakers, clean of heart, comforters, hungry for justice and righteousness.  What we are given in today’s Gospel are our marching orders – to go forth with the right attitude, to act on our beliefs and faith, all those qualities expressed in the Beatitudes.    

Do we get it?  Do we understand the task assigned to us? 

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