Woh!: February 16 2025

Year C, Epiphany 6                                           Luke 6:17-26                                                         

            Two weeks ago I preached about what it is to be blessed.  I was preaching on the Song of Simeon when Simeon blessed the baby Jesus and then proclaimed him to be a sign that would be opposed. It seems that with Jesus, blessing and opposition often go together. What it is to be blessed has become something that I am fairly passionate about because I feel the word and idea has been abused.  Part of the abuse and misrepresentation comes from social media, but some comes from a branch of Christianity that preaches the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel teaches that if you believe in God and are blessed, good things will come—God wants us to be prosperous.  Some of these preachers are very popular and very rich.  At their best, I find them to be more like self help gurus than Christian pastors.  At their worst, they are misleading people and sometimes taking their money. 

However, as I was working on this sermon, I realized that I had never actually listened to an entire prosperity gospel sermon.  I found one called, “You are blessed.”  Since I am so very open minded, I assumed I would be highly offended. But I have to admit, I didn’t dislike it as much as I thought I would.  His overall point was that no matter how bad things are, you are still blessed by God. You carry the blessing and that is not determined by outside events.  I was with him for the first 25 minutes and then he moved to his conclusion and promised that things would get better if you were blessed by God, you would get the promotion, your body would heal, your circumstances would change.

That is not what Jesus says in our Gospel for today.  Jesus never said that things would get better because you carry God’s blessing.  Jesus never said we would prosper because we had God’s blessings. I am sure we can all think of people who are devout Christians (some would call them blessed) whose life didn’t improve. Their illness got worse.  They never found a better job. They remained addicted to drugs or alcohol and never entered recovery.  How can that be if they were blessed? Does that mean that they weren’t actually blessed? Did it mean that God didn’t love them as much as the person who was doing great?

Today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke is referred to as the Sermon on the Plain, which just doesn’t have the same ring to it as the Sermon on the Mount which you find in the Gospel of Matthew.  In Matthew, Jesus delivers similar words about blessing from a high point.  High points were often associated with God.  That is why we have the phrase “mountain top experience.” 

The first line in our Gospel reading for today was Jesus coming down from the high point to be with the people.  He was not above them…he was with the people.  This is a really important theme in the Gospel of Luke—that Jesus wanted to be present with the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, those who were often ignored.

In Matthew, there is just a long list of blessings.  In Luke, there are four blessing verses and four woe verses. The first and last blessings are based not on future rewards or blessing, but on what is happening now. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” It doesn’t say, you will one day be in the kingdom of God and things will be much better then.  It says yours is the kingdom of God right now. 

“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.”  Jesus says rejoice on that day, that day that you are reviled and hated.  It doesn’t say that you have to wait until heaven for your reward.  No, the fact that you are being defamed or insulted on account of the Son of Man is the blessing. That’s a hard one for me.  Does that mean we have to be ok with being insulted? Does this mean we have to be doormats? The key is---Jesus says on my account.  There have been a few times I have been insulted and excluded because of my faith, but it’s usually much more ordinary reasons.  What I have found is that when the exclusion or insult is because of my faith, it’s a lot easier to handle, because that is an area where I feel confidence.

Just this week our president issued an executive order to eradicate anti-Christian bias.  I have to admit, there was a part of me that felt a tiny bit good about that.  I am sick of churches being mocked, ignored or denigrated. But then I thought about this blessing that Jesus gave us. I think Jesus would say that if we are practicing our faith the way he wanted, there would always be a bias against us, especially from the elite and the powerful.  Remember, with blessing, comes opposition.

That becomes really clear when we read the woes.

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

‘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.

Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”

 The Gospel of Matthew doesn’t include the woes.  We don’t know why, but it’s probably because he was speaking to a different audience.  Or maybe he just conveniently missed that bit.  We don’t know.  Some people interpret the “woe” as “curse you” or “damn you.” They interpret it that way not because that is the right translation, but because that is what they consider the opposite of blessing.  Remember, being blessed doesn’t mean you are favored or even happy.  It’s being loved by God, being in relationship with God.

 The Gospels were written in Greek and the translation of woe should actually be “woh!” or “yikes.” It’s a word that was meant to say, “pay attention.”  If you are rich, or satiated, or carefree or beloved by all people, you need to be careful. Because when you have those things, it’s easy to assume that you got them because you deserve them.  We have all heard people say that they got where they are because they worked for it. I get it. I worked hard too. But I was also born in this country, to highly educated parents who loved me and supported me.  Some of it was hard work, much of it was just luck. 

When we think we deserve what we have, that we don’t need to rely on anyone but ourselves, then we forget how desperately we need God.  That is a dangerous place to be…much more dangerous than being criticized because we are preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  If we reframe how we perceive blessing---instead of being prosperous of favored, it’s being in right relationship with God—which means depending on God, showing gratitude for all God has given us.  If we can frame it that way, then the opposite would be when we put our faith in ourselves, or behave as though we have control or should have control. The prophet Jeremiah put it more starkly, “Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord.”

That is what kind of bugs me about these prosperity Gospel preachers, the focus is on you being better and how God ass blessed you. It’s the individual and not the whole. And the more we focus on ourselves and bettering our circumstances, the easier it is to ignore the needs of the people around us. That is a woeful place to be. Blessed are those who weep---that is not saying that God wants us to be sad all the time, it’s a blessing for those who are weeping on behalf of the state of our world. If you are scared, anxious or depressed right now because of things that are happening, then you are blessed, because it means you still care.

There are times when we all need to be reminded that we are blessed by God, that we are beloved by God.  But there are also times when we have to be reminded to pay attention when we become too comfortable or too self satisfied.  Sometimes I need both those reminders at once. I hope that we can all remember that the Jesus who came down from his high place to be with his people is the same Jesus that we worship and the same Jesus that we try to emulate.