Blessed –Not According to Our Ways but God's
Bethel UMC - Greenville, SC
Luke 6:20-31
Several weeks ago, when I read through the passages for All Saints Day, I quickly dismissed using the Gospel passage that Jean read this morning. Luke's Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Plain just didn't seem to fit the occasion – or so I wanted to believe. The Old Testament or the Epistle Lessons seemed to be more appropriate.
I also have never really focused on Luke's Beatitudes. It was always easier to leave behind the Sermon on the Plain and go to Matthew's Sermon on the Mount. Matthew's Beatitudes are more familiar and more comfortable:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are they pure in heart for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,
In order to be blessed in Matthew's Gospel, the blessings are for those who lack spiritually. Well, most of us quickly realize that we fall into one of these categories, even our society approves of being a peacemaker – in the right context anyway. We want to be blessed; we long to receive God's blessings. Matthew's list assures us that God will bless us, because if nothing else most of us know that we are poor in spirit, we mourn, and we hunger and thirst for righteousness. We believe we are included in the list of those who will be blessed.
But Luke's version simply makes most of us uncomfortable. Luke's list of blessings are for the poor and hungry – period – not those who are poor in spirit or hungry for righteousness. Luke claims that those who weep – not just mourn will be blessed. This is not a list of blessings for the poor in spirit but for the poor and the broken hearted. It is a list for those who truly suffer. Even the requirements for the blessing of those persecuted for Jesus' sake are harsher according to Luke. Luke's blessing isn't just for those who are persecuted and defamed but for those who are hated.
We really don't want to be on Luke's list of those who will be blessed. Not wanting to, or not believing that we qualify for Luke's list of blessings makes many of us uncomfortable. However, that isn't the part that really makes many of us skip over Luke's Sermon on the Plain. We don't want to qualify for the list of "woes". Matthew was nice and didn't include the curses or list of "woes", but Luke states them rather bluntly:
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you…
No wonder we don't like this list. In worldly terms, we qualify for this list. When we are really honest with ourselves, we realize that those in poverty in the United States appear wealthy to most of the world's poor. Most of our poor at least have some place to go to get food and assistance. We struggle to even imagine the poverty of the poorest of the poor. Can we imagine being so poor and hungry that we would mix dirt into cakes for our children to eat? We could if we lived in Haiti, even before the destruction of the earthquake in January and the hurricane this week.
We are far more likely to be found on Luke's list of "woes" than on his list of "blessings". That makes us uncomfortable enough to want to avoid this passage. So, why would this passage be included on the day we remember All the Saints? Most of the Saints that I think about haven't taken vows of poverty, haven't gone hungry, but did laugh and were spoken well of by others. They are people that I set apart as different – different in a good way even if they would have been on Luke's list of "woes".
I set the saints of my life apart because they put aside their own interests to love me. They knew that in some small way giving of themselves for someone else was at the heart of Jesus' commands. Whether they lived up to loving their enemies or not – they showed me love. Whether they turned the other cheek or gave the one taking advantage of them their coat, or gave to everyone who begged, they gave of themselves to me. They treated me the way I wanted to be treated – they loved me.
The saints of our lives are people that we set apart. We set them apart because the way they showed us love, showed us God, and showed us a different way to live. Most of them would not have seen themselves as special or different – they would have seen themselves as rather ordinary. We set them apart not because of what they did on their own, but because of what God did through them. God is the one who really sets the saints apart. By God's grace these people were able to live in such a way that I caught a glimpse of God's love.
Jesus challenges us to live so differently that sometimes a glimpse or a small taste of what living Jesus' way is like is shocking. The reality is that we cannot do this on our own or based on what our culture teaches us. The commands to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, or bless those who curse us challenge us to live a different way than our culture. Our culture seems to embrace fear, anger, and hate as the way to be set apart. But Jesus tells us that we will be set apart by turning the other cheek and giving up our shirts when we have been hit or when someone has taken advantage of us. He tells us to give to those who beg – without a caveat for those we believe choose to beg rather than work.
Even the Golden Rule to do unto others as we would have them do unto us isn't that simple. If we are to do unto others as we would do unto us, then we need to be able to identify with their situation. We need to put ourselves in their place. But we don't want to be like "them". We like to keep the "us" and "them" categories that separate us. The difficult reality is that we want to be set apart because others are different from us. We don't want to really think about what it is like to be the person who has no food, who doesn't have any income, who weeps, or who is hated because they have followed Jesus.
Since this passage is so uncomfortable and challenging, I still wondered why I kept coming back to this passage for All Saints Day. I needed for this passage to make me ponder what it means to live as people who are set apart and what it means to be a saint. I hope that you ponder the same things. For God has not called us to live like everyone else – to find blessings in the ways of this world, but to live as witnesses to Jesus' way of life – to find our blessings in God and by serving God and our neighbor.
The promise God made to Abraham, wasn't just to bless him with land and descendants – the third part of the promise was to be a blessed and made great so that he would be a blessing to others. That was what it meant to be a chosen people – a people set apart from the world around them – to live differently so that they might share their current and future blessings with others. This is what the saints of my life did. This is what the saints throughout history have done. They have been set apart by being a blessing to someone else. They have been blessed, not according to the ways of the world, but by the grace of God.
Jesus gave up everything so that we might be blessed by God's grace. By grace we are also made a "chosen" people – a people set aside to live a different way. When we follow Jesus' way we will live as aliens. This was Abraham's call, the call of the nation of Israel, and our call to live as a people set apart by God – not for our own glory but so that others might catch a glimpse of God's love and be blessed.
This is at the heart of today's passage – the worldly standards of being blessed are not God's standards of blessing. God's standard is blessing those who are a blessing to others. God blesses those who do not claim that they have earned anything but realize that they are in need of God's grace and mercy. God blesses those who follow Jesus even when that way is difficult and costly. God blesses and sets apart those who live this different way:
- A way that requires us to trust not in our own abilities, but in God's care for us.
- A way that requires us to put aside our own interests in this world, and take on the interests of the least of these – the poor, the hungry, those who live broken lives.
- A way that requires us to see ourselves and one another as God's beloved children – not by what we have in this world or do on our own – but by God's grace.
It is that grace that sets us apart and unites us with the saints of the church. It is by that grace that Jesus invites us to come to the table this morning to share a meal with one another and with the saints. At this table remember that Jesus put aside his own comfort in heaven to become poor and hungry, to weep and mourn those he loved, and to be hated, reviled, denied and even killed not for his own sake but for us.
Today when we come to the table we will come together with the saints and remember God's mighty acts, especially his acts through Christ, and we will pray to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit so that we might give of ourselves to others – so that we would put aside our own interest and care for others. We come to this table not because we have, or ever will, earn our place at the table, but because we are invited by Christ, Jesus and because God has generously offered us grace and mercy so that we might come.
Today we are invited to come together with all the saints to share in Christ a new way of life and we begin by coming to the table to receive God's grace so that we might be set apart, not to be blessed in this world, but to be set apart to live the Way of Christ and be a blessing.
Luke also reminds us that not all of our blessings come now – some we only receive when we enter eternity by God's grace. At that time we will all join together at one great feast. Today we have a foretaste of that great feast where we will gather at one table with all the saints.
Until that day when we join the saints at one great table, we remember the saints who have gone before us and with whom we share this meal. We remember the saints of this congregation….
