Luke 6:17-26
February 11, 2001
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.
Being Up
We all like to be high up. Don’t we?
The best view of a spectacular scene is to be high up on a ridge. The more expensive offices of a tall building are on the top. When we are pursuing to better our careers and to fatten our portfolios, we talk about moving up on the corporate ladder. And when we know that Jimmy Yee is serving a great lunch up in the Fellowship Hall, we step into our elevator and say, “We’re going up!”
We are conditioned to think that going higher and higher up is better than to go down.
During Chinese New Year, we believe in this too. We say, “Gung Hay Fat Choy!” We are wishing each other that during this New Year, our fortune and prosperity will get even better. Our stocks and mutual bonds will again go back up. We don’t like to say, “Sen Nen Fi Lok” anymore because it means everything is going down fast!
Get Down
Today’s Scripture finds Jesus beginning his ministry after recruiting his disciples. Jesus went up to the mountain to pray. And then we see in this lesson that Jesus came down to the level where the crowds were. Unlike Matthew’s account of Jesus’ sermon on the beatitudes called, “The Sermon on the Mount,” Luke’s account is often called, “The Sermon on the Plain” because Jesus came down to the plain to be with the crowds.
In contrast to the Pharisees and other religious leaders who were haughty, despising the common people who didn’t have the time or the means to study the law, Jesus came down to the plain level of where the people were. Jesus was rubbing shoulders with the poor, the sick, and the dispossessed.
There were a lot of plain folks—some were Jewish who came from Judah and Jerusalem. Others were Gentiles who came from Tyre and Sidon in Lebanon. The masses of people crowded around Jesus hoping to hear him and be healed by him. They had diseases and were troubled by unclean spirits. The crowds intermingling with each other were trying to touch him because the power that came from Jesus would make them whole.
It seems that if Jesus were still high up on the mount, he would not have been able to see the people who are poor, the hungry, the sad ones. It’s like us, when we climb up high on a mountaintop to catch the spectacular vista and it’s indeed breathtaking, we can’t also see those who are poor, the hungry, the sad ones down below.
The Pharisees couldn’t be bothered by the masses of people. They would rather enforce the law on these people than to teach them. Jesus on the other hand, came down from the mountain, to be leveled with the crowds, so that he can teach the plain people.
Kingdom of Reversals
Jesus’ teachings are striking because they tend to go against our values. In our world, we tend to think badly of those whom Jesus blesses and tend to honor those whom he curses. Jesus said,
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”
Jesus blesses those whom the world often curses, people who are down and out, like the poor, the unemployed, the dispossessed and the oppressed.
Jesus said, “Blessed are you who are hungry now for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you who are hated by others because of your loyalty to the Son of Man.”
In the world that we live in, such people who are poor, the hungry, the sad ones, are avoided by others. Such people are often cursed, or at least pushed down on the bottom. In our world, to keep these people down, others are able to go up and stay on top. Yet, Jesus tells these people on the bottom that they shall be blessed in God’s kingdom.
Jesus’ teachings surprise us and throw us on a tailspin so that we don’t know what is up and what is down.
Every year at the end of December, Barbara Walters has her “Ten Most Influential People of the Year” TV special. It was her way of honoring those who mean the most in our culture. I can tell you there wasn’t a poor sorrowful, hungry one among them. They were all people of vast wealth, power, and prestige, people who Walters think had made an impact on America.
It’s kind of funny that we go along and believe that these ten most influential people or any other ten rich people are that special when Jesus has some choice words for people like that—he curses them!
Woes and Curses
Jesus said that those of you who are rich, you already have everything you need. God has very little to offer you. And because you are already having the best of what the world has to offer, eventually you will have nothing. That’s your consolation prize.
For those who are full now, stuffed with all that consume us in this culture, God has nothing more to feed you. Having found so many ways to satisfy your gnawing hunger, what more can God do for you?
For those who are laughing now, enjoying the privileges of good living, God is saying this won’t last forever because there will come a time when you will weep.
And for those people who like to be popular, to be on the cover of People magazine and having people speak well of you, Jesus is saying that you may look pretty good outside right now but you are neglecting your inside.
Jesus’ vision of the kingdom is a reversal of what the world sees it. Jesus blesses those whom the world thinks badly of and curses at the things that the world honors.
In a true story Tuesday with Morrie told by Mitch Albom, “It is 1979, a basketball game in the Brandeis gym.. The team is doing well, and the students and fans begin to chant, “We’re number one! We’re number one!” His professor, Morrie with failing health, is sitting nearby. Morrie is puzzle by the cheering. At one point, in the midst of “We’re number one!” he rises and yells, “What’s wrong with being number two?”
