Luke 6.17-26
Sunday 16 February 2025
©Suzanne Grimmett
If we are not feeling uncomfortable after hearing Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, this so called, Sermon on the Plain, then perhaps we’re not paying attention. Yet this is consistently Jesus’ message, which we see if we zoom out and look at the bigger picture of scripture with the insistence throughout the Old Testament on care for the poor. To hear, ‘Blessed are the poor and hungry’ and ‘blessed are those who mourn or are persecuted’ is actually in complete alignment with the words of the prophets and psalmists who sing of the God who satisfies the thirsty, and fills the hungry with good things, putting down the mighty from their thrones and empowering the lowly. These are words which resonate with the song of Jesus’ mother Mary, but which are also found in Isaiah, 1 Samuel, Sirach and in multiple different ways in the Psalms. In other words, Jesus is not expressing a new idea here, however radical it may sound.
It is difficult, then, to understand how ideas contained in prosperity gospels could have gained traction. What is known as a prosperity gospel is a set of beliefs by some sectors of the Christian church that God will reward faith in this lifetime with wealth, health and happiness. One wonders if it requires simply skipping over Jesus’ words of blessing upon the poor, the sorrowing and the hated. Jesus’ words point us to an upside-down kingdom where the blessings are poured out on those without material prosperity or status or power. While most would agree that there is much occurring in the world right now to grieve over, it is also true that some are laughing now who would not relish a change in their status. Elon Musk in 2025 remains the world’s wealthiest man, with his current worth at $421 billion dollars; a wealth now closely aligned with enormous political power. Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerburg with the Amazon and Facebook empires come second and third in this list, at $250 and $237 billion. Australia may not have billionaires on that scale, but we still are home to some of the wealthiest people in the world, with Australia’s 47 billionaires making an average of $67,000 an hour. It is hard to not imagine such obscene wealth being included in the woes of Jesus to those who are rich and full.
But it is true, is it not, that we are all rich when compared with the poorest 20% around the globe? As we read Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, we may find it very confronting indeed. There is no “poor in spirit” as we hear in Matthew, but only the stark “Blessed are the poor” alongside all those woes. Luke’s list narrows to focus on those who are physically poor or traumatised. Do we know who they are and how we might be complicit in systems that cause poverty and increase trauma? In a consumer driven society, we also need to hear clearly words found later in Luke’s Gospel, “What good is it to gain the whole world, and yet lose your soul?” (Luke 9:25).
This passage is good news for those who are poor, because they have a place of honour in God’s kingdom that they have not held in this life. But how is it good news for most of us?
One way is to be reminded that this is a call to wholeheartedness in following Christ. God does not bless us when we ignore the needs of humanity and nature, nor when we are interested in maintaining our own comfort or traditions at the expense of others…nor when we allow Christ to influence only some parts of our lives, while ignoring the prophetic voices that cry of the needs of the poor. We are called to a purity of heart where we live in utter dependence upon God, giving over our inordinate attachments, whether that be to wealth or power or status. This is good news, even though it makes us uncomfortable, because it shows us the way to freedom. Christians are called to reject unbridled materialism and consumerism by living in simplicity. We may not be poor, but by detaching ourselves from greed and our addictions to power and possessions, we can be free and can know solidarity with the poor by becoming ‘poor in spirit’. We can remember that those of us who do not have to worry about money every single week might be able to hold it all lightly and with gratitude, sharing generously.
But isn’t this talk of wealth and poverty all rather political? Political theology analyses the impact of theology and teaching of the church on politics. But Catherine Keller recounts the story of Carl Schmitt, German jurist and member of the Nazi party, whose writings and political influence worked the opposite way with his politics influencing the theology and teaching of the church. In 1929, he argued that ‘the specific political distinction to which all political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy’, insisting that the biblical injunction to ‘love your enemy’ had nothing to do with political enemies. Schmitt goes on to define the enemy as ‘the other, the stranger’ who need not even be mounting an attack or threatening violence. Catherine Keller notes that it is not hard to see, when such a concept of difference is promoted, how the Jews could be made a ‘unifying enemy for Nazism’.[1] We are right to be concerned about politics that seeks to change our religion to make it speak against different groups and promote a more comfortable word for the rich and powerful.
The God who pronounces the poor, the grief-stricken and oppressed, as blessed, is the God whose love is all-inclusive. This God does not allow power and privilege to decide who can be included. St Paul elsewhere uses the language of enemies to explain the grace of this all-encompassing love, saying (in Colossians) that once we were all alienated from God…enemies…but God has brought reconciliation through Christ’s death and resurrection. God has taken this radical action so we can participate in this same ‘enemy-love’ and be part of ushering in God’s upside-down kingdom. This grace that we have been shown transforms not only our own hearts but has the power to bring peace, justice and reconciliation as we live out Jesus’ way together. We may only be able to do little things, but communities of faith choosing to live out the words of Jesus’ sermon can be a means through which an economy of grace instead of an economy of possession and division may be known on earth, as in heaven.
When Jesus describes those who are hated as ‘blessed’, he is not commanding us to suffer but is inviting us to be faithful witnesses of this alternative kingdom. In the words of Dave Andrews, ‘if suffering is necessary in order to do justice in the face of injustice, so be it; the call is to follow Jesus.’[2]
I found it a surreal experience when listening to and reading commentaries on today’s Gospel from around the world this week. One US commentator described the Latino kids at his own children’s school staying away for past weeks because officers of the Department of Homeland Security were in town and they were fearful of arrest and deportation. This pastor was wrestling with preaching this text against that reality in his parish and the threat facing some of the poorest in their community. This is across the Pacific, but we are all called to read the signs of the times and ask ourselves, “What does this text call upon me to be and to do?”
One way to begin is to take these blessings and these woes into our life of prayer. As we meditate on these words of Jesus, we might see more clearly how our fears and desire for our own comfort and security can lead us to draw dividing lines between groups, dishonour our shared humanity and keep us from true love and freedom. In prayer, we can become aware of the temptation to view this world in terms of its profitability to us and realise where we are seeking to secure our own position at the expense of others. We can commit afresh each day to living into Jesus’ upside-down kingdom; a world where we treat others as we would wish to be treated and become part of an enemy-loving, grace-filled movement that dreams of nothing less than peace on earth.
So may we hear the whisper of freedom in these uncomfortable words of Jesus, and the call to living out the golden rule; that we may show mercy as we have been shown mercy, doing to others as we would have done to us.
+Amen
[1] Catherine Keller, No Matter What: Crisis and the Spirit of Planetary Possibility, (Fordham University Press, New York: 2025), 66
[2] Dave Andrews, Plan Be: Be the Change you Want to See in the World, (Authentic Media:2010), 61.