God’s
grace, peace and mercy be with you. … My sermon title is People, Passage and Practical Application, and my focus is our
Gospel. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me,
‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”[1] Now that our feet are
within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit
enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we
pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.
People,
people who need people are the luckiest people in the world.
People,
written by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill for the 1964 Broadway musical Funny Girl, is one of the top tunes in
American cinema. Funny Girl is based
on the life and career of Broadway and film star and comedian Fanny Brice and
her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein.
Styne
and Merrill were hired to write the musical score and met each other for the
first time in 1962 in Palm Beach, Florida. They wrote their songs by day and
tested them by night on the Palm Beach socialites at cocktail parties. They
wrote People in thirty minutes.
Twenty
years before Styne and Merrill penned their lyrics, American Psychologist
Abraham Maslow published his hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health
predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority. Maslow stressed the
importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people. From the most
basic, he listed five levels of needs: physiological, safety, love and
belonging, esteem and self-actualization. In other words, people have needs.
Jesus
knew people had needs long before Maslow. For a considerable time, Jesus has
been carrying out the program he announced in Nazareth. In chapter four we
read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to
proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind, to free those who are oppressed, and to
proclaim a year of the Lord’s favor.”[2] In the context of this
ministry, he called people to be his companions and spearhead His Church’s
mission.
In a
long sermon, which we hear today, He outlined the attitudes and behavior that
distinguish people in this new community from others. The narrative implies
that Jesus called the apostles up to the mountain where he spent the night in
prayer. He then came down with them to stand on a level place. There he was
with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of others from Judea,
Jerusalem, Tyre and Sidon. They gathered to hear Jesus and to be healed of
their diseases.
Everyone
was trying to touch him because power came out of him and He healed all of
them. There, before Jesus is an array of burdened and afflicted humanity whom
he taught at length, and they longed to access his healing and liberating power.
What Jesus spoke was like the charge one receives before an ordination or a sermon
a pastor delivers to those about to be confirmed: formal instruction regarding
who they must be and how they must behave before the wider group that they will
serve. Specifically, the Twelve and the disciples serve the crowds of people.
This
wider group of people had needs that the Twelve and other disciples would
address. Luke did not use Maslow’s words, but members of Luke’s community would
address people’s basic needs without forsaking the Gospel, particularly love
and belonging. And so, we move from my first point, people, to my second point,
passage.
As I
said a moment ago, within this setting, Luke presents Jesus imparting a great
body of knowledge. His version is shorter than Matthew’s, but Luke reserved a
good deal of material for Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. Both begin with a series
of Beatitudes. Luke has four, followed by four corresponding woes. Compare
Luke’s “Blessed are you poor” to Matthew’s “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
While Matthew massaged his to address his community, Luke’s is blunt and definite.
Strictly
speaking, the biblical tradition “blessed” does not indicate a fortunate or
advantageous position (in view of what God intends to do to bring about His
Kingdom). Blessed really amounted to “Congratulations” – the sort of thing you
might say to a friend who won the lottery.
The
Beatitudes are highly provocative. This series of oxymorons is outrageous in
any age. I mean, why congratulate the poor on being poor or the hungry on being
hungry? Why praise the weeping and the scorned? Correspondingly, it appears
foolish to declare unfortunate the wealthy, well-fed, the laughing and those with
good reputations. These four states are not morally bad; and other things being
equal, they are perfectly desirable.
The
point is, however, that in the vision of Jesus other things are not equal. The
Beatitudes and Woes make sense in light of the coming reversal of fortune
prominent in Luke’s view of salvation. Mary proclaimed this reversal in her
Magnificat: “He has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty
from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with
good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”[3] In chapter four, Jesus
himself announced good news for the poor, sight for the blind, and liberty for
captives.[4]
This
reversal of fortune makes it better to be poor, hungry, weeping and reviled
rather than rich, full, laughing and respected. So imminent and certain is the
reversal of one’s state in life that the thought of it overcomes the pain of
those listening to Jesus’ words. In the light of expecting the arrival of God’s
Kingdom – and only in this light – it becomes reasonable to hold together “blessed”
and “poor” and other contradictory pairs. So, Jesus is not endorsing poverty or
hunger. He is insisting that what most people calculate to be advantages and
disadvantages are relative, and indeed reversed, in view of the coming of God’s
Kingdom.
