Whoa! Really? Jesus can’t be serious!

Sermon on  Luke 6:17-26

Whoaaa! Did he really just say that? Did he really just remind us of our great past and our dwindling numbers in the present? Did he just really rub it in how things have changed not just for Christ the King but also for Fremont? 

Some of you might have thought that last week after listening to Joe’s Acts for Vitality talk. And you are right. It’s no fun to hear the truth when the truth isn’t pink and glittery. When we can’t talk growth and glory. And you know how it is with the truth. It’s not like we didn’t know it all along. After all, we have eyes to see and ears to hear. And, we often choose to ignore what we know and love what is and put a positive spin on everything. I admit that pastors are often especially good at that. Mainly, because despair and anxiety aren’t helpful either when it comes to reality checks and change. Nor is living in denial.

Whoaaaa! Did he really just say that? Did he really just woe the rich? The full? The happy-go-lucky? The well-respected people in our community? Did he really just woe most, maybe even all of us, basically? 

The unpleasant answer is obviously “yes”. Yes, Jesus just called us out, radically and harshly. And if you try to back away now, wait a second. Do you have a roof over your head at night? Do you have food in your fridge. Can you afford to travel sometimes? Or see a show? Or drive somewhere just for pleasure and leisure? Well, then you are considered to be rich. You are part of the richest people in the world. Not the top 10 or top 100 or even top 1%, of course. But you and I are considered to be richer than the absolute majority of people in the world. There is no way around it. And Jesus doesn’t consider being rich a blessing in today’s Gospel. 

Woe to you, he cries out. Woe to you who are rich,
  for you have received your consolation.

To be blessed with wealth is nowhere to be found in Jesus’ sermons. Much to our regret.

Yet, of course, we aren’t just rich. Some of us have good reason to weep these days. Many of us are hungry for healing. For healing from the pandemic. For healing from cancer, from Covid, from isolation and despair. The poor surely suffer more when sick. But money often doesn’t buy us the cure we need either. And then, sometimes all we are left to do, is weep, cry, scream in anger over the unfairness of life and cancer that let’s some drink and smoke healthily forever and kills others.

And then that. Jesus calls the weeping, the crying, the people screaming in agony blessed. 

Whoaaa, did he really just say that? The poor wonder. The hungry cry, the sad weep. Did he really just call us blessed? Is he kidding us? Doesn’t he see our reality? Our needs? Our pain? Doesn’t he see that the world seems to have forgotten the ones Jesus calls blessed?

Jesus preaches his sermon on the plain. Most of you know this sermon as the sermon on the mount. But Luke sets it elsewhere. On the plain. Here, Jesus’ sermon quite literally creates a leveling field. It’s basically the idea of equity instead of equality. What’s the difference? Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources and opportunities, regardless of their circumstances. Like we used to hand out backpacks with basically the same content to boys and girls. But then, Melinda and some others realized that that wasn’t fair. Because girls need additional resources to buy menstruating products. So, last year we included extra gift cards for girls. Which probably felt unfair to some brothers in a family at first. When really it was the fairest thing to do.

In today’s Gospel equality would be calling the poor and the rich blessed and woe them both for their misuse of their resources. It would be to ask them both to be more generous according to their means and to reconsider their spending. It would be to reassure them both of being beloveds of God, no matter what. It would be Jesus saying “Sure, you are rich. And I know you are sad or sick as well. So, don’t worry too much about the woe. You are still blessed.” 

Equality in today’s Gospel would be the implicit claim that God doesn’t care about the material needs of the poor or the tears of the weeping or the abundance of us rich. Thank God, that’s not what Jesus preaches.

The truth is a different one. God does seem to care about our bank accounts and what we choose to do with them. God cares about the poor and whether they are fed and housed and dressed. And not just with the very least. But with the very best. With what the rich have. With what we have. 

God cares about the sick, everyone battling Covid or cancer or any other illness. God cares about our suffering. Calling us blessed isn’t denial here. It’s telling us that we are never alone, never abandoned by God. That our suffering is no punishment by God. That our suffering does not take away from God’s love for us. In the contrary, that God is with us in our suffering. That’s what being blessed means. That God is with us.

Jesus preaches to level the field. Imagine a world where everyone can live in dignity. Which would be equity. Equity, in its simplest terms means meeting people where they are and allocating resources and opportunities as needed to create equal outcomes for all. The poor are blessed and that should actually change their lives in this world. The weeping are blessed and that should actually change their lives in this world. The rich live in woe which also should actually change their lives in this world. Imagine the cures we could have if we poured our money into cancer research instead of weapons and wars. Imagine what the poor could create, could be, could develop, if they didn’t have to struggle for dear life.

Imagine! That’s what Jesus preaches to us today. And we are like “Whoaaa”, really? Which usually leads us to finding good reasons why there is no way any of this could ever become true. During the pandemic the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. We are probably as far away from a leveled reality as the people listening to Jesus’ sermon were. 

Well, the rather annoying truth about Jesus is, that he usually isn’t discouraged by our realities and visionary limitations. He just walks around proclaiming truths that at first don’t ring true. He just doesn’t give up on leveling the field, working toward equity for all.

Blessed are the struggling, woe to you who think you’ve got it all figured out. When it comes to the future of the ELCA in general and the future of our congregation specifically, that’s actually Good News. Because we don’t have it all figured out. We struggle, we wonder, we worry. And amidst all that we hear that we are blessed. We are called to envision the future. A blessed future which means a future with struggles and God by our side. Amen.