Jokes fall into different categories: Shaggy Dog, Put-Downs, Paradox, Wordplay, but in the end they all involve something called Tables Turned. You think the joke is going in one direction, but suddenly there’s a radical alteration in the point of view. 

One of the simplest examples involves two cavemen. One hollers out, “Hurry! A saber-toothed tiger is attacking your mother-in-law.” To which the first caveman replies, “What do I care what happens to some saber-toothed tiger?” 

Now I don’t know how many laughs Jesus got when he delivered the series of one-liners we call the Beatitudes, the opening salvos of what we call the Sermon on the Mount, but I’ll bet there were chuckles, some rueful, as well as plenty of smiles when Jesus spoke to the people about a world where the tables are turned i…