These posts are meant to be read slowly and prayerfully. My hope is that you will spend a few minutes, open to connection with what Jesus names as “blessed” in the Sermon on the Mount. As always, I am praying for you, rooting for you, hoping with you. Grace & Peace, Cole.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)
What does it mean to be “poor in spirit?” The Common English Bible translation says, “blessed are the hopeless.” Maybe that is closer to what Jesus was trying to say, I don’t know. The Greek uses two words for that phrase: ptōchos (powerless, poor, beggars) and pneuma (spirit, soul, that which animates life).1
If you start playing around with other ways these words could be put together in English, you might end up with something like: Blessed are the beggars of the soul… I like that, “beggars of the soul.”
What does it mean to be a beggar of the soul? How does that shift you from self to God?
In his book, Breathing Under Water, Richard Rohr goes through the 12 steps showing they are Gospel principles. He says: “The absolute genius of the Twelve Steps is that it refuses to bless and reward any moral worthiness game or mere heroic willpower.”2
The first step is admitting you are powerless. The first beatitude is naming the blessedness of being a beggar of the soul.
Might this shift in thinking — from the dominant, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” to the open-handed, “I am powerless without God” — might this soften our grip? Open us to connection? Might a shift, an embrace of being a spiritual mendicant, open us to the possibility of God’s presence in ways we haven’t been?
I find it really lovely and spacious to think about letting go of control, of being more dependent on God. I want to be with those who are “poor in spirit,” especially when it’s their choice. That’s the really clean, privileged version of this verse.
But what about those who are “beggars of the soul” not because they’ve “let go of power,” but because the power has been stripped from them? Does this verse call me towards the margins, towards the marginalized, towards those who are experiencing mental illness, oppression, a poverty that is not of their own deciding?
Who was Jesus seeing in the crowd that led him to name them blessed? Blessed are those who have a poverty of the animating center of life – the soul. The end of the previous chapter tells us that Jesus “announced the good news of the kingdom and healed every disease and sickness among the people” (Matthew 4:23).
How might Jesus being with the sick and diseased lead him to name the poor in spirit blessed? How are we called to be with the sick (in mind, body and spirit)? How are they blessed?
May you go through this day with openness. May you be a beggar of the soul, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. May you be with those who are sick, poor, desperate and who Jesus calls blessed. May your imagination awaken to God’s love in new ways. May you stay connected to what is, what really, really is. May you be a blessing to everyone you meet – even yourself. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Amen.
- Blue Letter Bible. “Matthew 5:3 Commentary.” Blue Letter Bible. Accessed June 15, 2025, https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/mat/5/1/ss1/t_conc_934003. ↩︎
- Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (Cincinnati: Franciscan Media, 2012), 24. ↩︎
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