Luke 6:17-26-- ( NRSV) -- He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.  They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.  And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Then he looked up at his disciples and said:  "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.  Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.  Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.  Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.  But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.  Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.  Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets."

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1.     Luke's sermon on the plain is not so extensive as the one Matthew records in his three-chapter sequence, on the mount.  This pericope contains the first portion of that sermon.   In Luke, Jesus has just come down from "the mountain," where he has been praying.  As Luke 6:13 puts it, "And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles:  Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew; and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor."  In Luke's telling, the designation of apostles is a specific incident that follows various events in which individuals became disciples  [e.g., Luke 5:1-11, last Sunday's pericope, where after the miraculous catch "Peter, (James, and John...also Andrew, among 'partners'?) left everything and followed him." ... and 5:27-30, in the calling of Levi.].

        Multitudes of people have joined "a great crowd of his disciples" to hear Jesus, many of them also having come to be healed: people with diseases of the body and of the mind, people possessed of unclean spirits.  And they were cured.

2.     Luke's record of Jesus' opening words is his recounting of the beatitudes; the "blesseds" come as poetically, if not so extensively, as in Matthew.  The "blesseds" are directly contrasted with "woes."  The ones declared blessed are those who are poor, hungry, weeping—and especially those who are reviled, persecuted and defamed on account of the Son of Man.   The ones to whom woes are directed are those rich, full, and laughing—and especially those of whom people “speak well.”

3.     One cannot help but notice the reversals: the “blessed poor” precedes woe to the rich, the “blessed hungry” is followed by woe for the filled.  From blessings to the ones weeping to woe to those laughing.  And the reversals are precise: those hungry shall be satisfied; those filled now will be hungry.  Those now poor will receive the Kingdom of God; those now rich have already received their consolation.

4.     Looks like Jesus is declaring a "preferential option for the poor." (The Vatican II documents declared that the scriptures reveal that God has a "preferential option for the poor.")  A closer look validates the perspective of the Lord: the consolation of the Kingdom of God is food for those hungry, physically and spiritually.  Those who weep from sorrow find the consolation of God's love, laughing not in the midst of absurdity but deep in the arms of the loving Father.  Those who are scorned on account of Christ count it but gain.

        On the other hand are those whose riches obscure allegiance to Christ, the "rich young man" of Matthew 19 (vss. 16-22) repeated a thousand, even a million, times.  Riches are their own devilment … even as they are their own consolation.  Those whose appetites are both large and (rarely) sated have not only the problem of obesity of body but also the barrier of obscurity of soul.  Aristotle knew it, on other grounds.  For him, the ones governed by their appetites instead of reason-in-the-soul are less excellent as human beings. Jesus said it even better:  what does it profit a man to gain the whole world (appetites abounding, goals achieved!) and to lose his soul?

5.     The mischief in the passage, for our time, is two-fold: the former has to do with poverty vis-a-vis the "peace-and-justice" perspective of "progressive" North American Christianity.  The latter has to do with the nature of scorn, on the one hand, and "being spoken well of" on the other, in connection with proclamation.

        As to the former, the perspective of progressive (i.e., liberal protestant and some Roman Catholics) Christianity in the latter decades of the 20th century and continuing into the 21st is that the preferential option for the poor is not only prophetically God's point of view (see Isaiah 61:1-3, which Jesus quoted at Nazareth, in Luke 4) but also resides in an ontological distinction. That is, in this way of thinking, the line between good and evil tends to run between the rich and the poor, with the side of virtue residing with the poor.  Liberation theologies often seem cast in this way: the world can accurately and simply be divided between the oppressors and the oppressed, between the rich and the poor. 

        Further, and more complicating for ordinary people, included among the oppressors are any who benefit from the injustices of the political and economic system – locally, nationally, and globally.  Even though they may be far removed from overt acts of oppression.  Even though they personally may oppose oppression and injustice.  That is, the rural family teaching its children the contents of the faith, to keep the commandments and to worship God, is counted among the "oppressors" because it benefits from the global imbalance of distribution of wealth.  From the point of view of the millions of the marginales, these people are "the wealthy." 

        From the point of view of trying to make a living, and trying to teach their children the difference between good and evil, they are scrambling like most of the rest of us.  The line between good and evil runs not so much between classes or global hemispheres as within the human heart.  The poor command our attention because of their need, not because of the virtue of their poverty, still less because of the purity of their soul. 

        What about those whose hard work and fortunate birth (e.g., in North America, to stable and loving families, etc.) make them among the privileged of the world?  To call these people—members of our congregations! – “oppressors” seems as spurious as the fundamentalist scare-tactics of hell-fire and damnation sermons of an angry God whose pleasure is found in condemning unrepentant sinners.  Better the call of the Gospel to preach the Good News of God's grace in Christ, calling us all to care for each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. 

        But like the hell-fire sermons, there is a powerful truth here.  Not in the scare tactics, but in faithfulness to the teachings of the scripture.   Without Jesus and His grace, we are lost sinners.  The ones who are poor are more likely to have an understanding of their fragility as to something to eat and wear.   They know that they are radically "contingent," subject to forces they cannot control.    In addition to understanding their hardships Jesus understood that the poor are less likely to be tempted to take for granted any blessings that God sends their way.  Whatever hardness of heart they have does not come from sated self-contentment or insular self-assurance that their well-being is the result of their own achievements.  In short, they may well be less likely to ignore God!

        On the other hand, residing among the economic and political fortunate of the world risks at least insulation and spiritual blindness, if not the plight of those who "have received (their) consolation."  What is at stake here is much deeper than noblesse oblige, the obligation of the blessed to lift up those less fortunate.  What is at stake here is the tendency to forget God, and that what one has are God's gifts.  What is at stake here is a point of view that gives thanks for blessings, yes, but which also both shares with those who are poor and works to overcome injustice—some through the avenues of charity, others through the corridors of justice.  Because all people are God's children.  The "peace and justice" advocates in the church too often put these dimensions forward ahead of the gospel, as the mission of the church, embracing too quickly the political causes of the left.

