Luke 6: 17 – 26 (NLV) 

If the word “Beatitude” means anything to you at all, if it is recognizable in your vocabulary, then you’ve probably been around the church for a fairly long time. You also likely have at least a rudimentary acquaintance with the Bible… and I’d give about ten to one odds that if you recognize the word “beatitude” you are thinking of a passage of Scripture from the Gospel of… Matthew! 

‘The Beatitudes’: the subject of many wonderful sermons, songs and books.  But they’re all from Matthew’s Gospel.  The Beatitudes – a series of nine sayings (in Matthew, anyway), each one in some way giving encouragement to the long-time disciple, or to the would-be disciple of Jesus.  Reminding us all, promising us, that a day is coming when the books will be balanced, when wrongs will be made right. Words of hope that tell us that the injustices of this world will not last forever, there will come a time when justice will prevail, and we can count on it! 

You almost never hear the Beatitudes read from the Gospel of Luke, though. They’re not as ‘user friendly’ as Matthew’s. For one thing, there’s not as many of them. Luke lists four beatitudes instead of nine.  Luke’s also are more ‘stark’; they are much more centered in this life, in this world.  Matthew’s beatitudes are ‘spiritualized’, Luke’s are blunt statements about life right now.  Today. 

For example, in Matthew we read, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.” But Luke simply says, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”  Matthew says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven”.  Luke: “God blesses you who are poor; for the Kingdom of God is yours.”  Interesting contrast. 

As I mentioned, Luke leaves out five of the sayings that Matthew includes.  But Luke also adds a section that Matthew leaves out.  And, I’ve never a read anyone who puts a title on these, and I’m not sure what we should call them.  What is the opposite of “Beatitude”? Because that’s what these last four statements are. Well, you see in my sermon title the best I could do with that. If Beatitude means ‘blessing’ or ‘blessed’, the opposite would be ‘cursing’.  So we have “blessings and curses”. 

Each of these other four statements begins with the Greek word ouai – which kind of sounds like its meaning: woe.  Woe to you who ­­­­_______.  And each of these ‘woes’ are the exact opposites of the blessings which came earlier. 

^20b “God blesses you who are poor; for the Kingdom of God is yours...”

²⁴ “Woe to you who are rich, for you have your only happiness now.” 

²¹ God blesses you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied.

²⁵ Woe to you who are fat and prosperous now, for a time of awful hunger awaits you.” 

^21b God blesses you who weep now, for in due time you will laugh…

^25b What sorrow awaits you who laugh now, for your laughing will turn to mourning and sorrow.

²² What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man. ²³ When that happens, be happy! Yes, leap for joy! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, their ancestors treated the ancient prophets that same way…

²⁶ Woe to those who are praised by the crowds, for their ancestors also praised false prophets. 

What do we do with this?

Often it helps in trying to understand difficult passages like this to take a close look at some of the details in them. One such detail here is to note where Jesus was before he gave this teaching. Where was he?  He was up on a mountain, where he had gone to pray – to ‘meet with God’. 

A number of commentators have pointed out the similarities between this passage and the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 5 God gives the Law to Moses – where? On a mountain! And Moses then comes down from that mountain, and he shares this word from God - the Law - to the gathered nation. After he finishes that, he then sums up that old covenant (in chapter 28) by giving a long series of blessings and curses. 

The thing is that these blessings as well as the curses were all based on the obedience or the disobedience of the people to the Covenant. It was pretty simple: keep the Law and you’ll be blessed.  You and your land, blessed. Cattle – blessed.  Everything will be great. But if you break the Law, if you disobey it, you will be cursed.  There will be trouble for your nation! 

So here in Luke 6, Jesus comes down from the mountain, and he looks out and sees (again, another detail from this chapter) people from the whole nation of Israel gathering together on this plain.  They were looking for him. Luke says, There were people from all over Judea and from Jerusalem and from as far north as the seacoasts of Tyre and Sidon. So, not only Israel, but there were people from Lebanon and points north. And, of course, these were likely Gentiles.  Representatives of the whole world were there to see Jesus as he comes down from the mountain. 

