Now and Then: Sermon Luke 6:17-38

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

A man was walking down the street one particular day and became alarmed at the screams of a woman. The man ran to see what the matter was; the woman was frantically trying to help her two year old son. “He has swallowed a quarter and is choking” she screamed. The man picked the boy up, held him by the ankle and gave one good slap in the appropriate spot and the coin came right out on the concrete like he had done it a million times. The grateful woman hugged her son tightly then looked up and thanked the man. “Are you a doctor, mister?” “No” the man said, “I work for the IRS.” That time of year is slowly coming upon us; you can always tell because of the increased ads for H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, and other tax preparation places.

No matter where we go or how much we try to avoid it, we cannot escape the topic of money. You cannot even escape it in the Bible; in fact the Bible mentions money or financial topics over 2,000 times far more than any other topic. We cannot avoid it in today’s reading. Our reading from Luke is his version of the great sermon that Jesus preached, in Matthew and Mark it is called the “Sermon on the Mount” but in Luke it is referred to as the “Sermon on the Plain”, but despite the change of the name the topics are very similar. Jesus is beginning his public ministry outside of Nazareth, he as already preached at the synagogue there where he said that the Spirit of the Lord had anointed him to preach the good news to the poor. Jesus has just gathered his Disciples and is preparing to make his journey across the land to preach the good news of God’s kingdom to the poor, to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

But this sermon is more than just a sermon. Although there were hundreds maybe even thousands of people there, Jesus addresses his Disciples directly when he speaks. It is almost as if he is giving them a pep talk, or giving them a game plan before the big game. He is giving them direction before the mission. He begins by making a statement on poverty and so we might assume that this was among the most important topics that Jesus would focus on.

Jesus begins his sermon with a series of blessings and woes; these are Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. Jesus offers them up in a series of twos, first Jesus speaks about the poor they have little now, but they will be rewarded later, and then Jesus warns those who have much now, they will have nothing later. The poor will be filled, while the rich will be emptied. This is not just a statement on the present condition of the poor and the rich, those who suffer and those who make them suffer, but it is a prophesy of what will occur in due time, God’s judgment, and which will be that the roles will be reverse. The poor will have much and the rich will have nothing. Luke makes it very clear about who Jesus is talking about, not the “poor in spirit”, but those who are in actual, physical poverty.

Now most of us in this room, in fact most people who will hear a sermon on these verses this morning are not poor. We all have nice clothes, nice cars, and nice homes; at the very least we all have roofs over our heads. In the eyes of Jesus we are rich; we have shelter and full bellies. Most of us understand that, we know that we are not poor and so we react with a little apprehension at these verses. We might feel a little worried about our stance in God’s judgment, if we are rich now will we be made empty then. We might feel a little guilt or a lot of guilt in the reading of these verses and as we do with so many things that bother us so, we ignore them. But that is not what Jesus wants us to do, we can’t preach about the easy stuff without also preaching about the hard stuff. So let’s look at what Jesus is saying here.

First, I don’t think Jesus means for us to sell all that we have give it to the poor and take a vow of poverty, although some have taken it to that extreme. I think Jesus uses that kind of extreme language and extreme example to shock us back into reality. Jesus is giving us a jolt and forces us to look inside into our own situations. Sometimes we get so busy with out own lives and our own problems that we forget about our neighbors and our fellow humans, I do. We forget about the problems of this world and only focus on our own problems and we even sometimes say “I am the only person in the world with trouble, Oh God why me?” Jesus is trying to knock us out of that mindset. He is saying, God will take care of the poor and if you want to serve God then you serve the poor. Jesus wants us to revaluate our priorities.

That is hard to do, because the priorities, the values of Jesus are not the priorities and values of our American society. Our society is one of consumerism, its all about the stuff. Have you ever given thought to the amount of advertising you are exposed to in one day? There is TV, radio, magazines, billboards, t-shirts, neon signs, newspapers, the Internet, the list goes on and on and these advertisings serve only one purpose to make us spend. We got to have stuff; Ipods, computers, clothes, shoes, trucks, cars, tractors, soap, appliances, and power tools. We are taught to have our priorities on our stuff and on our money to buy more stuff. I am the world’s worst when it comes to that, I see something and I got to have it and it usually ends up collecting dust in the closet. We have the mentality that what is ours is ours and not someone else’s and when we see that homeless person on the street our initial reaction is “get a job.” Jesus calls us to revaluate and to change our mindset on poverty. We have to look deep and see the truth of our world. The truth is that most Americans are only a paycheck or two away from homelessness. The truth is that most people who work don’t make a wage high enough to survive. The truth is that those people who have kids spend the majority of their paycheck on child care. The truth is that a lot of Tennesseans and Americans cannot afford to have health care and some have to choose between food and medicine. The truth is that these blessing that we all have comes with a responsibility, a responsibility to help the poor.

Our mindset had always been to consider helping the poor as charity, something that we do every now and then, especially at Christmas time. Jesus is saying that helping the poor is not about charity instead it is about justice. It is not charity issue it is a justice issue. Why is it a justice issue? Because as one person suffers we all suffer, we are not collection of independent individuals, we are a community and we are dependent on one another. If one person losses their job, if affects the community. If one plant closes it affects the community, but it is not limited to Giles County. 3 billion people, half the world’s population, live on less that 2 dollars a day. 30,000 children die each day not of disease or war, but of hunger, that’s one every three seconds. 1 billion people, one in every 6 people living on this planet do not have easy access to clean drinking water.

You might ask how does this affect me in Tennessee, it is a shame that this is happening, but most of it is in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and other places far away from here. Think of it this way, most of the suicide bombers are recruited from the poorest areas with the promise that their families will be take care of. The insurgents in Iraq are recruited from the poorest areas, why, because they have nothing left to loose. Do you now see how poverty all over the world affects us here in Tennessee? Can we see know that this is not about charity but about justice? This is not meant to depress you, but to inform you. Remember God is on the side of the poor, we cannot argue that fact it is right there in the Bible. So in the end, when we are judged for the works we have done on this earth don’t you want to be one the side of God? It’s not about charity it is about God’s justice for all people.

So what do we do? How do we begin to fix this problem? Let’s look further in our reading; Jesus says to give to those who ask without any expectation of refund or repayment. I am not preaching to you because you are not a giving church, you are a generous church and I want us to continue on that trend. Giving of our time, money, and resources is very important, it is stewardship. There is more that we can do. Jesus doesn’t just say to throw money at the problem, but to become in relationship with the poor, to understand how they ended up where they are. We must hold our elective officials accountable to Christian ideals at every level. If we are to solve the problem of poverty we have to change the systems that cause it. We must educate ourselves on the problems of the world and how certain businesses exploit and oppress people. We also offer our prayers for these people, we remember these people. That is how we revaluate and reassess our values and our priorities.

The story is told of a farmer who once went to hear John Wesley. He preached that day about money. His first point was, "Get all you can." "Fine," whispered the farmer to his neighbor. Wesley’s second point was, "Save all you can." "Better still," the farmer said. Then came the third and last point of Wesley’s sermon which was, "Give all you can." "Oh, dear!" groaned the man, "now he has gone and spoiled it all!" But that is what Wesley taught, make all you can, save all you can, so that you can give all you can for as a long as you can. That is that mindset we need to have. Jesus, in these verses, is giving his game plan to the disciples and those plans remain the same today. We must take hold of our responsibility to the poor. We have to work together as the body of Christ to make sure God’s justice and God’s will is done in the world today.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

That what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

And that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.