What
the Beatitudes basically depict is a situation of extreme vulnerability.
According to what the world values it makes little sense to adopt this posture
of vulnerability. Yet in light of the coming of God’s Kingdom, it makes very
good sense. Everything ultimately rests upon a particular vision of God – a God
who has pledged to act on behalf of the poor and marginalized rather than the
rich and the well-off. The Beatitudes and the Woes are provocative both for the
poor and the rich. But they do not suggest that the poor should be content with
their lot and passively accept it. By calling the poor blessed, the Beatitudes maintain
that God has adopted the side of the poor and will reverse the situation. The
poor can only benefit from the action of God. The rich have much to lose. The
great advantage is to have the ability or the lack of dependence on goods to
accept that the God of overflowing generosity can fill your life with blessings.
The poor are blessed and the rich are not because God is as Jesus proclaims God to be.
Now, in
relation to Beatitudes and Woes, it is often asked whether by the “poor” who
are blessed Luke means economically poor or spiritually poor. The whole pattern
of Luke’s Gospel suggests that the question poses a false alternative. The poor
are certainly economically poor, but at the same time, in Jesus’ day, the poor
had become a standard self-description for the faithful in Israel who waited
hopefully upon the Lord, that is, people like Simeon and Anna. At the heart of
their waiting for salvation lies a deep spiritual longing that may have been
present in others whose plight is primarily economic. In this perspective, the
poor can include the afflicted in general. The poor are all whose emptiness and
destitution provide an opportunity to God to be generous in his actions. The
poor wait for the God of Salvation to act on their behalf.
Keep
in mind the context in which all this is said to the disciples – in front of
the afflicted masses who have come to hear Jesus and to be healed of their
diseases. In the Beatitudes, Jesus depicts his community as vulnerable, and in
their vulnerability, they are blessed. Being vulnerable means that I am open to
God’s power. A vulnerable community can become for the afflicted an instrument
of God’s hospitality. It is the vulnerable who make the world safe for
humanity. Let me repeat that: the vulnerable, those open to God’s power, make
the world safe for humanity. So much for the passage, my second point.
My
third point is practical. What is the practical application of this passage
into my life as a Christian and our life as a community? If you search the web
for answers to this question, you will find plenty of advice. I could cite
pastors and lay people from every walk of life offering advice on how to live
the Beatitudes, and end my sermon with their advice. Instead, I am going to
tell you a story.
A
while back, my brother and sister-in-law visited my wife, Cindy, and me. We
spent a beautiful October day sightseeing Chicago. In Millennium Park we
noticed a Buddhist monk approach a street vendor selling hot dogs. We were
close enough to witness this exchange.
The
Buddhist monk approached the vendor and asked, “Make me one with everything.”
The vendor handed the monk a dog with everything and the monk handed him a twenty-dollar
bill. The vendor put the bill in his apron. After a minute of waiting for his
change, the vendor informed the monk, “Change comes from within.”
Of
course, it’s a joke, but there is a kernel of truth in humor: change comes from
within. There is a lot of advice on how we can live Luke’s Beatitudes, but let
me conclude by returning to my first point. Recall the different groups of
people listening to Jesus: The Twelve, disciples and a vast array of humanity
with assorted human needs. Where are you in that audience?
Where
are you as an individual and where are you as a community? Personally, I would
say that I see myself as in the group of disciples. In front of me is Jesus,
and around me are needy people: poor, hungry, weeping, hated. Who will address
their needs? With the help of God, I will. With the help of God, we will. How?
We’ll figure it out as we meet them in their need.
Friends,
we have everything necessary to serve others in their need. We have Word and
Sacrament. We don’t need more books and better blogs, we have the Word –
Scripture and the Word Incarnate. We have the Teaching of Jesus and the Holy
Spirit – present in our hearts and minds, in our Baptism, Confession, Forgiveness
and Lord’s Supper. All we have to do to help a vast array of humanity is to be
vulnerable. Being vulnerable means that I am open to God’s power. A vulnerable person,
a vulnerable community can be an instrument of God’s hospitality. The
vulnerable make the world safe for vulnerable people seeking the Living God.
When we
draw near to Jesus, we know that He will give us everything we need to live the
Beatitudes. We will know when it happens because the peace of God that
surpasses all understanding, will keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.[5] Amen.
