All Saints, 2013 Luke
6:20-31 20Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude
you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is
great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.24“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your
consolation.25“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. 26“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their
ancestors did to the false prophets.
27“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.30Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
27“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.30Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
This passage from the
gospel according to Luke may sound comforting.
For those of us who mourn today as we remember saints who have died, there
may be a word of consolation when we hear, “blessed are you who weep, for you
will laugh.” When a loved one dies, we need to hear this word- that the grief
will lessen over time, that there will come a time when we will smile and laugh
again.
Certainly when we are
grieving, we need that comfort, we need that hope. But this passage also radically
challenges a worldview that operates on merit- on how good or bad we are.
In his book Manna and Mercy, which I use with
the faith formation classes, Pastor Dan Erlander explains it this way, “Since
physical health was thought to be a sign of God’s blessing, sickness was
assumed to be a punishment for sin. Wealth
was also thought to be a sign of God’s favor.
Therefore, poverty was considered a disgrace, a punishment from God. ”
Today’s gospel is
often called the Beatitudes, from the Latin word “beatitudo”, meaning
blessedness. The Greek word for that phrase “Blessed are you” is “makarioi este”,
which means “happy are you”. This is an adjective, in a plural form, in the present
tense. It might be helpful to think of
this phrase as if Luke were from the South- “y’all are happy now, y’all are
fortunate now, y’all are blessed.” And when are these folks blessed or
happy? When they are poor, hungry, mourn,
when they are hated, reviled, or excluded. And the flip side to this: Woe to y’all
who are rich, woe y’all who are full, woe y’all who laugh, woe when people speak
well of y’all.
We’ve probably heard
these words so much that we’ve missed how radical they were when Jesus spoke
them, how they turned the world on its head. And because we don’t know how challenging they
were, we also miss how they spoke a word of healing and hope to a people living
in oppression and in profound disconnect from one another.
During the Roman
occupation of Palestine at the time of Jesus, there were many who were hungry,
poor, and mourning. And at the time of
the Early Christian Church, when this passage was written down by Luke, there
were many early Christians who were being spoken badly of. These people needed to hear that God blessed
them, that there was reason to be happy- because most of the people they knew would
have thought that their very situation was their fault, that there was
something wrong with them.
At the same time, in
Biblical economics, when someone is rich, it is because they have taken more
than their fair share, and as a result, someone else is poor or hungry. And how could one laugh if your community is
suffering and dying? The people who were
laughing must have been oblivious to the plight of the people around them. Those who had full bellies would not have
known or perhaps didn’t think that the hungry were their responsibility. They would have been disconnected from their
community.
And so Jesus says, “Woe
to you.” This “woe”, as one of my seminary professors, Robert Smith, taught, is
like a word you would speak at your sister’s funeral- it’s not an accusation but
a word of communal lament, a groan that everyone makes together. It’s not clear in this passage if Jesus is crying
out in pain for the disconnect of the society in which rich people feast and
the poor are hungry or if Jesus is saying that the rich will cry out when they
realize the effect of their actions.
Either
way, these words from Jesus call for a different kind of community, one in
which the lowly are lifted up and the
rich are humbled, and the rifts between the two are healed. This is a world in
which everything is turned upside down but turns out right side up.
Over
the generations, the kinds of people who continue to share that word of hope to
those who are suffering and that word of challenge to those who are too
comfortable- those people have been called saints. Sometimes, saints are people
who live that upside down way of life- they point us toward Christ, shining a
light when everything else seems dark.
After we sing the hymn of the day, we will light
candles for the saints who have died, beginning with those who have died this
year and were connected to this congregation. You are invited to light candles
in thanksgiving for the saints who have died, and to name them aloud or to simply
light a candle. You may also light a
candle at the time of communion.
Let us give thanks and praise God for the gift of
the saints in our lives and for the saints who have walked into the dark places
of the world to shine a light of hope and love.