Everybody knows:

1+1=2: But Jesus says, “two shall become one,” (1+1=1).
The more you save the more you have: But Jesus says, “the more you give, the more you have.” (4-2=6, 4-3=7)

Jesus also formulates some other rather odd equations:

You + poor in spirit = being part of the kingdom of heaven
You + meekness = inheriting the earth
You + being reviled and persecuted falsely on account of Jesus = Blessings

“If we didn’t already know but were asked to guess the kind of people Jesus would pick out for special blessings, we might be tempted to guess one sort or another of spiritual hero. If so, we would be wrong.

In Matthew’s telling of the story of Jesus giving his sermon on the mount, the blessings Jesus gives are for those who side with Heaven even when any fool can see it’s the losing side and all you get for your pains is pain. Looking into the faces of his auditors that day, he speaks to them directly saying, ‘Blessed are you.’

You can see them looking back at him. They’re not what you’d call a high-class crowd – peasants and fisherfolk mostly, on the shabby side. It doesn’t look as if there’s a hero among them.

They are blessed when they are worked over and cursed out on his account, he tells them. It is not his own hard times to come but theirs Jesus is concerned with, speaking out of his own meekness and mercy, the purity of his own heart.” (Adapted from Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark, pp. 18&19)

Go Figure. . .

Pastor Lamont