Sermon for 6 Epiphany

Epiphany 6 11 February 2007 Ironwood, MI

I can’t really beat around the bush here. Today’s readings are HARD. They contain a difficult message for those of us living in the developed world.

It would be easy for us to read Luke’s version of the beatitudes and simply throw our hands up in the air. After all, Luke tells us that the world is divided into those who are blessed and those who are cursed. The blessed are those who are poor, hungry, weeping, and reviled. And the cursed..... Well, the truth is, they look a lot like us.

I think that it’s a safe bet to say that among those of us here in church this morning, the vast majority of us are rich (at least when we look at things on a global scale), well-fed, happy, and well-respected. It doesn’t look so good for us. Woe to us.

Now, I don’t want to let us off the hook too easily. But, I do want to take a step back from the harshness.

First of all, we must look at this passage in the context of Luke’s whole gospel. Remember that Luke is the gospel writer who writes with the perspective of the underdog always at the forefront. Luke’s community may well have been experiencing persecution. Certainly a number of early Christian communities did.

Luke begins to put forth his vision of overturning oppressive systems as early as the first chapter of his gospel. When Mary bursts forth in her famous hymn of praise, the Magnificat, she says, “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

Just a few weeks back, we heard Luke’s story of Jesus’ return to his own home town of Nazareth to inaugurate his ministry. In his local synagogue, he preached: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

It’s also helpful to think about these HARD words in the context of the history of church teaching and doctrine. The church has had a history of interpreting scripture and teaching in terms of what the church calls eschatology. That’s a hefty theological word that simply means the end times.

It has been the traditional practice to read this section of Luke “eschatologically.” In other words, seeing the contents of this passage as referring to the future. If you’re life is hard now, you’ll be rewarded in heaven. And if you’re life is full now, then you better watch out later. Woe to you.

But, in reality, eschatologically reading the texts takes some pressure off of everybody. It serves to keep the poor down - because it’s actually better to be poor in this system. And, it absolves those of us who are rich of any responsibility. We’re sort of hopelessly stuck in the cursed column. There’s no need for social change, because the reward for misery now is eternal blessing.

What would happen if we stopped reading these texts with an eschatological eye, and instead began to read them in the here and now. What if the coming of God’s kingdom were not off in the future, but available to us here in the present? What if the hungry were fed NOW? And the poor had enough NOW? What if those whose lives were filled with mourning could find joy NOW? And those who were persecuted found their persecution ending NOW?

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather live in that world than the one we are presently living in.

Desmond Tutu says that when we read texts about justice eschatologically, we are essentially offering hungry people pie-in-the-sky for later. He reminds us that nobody wants post-mortem pies and that hungry people need to be fed now.

Furthermore, if we truly believe that the God we worship is a God of Love, those of us who are fed, prosperous, happy, and well-respected will not automatically be cursed for an accident of our birth.

However, we must face what the words here say. If we are going to stop reading the blessings eschatologically, we must stop reading the curses eschatologically, as well. We risk landing in the woe column based on what we do with what we have in the here and now.

Here are some ways to think about this.

In the passage we hear this morning from Jeremiah, he also talks about blessings and curses - those who put their trust in mortals and flesh and turn away from the LORD will find their lives barren and arid. A contemporary reading might be that those of us who trust in our wealth, our power, our independence, our self-sufficiency will find our lives barren and arid. Woe to us, if we fail to trust in God.

Or, perhaps the source of our woe will be the ways in which we cling to what we have. Every study I’ve read about wealth and poverty says that we have enough resources in the world at present to eliminate poverty and hunger. The problem is not resources but distribution.

Now, I know that none of us here this morning is wealthy in a Rupert Murdoch or Bill & Melinda Gates kind of way. However, we are all wealthier than we think.

There’s a great website - www.globalrichlist.com - where you can plug in your annual salary and find out where you sit in the ranking of the world’s wealth. My yearly salary puts me in the top 11% of the world’s richest people. Or, thought about another way, 89% of the world lives on less than $20,000 a year. Do I share my prosperity, or do I horde what I have? Woe to us, if we fail to share.

Finally, I think about attitude. I’ve talked with you before about some of my African friends. These are people who live daily with poverty, have experienced hunger and deprivation, loss, and criticism for their faith. And yet, despite this, they never stop talking about how God has blessed them. On the other hand, here in the US, we live in a culture that says that we are all just one purchase away from happiness. We look for bigger and better bargains, bigger and better toys of every kind. And, as I look around me, and encounter people, I see a great deal of unhappiness. For many of us, whatever we have, it’s never enough. We are eternally unsatisfied. Woe to us.

The choice, my friends, is ours. Blessing and Woe are not states cast upon us by God. They are not eschatological promises. They are possibilities, to be sure, over which we, who are currently blessed, have some control.

Hear the words of another great prophet, Moses, in the book of Deuteronomy.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying God, and holding fast to God; for that means life to you and length of days. AMEN