One of the most puzzling things about Jesus’ teaching was that he constantly took the accepted standards of the world and said they don’t work; and then turned them upside down to show what does work. The people whom Jesus called happy are the people the world often thinks of as wretched; and the people Jesus called wretched are often those the world thinks of as happy.
One of his great statements goes like this: ‘Woe to you who are rich because you have all the comfort you are going to get.’ What he is saying is that if you put all your time and energy into acquiring wealth, prestige and power – the sort of things the world thinks of as success – then you may well get them; but that’s all you’ll ever get, and it will all die with you. ‘And what gain is there if you get the whole world and lose your soul.’