Sermon manuscript:
How did Jesus’s words strike you this morning? “Blessed
are you who are poor, because yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who
hunger now, because you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now,
because you will laugh. Blessed are you whenever people hate you because of the
Son of Man.”
Then, on the other hand: “Woe to you who are rich,
because you are receiving your comfort now. Woe to you who are well fed now,
because you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, because you will be mourning
and weeping. Woe to you when all people speak well of you.”
How did these words strike you?
Unfortunately, they probably didn’t strike you very hard. We
are lazy. These words are hard. Jesus is saying something that sounds like the very
opposite of how we naturally think. And so, like a math problem you don’t know
how to solve, you might look at it for a few seconds, and then push it aside.
We can’t understand it. And it’s not our fault. According to our customs, if
something is said, but not understood, then it is always the speaker’s fault.
The hearers are never held responsible for their lack of effort. If the speaker
wanted to be understood he should have said it better. So it’s Jesus’s fault.
However, we won’t even let our thinking get that far. That
conclusion might come around to bite us. We might be held responsible for
coming to the conclusion that Jesus just isn’t a very good teacher. So we just
mentally push it aside without further ado.
This is a simple, common way to make Jesus’s words have no
effect. There is another, more sophisticated way to deal with Jesus’s words. If
you can’t figure it out and you stare at it like a math puzzle, who is there
better to turn to than an expert? Call a theologian. They can turn Jesus’s
extremely plain words into something a little less definite. They can give us
some wiggle room. A couple very handy tools that the theologians have in their
tool bag are principles and distinctions. By applying principles and
distinctions he can probably shape and mold Jesus’s words into whatever you
might want to have those words say.
So, with the text at hand, a theologian might immediately
point out that here we are dealing with something that is quite unworkable. It
doesn’t fit in with what we already know. Jesus’s words can be taken to mean
that being poor, hungry, sad, and not well liked is the way that a person can
earn his or her way into heaven. On the other hand, no one is allowed to have
nice things, nice food, good times, or lots of friends. Hell is the reward for
these things.
This, of course, is not what Jesus actually says, but, close
enough right? We know that it is not necessarily a sin to be rich or well-fed
or well-liked. We especially know that the opposite of these things doesn’t get
us any closer to heaven. The price that is needed to get into heaven is much costlier
than that—the very blood of God is what is necessary. And so Jesus’s plain words
get pitted against other truths in such a way where what Jesus says is emptied
of its meaning. The lawyer-like handling of his stark words make them say
hardly anything at all. Or, if the theologian is really good, he might even
manage to make them sound something like the very opposite. Instead of “Blessed
are the poor,” for example, you might get “Blessed are the rich,” “so long as
they give their fair share in the offering plate.”
But I’m not against doing a lot of learning when it comes to
God’s Word. How could I be? I’ve spent many years and many thousands of dollars
to learn principles and distinctions. Even with the words that we are
considering today, it’s helpful to have someone lead you into understanding
them. The assumed meaning can be too hard so that we push them aside in the
hopes that we won’t be responsible for having heard them.
That won’t do if we wish to be Jesus’s disciples. Note the
way Jesus begins this talk. Luke says, “Jesus lifted his eyes to his disciples and said, ‘Blessed are the
poor,’” and so on. These words aren’t meant for all people everywhere. They
would never accept them. These words are meant for those who want to be his
disciples, that they might learn from them. So my goal is not to undo Jesus’s
words, nor can I really persuade you of them. Most people won’t be persuaded.
But I hope to help you understand them so that you can embrace them as
something good, which they truly are.
Toward that end, I think there is one huge factor that
prevents us from hearing the good in Jesus’s words. That factor is fear. Fear
is a big problem for us. It made its entrance into this world when Adam and Eve
rebelled against God. Before that they were not afraid. They could always turn
to God. After that fear would never completely leave them so long as they lived
in this flesh. They and we shouldn’t fear. If God is for you, who or what can
be against you? But that requires faith that God is actually for us. “Who
knows?” we think. “Maybe he will let us down.”
Do you know what won’t ever let us down? Money. You can’t
ever have too much money. Money is the most useful and versatile little devil
you ever did meet. It is for good reason that Luther says in his Large
Catechism that Mammon is the commonest idol on earth. Jesus blasts a broadside
against this idol when he says, “Blessed are you who are poor, because yours
is the kingdom of heaven.” Then, on the other hand, “Woe to you who are
rich, because you are receiving your comfort now.”
