I’d like to begin by reminding you of the journey that we’ve been on since we encountered the wise men and the star they followed. First, we talked about Jesus as the revelation of God’s active presence in the world, and many of us took “star words” to guide us through the year. Mine was “devotion.”
Since then we celebrated the baptism of Jesus and the pattern living it set forth for us. We went to a wedding in Cana and considered how those with a servant’s heart are the first to know of the miracles in their midst. We talked about gifts of the Spirit and heard about the calling of prophets and disciples and communities of faith and love.
Last week we talked about how confronting the presence of God can be in our lives and the horrible temptation to turn to things that are more familiar when God calls us into deep water to cast our nets. I want to pick up there and begin with a little confession of one of the ways that I sometimes distract myself. After all, I told you a few weeks ago that I was the “less honorable member.” I know you don’t like hearing that about your pastor, but I’m going to confess something to you right now.
Sometimes I have been known to “binge-watch.” True. Certain providers give access to whole seasons at once and I just can’t stop. One of the shows is a baking show called “Nailed It!” On this show, amateur bakers compete to recreate items previously made by a professional baker. Their creations are revealed one at a time with the signature shout, “Nailed it!” but as you can guess they are nowhere close. Some of their creations are laughable and horrible, but they all stand by their work with pride. They are judged according to how closely their confection compares to the original and also upon taste.
I’m sure that all of us have had or will have, moments in our lives where we have to stand by our work proudly (or at least pretend that we are). There are even times when we feel like we’ve nailed it, and it may even look like we have. Yet we are reminded today that trusting in our strength and efforts alone will not end well.
In fact, we are pretty much being told that everything bad is good and everything good is bad by the blessings and woes we receive in Luke’s gospel. What’s up with that? Maybe it’s best if we talk a little bit about what the words “blessings” and “woes” mean since sometimes they get used a little too commonly. We hear people say things like “Have a blessed day.” We don’t hear much about “watch out for the woes,” but people do like to offer and claim blessings.
“Blessing” as we have it in Jeremiah is the type of thing you might expect. He is literally referring to things that are received directly from God, or at least accounted for that way, that confirms God’s favor. In Luke’s gospel, scholars say the form of the Greek used here is more about contentment or fulfillment.
Some translators use, “Happy are those…” I don’t know that Jesus meant “happy.” It makes more sense in light of Luke’s gospel to say “fulfilled.” That makes sense, given that Jesus is talking to what amounts to a mosh pit of people in need. There is an immediacy of his promise, but there is also an expectation of what’s to come. Personally, I think of it as a “Will Smith Men In Black” moment. There’s a scene in that movie where he assures a woman who has been captured by an alien that everything is OK. The woman asses her peril and says, “What part of this is OK!” He responds coolly, “It’s gonna be.” Jesus tells us the source of our blessing is in the “gonna be.”
Fred Craddock said it this way, “As pronouncements on the lips of Jesus, these statements are performative; that is to say, the words have power and perform or make true the kinds of life presented in the statement. Jesus is making the official proclamation of the way life is inside and outside the reign of God. These are not suggestions about how to be happy or warning lest one become miserable; blessings and woes as words of Jesus are to be heard with the assurance that they are God’s word to us and that God's word is not empty…. Does this mean that the entire passage is descriptive of a condition still in God’s future? Luke's answer is yes and no. Both the blessings and the woes are anchored in the present… There is a joining of present and future that reminds us that the… [new] reality [of the kingdom of God] is already beginning with the advent of Jesus.” (Craddock, p. 87, 88)
Now, what about woes? Some say they indicate a false sense of happiness. It may not be fair to say that those who have food and shelter aplenty are only happy on the surface. In fact, it’s probably a stretch to say that Jesus is talking about eternal blessings at this point. Some say that the “woes” are more of a warning about getting too comfortable with your own accomplishments and a call to repentance. Listen to how the same passage sounds when translated with repentance in mind.
“But it's trouble ahead if you think you have it made. What you have is all you'll ever get. And it’s trouble ahead if you're satisfied with yourself. Your self will not satisfy you for long. And it’s trouble ahead if you think life's all fun and games. There's suffering to be met, and you're going to meet it. There's trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests - look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular (The Message)."
Really this shouldn’t be too shocking. It should be confronting, yes, but not shocking. Throughout Luke’s gospel – even before he was born – Jesus has been flipping the script. Through the Magnificat to his first sermon about the Jubilee of God, Jesus tells us not to trust in our expectations above and beyond God’s.
It’s not that we shouldn’t use our God-given gifts or feel good about our accomplishments. No, Jesus is talking about something else. Jesus is talking about how much faith we put in ourselves and how much faith we put in God. Jesus is talking about how much comfort we allow ourselves to live in while we know that others suffer. Jesus is talking about living as though the Kingdom has come instead of just praying for it!
We may not know what the Kingdom looks like, but we know how it behaves. We may not know how the kingdom connects with our own resurrection (something we’ll talk about next week), but we know that Jesus was raised. We know that because he lives, our lives have been redeemed. When I say redeemed, I don’t mean what they mean in sporting events and cooking shows.
I mean that our lives are connected to the living water that feeds us in times of drought. Our hearts, which are set upon loving ourselves and those like us, are made able to love with the love of God! For we are not defined by our own selfishness. We are defined by grace and mercy and redemptive love!
That means that Jesus has broken the cycle of honor and shame that colors our understanding of wealth and poverty, of death and fulfilled living, of hunger for food and dignity, and even joy and sadness. That changes things a bit, doesn’t it? It changes things to connect blessing with honor and woe with shame. It changes things to say that it is an honor for a single mom to care for her family without healthcare coverage or a living wage even with her college degree. Shouldn’t it be more of an honor to help her?
It changes things to say that there is honor in making an end of life decisions that are both respectful of a person and aware of the fact that the majority of cost in our health care system is from the end of life decisions. We like to make it about the poor who have no coverage, but it’s just not. It’s a shame we don’t care for one another equally.
It changes things to say that there is honor in being a person with mental illness. Whether that illness comes from genetics or the induced paranoia of being without a home or fighting in a war that lines pockets even as it proclaims safety and security, it is an honor, to be honest about pain and suffering. It’s a shame we don’t value that more.
It changes things to say that Jesus drew crowds from Jew and Gentile alike and broke through the systems of racial division to proclaim grace and mercy. Yes. It changes everything to realize that in our success we may have gotten it all wrong. That is if we expect that our success proves our worth rather than God’s grace, we have gotten it all wrong. It changes our relationship with creation, with one another, even with God to say that grace and mercy matters.
Here’s the good news in all of this. The gospel of Christ unveils our creations and forces us to stand proud and say, “Nailed it!” It forces us to recognize that our best efforts don’t match up to the example, but it also reminds us that redemption is always at hand! If we have ears to hear these words it means that honor and shame are not the last words we hear, and they are not the words that bind us or define us.
The words that define and bind us are nothing less than the promise that the kingdom of God is coming, and we can live like it is already here today! The blessing of God is in the realization that things aren’t ok, but I promise you, brothers and sisters, they will be!
So, let us live into that hope. Let us live into that blessing. Let us repent of the woes and start anew – again, and again, and again. Amen!
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