        Just as problematic is the perspective that closes off the cries of the poor to reside instead in the insulation of security and comfort.  Jesus warning of "woes to the rich, the full, the ones laughing" is a warning too often ignored.  In a climate where economic prosperity and material possessions too often yield hollowness and sorrow, or drug-induced escape, as one generation's energy and good will translates imperfectly into the next generation's laxity and indolence, it is a warning that more often should be heeded.   If not for the sake of virtue, then at least for self-interest.  But as to discipleship: to see the ones hungry and poor is to see Jesus.  To feed and clothe them is to feed and clothe Jesus.  To ignore them is to ignore Jesus.  We have that, pretty straight, from the Lord Himself.

6.     As to the second—the nature of scorn, on the one hand, and "being spoken well of" on the other, in connection with proclamation—there is a litany of complaint from those who seek the church's blessing for gay and lesbian relationships that they are being scorned within the community of faith.  Not welcomed, not valued, not blessed.  This while invoking Christ being welcoming of all people.  They rarely fail to seize the temptation to embrace the beatitude:  "blessed are you when people hate you, and when the exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.  Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets."  On the other hand are those, such as myself, whose understanding of the Gospel is that what is called for in this instance is not celebration of gay and lesbian relationships but repentance.  Restraint. Welcoming of people as repentant sinners, in terms described in the New Testament, instead of on their own terms.

        Who are the ones scorned on behalf of the Gospel?  Who needs to heed the Savior's warning about being spoken well of?  The ones who invoke rejection by the church as grounds for self-justification?  Or the ones who, against the increasingly powerful stream of cultural sentiment and zeitgeist, invoke repentance and restraint? The Lord knows already.  For us, time will tell.  Until then, as to both poverty and scorn, one discerns as he can and proclaims as he must.   As St. Luke reported it, so let it remain: to the Lord remains the prerogative to assign blessing and woe.  Kyrie eleison. 

JLY   --  02.10.04,  revised from 02.11.01 & 02.09.98

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 SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY
FEBRUARY 15, 2004
JEREMIAH 17:5-10 

5. Thus Says the LORD:
Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength,
whose hearts turn away from the LORD.
6. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes.
They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
7. Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.
8. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green;
In the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.
9. The heart is devious above all else;
It is perverse—who can understand it?
10. I the LORD test the mind and search the heart,
to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doing

This Old Testament reading is probably chosen because in it God speaks a series of curses and blessings, a parallel to the words of Jesus in the Gospel for this Sunday. It is part of Jeremiah’s words to Judah, warning them that because they have broken their covenant with Yahweh they can expect to see the results of these actions in what God will do to them or allow their enemies to do to them.

No solution to their difficulties will be provided in the lying words of false prophets (14:13ff), which assure them that they will not receive the result of their sin. Merely to find someone who claims to be a prophet and who will also speak good things to you does not change the anger of God or protect you from His punishment.

Jeremiah complains that he has to take the brunt of the people’s resentment of God’s message to them because he is the deliverer of the message. But this is not fair because he is not really its author (15:10ff). God calls Jeremiah to hang in and God will finally deliver him. God will also restore His people whenever they recognize their sin and repent. This repenting will have to begin by their recognizing the difference between themselves and God, because their basic sin is putting their trust in something or someone other than God - often in themselves This is the basis of every sin and the essence of all sinfulness (16:10-17:4). No one will change that.

17:5-6 The sin of Judah is trusting people, themselves or others. It is sin because it is impossible to do this and at the same time put complete trust in Yahweh. They are like a bush in the land around the Dead Sea which was once alive but now has been bereft of water for enough time that life has ended for it. In my memory it is like a tree or bush in western Kansas in the early 30s when lack of rain and a good supply of dust storms left the plant standing but dead. It was still in the ground but no longer showed any of the signs of the life which once were there.

Contrast with this (7-8) a tree near a stream, a Cottonwood tree, for example. It has not died even in the years without rain because it has not gotten its nourishment from rains but from a source far beneath the ground or from what we called a river, mostly dry but with a little water running along the middle. This source may not give much water but it does not stop even in years of drought. There you will find that a bush continues to grow, kept alive by the water which feeds its roots. So it produces green leaves and bears fruit with seed in it.

The test of a plant’s life (9-10) is whether it produces green leaves and fruit, like the Cottonwood trees that lived through the drought. We could use the leaves for whistles and we could throw the small hard fruit at one another. The test of a human being is his/her thoughts and words and actions. The few apparent in infancy may promise life and goodness, but the proof of what is here is better seen as this child begins to realize that its actions can affect others. So the little one decides in the middle of the night that its being fed is the only important thing in the world. If you want to sleep you had better tend to it. The test of what is in this human being will continue to be its actions and they will provide a problem that no parent completely figures out. Where do these children get ideas like that? Certainly not from us! The same questions are asked generation after generation because the sins of one generation are more than merely a repetition of the sins of the generation before them. They think up new wrinkles, so that every generation wonders where those who follow get such ideas and what can be done about it. God finds the same thing (without the same puzzlement) when he tests minds and searches hearts, so the he can give them what they deserve or what they do not deserve (grace). The reason for this need of law or grace is, as Jeremiah realizes (v.13): “They have forsaken the fountain of living water, the LORD.”

The solution is implicit but not expressed in the text. It is God’s blessing, forgiveness not as a reward but as an expression of God’s love. Sinners experience the ruling power of God which can kill but can also make alive.