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t’s hard to know who the audience is for this text. Were they peasants? That would make sense. Jesus’ words would have certainly brought comfort. We are more familiar with Matthew’s version of Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Those words might include us, but Jesus’ words here in Luke are different– and not as inclusive. Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor.” The Greek word means something like “destitute.” “Blessed are you who are destitute, for yours is the kingdom of God.” In the ancient world, in which wealth was understood as a sign of God’s favor, Jesus could not have spoken more surprising and astonishing words.

       Were there rich people in the crowd? There may have been. Otherwise, to whom is Jesus addressing the woes? Yet Luke tells us that he addressed these words to his disciples. Certainly none of them were rich, though they probably weren’t destitute either. It’s somewhat hard to picture the scene here, really. Was Jesus speaking to the disciples, with the crowd standing in the back listening in? Were the woes received with a certain shadenfreude, enjoying the future misery of those who seemed to have it so good in the present moment?

       Luke focuses a great deal on material poverty in his gospel, from Jesus’ inaugural sermon in Nazareth where he announces that he has been anointed to bring good news to the poor, to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus– unique to the gospel of Luke– where the rich man is condemned to eternal torment because he ignored poor Lazarus lying at his gate. Yet scholars suggest that Luke addressed his gospel not primarily to the poor, but to the rich Christians of his own time and place, with his gospel an urgent summons to reorder their lives. It is also in Luke where we find the story of Zacchaeus, the rich tax collector who turns his life around after Jesus stops by for lunch, and gives half his money to the poor. The kingdom of God may belong to the poor, Luke seems to say, but the rich may still share in it by virtue of their treatment of the least and the lost.

Y et I am most struck by Luke’s words to describe the crowd that came out to see Jesus that day. It was quite a gathering of people, Luke tells us, a crowd of disciples and a great multitude of people. They came from Judea and Jerusalem– which was at least a day’s journey away– and from Tyre and Sidon– which means there would have been gentiles in the crowd as well as Jews. And they came, Luke tells us, “to hear him and be healed of their diseases.”

       To hear him and be healed of their diseases. Isn’t that why we come to worship? Isn’t that what worship is about, hearing and healing? We come to hear a Word from the Lord, a word that we can’t hear anyplace else, and to be healed of the wounds of human existence, taking refuge from a world that often does the wounding. To be sure, we also offer up ourselves in worship too, giving to others in gratitude for what God has given us, but worship is not primarily about what we do, but about what God does for us.

       So however we understand these words of Jesus spoken that day before his disciples and the great crowd of onlookers, they were intended to bring healing, which helps us understand what Jesus was up to. What Jesus did in his blessings and woes was to challenge the prevailing world-view of his listeners, and the entire set of social practices that went along with it. In its place, he offers an alternative way of seeing the world, and another way of living within it as a result.

       Brian Stoffregen helps explains the evolving meaning of the Greek word makarios, which we translate in English as “blessed.” In ancient Greek times, blessed referred to the gods, beings who lived in another plane of existence, above the daily cares of human life. To be blessed, you had to be a god. There was a second meaning in which blessed referred also to the dead, humans who, through death, had reached the other world of the gods. To be blessed, you had to be dead. In later Greek usage, the word came to refer also to the elite, the upper crust of society. To be blessed, you had to be rich and powerful, rich and powerful enough to escape the daily woes of life. Finally, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, blessed referred to the results of righteous living. If you lived right, you were blessed, and the proof of this was abundance in material things– a good wife, many children, abundant crops, wisdom and honor and status.

       So it is out of this context that Jesus proclaims, blessed are the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the excluded, the reviled. To you belongs the kingdom of God. But woe to you who are rich, Jesus proclaims, for you have received your consolation. In other words, enjoy your wealth. It’s the only reward you will ever know.

A s much as it chagrins me to say this, I can’t help but think of the death this past week of Anna Nichol Smith. I can’t imagine a life more singularly devoted to the hollow pursuit of wealth and power and fame. Somehow, I don’t imagine them reading this passage at her funeral this week. Wealth is its own reward. It’s also its only reward. So the woes that Jesus pronounces need to be understood as words of love every bit as much as the words of blessing. The crowd came to Jesus to be healed. The pursuit of wealth, he tells them, will not heal what ails you. You may be full now, but it will not satisfy you. You may be laughing now, but it will not protect you from the daily pain of life. You may have surrounded yourself with people who constantly flatter you, but you have traded your integrity for snake oil. Note that it’s not just poverty or wealth, per se, that is at issue, but contented wealth that has no need for God, and poverty that opens one to trust in God’s presence. I like the way Eugene Peterson translates this passage:

You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all.

       God’s kingdom is there for the finding.

You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry.

       Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal.

       You’re blessed when the tears flow freely.

       Joy comes with the morning.

But it’s trouble ahead if you think you have it made.

       What you have is all you’ll ever get.

And it’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself.

       Your self will not satisfy you for long.

And it’s trouble ahead if you think life’s all fun and games. There’s suffering to be met, and you’re going to meet it.

S o why are you here today? Can words alone heal? Jesus’ words, ultimately, were intended to foster a healthy lifestyle. I don’t mean eating right and going to the gym, though those are good things too. I mean a life that heals the wounds of human existence that each one of us carry with us into this sanctuary. When wealth and power and status are our heart’s desire, we cultivate a certain way of life that is organized around those goals. Jesus invited his listeners, then and now, into another way of life, one characterized by open community, sharing one’s possessions, care for neighbor, nonviolent resistence to the powers that be, welcome of the outcast, sacrificial giving, all deeply steeped in a life of prayer. This is what it means, he told them, to live as citizens of the realm of God.

       Today we are privileged to welcome in to the congregation several new members. We often think that becoming a Christian is about believing certain things. To an extent, that is true. Primarily, however, being a Christian is about living a certain way of life. In welcoming newcomers into this congregation, we are inviting them to join us in the daily struggle to live out the values of the gospel in our common life. That is the invitation we make to every new person who is with us today. We do so not only because we believe that this is how God has called us to live together, but because we trust that this is the pathway to healing and wholeness not only in our individual lives, but in the life of the world. So when people join the church, the question they are asked about Jesus is not do you believe in him but do you trust in him. We come to worship to hear and be healed. Do you trust that the way of life he has told you about will bring you healing and wholeness, and through you (and the community of which you are now apart) to our wounded world?

       So why are you here? What word have you come to hear? What wound have you come to heal? Come to Jesus. Trust in the Lord. By his words, and by his touch, we are made whole.                                                               ✞

© 2007 Jeffrey K. Krehbiel