Plain Talk
The Venerable Joan Clark
Luke 6:17-26
Two men were traveling by light airplane to a business meeting. Somewhere over the land the plane's motor failed and they were forced down. When they returned home each wrote an article for his favourite magazine about the resulting crisis. One was an avid outdoorsman and his article was titled, "Survival In The Frozen North." The other was very religious and his article was titled, "How Prayer Saved Me From The Wild Wolf Pack." The stories were about the same incident. The authors were different, and so was the audience for whom each wrote.
Matthew and Luke both record in their gospels a collection of Jesus' sayings. We know Matthew's version as, "The Sermon on the Mount." Matthew writes for a Jewish audience, and every good Jew knew that all important events happened on a mountain. The law came from Mount Sinai. Moses views the promised land from Mount Pisgah. "I will lift up my eyes to the hills," says the psalmist. The temple is built on Mount Zion. Jesus goes to a mountain to meet Moses and Elijah. When he commissions his disciples and leaves the earth, the launching pad is a mountain. So for Matthew this collection of Jesus' important teachings is uttered close to the sky.
Luke, on the other hand, writes for a Hellenistic audience. His gospel is a down-to-earth account for the common person. When he records the same materials as does Matthew, the site of the sermon is not a mountain, but the lowlands. We read, "And Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place." We call Luke's account, "The Sermon on the Plain." Plain talk is what it is.
There are major differences between the two collections. Matthew hears Jesus' message as spiritual. Matthew's gospel is an effort to prove Jesus is the Messiah -- God's messenger, sent to save people from their sins. The blessed are those who have the right attitudes. We even call the way he puts it, "The Beatitudes." "Blessed are the poor in spirit," he begins. That would appeal to anyone on a religious quest. It's got a solid ring of piety about it.
Luke, on the other hand, is not concerned with some spiritual quest. He is out to prove that Jesus came to do away with all the distinctions which make some people think they are better than others. His is a universal gospel, and that universe is populated with the poor, lepers, Samaritans, beggars, women, foreigners, tax collectors and drunks. He wants them to know that God loves them just as much as he loves the orthodox, the pure and the righteous. In Luke's hands, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," becomes, "Blessed are you poor."
On Matthew's mountain Jesus says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." But on Luke's plain it comes out, "Blessed are you that hunger now." He meant meat and potatoes, not some spiritual commodity. Matthew wants his hearers to pray better. Luke wants his to eat better.
Who was right? I guess it depends on what you need. Those whose stomachs are full tend not to be fixated on hunger. But nothing is more important to those whose stomachs are empty. It is clear whose side Luke and Luke's Jesus are on. They are on the side of the poor, the left out, the desperate, the marginalized. And if I read the statistics right, that's most of the people of today's world.
Which gospel do we read -- and love? If I asked how many of you have heard of and can even quote sections of the Sermon on the Mount -- Matthew's beatitudes or the Lord's Prayer, for instance -- I'd get a pretty good show of hands. But if I asked how many of you knew of and could quote anything from Jesus' plain talk in Luke, there would be little response. We can take comfort from, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." It has a gentle sound. But what can we make of, "Blessed are you poor"? "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," has a nice ring to it. But, "blessed are you that hunger"? What blessing is there in hunger? If the poor are blessed, and we are not poor, are we not blessed? What's so great about being poor? Do we have any volunteers? Isn't much of our effort exerted and money given to help the poor get richer? If poverty is so blessed, why do we take up offerings to alleviate hunger? If the poor are blessed, wouldn't our Christian duty lie in taking away from them what they have now, so they can be even poorer and therefore more blessed?
That interpretation means we have not read carefully. Jesus didn't hold that poverty was blessed; only the poor. In Luke's account it was the poor, the left out, the ratted on and spat upon who were God's favourites. As liberation theologians put it, "God has a preferential option for the poor."
