6th Sunday After Epiphany

The service was only partially recorded today due to technical difficulties. 
Thanks for your understanding.

Today’s Gospel story from Luke picks up after Jesus had spent all night on the mountain
praying.
He came down, and was surrounded by people from all over the place.
Luke tells us that there were a lot of sick people in the crowd.
There were a lot of people with crazy looks in their eyes and others who clearly had not
eaten for a while.
They had heard about Jesus’ power--
How all you had to do was get near him and the demons would fly right out of you.
If you had a fever, he could make it go away,
And if your leg didn’t work right he could fix it.
They were all there trying to touch him:
And so its remarkable that he remained there, where everyone could get to him:
Patting him, pulling him, grabbing him, and poking him.

And then he opened his mouth to speak.
And what came out were the beatitudes--
A series of blessings he pronounce on those who were there.
The form of speech he used was a common one.
Beatitudes are short, two-part affirmations that sum up common knowledge about the
good life.
“Blessed are they who have goo 401(k) plans, for their old age shall be comfortable.”
“Blessed are they who floss, for they shall keep their teeth.”
(Stuff like that)

This form was familiar to the people.

He said, “Blessed are..”
And they all got ready for some nuggets of wisdom.
But the CONTENT of what he said shocked them.
Blessed are… you who are poor?
Who are hungry?
Who weep now
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and
defame you?

This was shocking.
A shocking substitution of bad things for good things:
In which blessedness was equated with the things that people did their best to avoid--
Poverty, hunger, grief, hatred.

In every case, Jesus made those equations even stronger by tacking a reversal of
fortune onto them.
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”
“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”

And that’s not even all:
Because Luke adds four “woeitudes”
Mirror images of the beatitudes, in which woe was equated with the things that people
did their vest to achieve--
Wealth, food, laughter, esteem.

In the same way that Jesus made the bad things sound good,
He made the good things sound bad.
“Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”

“Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.”

We’re so used to hearing it, that we forget its shock value.
And the impact of the beatitudes has verything to do with who you are.

If you happen to be one of the hungry people,
Then what Jesus is aying sounds like pretty good news.
If you happen to be one of the well-fed people,
Then it sounds like pretty bad news.

The words themselves don’t change,
But they sound different depending on who happens to be hearing them.

And most of us hear them from the well-fed end of the spectrum.
Most of us are rich, by global standards,
And some of us are fabulously so.
So hearing these words from Jesus leads us to do two things:
One, just ignore these words
Or two, make us feel awfully guilty.

But here’s the catch:
The beatitudes are not advice.
When Jesus gives advice it’s pretty obvious:
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
Bless those who curse you,
Pray for those who hurt you.”
That’s advice:

Love, do, bless, pray:
And it has nothing to do with rich or poor, hungry or well-fed,
The advice is the same for everyone:
Whether they’re weeping or laughing.

The beatitudes are not like that.
In them, Jesus doesn’t tell anyone to do anything.

Instead, he describes different kinds of people:
Hoping that his listeners will recognize themselves as one kind or another,
And then he makes the same promises to all of them:
That the way things are is not the way they will always be.

The famous preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor describes this as “God’s ferris wheel.”
The ferris wheel will go around,
So that those who are swaying at the top, with the wind in their hair, and all the world’s
lights at their feet:
Will have their turn at the bottom,
While those who are down there right now,
Where all they can see are cand wrappers in the sawdust,
Will have their change to touch the stars.

It was not advice at all.
It was not even judgment.
It is simply the truth about the way things work,
Pronounced by someone who loves EVERYONE on that wheel.

No one can stay at the top forever:
What goes around comes around.
IT’s God’s own truth:
Pure blessedness for those on the bottom:
Who never really expected to get off the ground at all.

But there might also be some blessedness for those on the top:
Because there are some vitally important things about human life on earth:
That you simply cannot see with your feet so far off the ground.
To get a good look at them,
You have to come down:
Just as Jesus came down from the mountain at the beginning of this story.
Things may not look as pretty from down there:
People might be pushing, pulling and poking you.
You might see some things that make you cry:
But having your feet on the ground may teach you more than your good fortune ever
did.

Neither going up, nor coming down is under our control.
But wherever we happen to be,
The promise is the same:
Blessed are you who loose your grip on the way things are,
For God shall lead you in the way things should be.
Amen.