Christian hope is found in the willingness to face death, in all its costliness, because we trust in the promise of the resurrection. And resurrection is impossible without death.

The Samaritan woman is the kind of Christian our world needs today – not afraid to spar with Jesus, not afraid of the stirrings of the Spirit in her own soul; not afraid to tell other people about her experience and not afraid to invite them to come and see for themselves and tell her what they think is going on.

The judgment, it seems to me, is not about what you or I mean when we say “belief in Jesus”. The judgment is about deeds that people don’t want exposed – dangerous secrets, wicked acts, hidden selves. Things of death that people will not raise up to be transformed, by repentance and forgiveness, into a doorway to true life.

We know what this scripture is calling for. We may not know the best way to accomplish everything it is calling for – though some of it is pretty straightforward – but we understand it nonetheless. Real worship – real experiences of God’s presence – relationship with God – is found in joining in the work of God.

None of these “blessed” are people who anyone – in Jesus’ time or in ours – would normally call blessed or happy or favoured.

But Jesus does, kicking off his teaching about the upside-down nature of the kingdom of heaven with a bang and leaving his disiples – then and now – with the problem of making sense of what he said.