Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are those who mourn; blessed are the meek. For many of us, these opening words from Jesus’ beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-11), have become spiritual wallpaper. We assume they promise a reward to the virtuous, so we hunt for ourselves in the list, hoping to qualify. Read on All Saints Day, they can sound like a rose-tinted portrait of holy people long gone.

But what if we’ve been reading them wrong?

Mark Allen Powell, retired professor at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, has spent decades helping scholars hear Matthew’s Beatitudes afresh. His translations jolt us out of familiarity. Jesus begins, “Blessed are those who aren’t very spiritual”: people for whom faith feels foreign, whose spirits have been crushed, or who were let down by the institutions that claimed to speak for God and gave up honestly. Jesus blesses those living without hope.

Next come those who mourn, better rendered “the miserable,” whose joy has been drained by grief, or any number of things: war, displacement, poverty, or violence. Then not “the meek” but “the humiliated,” who can do nothing to change their status. Finally, those “starved for justice” who lack the power to set things right.

Not very spiritual. Miserable. Humiliated. Starved for justice. These are not goals to aspire to. They are simply realities, and Jesus blesses people in them.

Looking over the crowds and his disciples, those broken by circumstance or neglected by religious leaders, those seeking healing, and those longing to help, Jesus essentially says: I see you. You who wonder why you’re here, who feel crushed or stuck, who want to help but can’t find traction: God sees you and blesses you as you are, because you matter.

Pastor Imani Olear reminds us that these blessings “are not a memorial to extraordinary people who once lived. They are a description of the community Jesus is calling into existence.”

That community includes us. Through baptism, God calls us beloved children. Because that is true, we can dare to embrace God’s vision of a world with more hope, joy, love, peace, and justice, and offer ourselves to make that community more visible today.