And Jesus – the Bringer of the New Covenant - gives a series of statements that were very much like those blessings and curses from Deuteronomy 28.  Because of the similarity, many commentators assume a similar context in Luke: i.e., that these statements were based on the obedience or the disobedience of the people to the New Covenant. 

So these are not statements about just any poor people anywhere, or any hungry people, or anyone who is weeping or who is hated. And on the other side of it, it’s not every rich person or everyone who is full that is being warned.  But the context makes it clear that there is some connection between being disciples of Jesus and these blessings and curses. 

Here’s another detail that I think might be important: who is Jesus talking to in Luke 6?  Well, Luke is pretty clear in the beginning. He sees the nation gathering before him, but the ‘beatitudes, the ‘blessings’ are spoken to the disciples.  He writes in 6:20 “Turning to the disciples he said…”  after that, I picture him looking up at the rest and giving the warnings. 

Now think about this a bit…

Here’s all these people; people from all over the known world coming to see Jesus. But quite a few of them are coming out of simple curiosity. Some are coming because they have great needs – they are coming to be healed of various diseases.  They are desperate. Some (we know this from other passages) are coming because they want to be entertained; Jesus was the latest and greatest curiosity going at the time. 

But there were some there who saw something in Jesus that the others did not. (At least, not yet.)  They were seeing him for who he really was: the One who would bring the New Covenant that Jeremiah promised. The time of blessing when the Law would be written on the hearts of the people, and where everyone would know who God is. They were getting it: Jesus was the Messiah. He was (using John’s words) “the one whose words were life.”

And these people – few in number compared with the big crowd – were believing in him. They decided to follow him – which didn’t mean “follow him around from place to place”, of course, to follow him meant that they were going to start living out the teachings that he was giving them. 

They were going to put forgiveness into practice. They were going to be generous with their possessions. They were going to seek the Kingdom of God first and trust that God would take care of their needs, etc.. 

Here’s the thing: in their obedience to Jesus they were becoming citizens of a new order. A new Kingdom. There is the kingdom of this world, and then there is the Kingdom of God, which came in Jesus Christ.  And right now, (still) these two kingdoms are existing simultaneously. Side by side. Like wheat growing among weeds, the Kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of this earth are side by side. And that is what Jesus is talking about here in Luke 6. 

I think He’s telling us, for one thing that you can’t necessarily tell from looking, who belongs to which Kingdom. The values of this world don’t apply to the Kingdom of God.  So wealth, and power, and laughter and comfort are not necessarily signs of God’s blessing on someone’s life. Someone may be experiencing these things, but be far from God’s favor. So they are being warned. Likewise, hunger, or persecution, or sadness, and even poverty are not necessarily signs of God’s disfavor. The values of this world do not apply in the Kingdom of heaven. 

So Jesus says to his faithful ones (he looks at his disciples): you who are poor now, and weeping, and persecuted and hungry – trust me, the scales will be balanced.  Stay the course.  And to the others – he looks up and out over these crowds. To you who are satisfied, and comfortable, and powerful…”Jesus says, take a closer look at your foundation.”  It may not be a solid as you think. 

I want you to try and let this sink in here…because this passage is ‘counter-intuitive’ to what a lot of people think – both in the Christian community and out of it. 

I’m a channel surfer. You don’t want to watch TV with me – especially if you’re a woman. I’ll make you crazy! I don’t get to watch television that often, so when I do, I try to get my money’s worth. I’ll watch two or three shows at a time. As soon as a commercial comes on: boom!

Well, sometimes I cycle through the TBN station – you know all the preachers.  And once in a while I’ll listen to one.  But not too often because, frankly, I get aggravated when I hear some of these guys preaching this distorted message: come to Jesus and be healed! (Always!) Come to Jesus and leave your financial worries behind!  Come to Jesus and drive a better car, end all your relationship problems, do better in school, find a mate… on and on.  It disturbs me, to be quite honest, to see thousands of people who will come and hear that kind of message. And who believe it.  Who think this is what the Bible teaches. 

I see these churches with thousands of people in them, listening to this kind of message, and I can’t help but picture people all over the world -  and some next door to us - who are strong believers, faithful followers of Christ, people who are poor and sometimes hungry… and many who are suffering one bad thing after another – physically, emotionally, financially.  Believers who know the depths of sorrow. Believers whose lives are in danger because they profess Christ. Believers who do the right thing, and end up mocked and rejected by their peers. 

