Upside Down III

 

Text: Luke 6:20-31

Focus: Empowerment

Function: to increase faith

²⁰Then he looked up at his disciples and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹“Blessed are you who are hungry now,
    for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now,
    for you will laugh.

²²“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. ²³Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

²⁴“But woe to you who are rich,
    for you have received your consolation.
²⁵“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.

²⁶“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

²⁷“But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; ²⁸bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. ³⁰Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again. ³¹Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Good morning to the beloved children of the Living and Loving God!

May you be filled with the peace of Christ today and always!

Today is part three of the sermon series upside down as we look at the beatitudes from Luke’s account of the sermon on the mount.

The first week we contrasted worldly values with the values taught to us by Jesus. We contrasted selfishness with generosity.

Last week, we saw how the word blessed means that we are empowered to make positive changes in our lives through faith in what the Holy Spirit does through us.

Today, as promised, we are going to look at our blessings compared to our wealth and hopefully ask ourselves questions about how we put into practice the command to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.

I deliberately left the woes out of my sermon last week.

Let me re-read the woes on the passage started with verse 24:
²⁴“But woe to you who are rich,
    for you have received your consolation.
²⁵“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.

I read those woes and I wonder how we can put that into context in such an affluent time and culture as ours. God has blessed us.

As I ponder the woes, I wonder what is wrong with having enough to eat? I wonder what is wrong with joy, especially when my main source of joy is God and my family? And I wonder what is the standard of measurement that says a person is rich or poor? Compared to the culture, I am barely hanging on to the middle class, so I am not rich, but as we pointed out, compared to those whom I have served in Haiti and Tijuana, Mexico, I am fabulously wealthy.

And, when I think of this passage, I am full now, and I laugh now and I have enough to live on. These woes can apply to me.

Are these woes judgments?

No. Again, we teach that God blesses those who serve God and those blessings as we have seen in scripture sometimes include material possessions.

Solomon had wealth we can’t imagine.

But then, that wealth corrupted him.

Sometimes when the lottery get obscenely high, I buy one ticket to participate in the community hysteria around such a windfall possibility. And I might spend a few hours day-dreaming about to whom I would give the money after I got out of debt and upgraded a few things.

But in that imagination, I get scared that I might forget God because the money would be such a distraction. Jesus is reminding us that we need God in our lives and we should depend on God to move inside of us through the Holy Spirit.

So here is what I learn from this passage: Whether we are rich or poor, we need God.

God wants us to live by faith in God. We continue to pray for our daily bread and Jesus commands us to not worry about the future because we are loved by God and God takes care of us.

If we are not worried about the future, we can be generous and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.

There is nothing wrong with laughter and there is nothing wrong with having enough to eat. Jesus wants us to remember, however, that in every circumstance, we depend on God.

The book of Proverbs gives wise advice about our relationship to our wealth:
Proverbs 30:8b-9: give me neither poverty nor riches,
    but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
    and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
    and so dishonor the name of my God

It is a good perspective and his perspective confirms my fear about winning the lottery and abandoning God because riches make us proud.

The woes pronounced in this passage remind me that God is the source of life and light in our lives and we live by faith in God, not ourselves.

Living by faith is sometimes hard. Because, in the midst of the woes, the times of hunger, tears and limited resources, we still have God to depend on when we have faith.

For me, I am aware that when living by faith, I can’t count on what I have for security, I have to count on God.

And the problem with that for me is I feel a need for security. Jesus is telling us that our security is in him and not in our wealth and our ability to produce wealth. Both of those, wealth and the ability to earn it are gifts from God and he pronounces these woes to remind us that God can take them away if God chooses. So, live by faith.

Remember when we are laughing that God is the one who has brought about the laughter and we can rejoice in that day’s laughter. And, remember when we are weeping that God is present and will turn the weeping into laughter by the power of the Spirit in our lives.