6th Sunday “C”
Luke 6, 17, 20-26
Jesus
came down with the twelve
and
stood on a stretch of level ground
with
a great crowd of his disciples
and
a large number of the people
from
all Judea and Jerusalem
and
the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.
And
raising his eyes toward his disciples he said:
“Blessed
are you who are poor,
for
the kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed
are you who are now hungry,
for
you will be satisfied.
Blessed
are you who are now weeping,
for
you will laugh.
Blessed
are you when people hate you,
and
when they exclude and insult you,
and
denounce your name as evil
on
account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice
and leap for joy on that day!
Behold,
your reward will be great in heaven.
For
their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.
But
woe to you who are rich,
for
you have received your consolation.
Woe
to you who are filled now,
for
you will be hungry.
Woe
to you who laugh now,
for
you will grieve and weep.
Woe
to you when all speak well of you,
for
their ancestors treated the false
prophets
in this way.”
Homily
I don’t know about you but I much prefer
Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes, the blessings of God. What makes one
happy? What makes one blest? I can understand Matthew’s Blest are the poor in
spirit, because while I am may not be poor, I try to be poor in spirit. I am
not hungry, but I do hunger for more justice in the world. Luke’s Gospel though
isn’t quite so nice. Luke doesn’t mince words nor leave an easy out. Luke not
only says that the poor, the hungry, the weeping and those not well thought of
are blest he gives us his list of woes: the rich, the full, the happy, those
who are well thought of. Luke makes it quite clear what it is that he is
talking about it. He says it is a blessing to be poor, to hunger, to know
sorrow and or be despised by others.
I am not going to let you off easy today. Too
often we take the bite off of Jesus’ message. I was reading this week that all
too often we take the bite out of Jesus’ message. Jesus is a wild mountain
lion, but we declaw him and make domesticate him. We make Jesus into a cute
little kitty that everyone just loves to cuddle with. That isn’t the Christian
message. We are meant to be challenge by God’s word.
Now it is important to remember that the
beatitudes come in two parts. Not just the blessings and the woes, but the
blessings and woes themselves are divided in two. The first part is the poor,
the hungry, the sorrowing, those who are hated. That isn’t the blessing part
though; the second part is the blessing. Blest are the poor, why? Because they
will have the kingdom of God. Blest are those who hunger, for they will be
filled. Blest are those who weep, for they will be comforted. The same is true
of the woes, the woes isn’t the rich, those who are full and those who are
happy. No, the Rich, the full and the happy are warned, because they already
have their blessing. There is nothing left for them.
In a word what Jesus is saying, Blest are those
who are empty, because then God can come in and fill that void. If you have an
emptiness, if you have a spacious home for God, for other human beings, for the
long suffering on the earth then God will come in and fill it.
What will make you happy? Only God, we need to
make space for God, and Jesus is warning us, Jesus is telling us that if we
have too much stuff we won’t have room for God in our lives. Now I’ve not seen
it myself but I hear that there is a TV show on the internet that is popular
right now called: Tidying up with Marie Kondo.
I guess it is about this Marie Kondo encouraging us get rid of the stuff
that doesn’t bring your joy. We have too much stuff she says and we need to get
rid of it. I think she is on to something. We do have too much stuff, we need
to downsize, but don’t just keep those things that bring you joy, keep those
things that will leave you want Jesus in your life.
Now I am just visiting here this Sunday, so I
admit that I don’t know the lives of you who are sitting in these pews this
morning. They’re might be some real poverty here in this Church. Maybe someone
of you are afraid that you will lose your home, you’re not sure if you are
going to be able to make the rent. Maybe there are people here who are
homeless. I don’t know. I don’t know if any of you are hungry, and not just
because you didn’t have breakfast before you came to church, but maybe some of
you not only didn’t eat breakfast but maybe you won’t have lunch either. Maybe
you can go back to a time where you were really poor, or a time when you went
to bed hungry. Again I am not sure. I know in my life I never was truly poor.
There were times when my dad didn’t have a job, times when we didn’t get
presents at Christmas, but I never slept on the street, there was always
something to eat, even if it was powdered milk and peanut butter sandwiches.
But there is one thing that I think most of us
have experienced, that is deep sorrow. I would guess that most of us have had
some kind of loss in your life. As painful as it might have been I invite you
to go to that place. Maybe it was the loss of one of your parents, your mom or
dad. It doesn’t matter if they lived to be 101 or if they died while you were
still young yourself, I invite you to go there. Maybe it was the loss of your
spouse, someone you had shared your life with, someone who you thought you
would grow old with. I hope not but maybe some of you have lost a child. We
know that we will lose our parents; we fear that our spouse might go before us,
but you should never have to bury a child.
As painful as it is I invite you to go to that
place. For me it is my mom. My mom had always been healthy; she got cancer and
was told that she had six months to live. I was with her when she died, I
remember my brother had spent the night with my mom and my sister Peggy and I
had arrived in the morning to sit with mom. I walked my brother to his car and
when I came back my sister Peggy said, “she’s gone.” My mom was lifeless in her
bed. No breath, no heartbeat, she was gone. I called my brother on the phone I
tried to tell him to come back, but I couldn’t talk, no words came, only tears.
The woman who gave me life was gone. I would never feel her embrace again,
never hear her advice, not that I always took it. She was gone and no one would
ever take her place.
I invite you to go to that place and I am sure
that many of you know more sorrows than I. The thing is you knew that emptiness
that Jesus is talking about in the scriptures. That emptiness that no vacation
in Hawaii was going to cure, no later model car with all the features was going
help. No amount of money in the bank or no new job was going to help you
forget. You will never forget. And while the pain may subside, the tears may be
less, the loss is never filled, and you have that place in your heart. Invite
Jesus into that place right now. The thing is you will never ever truly need
Jesus, until you need Jesus.
It isn’t good to be poor. As Mae West said I’ve
been poor and I’ve been rich, I prefer rich. It isn’t good to know really
hunger, there is nothing nice about deep sorrow, and no one wants to be hated.
None of those things are good, but when we realize that we have a need that we
can no longer fill, a question that has no answer, an emptiness, then we can
make room for Jesus. At times, especially in this consumerist society that we
live in we think if we just had a little more money, if we just had one more
cookie, if we just had good health and everyone thought we were the greatest in
the world. That everything would be great. It won’t the only thing that will
truly bring us lasting and real happiness is Jesus alone.
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