Teachings of Jesus (Part 6) Blessed or Not
Reading: Luke 6: 17-26 “
17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.
20 Looking at his disciples, he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now, or you will laugh.
22 Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now, or you will laugh.
22 Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.
23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
What on earth was Jesus talking about in today’s text? Blessed are the poor? Happy are the hungry? Fortunate are the tearful? I have yet to meet those happy, contented poor people. I never heard anybody say, “Isn’t this great, I’m starving!” I have never seen a person sobbing their heart out with a smile of joy on their face. Have you?
And I have to admit, it makes me a bit uneasy the way Jesus speaks about rich, easy going folk who enjoy a good time and are well respected in the eyes of almost everybody. “Woe to you!” says Jesus and implies that whatever you have now, you better enjoy it while you can, because when tomorrow comes you’re going to have to pay for it. Big Time. Woe to you rich.
On a worldwide scale the U.S. is a rich place. This nation is way, way, way up there in terms of Gross National product, income, life expectancy, health care, educational opportunity, and military might. In terms of what this world calls rich, if you live in the United States, you are the number one spot. All of us are rich compared to others in the world.
Did you know that nearly 1/2 of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion of them live in extreme poverty making less than $1.25 a day. So 80% of the world population lives on less than $10 a day. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty.
Blessed are the Poor??? Happy are the hungry??? Fortunate are the tearful? Everything about this seems a bit mixed up.
But it does fit in rather well with how Jesus described His mission at the beginning of His ministry. Remember His first sermon back in Nazareth? “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because He anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind.”
Do you remember what happened shortly afterwards? Some people tried to throw Him off a cliff! Understandable when you think He’s been predicting the downfall of the rich and that powerful. He wasn’t “Mr. Popular” with them! Especially when He indicated that the Gentiles treated the prophets better than the Jews.
There are nonbelievers who would say after reading the gospels, that Jesus only got what was coming to Him when they crucified Him. I mean what did He expect? Insulting the religious authorities, trampling on their traditions, speaking words they would interpret as blasphemous and suggesting even that most sacred of all institutions, the Temple would come tumbling down? Proclaiming Himself a King in the process of building a Kingdom?
In the eyes of the rich and powerful then, how could He not appear as a threat? As they saw the growing devotion and power He had amongst the outcasts and the dispossessed and the poor, how could they not be fearful for their positions in society? To them Jesus was not Good News, but Bad News. If they didn’t take action, their whole world could be turned upside down.
But to the poor, He was a hero. Think of the situation of the poor in the crowd to whom Jesus was talking. They did not live in a democracy. They did not choose the Romans to come and conquer their land. They had no vote. They were in this little troublesome corner of a vast empire, governed by incompetent puppet rulers desperate to impress the powerful people back in Rome.
They were poor, not only materially but also in terms of rights and expectations and in almost every other area of life. They were the downtrodden. They were the imprisoned ones. Life was not pouring down good fortune on them. Those who had once been described as God’s children probably felt like God’s orphans
Consider also the corrupt state of religion. Jesus calls the Pharisees “Whitewashed tombs”. He describes the temple as “A den of thieves”. He accuses the teachers of the Law and the intellectual Sadducees of not knowing the Scriptures.
Put yourself in the position of the poor that day. You go to hear Jesus speaking. He heals someone you know of something he’d been suffering with for years. You see in the crowd that crazy man possibly someone possessed by a demon which everyone had written off, now looking calm and in his right mind.
You hear all these stories about God looking for the lost, rejoicing over those who would come to Him in childlike faith. You hear about a God who was not far off and remote but rather one whom you can call “Abba, Father”.
You hear about a God who is interest in the misfortunes and struggles of people; those who felt they are at the bottom of the pile. Jesus lets you know that you are blessed. Such a message would surely lift your heart. Hearing this from Him It seems like God has a bias towards the poor!
But then He says woe to you who are rich and well off!
By contrast God can do little for the self-satisfied, the self-seeking and the self-centered arrogant rich people in this world.
In the “The Message” a modern paraphrase translation captures the flavor of the pronouncements of woe made by Jesus, 6:24-25 put it this way,
“It’s trouble ahead for those who think they have it made, What you have is all you’ll ever get. It’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself, Your ‘self’ will not satisfy you for long. 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.” Now just as there is nothing intrinsically wonderful about poverty or tears, there is nothing intrinsically evil in riches or laughter.
The blessing the poor receive comes because they are more incline to turn to God for help. In seeking God the poor are more incline to find God.
The woe of riches is that those riches blind people to their need of God.Wealth can create a false sense of security and create such a comfort zone around us that we forget we need God also and we also forget that there hurting people out there and that they are the ones God calls us to serve. We forget that privilege carries with it a corresponding responsibility. We forget that to those who much is given, much is expected.
Over and over Jesus sets Himself up against those who take no time to care and show mercy for those less fortunate. Consider the stories Jesus told, like the the parable of Good Samaritan, That was about someone who needed help but was pass by, by so called religious people. Or the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Who was in heaven and who was in the torment of hell?
In many cases God is not on the side of those who are wealthy, uppity and arrogant, because they are not necessarily on God’s side in helping the fallen or healing the broken hearted. It wasn’t their wealth that was evil because we read that God blessed many individuals in the Bible with material blessing, rather it’s their attitude that was selfish and wrong.
Woe to you rich! This teaching went out as a rebuke and sought to stir up some hearts that had become complacent. It calls us to stop building our own little empires and turn back to God and get with His program of building the Kingdom and serving others where we can. By doing so we honor Him and not ourselves with what we have been provided and blessed with.
Later when Jesus says that it was easier for camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, He wasn’t telling a funny little story. When He told the rich young man to go and sell everything he had and give it to the poor, He meant for that man to go and do it because that man had the wrong attitude towards his possessions.
Jesus knew the destructive power of having too much. People with too much have a tendency to think that they don’t need God as much and are they wrong.
But when a person is in a desperate situation, maybe like when they are very sick, or in a lot of pain, or in a financial crisis, or hurt emotionally, that’s when cry out to God, that’s when they need and want Him more than any other time. And many times that’s when they really find Him. But not so much when all is going well and we have all that we need and more.
Jesus came to wake people up. Too often we’re so use to doing things our way that we don’t see what God wants. Do you take Him for granted?
This passage and teaching we’ve been looking at is not meant to be easy listening; that is unless you are the poor, or the hungry, or those in mourning and are seeking God’s help. It’s meant to make us feel a bit uneasy. It is Jesus’ calling everyone to get they’re priorities in line with God’s.
It’s called love and seeks to obey God’s will and maybe even fear Him a bit no matter how well off financially you may think you are. And I believe it is also a call to show love to those who can use your help.
One of the richest and smarted men who ever lived, Solomon spent a better part of his life trying to figure out what was really important. After accumulating huge sums of wealth and vast amount of material possession, and taking on all kinds of building projects and he came to the conclusion that all that those things are meaningless, like chasing after the wind.
He learned and said that some of the best things we can do is to eat and drink and find satisfaction in all our work, that this is a gift from God. Ecc. 2:24.
He also said that one should learn to be happy and do good 3:12-13 and enjoy our life with our spouse Ecc.9:9. And more importantly to fear God and keep His commandments, which he calls the whole duty of man. Ecc. 12:13 It’s not all about making more money and getting more stuff.
Are your priorities right? Do you forget how much you need God each day? Do you overlook the needs of others?
May God help us not to compromise our commitment to serving others, because our comforts shield us from another’s cry.
May we heed this warning of Jesus regarding the seductive power of materialism that can sap our spiritual energy and thirst for God
Based on a sermon by Adrian Pratt
For more lessons click on the following link: http://granvillenychurchofchrist.org/?page_id=566
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