That’s bad enough, but, I’m sorry, it gets even worse: “Blessed
are you who hunger now, because you will be satisfied,” and, “Woe to you
who are well-fed now, because you will be hungry.” How often have any of us
have been hungry involuntarily? How often have we been hungry because we
couldn’t afford to buy it? We maybe even haven’t imagined such a desperate
situation for ourselves. I can imagine, though, that if this were to come to
pass we might long and plead for money with our whole heart: “Pretty, pretty
please! Just a little more money!”
But it doesn’t have to be that dramatic. We mourn when we
can’t afford this or that. If only we had just a little more money we could get
a car that doesn’t break down. We could take a trip to somewhere fun. I’m bored
to tears, and I’m sick to death of this scraping by. I want some good times. Jesus
says, “Blessed are you who weep now, because you will laugh.” And, on
the other hand, “Woe to you who laugh now, because you will be mourning and
weeping.”
The overall message that we tell ourselves is that we can
never have enough money. It ticks all the boxes. It solves all kinds of problems.
We tell ourselves that of all the gods that we could choose from so as to
worship it, there’s nothing like money. Jesus disagrees. He flatly, plainly
says that this god is going to let you down. You might think that you have it pretty good now, but you won’t
later. On the other hand, if you leave money behind as a god, if you trust in
the Lord your God, then there will not be anything that you have given up for
Jesus’s sake that will not be restored to you 100fold. But it is hard, you
might say impossible, for us to believe that because we are afraid.
The reason why we are afraid is because that’s what happens
when the gods, that is to say, the things that we have trusted in are brought
to nothing. Whatever we take to be stable and reliable, when that is taken
away, we become very afraid. The thought, for example, of the end of the world
is very frightening. If the sun didn’t come up this morning—the moon, the
stars, the tides, everything that we have taken to be reliable and predictable were
no longer reliable and predictable—we might faint in fear.
But what does Jesus say that we should do when we see these
things beginning to take place? He says we should lift up our heads, shoulders
back, and start looking. Jesus is coming. Our redemption is coming; our
complete and final deliverance from evil is coming. Those who are looking for
this—looking for Jesus—will laugh and go out leaping like calves from the
stall. Those who have believed in other gods will be horrified at the utter
failure of the gods that they had believed in.
They won’t take too good of a shine to the one true God
either. They might wonder, “Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you warn us?”
And, of course, you know the answer. How could Jesus be any
plainer in the words of his sermon? If there is a failure here, it isn’t on the
part of the speaker. Jesus is plain as plain can be. The failure is on the part
of the listener. They didn’t listen because they didn’t want to listen. They
wanted to keep all their stuff. None of us can say that we really want to
listen because we are so predisposed to idolatry. We think our idolatry is
going to work like a charm. Trusting in God, on the other hand, who knows?
So we need some encouragement if we are to embrace Jesus’s
words as our own. We need some encouragement with emphasis on the middle part
of the word “encouragement,” which is, “courage.” We have to fight against our
fear. Our fear makes us run for cover. We can find our comfort any number of
various gods—the bottle, the fridge, our wealth, the progress of civilization,
what have you.
The one we should run to for comfort, however, is our God.
Psalm 130 says, “Out of the depths have I cried to you O Lord. O Lord, hear
my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.” Our
anchor that is to hold in the veil is Christ, the solid rock on which we stand.
All other ground is sinking sand.
Our Lord Jesus has died for us and been raised for us. As
you trust in him do not be afraid of the size of the wave that is coming
towards you. That is to say, do not let the circumstances of life turn you away
from God, away from his will and his commandments, to run after other sources
of meaning and comfort. Instead, trust his promises.
You have money today. That’s all well and good. Thank God for
it, because that’s who it comes from. Tomorrow you might need to give it away.
Today you laugh. Praise God! That’s such a precious gift from him. Tomorrow you
might be mourning.
With all the changes of life Christ, the rock, does not
change. There is no wave so high that might come towards you which you cannot
survive. Even that wave that comes crashing down on you so as to snuff out your
very life and breath—it’s no matter for the one who trusts in Jesus.
I’m going to conclude by reading Jesus’s words one more
time. Jesus’s words are good words. They are for you, his disciples. As you
listen, keep in mind the way that Jesus overcomes everything for us—even those
things that we are afraid of.
Jesus lifted up his eyes to his disciples and said:
Blessed are you who are poor,
because yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
because you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
because you will laugh.
Blessed are you whenever people hate you,
and whenever they exclude and insult you
and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man.
Rejoice in that day and leap for joy because of this: Your
reward is great in heaven! The fact is, their fathers constantly did the same
things to the prophets.
But woe to you who are rich,
because you are receiving your comfort now.
Woe to you who are well fed now,
because you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
because you will be mourning and weeping.
Woe to you when all people speak well of you,
because that is how their fathers constantly treated the
false prophets.
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