Fourth Sunday After Epiphany (Proper 4), Year A

"A life not lived for others is not a life.”
~Mother Teresa
 
[God] has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?.
~Micah 6:8
 
Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly. These are the simple, straightforward behaviors at the heart of true religion according to Micah.
 
Jesus’ words to the crowds in Matthew 5:1-12—the Beatitudes, or “blessings”—expand on Micah’s shorthand while also echoing the Torah, the commandments of Moses.
 
Interestingly, Jesus does not speak these as commands. He doesn’t speak them as if they are requirements of a demanding, record-keeping God, but as statements of fact, as a preexisting and confoundingly counter-intuitive reality. Blessed are the poor? The mourners? The hungry? Thomas Merton thought a better translation for meek was nonviolent. Blessed are the nonviolent? They will inherit the earth. Here, perhaps we can begin to make some cognitive leap toward what Jesus seems to be naming in Matthew—an upside-downness of this Way of Christ that turns us right-side up.
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Micah 6:1-8 † Psalm 15 † 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 † Matthew 5:1-12
 
About the Art: Mother Theresa her Weapon : Relentless Compassion, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56291 [retrieved January 19, 2026]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ladymissmarquise/4534743419.

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