If you were in middle school in the 70s or 80s, you probably had to read Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, a science fiction novella released in 1959.

The story centers on Charlie Gordon, a janitor at a bakery, with an IQ of 68. He's chosen for an experimental surgical procedure meant to increase intelligence. The novel consists of Charlie's journal entries as he goes through the changes that eventually make him a genius, smarter even than the scientists who developed the surgery.

Algernon, the eponymous mouse from the title, is the first animal to undergo this procedure. So, Charlie gets to watch the trajectory of the effects of the surgery first in Algernon. That is, he gets to watch Algernon for clues as to what’s going to happen to him.

Charlie's writing in his journal grows increasingly fluid and articulate as his intelligence increases. Unfortunately, that also means he can now see himself as others saw him: a cognitively disadvantaged janitor in a bakery.

He understands now that people he thought were his friends mocked him. They held him in contempt. They had a phrase at the bakery: "pulling a Charlie Gordon." You know, it meant doing something stupid. At the time, Charlie had laughed along with them, not realizing he was the joke.

The gut-punch of the story happens when Charlie begins to see Algernon's decline, the slow reversion from genius lab experiment to ordinary mouse. Charlie, of course, realizes, because of his genius-level intelligence, that his own cognitive decline’s coming. He’s going to lose everything he’s gained, returning to a state where he won’t even be able to understand what he's lost.

This book wrecked me in eighth grade. But what I'm thinking about right now isn't the science fiction premise. It's this line from one of the scientists. Professor Nemur. He says that Charlie "did not really exist before this experiment."

But see, that's the thing: Charlie did exist. He had a job, relationships, and aspirations. But to Professor Nemur, he wasn't even a person. He was raw material for a career.

Eventually, as Charlie grows smarter, he even understands how Professor Nemur is using him, because the professor doesn't really consider him much more of a person than Algernon the mouse.

That line about Charlie not existing before is what I can't shake, because it's the line every empire learns to say with a straight face: “You don't count until you're useful.”

You don't matter until you produce something we can measure or until we decide to notice you.

The Beatitudes are Jesus looking Professor Nemur in the eye and saying, "No. No. No. That won't do at all."

The Beatitudes are Jesus' answer to every system that decides who counts and who doesn't, who matters and who's just material to be used up and discarded with the lab waste.

In our Gospel this morning, Jesus climbs a mountain and starts messing with the seating chart.

In the Roman world, the people called "blessed" were the winners. The word carried the gods’ Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

Caesar was blessed. The wealthy were blessed. The powerful, the connected, the ones the gods smiled on. Blessed meant you matter, you're safe, that the gods picked your team.

Jesus messes everything up when he looks at a crowd of Galilean peasants, day laborers, tenant farmers, people who'd lost their land to debt, people living under military occupation, and he starts pronouncing divine favor on them.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit."

Not "humble," as we've grown accustomed to thinking about it. The original means something closer to "those whose inner life has been crushed by poverty." I mean, these are people who've internalized the system's verdict on their worth. They've heard, in a thousand different ways, that they don't matter. That they don't really exist, and that they're merely a means to somebody else's ends. Jesus says: God's reign belongs to you. And not someday. Not if you clean up first and promise to help little old ladies across the street. Now.

"Blessed are those who mourn."