Readings
Luke 6:17-26 for Epiphany 6C
February 15, 2004
The Rev. Karen Siegfriedt
St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church, Cupertino,
CA
What is it that would cause a mother to hate someone or something more than to love her own children? Recently, a Palestinian woman blew herself up as a suicide bomber to inflict pain and destruction upon the Israeli society. She was the mother of two children; one 18 months and the other 3 years old. What motivated her to engage in such a desperate act? How could she justify leaving her children motherless? How did she say goodbye to them before her suicide attempt? Did she kiss them gently on their foreheads? Did she shed a tear? Did she hold them in her arms, with her heart wrenching from what was about to befall her family?
What leads people to such hate and desperation that they are willing to participate in acts of self-destruction? What can we as Christians do, in order to become beacons of light and crucibles of hope to those who are at risk of total desperation? This is the subject of today's sermon.
Today we read Luke's version of the beatitudes. A beatitude is another name for blessing and these blessings form the introduction of what is now known as The Sermon on the Plain. [The Gospel of Matthew has a similar version known as The Sermon on the Mount.] These sermons instruct the disciples of Christ how to act differently in the world. Here is the context in Luke's gospel: Jesus is at the beginning of his public ministry in Galilee, which is in the northern part of Palestine. Wanting to be intimate with God and knowledgeable about God's will for his ministry, he climbs up a mountain to pray. He spends the entire night in prayer. The next day he summons his disciples and then chooses 12 of them to be core leaders. We call these core leaders, apostles. Then, he and the disciples come down from the mountaintop, onto a level plain. There, a great crowd of people from all over Palestine, have come to hear him and to be cured of their physical, mental, and spiritual ailments. Having previously been in deep prayer and filled to brim with the power of the Holy Spirit, energy exudes out of Jesus' being. Everyone in the crowd tries to touch him in order to experience this incredible healing.
As Jesus looks out at the crowd, he sees two groups of people: Those who are on the edge of desperation and those who have the power to make a difference in the world. How does he respond? He first turns his attention to those who are stuck in poverty, hunger, suffering, and persecution. He empowers these desperate people by blessing them, assuring them that they are valuable human being and very important in the eyes of God. The next thing he does is to offer them hope. Jesus knew that those who were in such desperate need did not have the ability to help themselves. They had given up on society to change their plot in life and now they were turning to God for their hope. Jesus assures them, that this unjust chasm between the rich and the poor, the hungry and the well fed, the suffering and the complacent, the lowly and the prestigious, would be closed. There would a reversal of fortune and a new world order would come into being. This would all occur when the power of God's spirit, brings into realization, a different world. Another name for this new-world order is the Kingdom of God.
This new creation would happen because God loves justice. "God has a preferential love for the poor, not because they are necessarily better than others, morally or religiously, but simply because they are poor and living in an inhuman situation that is contrary to God's will. The ultimate basis for the privilege of the poor is not in the poor themselves but in God, in the gratuitous and universality of God's agapeic love." [Gustavo Gutierrez]
After addressing the desperate crowd, Jesus then turns to the folks who are privileged and have the power to influence society in a different way. Remember, both the desperate and the privileged have come to hear Jesus on their own accord, believing that there is "good news" is what he has to say. He tells the privileged that they need to be more compassionate and proactive in the way they are ordering their lives. He warns them not to be satisfied with the status quo; not to think that life is all fun and games; to think about the plight of others; and not to live for the approval of others but rather to live for the truth. He tells them that things can not continue the way they are going because God loves justice.
The Sermon on the Plain can be a very difficult passage for the privileged and powerful to hear because it calls on us to change the way we do business. It is difficult because it means that we are going to have to make some sacrifices for the well being of the poor, the hungry, the suffering, and the persecuted. However, today's passage is also a passage of good news and hope. It is good because it supports our inner longing for a just world. It is hopeful because it has the power to stretch open our hearts in love to care for those who have little power to help themselves. Discipleship is allowing God to use us as instruments of peace, justice, and hope. When we partner with others to do God's will, the power of the Holy Spirit working in us can do far more than we could ever hope or imagine.
So where do we go from here? Well, how about letting today's gospel inform us! First of all, we need to immerse ourselves in prayer. Faithful prayer is the place where we can put aside our own fears and gain knowledge of God's will for humanity. Silence is a posture that gives space to allow transformation to actually happen in our hearts. Once seeped in prayer, we will more likely to have a desire to bless those on the margins. But in order to bless others, we first have to get to know them and their deepest desires. We need to understand the conditions that have led them to a life of pain and desperation.
Once we understand their context, we need to assure them, that in God's eyes, they are all valuable human beings, worthy of dignity. And since they are valuable and worthy of dignity, we need commit our time, talent, and treasure in pursuit of a local, national, and global society that respects the dignity of every human being. This means being engaged in social justice. It means being well informed of the self-serving, political maneuvering that can corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. It means lifting our voices to speak out against those decisions that clash with the biblical standards of justice.
And what will happen if we do not become proactive in seeking justice and peace and respecting the dignity of every human being? It will mean that life on earth will radically change. It will mean that desperate people will engage in desperate acts that destroy the fabric of society. It will mean that our country will spend more and more of our tax dollars on weapons of mass destruction to respond to acts of aggression. It will mean that we will be sacrificing our civil rights and our young men and women in uniform in order to try to keep our people safe. It will mean that we will live in fear.
Today, Jesus offers us an alternative response to fear. For those who have ears, listen.
| Updated 3/1/2004 |
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