Hi, everyone! Welcome back! We’re heading into the last month of Ordinary Time before Lent begins in March. The Lectionary will have us looking at the Sermon on the Mount for the next three weeks. We start this week with the Beatitudes. Also included in this week’s readings is Paul’s proclamation that God’s wisdom and strength don’t look like what we expect. The Psalm and Micah have some expectations for how worshipers are to come before the Lord and live their lives.

Check out our episode from three years ago! David had a lot of fun with our theme and flip-flops featured prominently! We located Shittim and Gilgal on a map and in history for the Micah passage. We suggested using the Vitruvian man and the Butterfly Effect for Corinthians, and we mapped the power of the world in relation to the Power of God in Matthew.

Matthew 5:1-12 – [01:59]

Matthew 5:1-12 worksheetDownload

It’s the Beatitudes! “Happy” or “Blessed” or “to be envied” – hmm. We have commentary for WORD smart that suggests Jesus’ sermon was a beacon of hope for those whose daily living was a struggle. For EYE smart, take a walk around your neighborhood in your imagination and see the people Jesus would call blessed. Later in this sermon, Jesus will offer a new interpretation of law; he is setting it up here in these verses. For MATH smart, we have an article about how to interpret statutes. In BODY smart, think of the ways we attempt to keep our biological hearts clean; how much effort do we put into keeping our spiritual hearts healthy? We have a brief illustration for NATURE smart and while we did not use MUSIC smart in the show, we have a link to a hymn below.

* WORD smart – [03:02]* commentary by Scott Hoezee, Center for Excellence in Preaching* EYE smart – [5:50]* MATH smart -[06:41]* commentary by Kat Banakis, The Christian Century* Georgetown University Law Center has some basic guidelines for reading, interpreting, and applying statutes* BODY smart – [9:10]* NATURE smart – [11:00]* MUSIC smart – not used in the podcast* Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette