There is courage here
We will support it
There is humanity here.
We will enjoy it
There is a voice calling beyond the chaos
We will follow it
There is a Spirit moving.
We will embrace it
Song “Will you come and follow me”
Prayer of confession-We are sorry…
The Lords Prayer in our own language
Reflection on Luke 6v17-26
After a time of prayer Jesus calls the twelve disciples to follow him. He goes down to a flat area. People have come from over forty miles to hear Jesus teaching and to be healed. Those with mental health problems (called unclean spirits) wanted to be delivered. He taught them;
Blessed are the poor because yours is the kingdom of God
Blessed are the hungry because you will be filled
Blessed are those who weep-for you will laugh
Blessed are the persecuted, picked on for Gods sake because you will be rewarded in heaven
Woe to you who are rich-for you have had your lot!
Woe to you who are laughing now because you will mourn and weep
Who to you who are popular now because you that’s what they did the false leaders in the past.
Luke tells us of four beatitudes (vv. 20-22) and corresponding woes or warnings of deprivation in the age to come. Some are blessed or happy by being included in the kingdom that Jesus brings.
The warnings are prophecies or cautions. The pairs are:
• the “poor” (v. 20) and the “rich” (v. 24);
• the “hungry” (v. 21a) and the “full” (v. 25a);
• the sorrowful (v. 21b) and the joyous (v. 25b); and
• the persecuted (v. 22) and the popular (v. 26).
There's two categories of people addressed; the multitude and the disciples. The disciples are those who believe, while the multitude are curious.
The fourth blessing and woe have to do with the social element in these things. Rich and poor, hungry and well-fed, weeping and laughing all have social consequences, particularly in first century Palestine. To be poor, hungry, suffering meant that you were out of favour with God then, because the old moral economy was based on a divine reward system. When Jesus forgave and healed these outcasts, it had enormous social consequences too.
Jesus uses this word blessed in a totally different way. It is not the elite who are blessed. It is not the rich and powerful who are blessed. Rather, Jesus pronounces God's blessings on the lowly, the poor, the hungry, the crying, and the hated. Jesus turns it all upside-down. The elite in God's kingdom, the blessed ones in God's kingdom, are those who are at the bottom of the heap of humanity.
Jesus speaks a woe to the rich in this upside down kingdom. Luke's audience included rich people and his gospel has by far the most challenges to disciples about material possessions. Their wealth is a woeful stumbling block to opening themselves to God's new way of being.
Wealth and poverty are relative situations both within the human world order based on credit and debt. God's reign is about the release from debt, the forgiveness of sin. The word forgive in the Greek, aphiemi, means to release, let go, used of both sins and debts.. The world of keeping debts goes far beyond economics. Every manner in which we hurt one another as human beings marks another debt for which vengeance is the pay-back. Forgiveness breaks that cycle of inflicting hurts by releasing the debt. The human world order is based on keeping debts, vengeance; God's world is based on releasing debts.
The mandate for those who want to follow Jesus in 21st century is to be concerned with those who are on the bottom of the pile, those who are poor, hungry, unhappy, reviled. Beware of material riches because it will not bring you closer to God, in fact it may well prove a stumbling block in your relationship with God. God is closer to the poor! In Latin America in the 1960s peasants, people who lived in the favelas the shanty towns got together to read the gospels. They found it revolutionary. It spoke of them the poor and of justice. They took heart, they claimed land. They fought the land owners who were exploiting them for profit. In my country the rich exploit the poor mercilessly. There will be a leveling. The word used for consolation in the text is financial.
Who are the poor around us? Are we good news for the poor who may include us! This is Gods mission. This is our calling! Amen
Our prayers for our world, our communities, our families and friends and ourselves.
Song “Blessed are you”
Blessing
The cross we will take it
The love we will give it
The blessing we will share it
With thanks to the Iona community
