Luke 6:17-26
February 11, 2007
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Almost every week on Thursday night, I ask Joy to select hymns for Sunday worship. She would always respond back saying, “What are you preaching on?” And when I tell her, she would say, “You are always preaching on the same point!” The same point is Jesus Christ is Lord!
For the past 8 ½ years since I have served as your pastor, I must have preached about 436 sermons. For Dr. Chuck who was here for 38 years, I calculated he must have preached over 1976 sermons! I don’t plan to break that record!
There’s a story of a new pastor named, Rev. Parker who preached his sermon on his first Sunday at the church. At the end of the sermon, as he was shaking hands with people emerging from the church, a woman, one of the long-time members of the church, said, “Mr. Parker, I had heard about you before you came to us. I heard that you were difficult, that you could be controversial and outspoken. But I want to tell you that I listened carefully to you and I was pleased that in your sermon, I can say that you said absolutely nothing. Nothing! I’m sure that you will do well at this church.”
When I first started preaching at FCBC, Paul Fong gave me some feedback that he figured out my preaching style. He said, I usually start off with a couple of personal illustrations, examine the biblical lesson, and then proclaim a challenge. He figured me out.
I tend to begin sermons with descriptions of what we are doing or should do, who we are or who we wish we were. I do this because, as your pastor, I assume that most of you are more interested in yourselves than in God. As Luke says, “the huge crowds from all over Judea came not only to hear him but also to be healed;” to be seen by Jesus as the Great Physician. So when we come to church, we come not asking, “What is God like?” but rather, “Jesus, what have you done for me lately?”
Sermon on the Plain
Today’s Scripture lesson is Jesus’ sermon on the plain. We are more familiar with Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount where we only hear the blessings that stir our hearts and comfort our spirits. Although Luke’s version is similar, there are significant differences. Luke’s version contains the woes and curses. Jesus, the preacher not only blesses but also pronounces woes. He takes a position. He takes sides. He blesses some lifestyles and criticizes others.
The translation of the Greek for “blessings” and “woes” into contemporary English has attracted much discussion. While the NRSV says, “blessings,” the TEV says, “happy” and the LB says “fortunate.” For the word, “woe,” the TEV says “how terrible” and the LB says, “sorrow.” A more recent translation, translates “blessings” into “congratulations” and “woes” into “damn you.” We might think this translation is simply too light and much too severe respectively.
However we choose to translate Luke’s Greek, what is clear is that Jesus is announcing that the reversal of fortunes at the end of the age has already begun. In these seven verses, the word, “now” is mentioned four times. This eschatological sermon is about God and what God will do at the end. Eschatology is about last things—the way the world will end. It’s a vision, not of present arrangements, but rather what God is moving us toward, what God will get when God’s kingdom is come, God’s will be done on earth as in heaven.
For many of us, we don’t like to hear eschatological sermons nor do we generally understand them. Most of us have it so good in America already, sitting on top of what this world has to offer that we don’t want to hear the gospel dragging us kicking and screaming into some other world. We like it too much here in the present. Eschatology says that God is disruptive and dangerous. God is out to get what God wants and Jesus’ sermon is the announcement of what the whole new world will be like.
Blessings and Curses
There are two parts in Jesus’ sermon on the plain. Part one is a series of blessings, beatitudes. Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Jesus blesses those whom the world curses—the poor, the unemployed, the dispossessed, and the oppressed. Blessed are you hungry people, you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep for you will laugh again. Blessed are you who are hated by others because of your love for me, Jesus said.
If that were all there was to Jesus’ sermon that day, then we might remember it dearly as one of the sweetest sermons ever preached. But then, Jesus moves into a harsh attack—part two is moving from blessings to curses.
You who are rich, damn you! (Oh, that’s much too harsh—Woe is you!) You have already received your consolation. You were good at working the kingdoms of this world to your advantage. Now, in God’s reign you shall be cursed.
For those of you who are full, stuffed with all that can be consumed in this world, having found so many ways to satisfy your gnarling hunger, what more can God do for you? In God’s coming reign, you shall be damned to emptiness. (Oh, it’s that harsh word again.)
Wipe that smirk off your face, you self-satisfied ones! There’s a new Savior in town. It’s time for tears. Even those who you might have asked to give you a good reference will be cursed because they are lying in what they might say!
Most of the time, I like to preach sermons that make you feel good inside; messages that tug at your heartstrings; messages that inspire you to go through the weekdays reciting the sermon title; messages that always blesses and never condemns. But today, although I would have liked to avoid preaching from Luke 6, I felt God challenging me to struggle with Jesus’ curses as well as his blessings. The last time I read the paper, we are still the only “super power” on the earth; we are still sitting on the top of the heap of the world’s goodies. There is a demanding nature to the Gospel. Before the Gospel is comfort, the Gospel is a challenge. Before Jesus brings us a blessing, he brings us a curse.
He Came Down
For us to apply this lesson to our lives, we return to the text to see what Jesus first does before he even preached his sermon. If we are to understand the poor, the hungry, those who weep, and those who are persecuted because they love the Lord, we first must embrace an incarnational lifestyle. In Luke 6:17, “Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place,” with the great crowd and the disciples.
He stood with them on a level place. That’s where we’re to stand as pastors, and that’s where we as the church are called to stand—on a “level place” with those who are in need. To have an incarnational lifestyle is to be like Jesus when he came down to where the people were and to stand with them on a level place.
