February
17th, 2019 “Woe is Me!” Rev. Heather Jepsen
Luke 6:17-26 with
Jeremiah 17:5-10
This morning we return to Jesus’
teaching in the gospel of Luke and once again we find that these lessons are
difficult for modern Americans. When Jesus
gathers the people on the plain to offer his sermon, he doesn’t pull any
punches. This is Luke, where scholars
find what is often called God’s “preferential option for the poor”. Or in plain language, God loves poor people
more than you. No one likes to hear
those words, and yet that is one way to read what Luke has for us today. Let’s dig deeper.
Last week we read about Jesus calling
the disciples Peter, James, and John from their lives as fisherman. Since that time he has been healing, calling
other disciples, arguing with the Pharisees, and praying. Just prior to the section we read this
morning, Jesus is on a mountaintop praying and he spends the whole night in
prayer. In the morning he decides to
gather a special group to his side and so he chooses 12 of his best men and
calls them his apostles.
In our reading for today, Jesus and the
12 descend from the mountain down on to a level place. This notion of a level place should perk up
our ears as it indicates that Jesus stands among the people as one of them,
rather than placing himself above them demonstrating his status. Jesus, the apostles, and the people who
follow are all on the same level field.
There is a great crowd gathered
composed of people from all over the area including the big city, the
coastlands, and the small towns.
Everyone has come to seek Jesus’ teaching and some have come to be
healed. It sounds like a frenzy as the
writer tells us that all were gathering around and trying to touch Jesus, as
power would come out of him when he was touched. Amazingly, it says Jesus healed all of them.
Then Jesus looks to the twelve, to the
disciples, and begins to teach, first with blessings, “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.”
These are the beatitudes in Luke and
I don’t think anyone hears these lessons without automatically translating them
into Matthew’s beatitudes. We love
Matthew’s “Blessed are the poor in spirit” because we can all see ourselves as
poor in spirit. Unfortunately that is
not what Luke says. Luke says, “Blessed
are the poor” period. And he means the
poor, those who are literally poor in this world, and very few, if any of us,
fall into this category.
Lest we find some way to number
ourselves among the blessed in Luke, Jesus adds on a corresponding set of woes
also not found in Matthew’s version.
“Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your reward. 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 this is what they did to the false
prophets.” When I read this I cannot
help but think of myself. Rich, full,
laughing, well-spoken of? Check, check,
check, and check. The only proper
conclusion to Jesus in Luke’s gospel is “woe is me!” “Woe is me” for I fit all these categories,
woe is me for my heart is far from the Lord.
The God that Jesus preaches in Luke’s
gospel is not one that we like to preach.
This is certainly no Joel Osteen, “live your best life now” God who wants
to bless you because you deserve it. I
want to wave my hand over this text and say in my best Star Wars impersonation
“This is not the good news you are looking for.” But I know in my heart that this is good news
and it is news that we all need to hear.
The beatitudes in Luke’s gospel go
right to the heart of all the ways we try to defend our questionable behavior
before the Lord. We try to tell
ourselves that we aren’t as rich as our neighbor and so therefore this isn’t
about us. We try to tell ourselves that
our gluttony only comes at holiday time so this isn’t about us. We try to tell ourselves that we really don’t
care all that much about how many “likes” we have on Facebook or how many
followers we have on Twitter so this isn’t really about us. But this is about us and when we stand before
the throne of Jesus in the gospel of Luke we all stand condemned.
In his commentary in Feasting on the
Word, David Ostendorff writes,
“These words cut to the core of our being and belief and
assault deeply held notions of faith and faithfulness. Are we not the bearers and teachers of the
Word of God? Indeed we are, and therein
is our woe. God does not take kindly to half-heartedness. God does not bless us as we maintain the
status quo, reaping the accolades of those who hear us and follow us. God does not bless us as we bathe in
respectability in the eyes of the world.
