This coming Sunday, February 11, 2007 is the 6th Sunday after the Epiphany with the three readings being Jeremiah 17:5-8 (Cursed and Blessed); 1 Corinthians 15:1-20 (Resurrection from the dead) and Luke 6:17-26 (Sermon on the Plain). Luke 6:20 is the text to examine which reads, “Blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God.”
What a great stewardship sermon for pastors who need to raise a lot of money. The text is clear. The poorer you are; the more blessed you are. The more wealthy you are, the less blest you are. Thus, to get more blessings, you need to get rid of your wealth and it just so happens that there is a fund drive at the church that will be glad to get you more blessed by becoming more poor.
Another angle to get their attention is to give them the woes. For Jesus points the woes to those who are NOT hungry; who ARE laughing, who do NOT mourn and who have people speak WELL of them. Now who in the congregation does that not fit? Then what is the “Gospel” or good news to those woes. Blessed are you if you are poor, hungry, weeping and ostracized. Talk about a reversal in commonsense theology!
And that is just the point. For in light of the similar set of beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5, it is not just being poor but being poor in spirit. What is the difference? These beatitudes are theological in nature and thus point to the proper attitude needed on the part of the believer not in relationship to the temporal realm but to the spiritual realm. The poverty spoken of is best understood in this verse, “Nothing in my hands I bring; Simply to the cross I cling.”
The Luke 18 parable of the Pharisee and publican clarifies these woes. For the Pharisee thought he was being blessed by God because he was rich, not hungry, laughing at the sinners and loving men to speak well of him. That attitude is simply another understanding of self-righteousness.
Those who are truly blessed have been hammered with the law of God to demonstrate their poverty in having nothing to give to God to offset their sins, their hungering and thirsting after righteousness, their weeping in repentance over their sins and being persecuted because of their faithfulness to Jesus Christ. It is those who cry out that they are poor, miserable sinners deserving nothing but temporal and eternal punishment who are truly blessed rather than those who thank God that they are not like other men when in reality they are just as fallen in their sinfulness as all other men! Thus, the truly poor in spirit may be found in someone who is poor in the temporal sense (Lazarus in the Dives parable) or rich in the temporal sense (Abraham and Joseph of Arimathea).
The true Gospel is found in the text in which Christ is the healer from not just physical but even demonic problems the largest being conceived and born into the kingdom of Satan and then released from that bondage in the waters of baptism. As Jeremiah 17 points out, the curses and blessings are not on the basis of lack of works or plenty of works; instead, they are on the basis of whether one’s faith is in man or in the Lord!
Name:Tom Baker
This is a great Gospel message, one that hit me well after coming into the faith. One of the dangers I would run into, internally especially, was making the “poor in spirit” yet another work. The flesh seems to have a tremendous gift for making ANYthing a work.
The crucial difference is the Law vs. “trying to do it” somehow yourself, that is mustering up some kind of “poor in spiritness” (e.g. am I being poor enough in spirit and how do I know). That’s entirely different than the operation of the Law UPON one passively receiving it. But yet, strangely enough, even trying to muster up the “poorness” one can get Hammered by the Law. Eventually the Law will just continue to crush that effort.
In an odd sense, it seems, all those times we run up against “is it enough, of the right quality, magnitude, etc…” the Law still is crushing us in the sense that we never find that elusive “enough”.
It’s kind of like wearing yourself out spiritually by your own personal favorite “work”. One keeps trying to scale the infinite mountain of “getting to heaven” and never can “know” am I there.
When the simplicity of the Gospel is a simple gift given, and the sacraments are this too. Our flesh seems to say, “No, no, no that’s not right!” But it is the only way!
But there is a sense of “scariness” in just trusting in the naked promise of Gospel and the simple water, wine and bread. I suppose that “scariness” is the death rattle or dying of the flesh – it does not understand “not doing anything”.
Blessings,
Larry Ky
The normal analogies for the accusing sense of the Law are mirror that shows your true sinful self and hammer that hammers your pride down to size much like John the Baptist leveled the hills. Recently I ran across another analogy of eyesalve that helps your eyes to see more clearly. And now, Larry, you add a fourth with the idea of the Law is still “crushing” us. Mirror, Hammer, Eyesalve, Crusher–take your pick for they all work in getting us ready to be prepared for the treatment of the Gospel.