Epiphany 6C
Jeremiah 17:5-10, Psalm 1, Luke 6:17-26
We don’t hear this set of Scripture readings very
often and, if you are like me, that makes you pretty happy. Because really, if we are going to hear about
those who are blessed, isn’t it nicer to hear them from the Gospel of Matthew
where even in the first instance things are markedly better. Instead of Luke’s
“Blessed are you who are poor, for your is the kingdom of God,” Matthew writes,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”[1] Ah, yes, the poor in spirit! That could apply
to any of us. But blessed are the poor? Did Luke just forget the rest? It’s
doubtful because in his parallel list of woes he is quite clear to say, “woe to
you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”[2]
Even the sight lines in Matthew are better. There Jesus is standing at the top
of the mountain and so there is no bad seat in the house; here, in Luke’s
gospel, Jesus is standing on the plain and the image is of those in the back
standing on tip toe trying to catch a glimpse of him through the crowd.
No, Luke didn’t forget anything. In fact, his gospel
is clear that the poor are God’s chosen people. In Mary’s Magnificat, which
appears in the very first chapter of Luke’s gospel, we read, the Lord “has
filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”[3]
In chapter 12 of Luke Jesus tells a parable of a rich man whose crops produced
abundantly and in order to have room to store it all he pulls down his barns
and builds larger ones. In response, God says, “You fool! This very night your
life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will
they be?”[4]
Still later, in chapter 16 of Luke we have the story of the rich man and
Lazarus. The rich man dies and is in Hades, Lazarus dies and is in heaven. The
rich man calls out to Father Abraham, asking him to send Lazarus down to
provide him with just a sip of cool water. But Abraham replies, “Child,
remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus
in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in
agony.”[5]
And finally, in the 18th chapter of Luke we have the story of the
rich man who asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells
him, “'Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will
have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me’ But when he heard this, he
became sad; for he was very rich.”[6]
So, no Luke did not forget anything:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” and “Woe
to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” Maybe those in
the back are no longer standing on tip toe to get a better sight of Jesus.
Maybe they are now trying to slip quietly away.
And so it is that we are given a choice. Those who are
rich are not condemned to death; but rather, we are given a choice. Knowing God’s preferential treatment for the
poor, we can choose the way of God or we can choose the way of the world. We can choose to trust God and follow God’s
ways or we can choose an easier path and create our own misery. Jesus is not calling us blessed in this passage.
We who along with China and the European Union generate 49% of the
world’s economic output, we who are the 5th wealthiest nation in the
world, we are not who Jesus is calling poor or blessed. So we best be about the business of
ministering to those Jesus’ blesses because the only other alternative is to be
complicit in the continued oppression of the poor. We have the ability – and,
in fact, the responsibility and calling – “to be God’s instruments in
transforming woes into blessings.”[7]
Centuries earlier, the prophet Jeremiah proclaimed the
same message, offering God’s words of blessing and curse. “Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals
and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord” for
“they shall be like a shrub in the desert” living “in the [8]
But, “blessed are those who trust in the Lord” for “they shall be like a tree
planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.”[9] It’s not apparent in the English, but in the
Hebrew it is clear that our planting need not be permanent. We may find ourselves implicated by the
Scripture passages today, feeling like dried up shrubs. But the word in Hebrew
that is rendered as “planted” in English is actually a word that means
“transplanted.” Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase in The Message is closer to the Hebrew in this regard: the blessed are
“like trees replanted in Eden, putting down roots near the rivers.”[10]
So, yes, we may be implicated by what Jesus and Jeremiah have to say; but there
is a way out – opening ourselves to be so transformed by God that we are
replanted, transplanted from the wilderness to the stream, from a barren
wasteland, to a place where we can bear fruit.
Our situation in life is not fixed.
We may become a people whose “delight is in the law of the Lord” and
like those who are transplanted trees “by streams of water, bearing fruit in
due season, with leaves that do not wither.”[11]
When we open ourselves up to this kind of
transformation – signs of which are already apparent in the Wednesday lunch program, in the hosting of the hospitality center, of volunteering at theProducemobile, and other outreach ministries at St. Mark’s – when we open
ourselves up to this kind of transformation, we will be able to hear Luke’s
words of blessing and woe and Jeremiah’s words of curses and blessings, because
we will be living as God’s instruments of transformation in the world.
[1]
Luke 6:20b, Matthew 5:3.
[2]
Luke 6:24.
[3]
Luke 1:53.
[4]
Luke 12:16-21.
[5]
Luke 16:19-31.
[6]
Luke 18:18-25.
[7]
Robert F. Darden, “Commentary
2: Connecting the Readings with the World,” in “Sixth Sunday after the
Epiphany: Luke 6:17-26” in Connections: A
Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, edited by Joel B. Green
et. al. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), p. 253.
[8]
Jeremiah 17:5-6.
[9]
Jeremiah 17:7-8.
[10]
Jeremiah 17:7b.
[11]
Psalm 1:2a, 3.
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