Blessing others, blessing life

 Sermon for Epiphany VI, 2022, delivered at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY.

Text: Luke 6:17-26

Our Gospel reading this morning is known as the Beatitudes, delivered in Luke’s version as the sermon on the plain. These pronouncements of blessings and warnings are also found in the Gospel of Matthew, but in that version, Jesus is on a mount. In either case, the setting is similar to Moses bringing the ten commandments down from Mt. Sinai to the faithful as rules for righteous living.

Except that these aren’t commandments.

Let’s hear them again, the blesseds and the woes, but rearranged into couplets:

“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.”

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

These sayings now become familiar because they follow Jesus’ theme of turning things upside down or inside out. They’re not commandments, but instead visions of how life could be. As the first will be last, and the last will be first, so too will the hungry be filled and the full will be hungry. The way that things are will not be that way in the future, and the things we take for granted are actually the most important things to us. The three couplets contrast being blessed with love with people who love only themselves at heart. They may share that love, but only with a few others, and only if they gain power, influence, or advantage from it. It is a transactional relationship where something is expected in return, compared to the love that Jesus embodies that is given freely. This self-centered type of love can be the root of harmful or destructive things people do to others. There are also times when there is a lack of love - not replaced by hate or anger, but love is simply not there, leading to actions of incomprehensible cruelty. It is the root of evil that people do to others.

But who is Jesus referring to in this reading? I don’t think there is one right answer to that question, because it could be anyone: the economically poor who have not eaten. It could be the poor in spirit, hungry for righteousness. It could be where the poor can set their sights on a better future while the rich, or those well-off, are focused on the present. We can hear Jesus discussing love in the beatitudes, though it may not be as clear cut as “love your neighbor as yourself.” Here, Jesus is referring to the effects of having God’s unconditional love within us. “Blessed are you” is a state of mind and spirit that comes from being loved and loving someone else. You are blessed because someone has found worth and value within you, or that they want you to be part of their lives, and you bless others by loving and including them. Imagine what the world would be like if we blessed people around us who struggle with some part of their life, walking with them so that they would not be alone. Or imagine what the world would be like if we blessed with empathy the people around us who are consumed with grief or resignation, helping them find peace and joy again. Or imagine what the world would be like if we blessed people who have given up hope for a safe and stable life, showing them where God is still present and that God’s kingdom is being built. It would be a world where we don’t feel like we’re at the mercy of selfishness and evil, where we don’t feel the need to defend ourselves with the “You shall nots” in the Ten Commandments. It would be a world where we recognize the power of blessing others and how that blessing transforms lives instead of tearing them down in selfishness and cruelty. 

The blesseds and the woes that Jesus brought to us, from the mount to the plain, are ultimately about grace, God’s grace. The grace that we receive from God who loves us no matter what is how we express love to each other, how we make the poor rich, how we fill the hungry, and how we turn tears into laughter. Jesus goes on to say that the poor have already inherited the kingdom of God, where all are loved, all are forgiven, all are included, and all have a place in the world. It will not happen suddenly and dramatically in the future because it has happened already, gradually, becoming an embedded part of our lives when we bless others. Blessing them with this persistent love is what exposes the selfishness in the world. It exposes all of the wrongs and evil that people do to each other for what they are: finite and conquerable. Selfishness, hatred, and evil were overcome by Jesus being born into the world to show us how to love even our enemies and those who want to hurt us. They were overcome by his resurrection from death to show us that there is no greater love than the selfless love Jesus had for us. And with Jesus’ example, we conquer selfishness and evil with blessings and hope for the world.

Jesus delivers the Beatitudes right after he has been healing the sick and people possessed with evil spirits. The Beatitudes describe what Jesus was ultimately doing for the people who came to him, beyond setting them free from their illness and torments. He restored them to wholeness and gave them hope for a life where they could keep that wholeness. By recognizing their need and wanting to do something about it, he elevated them in a way that they had seen everyone else raised up by their society. This was the kingdom of God breaking through in the world, right where he was healing and restoring and elevating the people around him. We can do the same thing here, today. Look around this sanctuary and find someone who you could bless. In the next few hours away from here, what would it look like to bless someone? In your daily life, who would you lift up and restore? It isn't always easy to do, because we're afraid we'll make a mistake, or we're not comfortable approaching someone in need, or we’re not sure how to do it. The best place, then, to start is with ourselves, to accept God's grace given to us in love, to allow ourselves to be blessed by that grace, to feel that we are worthy of being lifted up out of our poverty, hunger, and sadness however it appears. When we have experienced the kingdom of God and been filled by it, then we have something to offer to others around us. Imagine what our life, and the life of those we bless could look like. Imagine the impact we could have on someone else. Like a stone dropped into water, the ripples of our blessing will spread outward in the world. We just have to let go of the stone and have faith that it will reach the water.