It is Good! Epiphany 6C

 

It is Good!

Jesus went up on a mountain to pray. While there, he gathered his twelve apostles. The next day they come down from the mountain to level ground where they are met by people from all over Judea, Jerusalem, Tyre and Sidon. It’s a great crowd of disciples and a multitude of others: a mix of Jews and Gentiles with all kinds of disease and unclean spirits, all trying to touch him, “for power came out from him and healed all of them.” [Luke 6:17-26] All of them. Everyone, no questions asked, no qualifications to be met, no triage, no discussion. It just happens: free healthcare for everyone. Imagine that.

 Then he looks up at everyone and begins to speak:

“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.

“Blessed are you who weep now,

for you will laugh.

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

 Those of us following Luke’s Story of Jesus have heard some of this before when his Mother Mary sang to her kinswoman Elizabeth: “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

 Mary envisioned a coming Reign of God in which the current status quo undergoes a reversal. The poor in the land are economically destitute, land and debt poor, and who claim no power and reap no benefits from the dominant economic system. These poor and hungry people will inherit  the kingdom, be filled with good things, will laugh, and achieve the status of prophets. Beginning now, thanks to the new power that is already coming from Jesus!

What is in store for those who currently benefit from the current economic imbalance? A mirror image of “Woes,” in which the reversal continues: They will experience hunger, mourning, weeping, an end to the enjoyment of their accumulated wealth, and a loss of their status in the community.

Sharon Ringe, in her commentary on Luke,  has observed that “In each case, the blessing makes a statement of fact: one is blessed because of a future that is a sure part of God’s reign. There is no note of threat or challenge in these blessings: Nowhere do they say, ‘Do this in order to guarantee a specific result.’ They announce a truth about the divine agenda rather than a mandate for human morality. In a similar way the list of woes is not one of behaviors to be avoided or changed in order to avert disaster. Instead, it states facts: People who are rich, well fed, laughing, and enjoying good reputations will also experience the alternative. They are not being punished for their actions; rather, they have enjoyed the blessing and now the turn passes to others.”[i]

 One other fact: Unlike in Matthew where the blessings are assigned in the third person at some future time, both the blessings and woes in Luke are in the second person, for those being addressed right now. This suggests that amidst this great multitude of persons that have come to be with Jesus, those in Luke’s own audience, and of course all of us who are present thanks to the power of story, those who benefit from the status quo hear the woes directed to them, while those who presently suffer with economic hardships hear a word of blessing. In eight succinct statements of blessings and woes, Jesus has managed to give every single person present a glimpse of the Great Reversal of fortunes that constitutes God’s plan, as Luke has already made clear in the hymns and birth stories, and most especially in Jesus’s announcement of the Jubilee year which he had made in his hometown synagogue when reading the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

Ringe further suggests that, “To see the beatitude as rewarding an attitude (as Matthew seems to imply) or an economic condition for its own sake (as Luke seems to imply) is to miss the principal point.”[ii] Rather, in all announcements of the Great Reversal, that the last will be first and the first will be last, one dimension of the good news of Jesus is that all calculations of both economic station and social status is ended. God in Jesus Christ institutes a social structure founded on the generosity, respect, and equal treatment of everyone; Jew and Gentile alike.

 The invitation to each and every one of us who are now a part of this story is that right now we are given the opportunity to mirror the just and loving generosity of God.[iii]

 As we try to imagine just how these blessings and woes were received that day among that great and diverse crowd with Jesus, may we begin to feel his power his power to cast out all unclean spirits that trouble us; may we begin to see ourselves as a part of that great multitude from all over the ancient world, Gentile and Jew, female and male, slave and free; once and for all may we see ourselves as one with all humankind, and one with the God who looks at all things created, seen and unseen, and who still says, “It is good. It is very very good. Now and forever. Amen!” 

 

---

[i] Sharon Ringe, Luke (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville: 1995) p. 93.

[ii] Ibid p.92.

[iii] Ibid, p.95.