February 13, 2022 – 6th Sunday after Epiphany

Christ’s beatitudes (“Blessed are …”) teach us about living under God’s reign. As his disciples, we need to align ourselves – our attitudes and our actions – to living under God’s reign.

Let us pray.  Holy and gracious God, we give you thanks for the gift of your presence in this time and place, and within each one of us gathered here and in the many places that we have gathered today. Help us now to open our minds, our hearts, our whole lives, to receive the gift of your living word for us this day, and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

Other than the Second Reading from Paul, from 1st Corinthians, where he is trying to press his argument ‘if Jesus is raised from the dead there must be a resurrection for all humanity who have died,’ all of our other Scripture readings today address our attitude toward, and our experience of, our own lives, and what by God’s grace and truth will be the result.

Well, we hear today the Gospel of Luke’s Beatitudes in our Gospel Reading.  Our choir very graciously gave us also St. Matthew’s Beatitudes just moments ago.  And we will hear them again, though in a very different setting and a different feel, during Communion.  So the Scripture Readings give us stark comparisons between living a life guided and directed by God, and living a life entirely self-directed or intentionally lived without reference to God.

In the First Reading from the prophet, Jeremiah, we heard these words, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.” And then staying with this kind of “plant vitality” image, Jeremiah says this of those who ignore God.  He says, “Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.” It doesn’t sound like a particularly nice place to be. 

So this duality – blessed and cursed – continues in a portion of Psalm 1 that we sang today.  We heard these words, “Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked,

nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful! Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and they meditate on his law day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season with leaves that do not wither, everything they do shall prosper.”  Now it’s easy to view these passages of Scripture as a kind of straightforward ‘cause and effect’, or ‘action and consequence’, and if one acts in a good way they will be rewarded; if they act in a nasty way they will pay the price – very easy to kind of slide into that interpretation.  But Jesus does something different with his Beatitudes and the teaching around them.  He says these words, “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 …” You have to realize that what he’s proposing here is in stark contrast to a good deal of the religious wisdom of that day – and, sadly, even to some degree of our day.  And that is the thinking that wealth and good fortune are thought to be signs of God’s blessing, and the lack of those things are thought to be signs of God’s ignoring of a person, or being separate from a person.  But instead, Jesus says these words, “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.”  Now it’s easy to see this as Jesus saying to those who have had it hard in this life, ‘Hang in there – you’ll get your reward in the next life, in heaven,’ and he does make a reference to your ‘reward is great in heaven.’ But that is in reference to being rejected and badly treated for following Christ, because your ancestors, the prophets, were also badly treated. So you know that you’ll be able to stand with those ancestors in heaven.

So then, what is Jesus saying?  In the section immediately preceding this Gospel Reading this morning, Jesus selected the twelve disciples whom he would name apostles, and then he comes down to the plain, teaches and heals amongst the huge crowds, and then he looks at his disciples and he begins, “Blessed are you who are poor …”  He is teaching about life under the reign of God – in God’s Kingdom.  And those who have been brought low will be raised up by God’s grace. And then he says, “But woe to you have focused on yourself – looking after only your own needs.  You will find yourself impoverished.  Woe to you who align yourself completely with this world’s values to maximize your wealth and success.  This is what will be in God’s reign – in God’s Kingdom.

So what does this Gospel say to us today, who I think are mainly middle class and upper-middle class Manitobans? And as the preacher, it’s very tempting to spin this proclamation in such a way that you all go home feeling good and telling each other that you enjoyed the sermon.  For Jesus cuts off that approach when he says these words, “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.” So it’s ‘woe to you Don if the main motive in your preaching is to have all your listeners speak well of you.’

Another trap that we frequently fall into is to ‘stand outside’ these kinds of narratives and scenes.  We observe on the one hand, those who are blessed and who are doing the things of the Kingdom; and on the other hand we see this other group who are cursed because they’re ignoring God.  And then we somehow think we’re safe because we’re not in either of those camps.  Well, we are!  And so what are we who are rich, at least by the standards of two-thirds of the world’s population; we who have lots to eat; we who feel pleased with our life situation and security, and try to impress everyone around us – what are we supposed to do with these Beatitudes?

I think the key may lie in today’s Collect Prayer. We prayed, “Almighty and everliving God, look with compassion on the anguish of the world, and by your power make whole all peoples and nations …” - make whole all peoples and nations. This is the goal of God’s reign – of God’s Kingdom.  And it’s the continuing work of the risen Christ.  And who is the risen Christ on earth?  We are as the Body of Christ! And if we are disciples of Jesus Christ we must align ourselves with God’s intentions in the Kingdom – to make all peoples and nations whole.  So by and through God’s grace, we are to empathize with the poor; we are to identify with them, and God’s desire that under God’s reign they are blessed – and we become a source of God’s blessing - the same with those who are hungry. And we weep with those who are weeping, empathizing with and sharing their pain.  And we live out our Christian discipleship openly – even if others react negatively to the Gospel of God and God’s Kingdom that we are living and proclaiming. 

And it’s important to be clear about our motivation. We don’t start adopting these attitudes and behaviour of the Kingdom in order to get blessed.  We adopt them as part of our discipleship – as part of following Jesus Christ.  If under God’s reign the poor are blessed, then we need to be honouring whom God is calling blessed, and support them.  If in God’s reign the hungry are being filled, then we need to honour God’s will that the blessed-hungry are to be filled.  We become agents of filling the hungry.  And if in God’s reign those who weep will be comforted, then we need to be where God is acting and help to comfort them.

Or to use a completely ludicrous example – if God’s word were to say, ‘Blessed are the snow-shovellers.”, then we as disciples of Jesus Christ and proclaimers of God’s coming Kingdom, we need to join those shoveling snow – not to grab a blessing or avoid a curse such as, ‘Woe to you who simply watch it snow from inside your house for you shall be stuck in your driveway.’  No! But to follow Christ and witness to God’s reign where the snow-shovellers are blessed. As we learned in the Collect Prayer, the goal is not to move from a place of being on the other of Christ’s ‘woes’ and stepping into the ‘shower of God’s blessings.’  God’s reign will bring about the wholeness of all peoples and nations.  The imperative for us as Christian disciples is to be living under God’s reign now – and being a blessing to those whom God is calling ‘blessed.’

Amen.