"Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh."

Imagine a sermon which begins, "Blessed are you poor. Blessed are you that hunger. Oh how lucky are you who weep. How fortunate are those of you whom people hate, exclude, revile. Leap for joy those of you who have cancer. How lucky are you unemployed. How blessed are those going through marital crises."

The congregation does a double-take. What? Blessed? Lucky? Those who are hungry? Unemployed? Sick? What is this?

Thus begins Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes. Generations have found comfort in the words of this sermon, and well they should because these are words of blessing to these whom life has cursed. Victims -- the hungry, the poor, the sick, the persecuted. Victims.

Fred Craddock called my attention to how much of Sc…