Warnings and Blessings

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Luke 6:17-26

    In the English language, both “rich” and “poor” are four-letter words.  I mean this in both senses of the phrase!  There have been studies done about how no one in this country considers themselves “rich,” or “poor” even though by definition they would qualify to be in one of those categories.  Politicians, regardless of party, rarely or never use these two words to describe people, if you notice, because they know how unpopular the labels “rich” and “poor” are.  If you are wealthy, we prefer the term, “upper middle class” or saying that you have more “disposable income.”  If you are poor, you are “lower middle class,” or “low-income.”  And of course, while most of us may not fit the definition of rich by our local standards, compared to the rest of the world, 700 million people globally live on less than $2 a day.  In comparison, we “middle class” Americans are very, very rich.
    It becomes even more difficult to embrace our identity as “rich” when we listen to Jesus’ words in our gospel for today.  It should unsettle us, if we dare to recognize ourselves as this 4-letter-word, “rich,” to hear Jesus say, “woe to you who are rich…woe to you who are full now…woe to you who are laughing now.”  I believe Jesus preaches these words to make us uncomfortable.  In our gospel passage for today, we see pretty clearly that Jesus comes to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable, and most of us are living on the comfortable side of things.  He’s surrounded by people coming to him to be healed of diseases, cured of unclean spirits; the disciples themselves for the most part are working poor.  For the poor, the hungry, the hated and the grieving, Jesus’ words of blessing are very good news, but then there are these woes that if we examine ourselves and our personal situations probably are hard words for us.
In the original Greek, “woe” is pronounced similarly to how it sounds in English, “ouai.”  It’s what you would say if you stubbed your toe – “Ouai!” “Ouch!”  Jesus is giving us who have much a warning – it hurts to be hungry, poor, grieving, hated and excluded.  As Jesus heals and ministers to the suffering who come to him for good news, he gives them needed attention to those who can help – the rich and the full.  Can we have empathy for those who are suffering now and seek to understand these societal hurts?  Because this is where the Son of God is – among the poor, the hungry, the grieving and excluded.  Ouch.  God himself hurts for those who are hurting.  His Son suffers and dies for the least and the lost.  Calling us who are happy and satisfied now to pay attention to the hurts of the world helps us treat these things of the world more lightly, so that we serve and worship God instead of these things that ultimately do not last.  Jesus’ words call us to join him in his healing work.
    Jesus’ preaching here was controversial and still is today, I would argue.  Because unless we call to mind this teaching in Luke and Matthew 5 (the Beatitudes), we probably think that if someone is rich, happy, well-fed and popular, that they are blessed.  We attribute good things to be God’s blessing of people.  We give thanks to God for these blessings and many other positive things in our lives, right?! Health, a good marriage, a loving family, a relatively tranquil and comfortable life.  What’s wrong with these things?  Well, the problem starts with how we can easily worship these blessings from God in place of God.  The means become the end.  What do we value or want most in life?  Is it to do God’s will, to love and serve God and others as the greatest of Commandments, or is it actually to be happy, or to be popular, or to have enough money to live a comfortable life?  When we care more about what other people say about us or how much money is in our bank account than our relationship with God and others, we are committing idolatry and breaking the first commandment.  So “Ouch! Watch Out!”  Jesus says.  It is easier to enter the kingdom of God when we have less to lose or give up.  Watch out when other things replace God.
    Secondly, Jesus wholeheartedly rejects the popular idea at the time (which continues today) that the haves are blessed.  You did something wrong to deserve being poor, or sad or depressed, or hungry.  God is punishing you, we still may reason today.  “Get a job,” we say.  “Things aren’t so bad, snap out of it!” we might say to someone who is struggling with depression.  We listen to what we want to hear – the people who like us and speak well of us and agree with us, and of course the truth is what we agree with, not a hard truth we don’t want to hear.  Jesus comes to dismantle this thinking that those who have much are blessed while those who have little are cursed – he reverses it, in fact.  The Christian gospel is that we are saved by God’s grace apart from what we do.  We believe that in fact none of us get what we deserve:  all of us, regardless of wealth, social or mental health status, or others’ opinion of us are saved despite ourselves.  All of us are in need, no matter how much we may have or don’t, of God’s grace and salvation.  It becomes more difficult to recognize our need if we are happy, comfortable, full, and surrounded by people who only affirm and never challenge us.
Last week, some of us learned about the Birthday Wishes organization in Hicksville.  They work with donors and volunteers all across Long Island to provide birthday parties for children in homeless shelters.  2000 homeless children a month, right here on Long Island, are supported by this program.  That’s 24,000 children who are celebrating birthdays without a home.  We would never say that these children did something to deserve their homelessness or that God must be punishing them! So why do we do this with adults?  Jesus calls the poor blessed.  Theirs is the kingdom of God.  Jesus changes “poor,” a four-letter word, to a seven-letter word, a sacred number, “blessed.”  We might ask ourselves how we follow in Jesus’ footsteps and look beyond the income level to the person, who is a blessed child of God.  We may disagree on how we go about combatting issues like hunger, poverty, and mental illness. But as Christians, we ought to heed Jesus’ words and warning to pay attention to and care for the least in our society.  They are blessed, not cursed.  How we speak about the poor and how we treat the poor matters to God, because the poor deeply matter to God. Amen.