Jeremiah 17:5-10 Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12-20 Luke 6:17-26
1 Corinthians 15:12-20 Luke 6:17-26
We have read the version of the beatitudes from Luke's Gospel today. This version differs in distinctive ways from the version found in Matthew's Gospel as exemplified in the contrast between "Bless are the poor in spirit..." And Blessed are the poor....." Luke seems to be more interested in the actual condition poverty and this is consistent with the themes throughout this Gospel which pertain to the outcast, the foreigner, women, and people of dire circumstances.
It is also contrasted with what I would coin as the Woe-attitudes.
We might look at communication purposes for the presentation of the counter-logic of the beatitudes and the woe-itudes. Blessed are the poor...woe to the rich. Blessed are the hungry...woe to those who have their fill of food. Blessed are you who weep...Woe are you who are laughing. Blessed are you when people hate you...woe are you when people speak well of you.
What are we to make of this shock speech and counter-logic? What is the wisdom and teaching purpose of using speech this way? If taken literally, it might seem to reinforce the habit of machochism, and we don't need that in our world. So, what is going on here.
I think that the purpose of is to challenge some of the common stereotypes in life in our thinking. Like money makes us happy. If you don't have money you can't be happy. All flattery from other people is good and genuine and to be believed. If people hate you, you must be doing something wrong. People who eat well and to excess are really healthy people. People who don't have enough to eat are unhealthy people. People who laugh give indication of good emotional intelligence. People who weep are just the unhealthy chronically depressed.
All of these common logic assumptions are not necessarily true. The words of Jesus in his extreme beatitudes and woe-ititudes challenge the common logic that one's faith and spiritual life is totally determined by the good or bad things which are happening in one's material conditions and social interaction at any given time.
The Gospel for the people in the church of the writer of St. Luke is this: you and I can have a faith in God and in Jesus Christ which will accompany us and be consistent with our eternal spiritual well-being no matter what our life circumstances.
But God, what about when people hate us? What about when we have financial need? What about when we are hungry? What about when we weep with the losses of life? What about when we have the self-disillusionment like Jeremiah and discover the deviousness and perversity of the heart? What when we are tempted to believe in death without resurrection as St. Paul wrote about? Can all of these situation still be the occasion for us to be integrated with the sense of oneness with God's love and plan and care for our lives? The Gospel answer is yes we can. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
Let us get with the higher logic of the Gospel of Christ who integrates us with the well-being the love of God in every life situation.
And then what do we do? We go forth being beatitude people and not woe-itude people. We seek ways for people to have enough. We seek to bless people with enough to eat. We seek to minister comfort and care to people who are faced with the many losses in life? We seek to be those who bless with words of kindness and esteem forsaking all false flattery and persecuting words.
Let us become beatitude people, blessing people with good news of God in Christ, and let us forsake and resist the woe-itudes of life. Amen.
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