The Sermon on the Plain (6:17–49) is considerably shorter than Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount (cf. Matthew 5–7). The relationship between the two accounts is complex; one can probably explain some of the differences by the editorial work of the evangelists. Jesus opens the sermon by drawing radical contrasts between two kinds of people. Those who are poor, hungry, weeping, and hated are blessed. Although this happiness is a present experience (“yours is the kingdom,” 6:20), it is primarily a future blessing: “you will be satisfied . . . you will laugh” (6:21), “your reward [is] in heaven” (6:23). Jesus does not say that Go…