A Sermon preached on
Epiphany VI, Feb. 17, at St. Augustine’s Wiesbaden
Jeremiah 17:5-10, 1 Corinthians 15:12-20, Luke 6:17-26
I subscribe to a
quarterly publication called “The Anglican Theological Review.”
The last edition was all about preaching and one of the articles, entitled “Two
Thousand Years of Great Sermons,” looked at 10 examples of great sermons. The
first one in that list was Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, the extract from Luke’s
Gospel we just heard this morning.
Why is this sermon
great? Apart of course from the fact that our Lord and Savior Jesus preached
it! According to the author of the article, one thing that makes it effective is
its structure. “The parallel structure (four “Blessed are the”; four
contrasting “Alas for you”) make it easy to understand when heard, easy to
remember.”[1]
Sound advice, I shall try and remember it myself.
The other great sermon
element Jesus uses is paradox, which means “an idea contrary to common opinions
and popular belief, and Jesus first words are precisely that,”[2]
contrary to popular belief. Now there’s a lot of paradox in Christianity. Death
is new life. The last shall be first. Jesus is fully divine and fully human. From
Arianism onwards, the belief that Jesus was just another created being, albeit
the first one, heresy always arises from the refusal of paradox, and from the
desire for simple, black and white answers.
Where is the paradox
in Jesus’s Sermon on the Plain? Well surely, Jesus’ listeners will have
thought, and most people still think today, that it is the rich, the
well-regarded, the well fed, and those who have reason to laugh who are blessed
or we could just say happy, because that is what the original word also means.
After all, is not prosperity also a sign of God’s favor, perhaps even of God’s
election or selection? That is certainly what the rich and powerful have always
liked to think. But Jesus turns this logic on its head. It is the poor, the
hungry, those who weep, and those who are hated on account of the Son of Man
who are blessed and have reason to be happy. And instead the rich, the full, those
who are spoken well of who need to worry.
Jesus is not saying
that poverty is a good thing or that the poor should just suffer in silence,
and simply look forward to some future reward: that would be religion as the
opium of the masses as Karl Mark once described it. In his view, religion
reduced people's immediate suffering and provided them with pleasant illusions,
while preventing them from seeing the oppression around them, and the need for
radical change. No, when Jesus says that you are blessed when people “hate you,
and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of
Man,” (Luke 6:22) he is issuing a call to speak up for change in his name, just
as the prophets of old spoke of for change and for justice, and were persecuted
for it. And that change and his agenda of the kingdom of God is not meant for
the hereafter but starts in the here and now.
That is why Jesus goes
on to warn the rich and the powerful and the complacent that they are in
trouble with God, unless they change. He wants change, he wants everyone to love
God and their neighbor. You do not love your neighbor if your wealth comes from
his or her poverty, and on a global scale that is really where much of our
prosperity comes from today. And you do not love your neighbor if you make no
effort to change this situation, to fill the hungry and to give them a reason
to laugh.
That has not changed
at all in the last two thousand years. Recently, we and our societies seem to have
become more selfish, ever more unwilling to share our abundance with others.
Take the issue of refugees for example. It sometimes seems as if our
discussions are now only about how to keep those who flee from war and poverty
out or send them back as quickly as possible. And in some countries, most
recently the UK, International Aid is being redefined simply as a policy or
business promotion tool: In a recent paper from a Conservative Party
think-tank, the authors argue the UK “should be freed to define its aid
spending unconstrained by criteria set by external organizations,” (by which
they mean not keeping to the already pitiful and minuscule 0.7% spending goal
on aid), and the purpose of such aid should be expanded from poverty reduction include “the nation’s
overall strategic goals.”[3]
So we won’t help poor people where they, and we won’t let them in to our
countries either. Woe indeed to us all!
But this passage is
not just about morals and ethics, important as they are. There is another layer
of meaning, another reason for the paradox of upside-down blessings and woes, and
it is spiritual. In the Old Testament passage we heard first, from Jeremiah,
that prophet talks about just one woe or curse and one blessing, not four of
each. Being Jeremiah, he starts with the bad news. “Cursed are those who trust
in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from
the Lord.” (Jeremiah 17:5) That was how he felt most of the people of Jerusalem
and Judah were thinking and acting. That they could rely on their own strength
and might, and on clever political alliances to keep them safe. They still went
to the Temple and made sacrifices, but that was just lip-service. In their
hearts they did not think they needed God. But the Lord tests the mind and
searches the heart and can see through such an outward show of devotion. Only those
“who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord” (17:7) are blessed, Jeremiah
says.
Jesus calls the poor
blessed, because they knew they had nothing to expect from the world, but
everything to expect from God, and from the kingdom of God that Jesus promises.
He holds them up as an example, nor for their poverty, but for their attitude,
and their willingness to look to God, and to turn to God for help. Those who
trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord, are the ones who are also
willing to undergo the spiritual transformation God offers, making us the fully
human beings we are intended to be as creatures made in God’s image.
When Jesus issues his
four woes, his four warnings to the rich and the powerful he is also warning
them against relying completely on themselves and on their material possessions.
Later in Luke’s Gospel (12:13-21) Jesus will use the parable of the rich fool
to give us the same message: This was the man who pulled down all his barns to build
larger ones. “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is
being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So
it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards
God.”
Watch out, Jesus warns.
Your seeming blessedness is actually a great danger. It won’t save you. Don’t
fall into the trap of believing that material wealth is all you need. Don’t fall
into the trap of believing that you do not need the other. And don’t fall into
the trap of believing that you do not need God. It will come back to haunt you,
in this life and in the next.
Jesus wants everyone, rich
and poor alike, Jew and Gentile, man and woman to return to a right
relationship with God. The beatitudes, especially the teachings that follow
this passage that focus on unconditional, sacrificial love are how God wants us
to behave in the kingdom Jesus inaugurates. Put simply, loving God and our
neighbor. According to today’s Collect, God is the strength of all who put
their trust in him. With the help of God’s grace, and only with that help, not
on our own, not with our own power, we can overcome our weakness and our
brokenness, keep the commandments, especially the great commandment of love, and
will please God both in will and deed. Blessed are those who trust in the Lord.
Amen.
