First Presbyterian Church
“Plains, Mounts, and Blessings”
Sermon for February 11, 2007
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Our psalm reading is on page 489. We will be reading in unison. Psalm 1 sets the tone for the whole psalter. It announces that the primary agenda for God's people is obedience, to live all of life in accordance with God's purpose. It has confidence that the torah, God's law, is the only thinkable response to God's creation. 1 The Hebrew word for happy and blessed is the same word, so some English Bibles say ‘happy' where some say ‘blessed.' Another way to say it would be ‘how fortunate.' Listen for the word of God as we read it together from Psalm 1.

1 Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers 2; 2 but their delight is in the law 3 of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night.

3 They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.

4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand 4 in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

This ends our reading from the psalms.

Gods' law provides roots and a safe place, no matter what winds blow. Knowing God's law helps us interpret our world. The road the wicked travel will be gone; there is no place for them to go anymore. The wickedness of human beings cannot last in the presence of God. The wicked will have no standing or authority to determine matters of justice. Our reading from Luke also speaks of who is happy and blessed. These are called the beatitudes. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Luke 6:17-26.

17 He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: " Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

21 "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

22 "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

24 "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

27 "But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.

30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.

31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Let us listen to the choir sing the beatitudes from Matthew.

Our scripture reading is from Jesus' sermon on the plain, or a level place, in Luke. These verses are called the beatitudes, or blessings. Most of us are more familiar with the version of the beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-11 that you heard the choir sing. It is part of what's called the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew places this event on a mountain. Mountains are important places to connect with God in Matthew; he mentions mountains more than the other gospels do.

Luke places Jesus' teaching the beatitudes on a plain.

I know it is confusing to have different but similar beatitudes in Matthew and Luke. It's a little hard for us to have the gospels be different from one another. But Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all interpret Jesus' life, death and resurrection in different ways. They take similar events and write about them differently. They take different events and write about them similarly.

But we want to know what really happened; what did Jesus really say and where was he when he said it? Was he up high or down low?

Good speakers and good teachers don't make their main points just once. They say them again and again, to different groups in different places and at different times. It is possible Jesus did that also, changing what he said to fit different audiences. It's also possible Matthew, Mark, Luke and John remembered events a little differently. But I feel confident that the holy spirit is at work in every gospel. I like to think that it means God's grace isn't limited to just one way—God is, after all, great.

Luke's particular take on Jesus is what liberation theologians call “God's preferential option for the poor.” It is in Luke's gospel that we have Mary's singing 5“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” And so we hear Jesus, standing on a level place, voicing the same concerns:

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God./

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. /"Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

Throughout Luke's gospel he describes the dangers of wealth. “The rich …are lulled into a false [sense of] security when they think their present abundance assures their future comfort. But “the rich are apt to be so preoccupied with their possessions that they fail to respond to God's invitation.” 6

This week I talked to a man who volunteers much of his time for the synod our presbytery belongs to. Volunteering for the synod takes time away from his social justice work. He serves on a synod committee that handles complaints, and sometimes the complaints from presbyteries, churches, and pastors can get pretty petty. I told him I was sorry. He said, “ You know Susan, every morning I wake up and think about that old list of sayings about how blessed you are if you wake up in the morning.”

The old list goes like this:

“If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive the week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation, you're ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death, you are more blessed than 3 billion people in the world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75 percent of the world.

If you have money in the bank, in your purse or spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8 percent of the world's wealthy.”

So my friend doesn't complain about the petty things he has to deal with. He concentrates on doing what he can to work for justice. Recognizing our blessings doesn't mean we should gloat over them or think we deserve them or even feel guilty for them. It means we have an obligation to spread the world's wealth around to those who need it.

The beatitudes encourage us to reorder our priorities. Luke's words of Jesus argue against the idea that those of us who have material possessions and an easy life are somehow better than others and more privileged— that we deserve the wealth we have. When he says ‘happy are you' or ‘blessed are you' when terrible things happen, it doesn't mean that you are supposed to rejoice because you are suffering. Rather, it means to rejoice because you are not the ones causing harm to other people and going against God's law.

Jesus said, "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. /"Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. / Woe to you when all speak well of you.

The woes seem a little scary. Luke wrote his gospel after the church had already begun. Those words of Jesus took on new meaning for the early church, which struggled to keep going in the face of Roman persecution. They were hated, excluded, reviled and defamed.

It is easy for us, when our lives are hard, to think that we deserve the suffering somehow, that our problems are God's punishment to us. And I think the members of the early church could think that too. But Jesus words are very clear: "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” For those who laugh and hate and shun the Christians, their punishment will come. Those words had to be reassuring to the early church.

They can reassure us too. I know many of you have found comfort in the line “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh." The beatitudes teach us that even when we are mourning the death of someone we love, we are not being punished. God is merciful.

But Jesus doesn't let the disciples rejoice knowing retribution will come to their enemies; Jesus tells them to love them. They are not supposed to retaliate. That has to be as hard then as it is now. Our culture associates blessings with material wealth and victory. One theologian warns that in the US, “Our heroes are usually neither poor nor non-violent.” 7

In the midst of all these woes and warnings about what will happen to the others, Jesus says that God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Jesus reminds us all of God's great mercy. Surely all of us can take comfort in that. Even when we are ungrateful and wicked, God will be kind to us.

All these scriptures were on my mind this week, especially the line “Blessed are you who weep now.” It was somewhat out of context, but as I lived through the week, Jesus' words comforted me. I went to Mayce Collard's funeral mass at St Francis de Sales cathedral. The choir sang a hymn about the beatitudes in them, and then Father Julian read from the beatitudes in Matthew.

I was in awe the way her schoolmates had responded to Mayce's death. The church was full of teenagers. A lot of them were wearing pink. It was Mayce's favorite color, and evidently the word got out that they were supposed to wear it. I thought about what it means to follow the way of righteousness, in the face of peer pressure and social uncertainty. I thought about God's mercy, and blessed are they who mourn, and blessed are those who weep. I wrote this for her family:

Mayce's Favorite Color at Mass

So why would teenaged boys wear pink – pink shirts, pink shoes, pink hair?
Their clothes can sway what others think, so males that age don't dare
to dress against the common codes in fear of scorn or stare.

In grief their fearfulness erodes, revealing king-sized care
for Mayce, family, and friends, in pew, on foot and stair.
They wore what Mayce recommends: assorted pinks with flair.

Though pink won't shrink your emptiness nor salve your soul's despair,
it honors Mayce's happiness (jam-packed with joy to spare).
Let surplus love enfold your hearts so love can start repair
and bring to darkened pain-filled parts new glimmers God shines there.

Great grief can remind us what really matters in the world. Jesus' words remind us what matters. He encouraged the disciples and us not to add to the suffering, but to reflect God's great mercy. And not just to our friends, but to our enemies too. Even when people make fun of us and don't treat us well, we have to follow the way of the righteous. We have to recognize the blessing of following God's law of love and mercy. Amen.

1 Paraphrasing Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms, p. 39.

2 Someone who cannot find wisdom or incapable of being disciplined.

3 ‘Instruction' may be a better translation

4 ‘Withstand,' or ‘be confirmed'

5quoting Hannah's song in 1 Samuel 2:1-10.

6New Interpreter's Bible IX, p. 144.

7New Interpreter's Bible IX, p. 149.