Luke 6:17-26
“Blessings and Woes”
February 13, 2022
Once he got down at eye level, he couldn’t miss the sight of a mangled leg, or a face covered in sores or a baby that was nothing but skin and bones or the smell of the unwashed or the sound of growling stomachs.
Also, right in front of him he could see those dressed to the nines or hear the ones barking orders to servants to clear a path or note the proud posture and attitude of entitlement.
And “He came down with them and stood on a level place.” Into lives that are filled with celebration and disappointment, prosperity and poverty, inclusion and feeling left out, health and sickness, Jesus arrives at the place where they are.
He was surrounded by people who wanted to be changed for the better or wanted to be affirmed that their prosperity meant they were more valuable in the eyes of God.
Geography takes on added importance here in the location of what is known as the Sermon on the Plain.
In the much more palatable version of the 9 Beatitudes that appear in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is speaking from a mountain, invoking the image of Moses and Mount Sinai.
Luke has Jesus come down from the mountain to talk.
He wants us to see how accessible Jesus is.
Here he’s not above the people but rather among them.
Luke makes sure we know that folks had come from all over Judea and Jerusalem and Tyre and Sydon to see and hear and be changed by Jesus.
This is a Jesus of the people – all the people.
The disciples and the crowd were in for a surprise, though.
It wouldn’t be the format that would seem strange because beatitudes which are a series of blessings that are short with two parts that would have been familiar.
Think, “Blessed are you if you have many goats for you will never run out of milk.”
Instead, Jesus upends the content they expected to hear.
All those parts of life that so many were desperate to escape and came clinging to the hope that Jesus held the key to their escape from poverty, hunger, weeping, being despised – these have been turned into blessings.
And for those in the crowd who had or were striving for wealth, food, laughter and respect, he did not have a positive take to offer.
There’s a balancing act going on here.
Jesus is speaking to his disciples and the crowd to proclaim that we are to see the image of God and God’s kingdom in every life.
In the face of poverty, hunger, tears and being hated, Jesus wants them to know that they will be restored and still very much hold onto their status as beloved children of God.
For those focused on having plenty of money, full bellies, the ability to laugh at life and being held in esteem by others, Jesus wants them to recognize that this kind of thinking distorts the vision of what life is about.
We’re still fairly early here in this Gospel account but Jesus is already hinting at both death and resurrection.
Let’s think about what we mean when we say we’re blessed.
Usually, that points to whatever the good life looks like for us.
Maybe that’s a happy home, comfortable bank account, a body that is healthy.
Is that what makes us blessed?
What if you don’t have those things?
Does that mean you are somehow cursed by God?
The word blessed in Luke is the Greek work makarios.
This is defined as favored by God or fully satisfied, regardless of life circumstances including being hungry or an outcast or poor or grieving.
There can be a tendency when we really listen to this passage to equate “blessing” here with reward and “woe” with punishment.
But the beatitudes aren’t Jesus telling us what to do.
They tell us about who Jesus is and what the Kingdom of God is all about.
Jesus here is describing different kinds of people and hoping that his listeners will perk up their ears at some part of the description because they recognize that they are known by him.
A person is blessed because of what the future will be when God reigns.
He promises that the way things are right now is not how they will stay.
Our trust in God’s redemptive love is what Christ is drawing our attention toward, a love not based on life circumstance but on God’s vision for creation.
Barbara Brown Taylor offers a great analogy in understanding this story.
She uses a Ferris wheel to demonstrate how this world- turned-upside-down message of Jesus’ will play out.
She says, “The Ferris wheel will go around, so that those who are swaying at the top, with the wind in their hair and all the world’s lights at their feet, will have their turn at the bottom, while those who are down there right now, where all they can see are candy wrappers in the sawdust, will have their chance to touch the stars.”
She continues, “It is not advice at all. It is not even judgment. It is simply the truth about the way things work, pronounced by someone who loves everyone on that wheel.” (Home By Another Way, 55)
It is not up to us to figure out who is blessed and who isn’t.
Jesus is the one offering blessing.
Kingdom living is intended to level the field which is why it is so powerful to witness Jesus speaking by not towering over the people but surrounded by them, pressed in by their hopes and dreams. He gets us to rethink what a blessing is all about.
Let us then raise this prayer from Presbyterian pastor Robyn Michalove:
Holy God, you untangle our understanding of blessing from our cultural trappings of temporal and material happiness. By your Spirit, you give us the grace to see gratitude in your kingdom priorities of liberation for all people. Transform our hearts to proclaim your blessings, through Jesus Christ, our incarnate beatitude. Amen.
(day1.org)