Luke 6:20-23:
Looking at his disciples, he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
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.
“Rejoice in that day and leap for joy,
because great is your reward in heaven.
For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
These are words that can give us strength to continue. If we are poor now – as are more and more people in our country every day and as are far more people in our world than need be - we can endure because in the end, we will be in the Kingdom of God where there is no poverty. This can encourage many people with whom we walk on a daily basis and is a real blessing for many more people in our world today.
If we are hungry now – as is so much of our world today – we will be satisfied, maybe not now but in God’s Kingdom because in the Kingdom of God there will be no more hunger. No more children, adults, or others will die of starvation in the Kingdom of God.
We feed hundreds of people, hundreds of times each week in the Valley here. In the Kingdom to Come there will be no need for food banks. There will be no need for soup kitchens. There will be no need for food trucks. All those who are hungry will be satisfied.
If we weep now due to the inherent divides in our country today, Luke records, Jesus says, we will laugh in the future Kingdom. There are many sad things in life. There are many things that bring us to tears. There are things that happen in the news. There are things that happen in the world. There are things that happen in our community and there are sad things that happen in our part of our community. There are many really sad things that happen every day between just the block and a bit between here and the Bread of Life. And there are sad things that cause each and every one of us, no matter who we are, to pause and to weep.
At Ministerial meetings that we have attended across this country we have often had a blessed time joining in prayer with the pastors about the things that they weep and pray over. We listen to the troubles of the parishioners from the so-called ‘middle class’ or wealthy churches and we realize that -while their problems are very real, they are really very different than the troubles of the poor and the marginalized. This gulf is widened even more when we think of the churches in Africa, South America and elsewhere in the world.[4] The poor and the marginalized suffer so much. There is much weeping and gnashing of teeth in pain, sorrow, grief, and distress.
I think of those who have cried long and hard in my office when I read this passage about laughing in the Kingdom of God and while I do offer prayer and the Lord’s comfort, it is a comfort to me to read here that indeed in the Kingdom to Come those who are weeping now will be laughing.
One thing that I have really noticed especially in BC – so much more than other places I have lived – but definitely more and more in our nation - is that people really are insulted, excluded, hated, and rejected as evil just because they serve the Lord. I used to read the publicly funded and administered CBC website religiously everyday to find out what was going on in our country. About 10 years ago or more now I stopped altogether. It was just too anti-Christian. It was noticeably anti-Catholic. It seemed to have no shame saying things about the Catholic church that you would never dare utter about any protected category of people in our country. The slant of many news stories seemed to paint the church as evil. I have spoken to many people who have regretted speaking to CBC reporters because their words were manipulated. I know I am certainly once bitten and twice shy regarding interviews with the CBC myself.
I do love BC; I love this Island; I love this community. But you know what I loved about Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and even Ontario? In none of those places did I feel looked down on for my faith; in none of those places did I feel excluded for my faith; in none of those places did I feel someone thought I was evil for being a Christian and for being a pastor. It is different here (It is possibly even worse in Quebec from what I read and probably coming more to the rest of our nation as well.)
But you know what? In the Kingdom to Come, In’s Christ’s Kingdom; when Christ, Our Lord comes back this will not happen anymore – all those who are excluded, insulted, and called evil for following the Lord will receive their reward.
Don’t be intimidated by those who are calling you evil for doing good and don’t be tricked into hating them in equal measure. Also don’t hate those who are eating, hording, and wasting food while our hungry brothers and sisters die here and around the world. Don’t resent those who are laughing in excess as people are mourning in poverty. Don’t hate the people receiving the applause of the rich, well-fed, and happy. This is their time. This is their democracy where their voices matter. It is not ours. Our kingdom is coming and when it does, Luke 6:23-26:
“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
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.
Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
Societies based on wealth (capitalism) can never be Christian (Matthew 6:24) as they exclude the poor.[5] This is a condemnation (as is much of Luke and Matthew’s writings) of the values that inspire and sustain capitalism. I imagine if you told these gospel writers that there would be a system of economic governance based so much on the service of mammon that is actually called capital-ism, they would be shocked. I imagine they would cry to see the wealth and unimaginable disparity between the rich and the poor in our world today. I imagine they would be sick to know that people now fly into space for fun while children starve to death and I imagine that they would not be even able to imagine our world where if just the richest country would spend a fraction of the money it spends on killing poor children and families instead on feeding and clothing them, there would be no more naked and hungry people in our world.[6]
Two thousand years after these words were recorded the chasm between the rich man and Lazarus has expanded exponentially (Luke 16:19-31). As hard as it was for the rich young man to leave his wealth and follow Jesus in the 1st Century, I imagine it is that much more difficult today (Luke 18:18-30, Mark 10:17-31, Matthew 19:16-30). When Jesus returns this will all change. It will and then woe to rich, woe to the fed, woe to those who laugh, and woe to those who receive praise now.[7]
These woes are something that I have been reflecting on this week as I have been praying, meditating, researching and reading this pericope. At first glance these woes read like ‘an eye for an eye’ – you kept all these resources from the poor; when Jesus comes back he is going to get you (but cf. Matthew 8:35-42). It almost sounds like Marx where he speaks about an impending society where the proletariat will get their revenge by instilling a dictatorship over the bourgeoisie. But I don’t think Jesus is a Marxist anymore than I think He is a Capitalist. I don’t read a lot of retribution in the words of Jesus.[8]
In the very next words recorded in Jesus’ sermon here, quite the contrary, He says:
27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
So then what does Jesus means when he pronounces woes for the rich, the well-fed, those who laugh now and receive praise, if it does not mean they will receive direct retribution? This is what I think it means in the context of Luke Chapter 6 and Jesus’ Plain Sermon: I think in the new heaven and on the new earth, there will be plenty of resources for everyone – just like there is now! But the difference is that those of us who are on the new earth, those of us who are part of the Kingdom of Heaven will share! I think the woes that will befall the privileged is that they will not have everything that they have now at the eschaton. In Jesus’ kingdom we don’t hoard money, or food, or housing, or access to resources. In Jesus’ kingdom everyone is invited to participate and everyone will receive the same just like in the parable of the farm workers/day labourers (Matthew 20:1-16).
As Christians it is our duty to try to create a Christian society where everyone has access to all that we need. This is why Jesus says, as recorded by both Luke and Matthew, that it is indeed difficult for the rich to inherit the Kingdom of God (Matthew 6:19-24; Luke 12:13-21). This is the source of their woes, for as citizens of heaven we will naturally share all of our excess until such a time as no one has any deficit and indeed in so doing this is a key way we show that we are indeed citizens of Heaven.
God has provided more than enough so that no one needs to starve in our world, no one needs to be without full and proper medical and dental care in our country. And no one needs to be homeless in our city. As Christians, as citizens of heaven, it is necessary that we work toward those ends now. For as we work towards helping the poor and the disenfranchised now, we prove our citizenship in the eternal Kingdom to Come. [9]
This is my encouragement to many of you who are here today. Many of you have been helping those in need in our community and in our world for many, many years now. Many of your have regularly tithed and given to Partners In Mission. Many of you have volunteered hours of your lives helping out those in need right here in our community. My friends I want to encourage you. As you continue to do this, you continue to show to the world not only what the Kingdom of God looks like but that indeed that each and everyone of you are citizens of that kingdom.
Let us pray.
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[1] Cf. Michael Ramsay, Matthew 5:1-16: A Spoonful of Blessings Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 04 January 2015 and Alberni Valley Ministries, 29 September 2019 by Captain Michael Ramsay. Available on-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2015/01/matthew-51-16-spoonful-of-blessings.html
[2] William Hendricksen, Exposition of the Gospel According to Luke (NTC: Baker Academic: Grand Rapids Michigan, 2007), 334-335 explores this very question in detail
[3] Cf. Fred B. Craddock, Luke (Interpretation: Louisville, Kentucky, USA: John Knox Press, 1990), 86 further explores some of the differences in physical and textual setting of Matthew, Luke and Mark.
[4] Paul John Isaak, “617-20a: Sermons Today” in Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), 1241.
[5] Cf. Michael Ramsay, Matthew 26:10: The Poor will always be with you (Salvogesis, January 10, 2022), https://salvogesis.blogspot.com/2022/01/matthew-2610-poor-will-always-be-with.html?spref=fb&fbclid=IwAR1pcI-pdA28F-qMsO1MMyjQ_E5EQgyQOuhWP5l1t6B50YpdqxVWd8ooPXQ
[6] John Sobrino, No Salvation Outside the Poor (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2008), 76: Ignacio Ellacuria emphasises the need for us to replace a 'civilization of wealth'.
[7] R. Alan Culpepper, Luke (NIB 8: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 143-145 speaks quite a bit about the woes to the rich in the impending society.
[8] Cf. R. Alan Culpepper, Luke (NIB 8: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 146
[9] Paul John Isaak, “617-20a: Sermons Today” in Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), 1242
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