As a priest and pastor, it’s unsettling to be the recipient of pastoral care. I have been considering this reversal of roles over the past week. The instinct of the pastor is, of course, to care for others: to proactively reach out to those undergoing surgery, to check in on the sick, and to comfort those who mourn. It’s a complicated task, too. What does a grieving person need? What will bring them comfort? Would they like a phone call, or would they prefer a text message and a little space? Is a Facebook message too impersonal, or is it exactly the right gesture?
One cannot know the answers to these questions with any degree of certainty until one is in the position of the mourner. One must catch a glimpse from the other side, where one mourns rather than comforts the mourner, where one receives mercy rather than offers it, where one experiences poverty rather than provides relief.
Over the past week, all my previous assumptions as a provider of pastoral care have been scrambled. A text message in the face of grief is not too impersonal; it’s a genuine gift. An unexpected voicemail message of condolences from a colleague is a balm of comfort. When someone has lost something—when they have become poor in some way—mercy stands out in relief. The discounted rate to renew a widower’s apartment lease is extended because of the sad circumstances. The salesman in a clothing store goes out of his way to pick up a suit coat at another branch location so that the grieving one doesn’t have to do it. Rules are loosened. Flexibility takes over. When one is blessed with a view from the other side, one inhabits a different world.
In such a time as ours, hearing Jesus’s Beatitudes is both comforting and disconcerting. These days, the qualities of those who are considered blessed seem to be the exception rather than the rule. The poor are blamed for their own poverty, which is thought to be a character fault. Those mourning the unjust deaths of loved ones receive little comfort in a society that all too easily scapegoats the victim. Meekness is a negative quality, not something to be cherished. Our culture values toughness and machismo, not the gentler spirit of meekness. Most people don’t even know what meekness means.
Mercy is a rare commodity these days. To forgive someone who has wronged you is weak. To give someone the benefit of a doubt means you’re gullible. To generously offer compassion to someone is to be reckoned a fool. Purity of heart is overshadowed by mixed motives and self-preservation. Righteousness is eschewed to avoid persecution. People lose their courage and their mettle in the worst of times because they fear for their reputation or lives.
And perhaps this is why, over the centuries Jesus’s Beatitudes in Matthew’s Gospel have seemed much too vague. To be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect appears unrealistic. Surely Matthew couldn’t have meant what he said, which is why we have tended to spiritualize Jesus’s Beatitudes, turning them into impossible ideals that we can dream about but never realize.
In the past few days, I, too, have struggled with these Beatitudes. What is one to say about them in such a time as this? They seem straightforward enough and yet distantly out of reach. Are we to inhabit each one of the Beatitudes, as if they are a list of eight ethical action items? Or are the Beatitudes something else? If the Beatitudes are not just ethical prescriptions, then they must be a glorious view from the other side. Jesus parts the veil between this world and the next, showing us what the kingdom of heaven is like. As such, encountering even one Beatitude is enough to teach us something about the blessed state of life with God. Perhaps Jesus is giving us encouragement to persevere by letting us know that when all seems lost, the kingdom of heaven is still close at hand. All we need is a view from the other side.
Over the past week, watching world news in a state of grief from my father’s apartment, I have heard far more bad news than good news. I have seen chaos on the streets of our nation. I have seen violence play out and listened to hatred and vitriolic speech. I have heard lies uttered as truth, and I have sensed much despair. I have been aware of just how easy it is to give up on goodness, to assume the Beatitudes are just pie in the sky theology from a Messiah who has left us to our own devices on earth while he reigns in heaven.
But because grief has found me this week, because I have traded places to be in the place of one who mourns rather than gives comfort, God has offered me a blessed view from the other side. And I have been assured that even in an upside-down world, the Beatitudes are still alive and real. The kingdom of heaven is still blessedly near.
On the mountaintop where Jesus preaches his Sermon on the Mount, the air is thinner. Mountains are always holy places, more porous to God’s kingdom. On the mountaintop the veil between this world and the next is diaphanous, and fleetingly we catch glimpses of the kingdom of heaven. It’s tempting to think we must wait for our eternal reward to come in the distant future. It’s tempting to think we must simply try harder to exhibit those beatific qualities that Jesus enumerates. But the mode of Jesus’s speech when he proclaims the Beatitudes assures us that the kingdom of heaven has already come close. It’s already, in some sense, present among us. We can’t grasp at the Beatitudes and will them into existence. We can only have the courage to wait with patience for a view from the other side, even as we mourn and sigh in this valley of tears.
In the thin places of life we come face to face with the Beatitudes. When we become like the poor, when we mourn, when we find ourselves in need of mercy and compassion and food and comfort, then suddenly we realize that all those good things of the kingdom of heaven do exist, although they visit us in fits and starts in this earthly life. The Beatitudes are not ephemeral words preached by a long-dead Messiah. They’re truthful realities spoken into existence by a living Messiah, who reigns in heaven and still comes among us. The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
It’s as if on the mountain, Jesus is speaking a new creation into existence, delineating the boundaries of the kingdom of heaven. He is telling us what our values are in the household of God. Like God speaking creation into existence in the beginning, Jesus speaks into being a way of life that in this troubled world seems impossibly remote, but which is closer to us than we can imagine.
And to get a taste of it and to receive a view from the other side, we must trade places. We must know sorrow ourselves. We must give up our lust for power and control and become meek and humble. We must forsake all claims to violence and, instead, long for the peace that passes all understanding. We must let go of our tendency to judge and show mercy in its place. We must know grief and receive the comfort of others. We must value righteousness and justice over any personal security. All of this is to become poor, and when we do so, we shall receive a glorious view from the other side, even if only for a moment.
We can only know this state of blessedness when it finds us in life, when we have traded places and are in the place of the one in need. But when it comes to us, then we can see everything from the perspective of the cross, where death is the entrance into life, weakness is strength, and foolishness is wisdom. When even one Beatitude is shown to us by an unsuspecting stranger, there we see the face of Christ himself.
Over the past week, I have had a privileged view from the other side. I will never be the same, because what I have lost cannot be reclaimed in this life. But what I have gained is a treasure. I can rejoice because I have caught a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. I can rejoice because I have seen that Jesus’s words are true, that the kingdom of heaven is close at hand. For each of us, it may be that only one Beatitude is enough to assure us that God’s kingdom is drawing nigh, is indeed already nigh. While we can’t bring this kingdom into being by our own efforts, we can wait for its glorious appearance in bursts of light. And when we have traded places with those in need, the kingdom will find us. Although the cruel and merciless world rages around us and vies for our attention, one brief view from the other side will change us forever. For even in this upside-down world, the kingdom of heaven is always close at hand.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 1, 2026