Good morning. Hear the words of the Gospel in another translation:

Luke 6:20-31 (The Message)

20-21 Then Jesus spoke to his disciples:
You're blessed when you've lost it all. God's kingdom is there for the finding.
You're blessed when you're ravenously hungry. Then you're ready for the Messianic meal.
You're blessed when the tears flow freely. Joy comes with the morning.

22-23 Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and that that person is uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens - skip like a lamb, if you like! - for even though they don't like it, I do ... and all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company; my preachers and witnesses have always been treated like this.

24 But it's trouble ahead if you think you have it made. What you have is all you'll ever get. 25 And it's trouble ahead if you're satisfied with yourself. Your self will not satisfy you for long. And it's trouble ahead if you think life's all fun and games. There's suffering to be met, and you're going to meet it. 26 There's trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests-look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular.

27-30 To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit- for-tat stuff. Live generously.

31 Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them!

Dear friends, I wanted to share this paraphrase of today's Gospel with you because it makes plain words even plainer in the idiom of today's spoken English. The Beatitudes are the Magna Charta of sainthood, the blueprint for leading a life of faith. This blueprint we place metaphorically into the hands of every newly baptized person even as at the renewal of our own baptism we rehearse the words anew.

Sainthood - so often we think of the saints as those particularly famous heroes and heroines of antiquity and church history, those who have been memorialized in song and stained glass. There is nothing wrong with that; indeed many of the saints are in the number of those famous luminaries. But sainthood is not limited to them. Sainthood, dear friends, is the vocation of every baptized person, so also the vocation of little Miles Nasser Barnett, whose parents and godparents bring him today to receive the sacrament of new birth in the waters of baptism. As God's saints for our time and place we are called, like Daniel of old, to dream a world in which God's rule is evident; we are called to have a vision of the victory of love over hate, of gentleness over brutality, of hope over despair or cynicism.

Luke's version of the Beatitudes is a bit different than the more familiar version of Matthew. Luke recites only four beatitudes, four "blessed" groups. Then he recites four woes, four "cursed" groups. Perhaps more than anywhere else in the Gospels we have here the irony of the good news of Jesus. They are blessed whom the world considers cursed and they are truly cursed whom the world considers blessed. It's the great reversal of values that comes in the wake of God's sovereign rule, of God's Kingdom coming. Today on All Saints' Day we pray anew for the coming of that sovereign rule of God, in our hearts, in our lives and in our world. Amen.