Luke 6:17-26 (Epiphany 6C)
St. John, Galveston 2/16/25
Rev. Alan Taylor

+ In Nomine Jesu +

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

    In many ways, Christianity is a peculiar religion. To start with, there are a number of what we call “articles of faith” that challenge our thinking, even our sense of reason. For instance, we believe that God is One God, and yet, He is three persons. We believe that His Son, Jesus Christ, is at one and same time, fully God and fully man, that is, He is 100% God and 100% man. We believe that, in Christ, God was born into the world, and so, we rightly call Mary, “the Mother of God.” We believe that, in the elements of bread and wine, God gives us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ to eat and to drink, for the forgiveness of our sins. We believe that, in the resurrection of Jesus, it is no longer death to die, for He has defeated death and the grave, by swallowing it up in victory.

    Christianity is a peculiar religion. That is no more evident than when our Lord speaks truth to our well ingrained cultural desires and expectations. Perhaps the best example in the Scriptures of the counter cultural nature of God’s word is that portion we call the beatitudes, where Jesus says exactly the opposite of what we would expect Him to say. “Blessed are you who are poor (He says), for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!; Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven.”

    Poverty, hunger, sadness and rejection, are the antithesis of the things we strive for in life. No one, I should think, grows up hoping that, when all is said and done in their life, they’ll wind up poor, hungry, sad and rejected. To the contrary, to one degree or another, we all hope for exactly the opposite. And so it is that Jesus speaks truth to our well ingrained cultural desires and expectations. A rather peculiar thing for Him to do.
  
    Years ago, a somewhat famous preacher, wrote a book about the beatitudes that he titled, “The Be Happy Attitudes.” It was a catchy title, for sure, in which he tried to get at the meaning of the word “blessed.” Unfortunately, he missed the point of the counter cultural claim that Jesus was making in His sermon. To be counted among the “blessed” of God is not a matter of our attitude. In fact, it really doesn’t have anything to do with our perceived happiness, or unhappiness at all. Rather, it’s a matter of the attitude of God toward us. Maybe the best way to characterize it, is to say that “blessedness,” as Jesus speaks of it here in the beatitudes, is a state of being. It is what God provides, simply because He chooses to make it so.

    We’ll put the blessedness together with the points Jesus makes in moment, but first, let’s consider the conditions in which we are considered “blessed” in the Kingdom of God.

“Blessed are the poor (Jesus says) for yours is the Kingdom of God.” There is nothing particularly virtuous about poverty. In fact, poverty, like riches, has it’s own set of problems, even temptations, when it come to faith in Christ. “Remove far from me falsehood and lying (says the writer of the Proverb); give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”

    In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ sermon it says, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.” While the statement is still contrary to our cultural expectations, it gets to the heart of an essential characteristic of the Christian. To be poor in spirit is to know that you cannot depend on yourself. It is to acknowledge your need for God and to flee to Him for forgiveness, life and salvation. It is to desire of God mercy, rather than just rewards. “Blessed (Jesus says) are the poor for yours is the Kingdom of God.”

    “Blessed (too) are you who are hungry now, for your shall be satisfied.” Every loathsome condition of man is turned around, it is redeemed in the life to come. Hunger is certainly a loathsome condition that no one should have to bear, and yet, for many, it is part of life in this broken world. That hunger will, in time, be satisfied.

    Again, the apostle Matthew reminds us, through Jesus’ sermon, that there is a particular hunger and thirst found among Christians, who hunger and thirst for righteousness. This is the desire to be pleasing in sight of God. It is a hunger and thirst to be ever so much more than what we are. St. Paul expressed his own hunger and thirst for righteousness at the end of his struggle with sin in Romans 7. “Who will set me free (he said) from this body of death.” Ultimately, of course, he was satisfied with only one answer. “There is therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

    To be sad in this world, to mourn, is to recognize and lament what sin has done to God’s beautiful creation. I’m sure you’ll recall that even Jesus wept at the death of His good friend Lazarus. Yes, He was going to raise him from the dead. And, He did, in fact, raise Lazarus. Still, life was never meant to include death. Death isn’t a natural end to anything. Rather, it is an unnatural incursion into God’s creation, brought about by the rebellion of Adam and by the fall into which we have all been plunged.

    “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!; Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven.” This may well be the hardest beatitude for us, being that we all have a built in desire to be liked, even to be loved by others. Worse yet, if we are going to be hated and reviled, it is worse for us if that hatred is on account of someone else. And yet, as Christians, we often experience the hatred of the world. “If they have hated Me (Jesus said), so they will hate you.” 
            
    In all these situations, which are contrary to what we tend to hope for in life, Jesus says, you are “blessed.” To be counted blessed by God is, in some ways, similar to the grace that He bestows on us in Christ Jesus. God’s grace in Christ isn’t dependent on your emotions, or your thoughts, or even obedience to His Word. Rather, in Christ, you stand in a state of grace. In fact, that is exactly how the Apostle Paul uses the word grace. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.” As a child of God, baptized into the name of Jesus, you stand in a state of grace. You are the favored of God, not because of who you are, but because of who He is.

    In a similar way, you are blessed of God, even if you are poor, hungry, sad, or rejected. Why? Because God has declared it so. And the blessedness that you live in in this life, will, in time, come to it’s fullest completion on the day of our Lord’s return, for the Kingdom of God is yours. On that day, as the apostle writes, “God will wipe away every tear from your eyes, and there will be no more mourning, or crying, or pain, for the first order of things will have passed away.”  Indeed, blessed are those who are in Christ.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +