Sermon for Sixth Sunday after Epiphany – Luke 6:17-26

I normally like to start my sermon with some kind of funny story to ease our way into the hard stuff. But it’s hard to do that with this reading from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus speaks so plainly. He preaches four blessings and four woes. And they’re pairs. “Blessed are you who are poor, but woe to you who are rich. Blessed are you who hunger, but woe to you who are full. Blessed are you who weep, but woe to you who laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, exclude you, revile you, defame you, but woe to you when they speak well of you.” Jesus isn’t sugar-coating anything.

How do Jesus’ words make us feel? Reassured, or guilty? It depends on our situation. If we’re destitute or struggling, maybe Jesus sparks some hope, that this isn’t how things are always going to be. He doesn’t promise us WHEN a change will come, but he promises a change WILL come. But what if we’re rich or full or laughing or popular? In other words, all the ways you can be successful and satisfied in life. In that case, it’s not such a great sermon. Like he’s saying get ready, because everything’s about to turn upside down and it’s going to be ugly. In preaching classes, there’s an old saying – sermons are supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I’d say mission accomplished.

I confess, I don’t love this sermon. I’m not rich or popular by a long shot, but I’m comfortable. I don’t have to struggle to get by. Though I’ve struggled before. Times when I couldn’t get a job. Medical scares. Accepting the unacceptable from some folks because I didn’t think I had a choice. Some of these things I caused, and some things just kind of happened. I think most of us are like that. We live somewhere in-between the two extremes. Not on top, not being crushed at the bottom. Just somewhere in-between. Yet this reading can still trigger us. Why is that?

It could be because a lot of scripture sounds so binary. So black-or-white. Folks are either sinful or righteous. Rich or poor. Faithful or unfaithful. Like there’s no neutral place. So we start wanting to know which team we’re on, because clearly there’s only one team that we want. The one that goes to heaven, right? Except asking this question at all is a bad sign, like deep down we know that the team we want and the team we deserve are not the same. Now, we all know a few folks who always sound so secure in their faith. Adamant, even. Like they know beyond a doubt that they’re absolutely going to hear Jesus say “well done, good and faithful servant” and don’t you dare question it. Not that they don’t still hedge their bets with a few good works. Of course, we can’t really know what’s going on in someone else’s head or heart. But doesn’t it sound a little suspicious sometimes? Almost like they’re trying to convince themselves.

But there’s also something deeper going on here that’s easy to miss. Jesus has been up in a high place by himself to pray. He comes back down, but he doesn’t just start preaching. He sees a crowd of folks coming from all over the place, even from hundreds of miles away. Consumed by disease. Possessed by demons. And they’re desperate because nothing else has worked. But if Jesus would just have some pity and touch them, maybe they could be ok. Honestly, when we’re in that low of a place we really don’t want much. Just something less bad. If you ever bargained with God on a bathroom floor, you know. But the minute they see Jesus, they don’t wait for an invitation. They touch him first because that’s what desperation does. And it works! Power comes out from Jesus and heals all of them. THEN Jesus preaches before his disciples and the crowd.

Except, these folks already got what they wanted. They had afflictions that kept them poor or hungry or weeping, but that’s all been magically stripped away. Now things are great. So they’re probably not looking for a sermon.

But here’s the thing. In the gospels, illness and demon possession really just boil down to the same thing. They cut you off from the world around you. They isolate you. They take away your agency – your ability to function. And they take away your power because you can’t cure yourself. There are no sniffles or scraped knees here. It’s always serious. But once Jesus heals you, it’s like life starts over. The tables turn. Now if you read the Gospel of Mark, over and over, we see Jesus heal someone and they run off to start their new life without a word. Without even thanking Jesus. Like they have no memory of how things were. Which isn’t necessarily bad, in the sense that Jesus works on us without our permission in ways we don’t understand. But the problem is that we acclimate. Eventually we start to take things for granted. We get this kind of amnesia that forgets how it felt to be so dependent upon God. So the Gospel of Luke is different. Luke makes sure that folks start praising God in a loud voice. Or there’s the 10 lepers who run off, but one runs back to thank Jesus, and Jesus says, “What about the others? Not even a thank you?” He’s annoyed.

So here, everyone gets blessings and woes. But they’re already received the blessings by their healing. So now come the woes, for them and for us. Woe to you when your security gets wrapped up in money, or food, or being popular. Or in the fact that disaster seems unlikely. Because we’d rather trust any of these things than the God who created all things. We trust the things we can see, instead of the God who we can’t see, because seeing is believing. What’s worse, Jesus only blesses the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the excluded. The last thing any of us ever wants to be.

Yet, the good news is that none of this stops Jesus from doing exactly what he came here to do. He wept. He hungered. He thirsted. He became so hated that they crucified him. And he became the poorest of the poor when they stole his life. But after three days, he rose in the glory of his resurrection, to bear all of God’s promises in a new, eternal body. So that he could give us his word of consolation and forgiveness. To satisfy our hunger with his body and blood. To wrap his arms around us in our mourning and weeping and promise that everything in heaven and earth has been accomplished for us.

And then Jesus gives us faith, so that we might trust his word just a little bit more than everything else. And here’s how it works. Faith breeds compassion in our hearts. So that when we see the poor, the hungry, those who weep, those who are excluded, we get angry and fed up and determined to do something for their sake. Because God promised them the kingdom, and that means everything. But here’s the thing. The more we care about our neighbors’ lives, the less we worry about the things that used to bring us security. It’s all about our neighbors and whatever it takes to bear God’s promises to them. Maybe money. Maybe helping with a bill. Maybe a meal. Maybe nothing more than being present to listen and not say a word. And trusting that when the tables turn, they’ll do the same for us.

That’s what the kingdom of God looks like. We never see it all at once. Just in bits and pieces. Just enough to keep us going. Because it’s hard to face a world full of poverty and hunger and homelessness while billionaires keep getting richer. It’s easy to lose hope. But even just a single life raised up from the depths is real. And witnessing what God’s grace can do with that is worth everything. Thanks be to God.