And then I think of other people that I’ve known – real names and faces in my mind - who have bought into those ‘prosperity’ teachings only to have their faith shattered by a doctor’s report or a death of a loved one, or the end of marriage.  Because no one every warned them that this could happen. 

So, take note as to what Jesus is assuming here in Luke 6: that there are people in the Kingdom of God who are hungry now. There are Kingdom people who mourn. (How well we know that! Our church was filled with them this morning.)  Kingdom people are not immune to sadness, and poverty, and the pain of this life.  But nevertheless, Jesus says – stay the course. This world will not have the last word!  In the Kingdom the hungry will be filled. Those who weep will laugh again.  When? 

Someday…soon?  Now… or later.

The ultimate fulfillment of these statements will come at the end of the age. And I can’t wait! Right now we’re in the “shoots and roots” stage.  You know what I mean?  When we lived in Swedesboro, our kids were very small, and I had a little garden in our little back yard.  One year I decided that I wanted to grow corn. Right there on the busiest corner in the entire town of Swedesboro. 

I had a couple rows of corn along the fence. And Brian and Kim would come out with me every day to check on it.  For a long time we didn’t see anything at all. Of course, something was happening, anyway.  The roots were dropping out of those planted kernels.  And after awhile, some green stalk poked through the ground. And it grew larger, and the side leaves began to show. But there wasn’t anything to eat – not nearly! Just shoots and roots! 

It took the whole season, but finally we picked a few ears – and even when you grow it in your back yard, in the busiest intersection in the town, with lots of little fingers poking around in it, there’s nothing like Jersey corn!  The Kingdom of heaven, Jesus said, is growing in the same way.  So we aren’t receiving – right now – everything that’s coming. But still there are signs of the coming harvest – even now there are signs if we look. 

When the people of God do what Jesus told us to do, do it in his name, and others are blessed we see signs of the Kingdom’s approach. What a wonderful privilege it is to serve a meal to a homeless person – and know that God is using us to give evidence of what will happen when the Kingdom is fully here and the hungry are filled. 

I hope all of you who serve as Heart to Heart volunteers, or Stephen Ministers, or who volunteer in hospital ministries, or who sit with someone who is grieving, or who send cards of encouragement to people who hurt – I hope you know that in those actions, you are demonstrating the truth of Jesus’ word:  blessed are you who mourn now… blessed are you who are hungry now… you will be filled. 

Oh, it’s slow in coming. God has a plan, but for now we have to make do with ‘foretastes’ and ‘first fruits’.  And samples. And reading the menu of the Great Feast. But, as it turns out, Luke’s beatitudes are pretty much the same as Matthew’s after all. They are not states that we should try to achieve.  These are not directions for living. They are statements of reality.  This is the real truth of the world we live in.  This is the way it works. There’s a bigger plan in operation. We can trust it. 

I was out walking last Monday afternoon. That, you might remember, was the first day of this cold snap. Even then, the ice was beginning to form on Strawbridge Lake. I think the wind chill was something like –13º. Nippy!  There was no doubt that it was winter in New Jersey.  And as I walked, in my L. L. Bean Gore-tex, Thinsulate lined storm coat, with a scarf and gloves, and the hood up… I saw something that made me laugh. Because I was thinking about this Scripture as I walked. 

You know, since kindergarten we’ve been reciting poems and singing songs, and coloring big lined pictures celebrating the coming of Spring centered around one big event: sighting the ‘first’ robin!  “I saw a robin today! Spring must be near!”  Well, yes, in an ice encrusted bush I saw a bunch of Robins. 

And, you know – the thing is, Robins aren’t a sign of spring. They never leave.  But it’s become folklore.  Maybe because we shut ourselves inside in the winter, or maybe we’re just not looking, but we don’t see Robins until March or April.  But, it doesn’t really matter what we believe about Robins, does it?  Springs comes when it will. And I think it has something to do with the angle of the earth, not whether there is a certain bird in my back yard. 

Jesus is telling us something along that line, I think; here in Luke 6.  Put aside those things that you simply accept… and look deeper.  Here’s the reality: the Kingdom has the last word.  And that, we can count on.