God’s grace, peace and
mercy be with you. … My sermon title is People, Passage and Practical
Application, and my focus is our Gospel (Luke 6:17-26). Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the
psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the
house of the Lord.’” 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.”[1] 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 who are 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.”[2]
In chapter four, Jesus himself announced good news for the poor,
sight for the blind, and liberty for captives.
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. Amen.
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