If you are feeling a hint of guilt or even a heavy dose of guilt after hearing Luke’s version of the Be Attitudes, then I have good news. Your guilty feelings mean that you are a living, breathing human being who has a conscience.
If you do not share that same guilt, then I recommend you read the lesson again. If you still don’t feel anything after a second reading, I hope to see you on Ash Wednesday where there is no way to escape acknowledging your manifold sins and wretchedness. Oh, come on, it will be fun!
While today we read from Luke, the most popular form of the Be Attitudes is taken from Matthew’s gospel. In case you are counting, we haven’t heard Luke’s version in a Sunday worship service since 2007. Matthew’s version says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Oh, and Matthew’s version leaves out the “Woe to you…” part. Luke’s version, however, doesn’t leave much room to interpret what it means to be poor and hungry.
It’s hard to spiritualize Luke. Poor is poor and hungry is hungry. Luke’s gospel, after all, is the only gospel to include the Song of Mary, a song that says, “he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” And only in Luke do we hear the full text of the sermon Jesus preaches in the synagogue in his hometown.
Summarizing that first sermon, Jesus says, “salvation is to be made known first to the marginalized, outcast, and enemy.” If you remember, Jesus is almost thrown off a cliff for that sermon. Not a great way to start a ministry. And thank you, by the way, for not throwing me off a cliff yet.
Scholars tell us that Luke’s original audience was made up of highly educated, well off people. One commentator says, “Luke’s gospel is the good news for the poor to the non-poor.” In a way, Luke is speaking to the Episcopal Church and most other mainline Protestant congregations.
I believe now is the appropriate time to insert an appropriate cliché. The gospel of Jesus Christ comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. The good news, as revealed in Jesus Christ, is in the business of telling the plain truth especially in Luke.
I think it is important to note that this part of Jesus’ ministry takes place on a plain – on level ground. Therefore, this part of Luke is called the Sermon on the Plain. Unlike Matthew’s version, which puts Jesus on a pedestal - a mountain. Thus, the Sermon on the Mount.
In my mind’s eye, the Sermon on the Mount is more celebratory in nature – maybe like a rock concert. Gather around – I have some really good news to share! While the Sermon on the Plain, is more like being called into a meeting where you are asked to pull up a chair and sit down. Listen, I need to tell this to you plainly. I have some good news and some bad news. (Good, I’m glad you’re all sitting down.)
In all reality, God tells us the bad news before he tells us the good news. The bad news is that we think too much about ourselves – for better and for worse. The good news is that God thinks more of us than we can hardly imagine – for better and for worse. Regardless of our limited love for God and neighbor, God’s immeasurable love for us is made sure in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, the Be Attitudesfrom Luke should not be used as a measuring stick for our faithfulness. It shouldn’t be the standard by which we use to gauge how much God loves us. Rather, this teaching should be received as a tool for conversion. Through this teaching, God is offering us a way to grow in love for God and neighbor.
As we will do with the Ten Commandments during the season of Lent, how can we not hear these words from Luke’s Jesus and respond, “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep your law.” When we hear the Be Attitudes, we are confronted with our failure, moved to guilt, plead for mercy, and ask God to make our hearts right again.
God is converting our hearts not simply to make us feel better about ourselves but to make our hearts pursue the mission of the gospel – a mission that feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, gives hope to the downtrodden and outcast and marginalized – a mission that we live out in our life together through Episcopal Place, First Light Shelter, Firehouse Shelter, 55thPlace, and so on.
And now, stealing and editing slightly a gem from Bishop Sloan. “What if we gave a little more, just so we could imagine what more God can do through us?”
As we learned in Episcopal Church 101 this morning, the Episcopal Church’s official name is the “Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church.” This designation came in the mid-19thcentury when church leaders wanted to make it clear that even if one didn’t do mission work oversees, one was called to mission in their daily lives. Every baptized member of the church is a missionary for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Your missionary work doesn’t have to take you overseas or across state lines. In fact, your missionary work can take you only as far as the other side of town. Even more, your missionary work might simply call you to take interest in that lonely person or struggling family that you encounter on a daily basis.
And it is there, in your encounter with the poor, the hungry, the bereaved, the reviled, where you will find the kingdom of God, where you will be filled with laugher and joy, where your heart will be made glad with God’s infinite goodness and mercy.
Friends, Jesus is presenting us with some hard truths today. Sometimes the truth of the gospel makes us feel uncomfortable, the gospel may even make us feel angry, it may inflict guilt. But it is this good news that sets us and the whole world free to live in love and charity with one another. As you wrestle with these hard truths, do not forget that everything Jesus says and does is said and done in love for you and the entire human family – the rich and poor, the young and old, the weak and strong.
I read recently, “One cannot be a Christian; one can only become one again and again.” Beloved in Christ, do not be afraid to hear the hard truths of the gospel for these hard truths call your hearts to be converted again and again by God’s infinite goodness and mercy. May your daily conversion make your heart grow more and more in love with God and with all of God’s children. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment