I have some big problems with today’s gospel (Luke 6:17-26). I’d rather be rich than poor. I’d rather be full than hungry. I’d rather laugh than weep. And I’d rather be spoken well of than be hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed.
What about you? Who’s with me? Any of you have problems with today’s gospel?
Today’s gospel doesn’t align well with the values of a capitalist society, our constitutional right to “the pursuit of happiness,” or our personal programs for happiness. It’s a hard gospel to hear for anyone who has been taught or come to be believe that happiness is the primary goal in life.
It’s interesting that in the prayers of the people we pray for the poor, the hungry, the persecuted, and yet, Jesus says they are blessed. What about those to whom Jesus says, “Woe to you?” Why don’t we pray for them? If we took to heart today’s gospel shouldn’t we pray for them?
- For the rich in bondage to their assets, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
- For all who are full and successful but have no satisfaction or meaning, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
- For all who laugh to hide or avoid the pain of their life, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
- For all who seek or find their identity and value in being spoken well of by others, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
I wonder if we don’t pray for them because they look and sound happy and for most of us happiness is the goal. I wonder if we don’t pray like that because we don’t want to face those aspects in our own lives.
What if, however, the goal of life is not happiness but meaning? What if the gospel of Christ is not just another program for happiness? And what if blessings and woes are guideposts for living a life of meaning?
I am not suggesting that Jesus and the gospel are opposed to our happiness. I am suggesting that there is something deeper and more lasting than happiness. Happiness is circumstantial, happenstance, dependent upon what is or is not happening. We’ve all experienced that. One day we are happy and another day we are not. Circumstances change.
Isn’t that that what today’s gospel says? Those who are hungry will be filled and those who are full will be hungry. Those who are laughing will weep and those who are weeping will laugh. That’s true in each of our lives about each of the blessings and each of the woes.
Jesus is describing the pattern of our lives. Think how often we cycle back and forth between days of blessing and days of woe. Go down the list of blessings and woes and you’ll find every one of them in your life: poverty, hunger, weeping, to be spoken ill of, richness, fullness, laughing, and to be spoken well of.
It’s easy and tempting to set blessings and woes in opposition, to see one as better and more desirable than the other, and to wonder which category we fall into. Jesus is not, however, establishing a hierarchy between blessings and woes. Luke makes a point of telling us that Jesus “stood on a level place” when he spoke about blessings and woes. Jesus is leveling the ups and downs of our lives. He’s inviting us to look beyond the circumstances that happen day to day and find meaning in every day.
And let’s not forget that today’s gospel happens in the context of healing. “A great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people … had come to hear [Jesus] and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.” Maybe that context of healing is the context in which we need to hear and understand the blessings and woes.
What if blessings are not a reward and woes are not a punishment? What if blessings and woes are not categories of two different kinds of people? What if there are aspects in each of our lives to which Jesus says, “Blessed are you?” What if there are aspects in each of our lives to which Jesus says, “Woe to you?” And what if both are said with a desire for our wholeness and intended for our healing?
The blessings and woes are not a conclusion made or a status given by Jesus. They are insights about our lives for us to consider, lenses through which to see ourselves and understand our lives.
Look at the poverty, hunger, and weeping in your life today. Look at the richness, fullness, and laughing in your life today. Listen to what others are saying about you.
The question isn’t, “Which one of those am I?” The question is, “In what ways are all of those a part of my life and what do they mean for me today?”
What are the blessings and woes telling or showing you? In what ways do they enlarge and enliven your life, and in what ways do they narrow and constrict your life? Do they align with and support the values you claim to hold and the life you want to live, or do they impede and contradict the life you want to live and the way you want to be? What are they asking of you? In what ways might they be energizing, obstructing, or redirecting your life? How are they affecting your relationships? What are they pointing to that needs your attention and work today?
The answers to those questions and a thousand others like them are insights that open our eyes and heart to a life of meaning and wholeness. They are insights that help us discern the life that wants to enter the world through us. But it takes more than insight. We also need courage to live a life of meaning in the world, and the endurance to do so in the face of opposition from others as well as ourselves. (See James Hollis, Living an Examined Life, 21-22)
That’s difficult and often painful work, and it asks a lot of us. Is it worth the effort? Well, listen to what today’s gospel says: “Power came out from [Jesus] and healed all of them.”
Woah to us, w-o-a-h, woah to us who just want to be happy.
Interrupting the Silence 
Thank you for giving these words a new level of meaning for me. The ideas in your comments are ones that I think I have tip-toed around but never really connected in the way you have, Michael, in this vision of Lukes message. Now, maybe, I can, with God’s help forge a stronger link to the messaage.
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Thank you Jerry. I suspect we all tiptoe around these things, I know I have.
Blessings on your journey. May Giod’s peace be with you.
Mike+
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In my very first day in my very first college class, the speech professor said, “Learn to say, ‘ I may be wrong.’ ” That’s good advice for those of us inclined to say, “I may not always be right, but I’m never wrong.” In your treatment of familiar passages, you often jar my thinking. This passage, for example: suggesting these are not two different groups, but we all live in both groups at different times. I’d always read that as two distinct groups — the haves and have-nots. And woe betide the haves who neglect the others.
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Lawrence, I sure like what your professor said. It’s a good reminder not to take myself too seriously. For a long time I also read this text as being about two groups. I am trying to be awake to the possibility that “this or that” might really be “this and that.”
Peace be with you,
Mike+
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Our present culture is so Us/Them focused that seeing Jesus’s words at directed at one or the other is inherent in our interpretation and our interpretations are only as clear as the lens we view them through. As I listened to my own pastor preach on the Sermon on the plain yesterday, I did of course feel that way – especially when he spoke about the rich and in my job the financial advisory world I deal with a lot of people absorbed in their money. I don’t see them negatively – I do pray for them at times and often think – well there but for the grace of God go I or thank goodness I am not rich!! I also wondered how one indeed could be both at the same time – blessed and woe-ed – because I surely am! Reading your words the day after almost feels like a great unveiling. Thank you for putting words to my polarized place on the plain.
As always~
Erika
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Erika, thank you for sharing your experience. I know how easy to fall into that dualistic thinking. I’m often there. And Jesus says, “Come down to a level place.”
Peace be with you,
Mike+
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