This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Luke 6:17-26. The English Standard Version presents the verses in two clusters, under the headings “Jesus Ministers to a Great Multitude,” and “The Beatitudes.” These are summaries of the first two parts of what’s often called Jesus’ “Sermon on the Plain.”[1]
Luke presents the sermon as something Jesus taught in one sitting.[2] The audience were his disciples including the Twelve, the healed, and hundreds, perhaps thousands,[3] more.
Many had travelled far. They’d come for healing. Jesus healed them. They were grateful.
What did they want to hear from him?
Perhaps advice on how to avoid becoming sick or disabled? Perhaps advice on how to escape the exorbitant taxes the rulers extracted from them?
We must never forget that the day-to-day life for Jesus’ audiences was like that of Malayans under Japanese occupation in the 1940s. Jesus’ audience lived in an occupied land, under the thumb of oppressors.[4]
They were poor, hungry, sick. Ever complaining. Ever longing for someone to free them. Someone like the liberator Isaiah had said would come. The liberator whom Jesus claimed to be when he revealed his Nazareth manifesto.[5] You can read about it in Luke 4:14-29.
What did Jesus tell them in the Sermon on the Plain?
Today, I’ll consider the introduction. Next week, I’ll consider the rest of it.
Once, I heard a preacher tease his audience. He said they wouldn’t leave until he dismissed them with the blessing. Blessings are important.
Jesus began with four blessings. Listen to them:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”
We must not treat each blessing as directed to either the poor, or the hungry, or the weeping, or the hated. That would be a mistake, because all who are poor are hungry, weeping, hated.
What Jesus is saying is that those who now depend on scavenging, or subsidies, or charity for survival, will see better days. Will see better days through membership of his kingdom.
To understand what Jesus means by “yours is the kingdom of God,” we have to look at the fourth blessing. The “blessing” which says they will be hated and made to suffer because of him. Like the prophets of old.
What did the prophets of old do?
The prophets spoke the word of God to men in society. They spoke about the rich and the poor in society. They spoke repeatedly about widows, orphans and strangers. They said God judges all individuals on the basis of how their society treat widows, orphans and strangers.
The prophets rejected the worldview which says the presence or absence of well-being shows the presence or absence of God’s blessing. Many Christians today believe this is taught in Deuteronomy 28.[6]
The prophets disagree. The prophets say Deuteronomy 28 applies to societies. Amos famously said of the wealthy of his day:
They trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth.[7]
Like the prophets, Jesus turned the tables on the rich, the full, the laughing, the praised. He did it by speaking of four woes, four curses. You can read them in verses 24-26.
Jesus announced what theologians call The Great Reversal. Scholar Nicholas Wolterstorff describes it well:
“The coming of justice requires the humbling of those who exalt themselves. The arrogant must be cured of their arrogance; the rich and powerful must be cured of their attachment to wealth and power. Only then is justice for all possible.”
Remember, it was like the time of the Japanese occupation of Malaya. You had to get off your bicycle and bow when you saw a Japanese soldier. You had to do the same if you were a labourer and saw a British overseer.
Remember what Mary saw in her vision:
“He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate.” [8]
What “the poor” heard in the blessings was a prediction of the future. What “the poor” heard in the blessings was a call to stand up for justice. What “the poor” heard in the blessings was a call to stand with the prophets, not with those who killed the prophets.
What do we hear? Do we hear an echo of the prophet Micah saying, “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God”?[9]
What do we see? Do we see that we are poor when others are poor?[10]
Do we listen to Jesus like those under the Japanese occupation?
Peace be with you.
[1] To distinguish it from the longer Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5-7.
[2] Luke probably assembled this sermon from selections of Jesus’ repeated teachings.
[3] “Thousands” is not impossible, since we know of two occasions when Jesus fed thousands who gathered to receive healing and teaching from him.
[4] Oppressors who had spies everywhere.
[5] For more, see my sermon “What is the Gospel? Jesus’ Nazareth manifesto,” from minute 46.
[6] The ESV supplies two headings in that chapter. The first is “Blessings for Obedience.” The second is “Curses for Disobedience.”
[8] Luke 1:1-52, part of Mary’s Song, The Magnificat, in Luke 1:46-56.
[10] How knowledgeable are we – and our church’s local and national leaders – about poverty in our nation? How many would attempt to understand an article such as this one: Malaysia’s latest income inequality trends explained, according to the World Bank?
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