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Epiphany 6, Year C
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Luke 6:17-26
Last Sunday, I shared a sermon from the Rev. Canon Whitney Rice called "The Deep Water." In it, she discusses the themes of futility that tied that week's lessons together, and what Jesus calls us to do to make our futile work fruitful. She says, "Jesus asks us to return to the ground of our futility, the place of feeling stuck and stymied and sad, and go deeper there." As Christians, this really is a central theme of our faith: to go back to what is disgraced, dishonored, unloved, and cast off by the world, and bring renewal. The most recognizable symbol of our faith—the cross—is an example of that. That implement of shame, agony, and death is renewed because our faith proclaims that it is from there that Christ renewed the world. This is central to Paul's message to the Corinthians in today's lesson. Without the resurrection, there is no renewal. Without the resurrection, the cross is still a place of shame and death.
In the Gospel today, Jesus preaches a version of the Beatitudes rather different from the one we read in Matthew. Not only is the content of the message different, but the setting is as well. Matthew recounts, "When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain…" while in Luke, we read, "Jesus came down with the twelve apostles and stood on a level place." The difference in settings is not incidental. Think of other famous mountain settings in Scripture—God calls Moses through the burning bush on Mount Horeb and gives Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. Christ's Transfiguration takes place on a mountain, the symbolic place of union between the earthly and the divine. The symbolism of the mountain is not hard to grasp, but what about the symbolism of the "level place?"
We see other scriptural examples of "the level place" primarily in the books of the Old Testament prophets, and the contrast with the mountain setting is very clear. In Daniel 3, it is the place where Nebuchadnezzar erects a golden idol. In Habakkuk 3, it is a place of famine. In Zechariah 12, it is a place of mourning. In Jeremiah's dark and vivid prophecy, it is the place where "human corpses shall fall like dung…like sheaves behind the reaper, and no one shall gather them." If the mountain is a symbol of humanity meeting divinity, the level place is the symbol of death, degradation, misery, and sin. But God comes down from the mountaintop in the person of Jesus and does so to make this shameful place a place of renewal.
Then he says something, which he directs to his disciples: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 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 when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets."
We tend to interpret the Beatitudes as speaking directly to the plight of those who are neglected, despised, cast off, and unwanted by the world. We see these as the reasons why we have a moral responsibility to place them at the center of our Christian life, as Jesus placed them at the center of his ministry and, indeed, at the center of the Kingdom of Heaven.
That is a valid perception of the Beatitudes. But Jesus looks at the disciples—to us—when he says these things. Why?
In the 1930s, local Episcopal parishes across the country, increasingly alarmed by the malice, intolerance, and violence of the German Third Reich, organized donations to fund steamboat passages for those fleeing Europe. By 1940, this work had been organized and centralized into the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief, which partnered with other faith groups over the ensuing decades to resettle those fleeing oppression in the Soviet Union and genocide in Southeast Asia. In the 1980s, Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) branched off from the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief, which would, in 2000, be renamed Episcopal Relief and Development. Over the years, Episcopal Migration Ministries has helped over 100,000 refugees resettle and start new lives in the United States. EMM has done much of this work on behalf of the US State Department, which provided contracts to ensure they had sufficient resources to do it. Global Refuge, a Lutheran organization, has also done this work in cooperation with the federal government, as have Catholic and other faith-based organizations. However, much of this support has recently come to a halt, not due to a lack of refugees needing assistance, but rather because of a political decision suggesting that these refugees no longer deserve it.
For many years, Christian faith groups in the United States have occupied a position that might fit more in the category of “woes” that Jesus describes in the last half of our reading. Churches were full, rich, and seldom a target of ire among the powerful and influential. But that is beginning to change, not because the church has suddenly felt a desire to place itself in conflict with the leaders of our nation, but because the central teachings of our faith are uncompromising in what they call us to do. Every one of us here has committed ourselves to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. Each person here has committed to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being. That is why Jesus looks at the disciples, and us, when he shares the Beatitudes. If we want to do discipleship right, we had better be ready for the hard path. We had better be ready to accept being cast to the fringe of society ourselves, alongside those whose dignity we defend.
So blessed are you, disciples, who are now poor in the resources to help those in need but haven't given up, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you, disciples, who hunger for righteousness, justice, and compassion; the harvest may be meager here, but it flourishes abundantly in God's kingdom.
Blessed are you, disciples, when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Blessed are you when you receive death threats for speaking a gentle call to mercy. Blessed are you when they belittle you by referring to you as a "so-called bishop," trying to delegitimize you because you are a woman proclaiming the Word of God. Blessed are you when they do all these things and more because the power that rules through fear can never overcome the power that grows from Christ's unconditional love.
Blessed are you, disciples, who weep for a world awash in hatred. Blessed are you who grieve for our beloved siblings in Christ living in dread. Blessed are you who feel numb, hopeless, targeted, or forgotten. Blessed are you who feel powerless. Christ speaks to you here on the level plain, in the place of disgrace and sorrow. Hear what he is saying and believe that hope will grow here against all odds and in defiance of all logic. The kingdom will grow here, in this level place, and no powers or principalities can topple it. Amen.