The Barefoot Evangelist

Read Matthew 5:1-12 with your family.

The message of Jesus, in fact the message of almost the entire Bible, is that God is with us always and that God wants us to work together to create a world of justice and abundance for all of us.

Even as small children, we have a sense of right and wrong, and we know when things are not fair. Children are very good at pointing that out.

Jesus was good at it, too. Jesus wanted people to understand, especially those who followed him, that justice was the work of all of us. It was not just his job or the job of some super powerful people. It was the job of everyone.

This lesson, which we call “The Beatitudes”, was Jesus telling us that all of us have need of God to help remind us when we feel strong and when we need to ask for help. It reminds us that we are part of making things better for each other.

We are all blessed, even those who don’t realize it. All of us need to remember how much God loves us and how we need to work for justice every change we get, even if it seems a hard thing to do.

Jesus did not say we had to be perfect to become “blessed”, but rather through our treatment of others and our understanding of how God wants us to live, we are already blessed.

Every time we choose kindness, fairness, forgiveness, and peace, we are helping bring God’s dream for the world a little bit closer.