Tough Teachings

Luke 6:17-26

Rev. Dr. Mary Alice Mulligan

Luke is our lectionary Gospel book for this liturgical year. We spent some time in the First Testament during our stewardship season, but we also heard passages from Luke during those weeks. Stewardship season fell in the midst of the Epiphany Season, which started with the visit of the Magi in early January. During the following weeks I often preached from the First Testament, but we also heard Luke’s description of the baptism of Jesus, the turning of water into wine at the wedding at Cana, the amazing catch of fish, and several of Jesus’ most important teachings. These scriptures were all focused on showing us the presence of God manifest with Jesus – which is what Epiphany means, an appearance of the presence of God. Today and next Sunday, as we draw to the end of Epiphany and prepare for Lent, we hear Jesus’s sermon which starts with what we call the Beatitudes. We are most familiar with the Beatitudes from Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew’s passage begins “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (5:3) There are eight beatitudes in Matthew’s version of the teaching we call the Sermon on the Mount, because Jesus is above the people, preaching down. Matthew’s retelling is 107 verses long. But this is Luke’s year, so we hear his version of Jesus’ teaching instead, which contains only four beatitudes, but followed with four warnings of woes. Luke retells Jesus’ preaching in only 32 verses; he comes down into the crowd of people, standing eye-to-eye with them before he sits down to teach. As such, Luke’s version is called the Sermon on the Plain, which is shorter and sounds blunter, tougher, than what is in the other Gospel. From the 6th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, listen for the word of God.

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.

We love hearing the Beatitudes. Scriptures which promise God’s blessings are some of our favorites. Matthew’s soft promise, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” gives us a great comfort. But today we are called to listen to Luke’s version. Crowds came out to hear Jesus and to be healed by him. Apparently, people were cured just by touching him, because power seems to have dripped off him like water off a person who climbs out of a swimming pool. Pretty amazing.

But then he sits down to teach. He looks up at his disciples, that is people who were serious about following and serving. Luke’s less familiar version of the Beatitudes is blunter. The teaching here contains only four blessings: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Realm of God. Blessed are you who are hungry, who weep, who are reviled, spoken ill of, and whose reputations are attacked. We don’t hear four other blessings which Matthew’s version adds: Blessings on peacemakers, the meek, pure in heart, and the merciful. But Luke’s four blessings cover the big ideas. The promises of blessings are communal. The “you” Jesus refers to is plural. The people who are poor are especially loved by God. The Realm of God belongs to them, which warms our hearts because we know those who struggle with poverty and broken-heartedness and mean-spirited people reviling them deserve to have easier lives than they do. We love hearing Jesus’ promise that God holds especially close those Jesus calls the Least, drawing them into God’s own presence forever. The Beatitudes are some of our favorite passages of scripture.

But woes are tougher. Hearing the mirror image of the blessings is unpleasant. We don’t like the woes because we suspect Jesus may be pointing a finger at us. We must admit, some of these tougher words of Jesus could apply to many of us. Face it. Probably none of us has gone hungry for very long in our whole lives. And most of us laugh often, especially at brunch, while we are getting full. There may have been times in our lives when someone did not speak well of us. Kids may have been awful to us in school, or a co-worker may have spread mean things about us, but generally the congregation of St. Andrew Church is made up of people who are spoken well of. Granted some neighbors may hate our church sign, but people generally like us.

The one woe we may feel we can wiggle out of is the first one. Woe to you who are rich for you have received your consolation. We know who the rich are. We saw them slapping each other on the back at the recent inauguration. To my knowledge, no one here is a billionaire. Yet, I looked up some statistics to help our thinking about what it means to be rich. You might want to write these down. Consider the 8 billion people in the world. About 8% of us live on $2/day or less, so slightly fewer than 1 billion people. The next half of the global population lives on less than $7/day; so 4 billion people. Another 1 billion people live on about $32/day, which seems like a lot compared to $7/day, but $32/day amounts to just under $12,000/year. So, that totals about 6 billion people, or about three quarters of the world, live on under $12,000. As painful as these numbers are, if we jump forward a bit, we hit a searing reality. The percentage of those making over $32,000/year, which may include some sitting here? Those making over $32,000/year are 1% of the world population. Which means, many of us are the global 1%. That was an overwhelming number of numbers, but the bottom line is, we can easily say we are luxuriously wealthier than almost everyone else in the world. No wonder we hate the woes. Jesus is talking to us.

So, we must figure out solidarity. Standing with the poor is our Christian responsibility. Fortunately, Jesus is addressing us in the plural. We are called as a community of faith to stand in solidarity with those who are poor, hungry, heart-broken, reviled, scorned, and dispossessed. To be in solidarity means more than merely standing with them. We are to be unified with those in need. As a congregation we already feel connected with those who are struggling around the world. We pray for people in situations of violence and privation, acknowledging they are real people, whom God loves.

St. Andrew Church is a small group, so the question is, “What else can we do?” We are already doing quite a bit. Each month we make an over and above mission offering. A number of people have called for us to decrease those, but the Mission and Outreach Team is holding firm. They decided to cut back the number of mentions at the time of offering in worship, but not the number of missions. In addition, we support other local programs, plus we support our denomination’s outreach and service. A portion of our regular weekly offering helps sustain Global Ministry partners all over the globe, as well as other United Church of Christ projects, like support given to churches in Florida after hurricanes Helene and Milton.

But if we are part of the global 1%, is there more we are called to do? Some ethicists have decided to stop calling people “poor.” They claim a more fitting label is “the made poor.” They claim that social and political structures are in place which keep certain people from succeeding in life. If we are to stand in solidarity with those society is making or keeping poor, we need to change our thinking about them. They are not “lazy poor people.” They are the “made poor” or “kept poor.” So then, we need to work to dismantle those structures which make people poor. But how do we do that? Think of the people dying of thirst in the Sonoma Desert in Arizona as they try to enter the US. Some of us could send support to the churches with volunteers who go out with water and food and medicine to care for those trying to come in. But solidarity also calls us to work to change immigration laws, to make border situations more humane, to elect officials who understand the humanity of people fleeing violence.

As the season of Epiphany ends, we might remember not just that God came among us as a person to share our humanity, as amazing as that is. Scripture tells us God came as a baby, born into a kept poor family, who could only afford two birds to sacrifice at his birth, a family who had to flee an actual death squad coming after their baby, escaping as illegal immigrants to another country. So, how can we stand in solidarity with made poor God incarnate? We already know. Jesus tells us that what we do in service to the least, we do to him. So, we need to keep figuring out new ways to stand in solidarity with Jesus by standing in solidarity with the least.