God does not bless us as we quietly maintain tradition and gloss over or
ignore prophetic voices calling us back to God – in the church and in the
world. God does not bless us as we
protect and build institutions and empires.
God does not bless us, well off, full, comfortable, hearty, and well-spoken
of.”
The beatitudes in Luke’s gospel call
us and our American lifestyle to account.
The God of Luke is the God of those who have nothing but God. The challenge Luke throws down is that those
who have the blessings of this world, perhaps do not even have God at all. Woe is me and woe is us.
The difficultly lies in the fact that
the blessings of this world blind us to our need for God. When we are rich and full, when we are
popular and well loved, it is easy to think that we have earned these things
ourselves and that these are the things that give us value as individuals. It is easy to become drunk on the pleasures
of this world and ignore our need for God.
By contrast, those who have nothing, those who are hungry and poor,
broken and despised, they have nothing to hold on to but God. Jesus in the gospel of Luke tells us that
those ones are the truly blessed.
Lest you think that Luke came up with
this crazy idea on his own I would draw your attention to our reading from
Jeremiah. “Cursed are those who trust in
mortals . . . their hearts turn away from the Lord.” Jeremiah teaches that when we put our trust
in other humans and in human institutions like wealth and privilege; we turn
our hearts away from God. Jeremiah uses
nature as an illustration. Those who
trust in the ways of the world are like a sorry plant in the desert sands. Those who trust in God are like a tree
planted by a stream, their roots run deep and they can weather the storm. When we are surrounded by the blessings of
this life, we are like the bush in the desert, brittle and dry. When we rely on God alone, when we know our
true need for God, we are like the tree with deep roots.
The truth is, when you look at the poor
in America it is hard to see God’s blessing.
Our country has piled so much shame upon poverty that it is really hard
to get around this way of thinking. But
when you look at the global poor, the truth of Luke’s beatitudes becomes
starkly clear. The first time I visited
Malawi I was overwhelmed by the blessedness of the people who lived there. Yes, they live in extreme poverty. But by the same token, they live lives of the
deepest abundance of faith. They truly
live Jesus’ teaching to worry only about what you need for today. They truly live the prayer give us this day
our daily bread. They are so joyful and
they are not always reaching and grasping for more. Here we have so much and we never have
enough. There they have so little and
they are satisfied.
When I first saw the way that people
lived in Malawi, I began to imagine what my life would be like if I lived there
instead of here in America. And the
truth is I was jealous. How freeing it
would be to shed all the trappings of work and culture, social media and the
ever present race to get ahead. To
simply live in my hut, feed my family, and pass my time would be a much simpler
and purer life. Now I want to be
cautious of romanticizing the poor, I don’t want to do that. I know their struggles are real and that is
why I work through the mission of this church to improve their lives through
clean water, education, and health care.
But I do want to point out that our way of living is not better than
theirs, and it is certainly not closer to God.
When I met the people of Malawi I said to myself, “blessed are they and
woe is me.”
When we read the beatitudes in Luke’s
gospel we are forced to notice our own state of woefulness. We are forced to look at all the things we
surround ourselves with that have separated us from God. We are forced to admit that we are not
blessed after all. Rather, we are called
to humble ourselves before our Lord.
In the gospel of Luke we read that God
is especially the God of the poor. We
read that the realm of God is for those who have nothing but God. We too, can be part of that realm, but only
after we recognize our own woefulness, only after we humble ourselves and ask for
forgiveness, only after we strip ourselves of all the things that distract us
from the kingdom of God.
This week I challenge you to take stock
of your world. In what ways are you
rich, well fed, and well thought of? How
have you put your trust in these things instead of God? How have you allowed yourself to become
distracted by the pleasures and powers of our world? This week I challenge you to join me in the
cry of “woe is me.” Let us humble
ourselves before our God, seeking forgiveness.
And let us open our eyes to the fact that without God we have nothing,
without God we are nothing. Amen.
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