February 15, 2004
Jeremiah 175-8 + 1 Corinthians 15:12,16-22 + Luke 6:17,20-26
The earliest followers of Jesus were surely poor, powerless, marginal and socially irregular. They were like him, and had the most interest in what he had to say. By the time Luke’s gospel is written, there are others. Most scholars hold the opinion
that this Gospel was written for a very different kind of people: respectable people of influence and means. They were an advantaged group conscious of the power and their prestige.
There is a decided difference between Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount” and these “Beatitudes” of Luke. Matthew spiritualizes his. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” he says. There is nothing spiritualized, internalized or removed for Luke. He simply says: “Blessed are the poor.” No words of warning or woe in Matthew.
No lack of them in Luke. The future of those who seem to have no future is assured. The rest would be advised to discern that this is the way it works with God. Luke does not give suggestions about how to be happy.
Woes are directed toward the privileged, the well-fed, the rich, the carefree precisely because their condition, and status is used to exclude others, keeping them silent, invisible, powerless and marginal. The Jesus of Luke knows that among people of status, power becomes power to abuse. This is tough news for us, and there is no way to stand here and coat it with sugar. People who seem to have everything going for them live in great peril. Security blinds people to the need of surrender and letting go to make room for the ever-surprising presence and action of God. We are the rich and we are the powerful. Even though many are burdened with debt, it happens because we have credit, and credit allows us to buy more and more. There are some who do not even have the power of plastic. The culture of the consumer and the power of the borrower continues to neglect the really “dirt poor” among us, keeps them silent and invisible. The power of the consumer society criminalizes the hungry and the minority who look for a share in the “good life.”
The Jesus of Luke’s Gospel assures those who seem to have no future that they do in fact have one that is better; while that same Jesus assures those who think they have it made that a surprise is on the way. Guilty feelings in the face of this Gospel is not what is called for. Feeling the plight of the homeless as a moral dilemma is not enough either. The failure arises from the institutions on which our common life and its quality depends. Election year promises of new jobs from politicians offer nothing when one considers that the majority of those jobs are part-time, unskilled, low paying ones in the service sector that will not put food on a table under a roof. In a nation that watches that rich get richer and the poor grow in more desperate numbers, this Gospel is serious business. It confronts us with the difficulty of being a good person in the absence of a good society. I would propose that the Beatitudes offer those who would follow Jesus with Luke’s Gospel a kind of “guidance system” to correct the distortions of attitude, behavior and values of contemporary culture whether it is the affluent culture of Luke’s time or our own. Luke and the Jesus he proclaims reverses the assumption that blessedness lies in riches, pleasure, comfort and happiness, and asserts that the fulfillment of every need and desire is found in God and in God’s ways.