The Character of the Kingdom!

Monday, June 8, 2026

1 Kgs 17: 1-6; Mt 5: 1-12

Today’s Gospel highlights the Beatitudes as the character of the Kingdom itself.

The passage on the Beatitudes is known for its universal fame. Biblicists believe that the eight macarisms, which denote the eightfold blessedness of the Beatitudes, are not just individual affirmations. Rather, the eight blessings build on each other in a ladder-like formation – all helping us to qualify for God’s Kingdom. Thus, if we roughly rephrase them, we may draw virtues like the spirit of renunciation, solidarity, humility, radicality for God’s love, compassion, love, reconciliation, and altruism. The special nature of the call is that we are called to be/live all of them. To put it differently, Christians have no luxury of compromising even one in the list of eight macarisms, as it leads to a life of blessedness that Jesus himself exemplified.

Christians must be proud to find that many secular thinkers and world leaders developed an appreciation for Christianity through the Sermon on the Mount. One of the towering figures who was inspired much by the Sermon on the Mount was Gandhi, the Father of India, whose death anniversary India observed on January 30. I believe that a secular thinker’s appreciation for the Sermon on the Mount deepens our own understanding of it while inviting us to embrace it as a moral guide for our lives. 

Gandhi hailed the Sermon on the Mount for its practical approach. He believed, or was rather convinced, that the Sermon was not given merely to Jesus’ disciples but for the entire world to practice and live by. When Gandhi wanted to teach the Sermon on the Mount, he said, ‘Although I am myself not a Christian, as a humble student of the Bible, who approaches it with faith and reverence, I wish respectfully to place before you the essence of the Sermon on the Mount.’ Hence, for Gandhi, the Sermon on the Mount represented the whole of Christianity. 

Gandhi looked at the Sermon on the Mount as a great source of his philosophy of Satyagraha and non-violent resistance, which later inspired Martin Luther King Jr. to adopt non-violent activism during the American Civil Rights Movement. For this reason, Gandhi saw the New Testament as a book of peace, as it exhorts us to ‘look forward to an age when no sword would be needed and the material used for making them could be diverted to make other useful things.’ Thus, Gandhi saw Jesus as the ‘sower of the seed of non-violent philosophy’ and called Christ a ‘Heroic Satyagrahi’ since he represented the principle of non-violence, the purest form of soul force. It is with this spiritual force that Jesus conquered evil with good and hatred with love. 

Gandhi was edified by Jesus’ example of non-violent suffering. He said, ‘The example of Jesus’ suffering is a factor in the composition of my undying faith in non-violence which rules all my actions, worldly and temporal.’ To this end, he found in Jesus’ message of ‘resist not evil’ the ethic of non-violence, the power of soul-force, and the infinite possibilities of universal love. This is why he said, ‘When I read in the Sermon on the Mount such passages as ‘Resist not him that is evil, but whosoever smiteth thee on the right cheek turn to him the other also,’ I was simply overjoyed, and found my own opinion confirmed where I least expected it.’ Hence, Gandhi decided to apply Christ’s attitude of overcoming evil with good as a principle to public affairs. The result was revolutionary, as Gandhi was able to lead the world’s largest nonviolent movement during India’s freedom struggle against the brute weapons of the British. Thus, Gandhi’s transformation contains a lesson for Christians to look at the Bible as a holy book that helps us with moral excellence.

By inviting his followers to a life of blessedness through the Beatitudes, Jesus wants us to embrace the Kingdom vision of life, which radically challenges the worldly vision.

Let us pray that we may find joy by belonging to God rather than possessing the world. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar