February 11, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Jeremiah 17: 5-8 + Psalm 1 + 1 Corinthians 15: 12, 16-20 + Luke 6:20-26
There is a great risk of “spiritualizing” these words of Jesus that is often a way of insulating ourselves from their literal meaning. To get the message here, we must pay attention to both. That “the poor” exist as a social class, marginalized and powerless is itself part of the message. It should not be so. They should not be poor. Their very existence is an indictment those who leave them poor. Those allow the poverty to continue will not enjoy the consolation of the Kingdom. If there are hungry people, there is something wrong with the well fed. If someone is weeping, there is something wrong with those who gave them reason to weep. If someone is hated, this Gospel suggests that there is something wrong with the one who does the hating.
The wealth of this world and its pleasures are not the blessings we might think they are. In truth, the wealth we enjoy and its pleasures are a challenge, a burden, and a responsibility. Provoking our reflection is the purpose of the paradox Luke puts before us today.
There is a popular television preacher these days who proclaims that God wants us to be rich. This preacher says “NO” to that. God wants us to be Holy, and the only rich holy people (Saints) I know of became holy because they cared more about injustice than about their wealth.
This Gospel cannot be spiritualized into silence. Luke, whose community historically must have embraced many wealthy people in its time, speaks to the rich the good news that their salvation lies in concern for the poor and in using their goods for others. This message in our day carries not only to individuals, but to corporations as well, since the whole idea of a “corporation” implies the collective people who give the system identity and power.
Jesus has been up on the mountain alone with God. There in prayer, he must have attuned himself to the mind or will of God. Coming down from there into our midst, he reveals God’s vision for human life in contrast to the way humans are really living it. It is this discrepancy that drives the blessings and woes. Out of sync with God, this world’s judgments are off the mark. Success or failure, happiness or despair as this world sees it is not normative nor lasting, because it is too far from the Will of God. “Real Life” is constructed upon the rock of spiritual truth, and it takes seriously the Word of God as normative for how we live now and every day.
Timothy in his Epistle spells it out best of all.
“For those who in the present age are rich, command t hem not be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.”