Look at the evidence. Who heard Jesus gladly? The well-to-do? Those who sat high up in the power structure? Those who held the chief seats in the synagogue? The wheelers and dealers? No, it was the poor who heard him gladly. Those he brought to life were lepers, prostitutes, drunks, abused women, the left out and held down. He had an enormous amount of trouble with those who had more than they could use but were never satisfied. "It is harder," he said, "for a rich man to enter the kingdom than for a camel to go through a needle's eye." "Sell all you have and give the proceeds to the poor," he told a rich young ruler whose possessions possessed him, and who therefore turned sadly away.
In Jesus' ministry the well-off had a terrible time hearing and rejoicing in the gospel. It told them they had to share, and that came as bad, not good, news. If I informed you that your life would be meaningful only made a donation for world relief equal to everything you owned, I doubt if many of you would be overcome with joy. It is difficult to find any place in Jesus' ministry where the rich were thrilled when he came around.
But the poor heard him gladly, because he came to them with a message of hope. It was not their poverty which he blessed. They were blessed. He painted a picture, which included them, of a world where poverty, injustice and terror were gone forever. We call that world, "the kingdom of God," and we pray that it comes on earth as it is in heaven -- where there are no rich and poor -- every time we gather around this table. It is a very dangerous prayer we offer. If the kingdom for which we pray were suddenly to come and everybody shared alike in the world's resources, I'm not certain we would like it.
But the poor would like it, would they not? For them the outbreaking of God's kingdom is overwhelming, blessed, good news. If you are not so smothered by what you possess you can hear and understand that, you can begin to see what Jesus meant when he said, "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."
Let me tell you where people are feeling blessed, where there is the outpouring of good news: In every black church in South Africa, from Anglican to Pentecostal, there is dancing and shouting and clapping, and the power of unrestrained joy. Freedom is coming. The kingdom is closer than it was last week. The left out are being blessed.
I can tell you where you will find the gospel vital, life changing. Among the poor who are hearing the good news of their liberation. You will find it in Latin America, where hope has come. You will find it in lands for too long occupied by tyrannical regimes. And now the tide has turned, good news is breaking loose, and we are on the edge of a revival of faith in Eastern Europe.
Where good news has come nobody debates whether or not to go to church on Sunday morning. Nobody looks out to see if it is too cloudy or wet or cold or hot, or if they were out too late the night before. I read about a church in Shanghai, China, where thousands of people stood six hours in the cold rain waiting to come in and worship the Jesus "who for their sakes became poor so that by his poverty they might become rich." The statement, "Blessed are you poor," is not some religious goal to be achieved; it is a fact.
Where does that leave us, we who are not poor? How do we share the blessing of poverty? Obviously we will not choose, most of us, to abandon what we have and take on the mantle of poverty. But there are things we can do.
First: We can celebrate with the poor the freedom, the hope and the salvation which is coming to them. Their good news is our good news.
Second: We can be agents of the good news as we share generously the blessings we have been given. If you usually put a dollar in offerings for the poor, and ought to give a hundred, do it.
Third: We can accept the forgiveness of those we have exploited, held down and victimized by our overwhelming greed -- the poor we despise, the hungry and destitute whose resources we gobble up so we can live better. The miracle of human forgiveness is not that we forgive, but that we are forgiven by the desperate of the world we have offended by our greed.
Fourth: We can know that God has rescued us from sin, death and the grave; has given us lives worth living, and a hope that will not fade. We can realize that we are utterly hopeless without God's love. And we can give thanks.
Fifth: We can learn from our poor world neighbours that there is joy in the gospel, a joy for which we are hungry. We can take them to our hearts and hear from them what Christian faith is all about.
Jesus descends to the plain, near the seacoast where the humble of Tyre and Sidon gather. "Blessed are you poor," he said. They heard him and rejoiced. Brothers and sisters in Christ. That's plain talk -- saving talk. Whoever you are, hear him today and rejoice."