{"id":27251,"date":"2026-07-06T09:35:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T13:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27251"},"modified":"2026-07-06T09:53:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T13:53:29","slug":"27251","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27251","title":{"rendered":"A Surprising Teaching"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"I Shall Not Want, by Audrey Assad (w\/ lyrics)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/12NMGC5YjYY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>Sunday, July 5, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Over the next two weeks, the Daily Meditations will reflect on the Beatitudes (<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=matthew%205%3A1-11&amp;version=NRSVUE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Matthew 5:1\u201316<\/em><\/a><em>), Jesus\u2019s core teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. CAC teacher Brian McLaren sets the scene:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Imagine yourself in Galilee, on a windswept hillside near a little fishing town called Capernaum. Flocks of birds circle and land\u2026. The Sea of Galilee glistens blue below us, reflecting the clear midday sky above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A small group of disciples circles around a young man who appears to be about thirty. He is sitting, as rabbis in this time and culture normally do. Huge crowds extend beyond the inner circle of disciples, in a sense eavesdropping on what he is teaching them. This is the day they\u2019ve been waiting for. This is the day Jesus is going to pass on to them the heart of his message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus begins in a fascinating way. He <strong>uses the term&nbsp;<em>blessed<\/em>&nbsp;to address the question of identity, the question of who we want to be.<\/strong> In Jesus\u2019s day, to say, \u201cBlessed are these people\u201d is to say \u201cPay attention: these are the people you should aspire to be like\u2026.\u201d It\u2019s the opposite of saying \u201cWoe to those people\u201d or \u201cCursed are those people,\u201d which means, \u201cTake note: you definitely don\u2019t want to be like those people\u2026.\u201d His words no doubt surprise everyone, because we normally play by these rules of the game:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do everything you can to be rich and powerful.<br>Toughen up and harden yourself against all feelings of loss.<br>Measure your success by how much of the time you are thinking only of yourself and your own happiness.<br>Be independent and aggressive, hungry and thirsty for higher status in the social pecking order.<br>Strike back quickly when others strike you, and guard your image so you\u2019ll always be popular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Jesus defines success and well-being in a profoundly different way\u2026. He advocates an <strong>identity characterized by solidarity, sensitivity, and nonviolence.<\/strong> He celebrates those who long for justice, embody compassion, and manifest integrity and nonduplicity. He creates <strong>a new kind of hero: not warriors, corporate executives, or politicians, but brave and determined activists for preemptive peace, willing to suffer with him in the prophetic tradition of justice\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s hot in the Galilean sunshine. Still the crowds are hanging on Jesus\u2019s every word. They can tell something profound and life-changing is happening within them and among them. Jesus is not simply trying to restore their religion to some ideal state in the past. Nor is he agitating unrest\u2026. He spurs his hearers into reflection about who they are, who they want to be, what kind of people they will become, what they want to make of their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we consider Jesus\u2019s message today, we join those people on that hillside, grappling with the question of who we are now and who we want to become in the future\u2026. As we listen to Jesus, each of us knows, deep inside:&nbsp;<em><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">If I accept this new identity, everything will change for me. Everything will change.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>==============<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How Do We Become Poor in Spirit?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Monday, July 6, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>How blessed are the poor in spirit: the kingdom of God is theirs.<br>\u2014Matthew 5:3<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard Rohr&nbsp;explores the first beatitude as a <strong>call to interior freedom, a key to participating in the kingdom of God:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What an opening line! It\u2019s crucial, a key to everything Jesus is teaching, or it wouldn\u2019t be the opener. It\u2019s hard to imagine that a saying so radical should become so familiar, so normalized. Matthew may have chosen to soften it from the original phrase that we see in Luke and the noncanonical Gospel of Thomas. Luke\u2019s Gospel is for the poor, so he<strong> leaves the hard words of Jesus as many scholars believe they were originally spoken: \u201cBlessed are you who are poor\u201d<\/strong> (Luke 6:20).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Matthew, however, was addressing a more stable, even middle-class Jewish community, so he says, \u201cHappy are the poor&nbsp;<em>in spirit<\/em>.\u201d The truth is still there\u2014poor in spirit means to live without a need for our own righteousness. It\u2019s inner emptiness without a need to bolster our own reputation. For middle class folks, if we\u2019re poor in spirit, we may eventually become poor in fact. In other words, we won\u2019t waste the rest of our lives trying to get rich, because we\u2019ll know better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Christian Scripture scholars point out that the Greek word usually used for the peasant class is&nbsp;<em>tapeinoi<\/em>, but that is not the word Matthew and Luke use here. They use the word&nbsp;<em>ptochoi<\/em>, which literally means \u201cthe very empty ones, those who are crouching.\u201d They are<strong> the beggars, the nobodies of this world who have nothing left. Jesus is saying, \u201cHappy are you, you\u2019re the freest of them all.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The higher up we are in the system, the more trapped we are<\/strong>. The <strong>more we are outside the system, the freer we are. <\/strong>When we are high up in anything, we are expected to represent it, hold it together, and affirm it. The price of the truth can be very great, <strong>so we say what is needed to survive and to be liked inside the group, and to hold the group in unity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHow blessed are the poor in spirit\u201d (Matthew 5:3), <strong>the ones who don\u2019t have to play any of these games. <\/strong>Jesus is recommending a social reordering here, quite different from common practice. Notice how he also uses present tense: \u201cThe kingdom of God\u00a0<em>is<\/em>\u00a0theirs\u201d (Matthew 5:3). He doesn\u2019t say \u201c<em>will be\u00a0<\/em>theirs.\u201d That tells us that the kingdom of God isn\u2019t later. <strong>It\u2019s present tense: We\u00a0<em>are\u00a0<\/em>the free ones now, if we remain without anything to protect or anything we need to prove or defend.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>============<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Individual Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What are you still protecting?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Group Discussion \u2014 choose one:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol>\n<li>Where in your life are you &#8220;high up in the system&#8221; \u2014 expected to represent, defend, or hold something together?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Rohr says the kingdom is present tense, not future \u2014 that we&#8217;re free now if we have nothing left to prove. Do you believe that, or does it feel like something you&#8217;re still earning?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What would it cost you to actually become poor in fact, not just in spirit?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sunday, July 5, 2026 Over the next two weeks, the Daily Meditations will reflect on the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1\u201316), Jesus\u2019s core teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. CAC teacher Brian McLaren sets the scene: Imagine yourself in Galilee, on a windswept hillside near a little fishing town called Capernaum. Flocks of birds circle and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27251"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27257,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27251\/revisions\/27257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}