6 Epiphany C
Text: Luke 6:17-26
sermon by Pastor Robert Klonowski
Faith Lutheran Church, Homewood, IL
February 13, 2022
#Blessed
For the Gospel lesson this morning we get the Beatitudes from the Gospel of Luke. The Beatitudes; the blessings.
So concerning blessings, for my sermon research this week I read from the book of Facebook (oh, I’m sorry; I mean the book of Meta!); I read from the prophet Instragram; and I read from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Twitter users, in all of them searching for the term #blessed, because it seems to me that #blessed is the 21st-century translation of the word Beatitude.
So what is it that Americans these days feel is a true blessing to them? Here’s my research sample:
Turns out my cats snuggle all day while I’m at work. #blessed
Got into the graduate program I wanted. #blessed
Found the crackers I like on sale at my grocery store. #blessed
And then my favorite, this from a comedian in Pittsburgh named Davon Magwood: “Caught a piece of bacon falling out of my sandwich right before it hit the ground. #blessed! #blessed!”
Expressing blessedness has clearly become a very popular thing to do. On Instagram alone I found more than 142 million blessed hashtags. I also dug up an article that quoted Deborah Tannen, professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, who has noticed what I’m talking about here and writes, “’Blessed’ is used now where in the past one might have said ‘lucky.’ But [these are humble-brags,] telling the world your fiancé is the best or that you’ve been invited to do something impressive. Actually,” she writes, “I don’t see the ‘humble’ in it. I just see ‘brag.’”
Turning blessing into bragging is one problem; another is connecting our blessing with a particular circumstance in life. Think about it: We say, I’m so blessed to have good health. So blessed, to get the promotion I wanted at work. So blessed, to enjoy a happy marriage. Fine; but what does that mean for people in the opposite circumstances? If you’re so blessed to have good health, does that mean that those who suffer from, say, osteoarthritis, are somehow unblessed? Have been cursed in some way? How does blessing work, exactly?
Well, look at that!, Jesus in today’s Gospel has something to say about the nature of blessing. Let’s begin with the context of this sermon that Jesus gives in our Gospel, the context about which Luke is so very specific: this sermon is delivered “on a level place” (not on a mountain as in Matthew!); and the people have come from Judea and Jerusalem, Jewish communities to the south, and from Tyre and Sidon, Gentile communities to the north. The broad audience is intentional: this Word is for all God’s people, and everybody’s on the same level, in the same boat here.
Notice, second, that Jesus directs these blessings and woes to his audience, to us, directly: *you* will be filled; *you* will laugh. Again, this is different from Matthew, where the Beatitudes are in the third person: Blessed are *those* who mourn; *they* will be comforted. Luke’s Beatitudes are coming right at Jesus’ listeners, including us, which suggests that those who hear this from Jesus include some who benefit from the status quo (and we thus hear those woes directed at us!), and some who suffer from it (and thus hear a Word of blessing). We who listen to Jesus, we are all here together: poor and rich, hungry and full, weeping and laughing, the socially rejected and the socially acceptable. On this level playing field, Jew and Gentile alike, we all hear the blessing and the hope; we all hear the woes and the warnings.
That means that the blessing that Jesus confers is something very different from the way we commonly use the word – blessed! – these days. When we say *blessed* we typically refer to circumstantial happiness or good fortune. We equate it with the good life, whatever that would be for us: a loving partner; a successful career; obedient children; healthy body; trusted friends; financial security or abundance. But though we talk that way … is it really having these things that makes you blessed? Because, think about it!, you’ve then got to raise that question again of, what if you *don’t* have them? Are you then, not blessed?
When Jesus uses the word *blessed* here it’s a word that is literally translated as “favored by God,” or, fully satisfied. In other words, blessed, regardless of your circumstances. Blessed, even if you happen to fall into the categories – hungry; outcast; sexually questionable in society’s eyes; poor; grieving; sick – categories that are not seen by this world as blessed, at all. In the Kingdom of God, says Jesus, oh, you are, you see. You are, #blessed.
The New Testament scholar Sharon Ringe says we have to remember that the Beatitudes are not aspirational goals, as we all too often make them out to be. “In each case,” she writes, “the blessing makes a statement of fact: one is blessed, because of a future that is a sure part of God’s reign.” In other words, these blessings are not meant for us to achieve. They are a simple statement of how things are in the Kingdom of God. They are an announcement of God’s agenda. They signal to us rich ones and we who are well-fed and the laughing and the insiders that in order to participate in God’s new kingdom, we’ve got to align our lives and priorities with God’s new order.
This is Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain: leveling the playing field, lifting the lowly, challenging the elite. Comforting the afflicted, afflicting the comfortable. This is nothing new for Jesus, or for Luke, or for us who read Scripture. Our welfare, is bound up in the welfare of others.
So even though it’s 2,000 years old, it’s a new way of thinking about blessing. It’s a way of blessing that teaches us we are all connected. We are not isolated individuals making posts on social media about how great our life is, without regard of how our lives affect others. We do not set ourselves apart from others, with what we classify as good fortune, nor do we set others apart from us, when they suffer the opposite of good fortune. No, no; we are, all of us, from Jerusalem and Judea and from all parts of the world gathered with Jesus on a plain, leveling with Jesus as we listen to a new way of thinking that honors those that this society would have us discard; that lifts up what this world finds weak as real power; that finds strength, in forgiveness.
This pastor named Robin Michalove tells this story about when people from her church traveled to Haiti, on a mission trip to help out at a health clinic for a week. They stayed at a guest house the clinic had put up, just for such mission trippers. Now you know how, when you stay at a hotel, in the bathroom you’ll find this little sign that says, “Let us know if you forgot your toothbrush or your razor; we’ll bring you one from the front desk”? In the Haitian guest house was a sign: “Let us know if there’s anything you forgot; we will show you how to live without it.” In the way that Jesus talks about blessings, well: you don’t have to know worldly blessings, to know yourself as #blessed.
The blessings Jesus pronounces here come not according to worldly circumstance; instead, Jesus calls us to a stance, a posture, from which we can trust in God’s redemptive love. Maybe the better hashtag for us is not so much #blessed as it might be #grateful. In gratitude for God’s blessing, may we align ourselves with God’s vision of the Kingdom and find the blessing that comes to us in that. Amen.