Presented to The Salvation Army's Alberni Valley Ministries, 30 January 2022 by Captain Michael Ramsay
The Sermon on the Mount is one of the most famous and most appreciated portions of scripture. We love to run through Matthew’s Beatitudes particularly. They are a blessing and they are counted as a blessing to many of us. Matthew 5:1-11:
Now when
Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples
came to him, 2 and he began to teach them. He said:
3 “Blessed
are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
These are words that we can always reflect on when we need encouragement. We have previously looked at Jesus’ Mountain Sermon.[1] Today, we are going to look a little bit at Jesus’ Plain Sermon as recorded in Luke Chapter Six. Some people say these are two different versions of the same sermon.[2] If this is true Luke has it in a different place and he recounts some very significant things that Matthew did not recall. [3]
The Sermon
on the Plain,
other than its location, begins pretty much the same as the sermon on the mount with its blessings. Luke 6:20-23:
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,
for 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.
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. We do pray 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:
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.
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.
---
[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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