You can stop right there, Jesus,
after beatitude/blessing/makarios
(Hey! I can pray in Greek!)
the first. You know as well as I
the poverty of my spirit.

No mustard seeds to see,
no pearls beyond appraisal,
no fields a-hundred-fold
to view for you. Just sighs
and bluster nearly equal there.

So you might want to think again
about this notion you would make
the realm of heaven mine. I can’t
conceive of an idea much worse
despite the virtues of the thinker.

For you to give the realm of God
to me is just as ludicrous
as if you gave the keys of heaven
to a fisherman named, “Rock.”

Oh. That’s right. You did.

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 5:1-12, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel reading for Year A, Fourth Sunday after Epiphany.

Photo is of a monument at Our Lady of Peace Shrine, Pine Bluffs, Wyoming. Photo by Chris Light – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53688733.