Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

We like Matthew’s version better, don’t we?

It’s certainly far more familiar:

Blessed are the meek,

for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who weep … those who mourn …

those who hunger and thirst for what is right.

Familiar verses for many of us.

In fact, so familiar that a song inspired by Matthew’s text

was written and performed in the 1960s

by two Jewish kids from New York:

Simon and Garfunkel.

But Luke remembers it a little differently.

Oh, he includes most of what Matthew had Jesus say …

but he also records a section that is uniquely his own:

the "woes."

"Woe to you who are rich …

woe to you who are full now …

woe to you who are laughing now …

woe to you when all speak well of you."

Luke’s message, particularly in this place,

is not primarily about "believe in Jesus or else."

It’s certainly not the insipid "God loves you and so do I" stuff

that we hear from certain televangelists.

It’s not the fire-and-brimstone style of condemning those

whose particular sins aren’t the same as yours,

as we hear from numerous figures among the religious right …

Nor, however, is it the "anything goes so long as nobody gets hurt"

that we sometimes hear from those of us in the mushy middle

who are afraid of offending anyone.

Jesus refuses to tread lightly,

no matter whose toes he is stepping on.

And Luke’s portrait of Jesus

is that of a man – and of God –

concerned about the injustices and inequalities

in this world, here and now.

He promises blessings to those whom the world has cursed.

He promises woe to those whom the world has blessed.

Taken out of context,

these verses can sound like the sort of "pie in the sky when you die" promises

that are used to keep poor people "in their place."

Taken out of context,

verses like these are the reason Karl Marx referred to

religion as the "opiate of the masses."

Keep people calm with promises that "some day" it will be better,

and maybe then they won’t rise up against you here and now.

That’s certainly not what Jesus was saying …

but it’s what a significant number of his followers throughout history

have done with what he said.

But it’s not really the "blessings" that cause us to worry, is it?

It’s those danged "woes."

Because if we are truthful with ourselves,

Jesus is speaking woe to us.

Oh, we may not be rich, at least by today’s standards …

but we aren’t poor, either.

I’ve seen how we eat at fellowship meals …

we aren’t among the hungry.

We sometimes have occasion to weep,

but even more often we have occasion to laugh.

Jesus suggests pretty strongly

that our days of comfort are numbered.

It doesn’t sound very much like good news, does it?

What we have to remember, painful though it may be,

is that Jesus didn’t spend very much time talking to people like us.

Of course, that’s partly because there was much less of a middle class

in the Roman Empire outpost of Palestine

than there is in America of the 21^st century.

But every gospel, not only Luke’s,

makes it pretty clear that it was people like us

who were skeptical of Jesus, if not outright hostile.

He hung out with people of questionable morals.

He broke laws when they stood in the way of human need.

He challenged the authority and the interpretations

of religious leaders who had devoted their lives to study.

He supposedly healed people whom no one else had been able to help.

If someone were to appear in our own day and time,

doing such things in the name of God,

would we believe him or her?

Probably not.

If that’s the form that the good news is going to take,

how "good" is it, really?

See, this is where the gospel gets difficult.

This is where, for those of us lucky enough to live comfortable lives,

the gospel has to sound like "bad news"

before it can be good news.

We have to understand, and to confess,

that it was not "people like us"

who left everything behind and followed Jesus.

It was not people like us

to whom Jesus spoke his words of blessing.

It was people like us who were afraid that he was a troublemaker,

who would cause the governing authorities to crack down on us all,

not just the crazies who followed him around.

It was people like us,

not powerful, but afraid of losing what little they had managed to accumulate,

who insisted that Jesus be done away with..

It was people like us

whom Jesus warned with his words of woe.

Not bad people,

but people who have a lot to lose if we take his good news seriously.

I think about passages like this one,

and Luke’s gospel as a whole, often,

when I’m downtown at the Stewpot on Monday afternoons.

I spend those afternoons surrounded by people who are poor,

who are hungry, who often weep at what their lives have become,

who are hated and reviled and persecuted.

It seems like the homeless are the only group

whom it’s still politically correct or at least okay

to despise, and oppress, and discriminate against.

But then, at the end of the afternoon,

I get in my car and drive home …

often passing by, on the sidewalks,

someone I’ve talked to that afternoon …

walking over to the Union Gospel Mission,

or bedding down for the night somewhere out of the wind.

And I wonder what Jesus thinks of me:

not hungry, not poor, rarely weeping.

Sometimes, a gospel that is good news to the poor

is at best a mixed message to the rest of us.

That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love us.

I think it does mean that God has expectations of us

that we have to wrestle with, a lot.

Are we expected to give everything away,

and join our brothers and sisters on the streets,

so that we can be blessed?

Probably not.

But if Jesus has made it clear that God blesses

the poor and the hungry and the weeping,

are we not, as children of God,

called upon to do the same?

If God has made it clear that those who are rich,

those who have enough to eat,

those whose lives are good enough that they can laugh,

are at long-term risk …

then how should we respond to a culture and a social order

that encourage gluttony, and accumulation,

and enjoying one’s own life without regard for others?

Jesus was far more countercultural

than his church has ever dared to be,

except perhaps in its earliest days.

In some respects, we may long for the "good old days"

of the post-war years, from the late 40s to the early 60s,

when church membership and participation

were at their historical all-time high in this country.

It did seem like the culture listened more to what the church had to say.

But it’s equally true that the church

was influenced by the culture, and not always for the better.

How many churches, in that time and even today,

have taught racist beliefs and behaviors?

How often have we heard scripture taken out of context

to "prove" that people who are poor,

are that way because of their own fault?

How many churches in urban settings faltered and died,

while new churches flourished in the suburbs,

where Christian people had moved to get away from poor people

and others whom they hated, and reviled?

As any anthropologist can tell you …

"religion" as a human institution

generally serves to legitimate an existing

social, political, and economic order.

"Divine right of kings" … remember that from your history books?

One of the reasons Jesus was so disturbing in his own time

is that he took the sacred texts seriously

the social, political, and economic order of his day.

For those of his hearers who had mostly benefited from "the way things were,"

that sounded a whole lot like bad news.

For those of us today who hear him,

and are at a fairly comfortable place in our own society and economy,

the gospel may also start out sounding like not-very-good news.

That is as it should be.

God did not create the world to be a place where

some people starve while others are constantly dieting.

God did not create the world to be a place where

some of us live in big houses while others sleep on the sidewalks.

God did not create the world to be a place where

some get to laugh at the clever deals they have made,

while others weep that they have been impoverished by those same "deals."

So, can we get past the "bad news"

that passes judgment on some of what we are and what we do,

to get to the good news,

which is for all of us,

but only when we decide we’re going try to live

in a world as God meant for it to be?

Will we write off the gospel, or parts of it,

because it is unrealistic, or archaic, or too scary?

Or will we let the good news reshape us,

maybe all at once,

maybe a little at a time,

so that we can be agents of the gospel

in a world that has strayed far from God’s intentions?

No one says it’s an easy task …

look what happened to Jesus.

But it does seem to me that we must, ultimately,

decide which side we are on, and act accordingly:

the side of the woes, which is comfortable now,

or the side of the blessings, which holds promise for the future …

Promise not only for ourselves,

but for countless others as well.

Will we be on the side of the world as it is,

or the world as God created it to be?

May we have the courage to seek God’s blessings,

wherever they lead us here and now.

Amen.

© 2007 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)