The gospel is about making a choice between the world's standards and God's. In these sayings, the beatitudes, Jesus challenges the standards of society. He proclaims an alternate moral universe where all values are reversed. The tables are turned. Our affluence is shown to be poverty.
Poverty is incredibly rich.
Such a reversal should be deeply disturbing to us for we live in an affluent society. I received an interesting email this week that gives a proper perspective on our position in the world scheme of things. Philip Harter, a medical doctor at Stanford University worked out the following statistics. Think of the earth as a village of one hundred people. Our village would consist of the following groups of people.