The students look at him. They stop chanting. Morrie sits down, smiling and triumphant.
Jesus is telling us to be number one according to the world is not important in God’s kingdom. Sometimes being number two is what God wants. Being up on top according to the world’s standard is not important in God’s kingdom. Like Jesus, we need to come down from the mountain to the plain and at the same level of the plain people, serve God.
Being Poor
When you hear Jesus’ sermon, is it good news or bad news for you? I suppose it all depends on where you see yourself. If you are rich, content, happy with no room for God to have any effects on you, then this sermon has some tough things to say about your future.
It’s not so much that God punishes people who are rich, content, and well off. Jesus doesn’t even demand these people to repent. Rather, it is that God’s kingdom values certain lifestyles and not others. God’s kingdom appears to be prejudiced to certain sorts of people and not others. Jesus doesn’t tell anyone, in this sermon, to go out and do anything. He simply announces the way things are in the kingdom of God.
I realize that these are some tough words, woes for those on top. But the Scriptures are clear to say that God’s kingdom is a reversal of the fortunes of the world. Here is a kingdom of reversals, of topsy-turvy ethic in which those whom the world curses, God blesses. Throughout the Gospel of Luke, there is much attention to the poor, the wounded, the lame, and the blind. In fact, this gospel was initiated with Mary’s song (1:46-55) in which we were warned by the mother of Jesus that, in this new kingdom of God, there would be some rising up, and some going down, a reversal of the fortunes of the rich and the poor.
Listen to Mary’s song, the Savior
“has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.”
The Lord just seems to have a bias for blessing the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, the despised over those who are rich, filled with possessions, content and happy, and popular. Jesus blesses those whom the world curses and curses those whom the world honors.
Stories of Blessedness
Let me tell you some stories of how others have reversed their understanding of what the world thinks are important.
*Top in his class, they flew him down to interview at the top firm in the state. His interview went great. Just before they were to take him back to the airport for his return home, one of the partners mentioned a company that was one of their major clients. It stopped him cold in his tracks.
“Isn’t that the company that operates most of the gambling casinos in this state?” he asked.
“Why, yes,” they said. “But it’s all legal. Besides, they pay well.”
“Legal, perhaps, “he said, “but moral? I just don’t think I could work for a firm that represented gambling, that makes money, even directly, from such human suffering.”
He never heard from the firm again.
“Blessed are you who are poor and hungry…as the result of your Christian commitment to morality…yours is the kingdom of heaven.”
*Since college, she worked in a center for the city’s homeless. Every night there are too many people in need, and too few beds, and not enough food, and the hours are long. One morning a couple of months ago, she just collapsed. It finally got to her, the days without rest, the relentless exposure to the raw edges of human need. They called it “depression,” somebody said. “Burnout.” She said it was better called, “grief.”
“Blessed are you who weep now…as the result of your untiring and sacrificial service to others…for you will laugh again.”
*He went out to join one of the fraternities. That night, there had been too much alcohol, and the people under the influence are sometimes at their worst. The incident had involved a number of people. Afterward, when a police report had been made, a secret meeting was held and everyone was asked to keep the whole thing quiet.
Everyone agreed to keep quiet. Everyone but him. “It’s not right,” he said to them. “This isn’t what a fraternity is to be about. We’re making a wrong even worst.”
From that night on, he was no longer considered a member by them.
“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on the account of the Son of Man …for taking a stand on truth…for one day you will leap for joy.”
The world tells us to be on top however we can—to be rich, to have many possessions, to be happy and content, to be popular and making a good name for yourself. But Jesus comes down from the top of the mountain to be on the same level as the crowds and tells them that those who are high up and haughty will be cursed, “Woe to you.” And those that the world curses—the poor and the homeless, the hungry people in the soup kitchens, the sad and sorrowful people who have lost loved ones and have lost purpose, will be blessed by God.
As we trust the Lord with our lives of faithfulness to him, God will bless us all the days of our lives. Maybe saying, “Sen Nen Fi Lok” is not that bad after all. When we are with the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, and the despised, God will bless us.
Let us pray.
Bless us, dear God, with the commitment to do what is just even when it may make us poor. Bless us with the passion for serving even when we become tired and mournful in seeing so much suffering. And bless us, O God, with the courage to tell the truth of Jesus Christ for one day we will indeed leap for joy. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.