Blessed Are the Poor In Spirit

Today we begin something new together. For the next eight weeks, we're going to spend time on a mountain — the mountain where Jesus sat down, looked out at the crowd, and began to describe what a truly flourishing life looks like. He called it blessed. And the first thing he said might surprise you:

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Not the confident. Not the certain. Not the powerful or the self-sufficient.

The poor in spirit. Which raises a question worth sitting with this morning: What if the thing we're most embarrassed about — our emptiness, our not-enough-ness — is actually the doorway?