God, Self & Other – Luke 15: Blessings and Woes (Sermon on the Plain, Part 1)

Reminiscent of the Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew’s Gospel), in this episode we arrive at Jesus’s “Sermon on the Plain” in Luke.  Once again, Jesus opens with a series of “beatitudes” (blessings), that are difficult to interpret. What are we to make of Jesus’s declaration that the poor and hungry are “blessed”?