While Jesus preached from a level place, he preached of leveling the world by turning the world upside down so that those with needs would have their needs met. It’s a counter-cultural force of love that embraces those who are social outcasts and make them social celebrities.
The gospel confronts us to move from where we are comfortable, from where we want to stay, from where we feel at home and leads us to see that our own inner brokenness can’t be repaired until we have solidarity with the brokenness of our fellow human beings.
Jesus seemed to never have been too concerned about meeting his own needs. He was always ready to meet the needs of others. As Christians, we should be extending our hands over the gulfs that separate the haves from the have-nots, the have-mores with the have-lesses.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) the world produced enough food in 2001 to provide every person in the world with 2,807 calories of nutrition per day. That is more than 40 percent more available food per person than the FAO recommended minimum intake of 2,000 calories per day. Now I’m not going to guess how many calories most of us consume everyday; but I know it far exceeds what we need to live on.
There is enough food in the world to feed the 852 million undernourished people in the world. The problem is distribution. We need to hold our hands across the artificial national boundaries to redistribute food so that the hungry can be fed. The food is not getting to where it is needed the most.
Jesus comes down off the mountain with his disciples to the level plain and preaches to the great crowd of people—people with diseases, troubled with unclean spirits, the poor, the hungry, the sad and disappointed, and those who are reviled because they love Jesus. He gets down on our level and preaches his sermon.
Notice what Jesus does next. “Then he looked up at his disciples.” While on the same level of the great crowd of needy people, Jesus looks up and into the eyes of his disciples and challenges them to envision what God’s kingdom is about to happen.
Jesus teaches the disciples that God’s kingdom is opposite to what the world sees. The American Dream speaks about 2.2 children, a stable, well-funded retirement account, a Starbucks available on every corner, beautiful wrinkle-free bodies and living happily ever after. But the American Dream is for many a pipe dream, and in any case, certainly not the dream of God’s kingdom. Jesus looks up at us, his modern day disciples and teaches us what God’s Kingdom will be like.
William Willimon tells a story of a seminarian who served briefly as a chaplain in a state prison. He received a request from a father of a young man who was interned in prison. The young man had committed a robbery in a little town and had been sentenced to many years in jail. He was angry, embittered.
The boy’s father came each week to visit him, but the young man steadfastly refused to see him.
The chaplain was asked to intervene, to plead with the boy to see his father. But the young prisoner refused to reconsider.
Despite his refusal, the boy’s father took off work every week, boarded a bus, and traveled across the state in the hope of seeing his son.
Every week. And every week it became the young chaplain’s difficult task to ask the son, “Do you want to see your Dad?” He then had to bear the word of the refusal to the waiting father.
The father would thank the chaplain, gather his belongings, and head toward the door for the bus trip back home.
One day, after telling the father the same thing that his son would not meet with him, the chaplain said, “No one would do what you are doing. Your son is an embittered, defiant young man. Go back home and get on with your life. No one would put up with this kind of rejection, week after week. Nobody would do this.”
“He has put up with it for centuries,” said the father, as he picked up his meager belongings and headed out. And the young chaplain literally fell to his knees at this vision of the incarnation.
Like this father of the young man in prison, we must never give up on each other since God never gives up on us. Jesus came down from the mountain to level ground where the crowd of people was so that he can heal the sick, comfort those troubled with unclean spirits, and teach them about the kingdom of God.
As today’s disciples, Jesus is looking up at us and telling us that the kingdom of God is already unfolding before our eyes. We are not about the business of maintaining the status quo or established ways. We are called to turn things upside down: those who are blessed now will be cursed and those who think that they are cursed will be blessed. This God takes sides. He takes a position. He blesses some lifestyles and criticizes others.
Jesus’ Preaching
Most of the time, I like to preach sermons that make you feel good about life and have you leaving our church a bit lighter and happier. I like it when you say, “Pastor that was a good sermon!” But I fear that we have lost some of the edge of Jesus’ prophetic preaching. Jesus is worked over into one who always blesses and never provokes and challenges us to change our sinful ways.
Today we have heard a sermon that made us uneasy and we are better Christians as the result of it. It’s certainly not how I would like to preach. But it’s the way Jesus preaches.
God takes sides, loves with a love that is not impartial. God loves you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of God. God loves you who are hungry now because you will be filled with enough to eat. God loves you who are weeping and sad right now for he will make you laugh and have joy. God loves you when you stand up for your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior even against persecution for you will receive your just reward in heaven.
But woe to you and damn you (Oh, there’s that harsh word again) who are rich and have more than you ever need, you who have too much food to eat and have no conscience about those who are hungry, you who are happy because of self-satisfaction with no regards to others, and you who think you have good references when you know you have falsified your resume!
The early Christians were persecuted not for what they believed—Jesus Christ is Lord. They were persecuted for what they refused to believe that—Caesar is Lord. We can’t just preach about blessings without also preaching about curses. God takes sides and he wants us to be on his side so that we may be with him.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, you bless us with your living presence among us. You come to us in our need and bless us with your healing power. You come to us when life is tough, and bless us with your sustaining strength. You bless us in order that we might be a blessing to others.
And yet, Lord Jesus, you not only bless us, you challenge us with your truth. You prod us with your prophetic zeal. You judge us with your righteousness that makes our meager goodness look silly. Yes, and sometimes you even curse us for our sinful folly that we so richly deserve.
Lord Jesus, give us courage to listen to you, and in listening, really hear you, and in hearing, follow you, no matter what you do to us and with us. Amen