Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
Blessed Are Those
Rev. Brent Gundlah
First Reading (Jeremiah 17:5-10/NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (Luke 6:17-26/NRSVUE)
I have a confession to make: many years ago, back in the early days of the show, I used to watch American Idol. My favorite part of the season was the first round, where people would wait in line in order to audition in front of the three judge panel, and neither the judges nor the viewing audience had any idea what to expect.
When someone’s turn would finally arrive, they’d walk into the room, introduce themselves, share a little of their story and tell the judges what they were about to sing. Every once in a while an aspiring contestant would settle on a song that was originally performed by a once-in-generation talent like Whitney Houston or Freddie Mercury.
Whenever this happened, the judges would all appear quite taken aback because this was, in fact, a rather bold move — one that could end in either triumph or disaster. And the consistent response of one of the judges, Randy Jackson, on those occasions when a singer had the chutzpah to declare that they were about to launch into “The Greatest Love of All” or “We Are the Champions” or another song of that order, summed up what everyone watching was thinking; he’d say, “Whoa. You sure you want to do that? That’s a really big song.”
Well, that’s pretty much how I felt when I had a look at today’s gospel passage from Luke, the beginning of what’s known as the “Sermon on the Plain.” I mean, it is one of the Bible’s greatest hits — home to Luke’s version of the “Beatitudes” or blessings; you know, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
And so as I sat down earlier this week to figure what I was going to say to you all about this passage today, I could hear the voice of Randy Jackson echoing inside my head, saying, “Whoa. You sure you want to do that? That’s a really big text.” And it’s a really big text because the Beatitudes are so familiar and because there’s a whole lot in there to unpack.
So, perhaps unsurprisingly, I found myself looking for an excuse (any excuse) not to work on figuring it out, and it wasn’t all that tough to find one because I’m pretty easily distracted — especially with all that’s going on in our state, in our country and in our world right now.
And as I sat there, trying to avoid writing, my phone suddenly alerted me to the fact that I’d just received a message which, aw shucks, required me to drop what I was working on in order to read it in case it happened to be important. As it turns out, though, it was just an email from one of the roughly three million newsletters to which I subscribe – in this case, one called “The Cottage,” by theologian and church historian Diana Butler Bass (who I know is a real fan favorite in our Pub Theology group). On most other days receiving this email wouldn’t have been a big deal for me, but it kinda ended up being one that day.
I say this because, with everything that’s going on in our place and time, and where every news item seems to be more dire and hopeless than the last, the subject line of Bass’s email made me stop and take notice: “IMPORTANT Good News: Faith Pushback.” After seeing that, I couldn’t help but read on.
Bass was informing her readers about a lawsuit filed in Washington DC Federal Court that morning. A group of twenty-seven plaintiffs — faith organizations including the Central Atlantic Conference of the United Church of Christ — came together to sue the U.S. Government for violating their right to religious freedom (on both First Amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act grounds) by interfering with their ability to serve immigrants and immigrant communities as their holy scriptures call upon them to do. The policy issue in question, of course, is the recent change that now allows immigration officials to conduct operations in and near churches in search of undocumented persons.
The court filing names twelve national denominational bodies and representatives, four regional denominational bodies, and eleven denominational and interdenominational associations, all rooted in the Jewish and Christian faiths, as plaintiffs. We’re talking about Baptists and Brethren; Methodists and Mennonites; Episcopalians and Unitarians; the AME and the UCC; Presbyterians and Quakers; Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reformed Jews to name just some. And, as Bass, rightly notes, “When you make both the Episcopalians and the Mennonites mad enough to bring a suit against you, well, that’s huge.” I’d just add that, when you manage to provoke the ire of the Quakers, it’s probably high time for some serious reflection about what you’re doing.
And funnily enough, after reading that eighty page legal document (because, like I said, I was looking for any reason I could find not to write this reflection), my mind went immediately to the Sermon on the Plain, which I now, thanks to that document, saw in a new light.
Previously in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus climbed a mountain to pray and, while up there, he chose twelve of his disciples and named them apostles. Today, Luke tells us that, “He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.”
Matthew tells a version of this story too — it’s known as the “Sermon on the Mount” and it’s different from Luke’s in several ways: Matthew’s has nine blessings, while Luke’s only has four; Matthew’s contains only blessings, and no corresponding list of woe’s as Luke’s does; Matthew’s speaks of heavenly things, while Luke’s seems to be a bit more focused on earthly things; and Matthew has Jesus share his sermon with his disciples up on a mountaintop, while Luke has Jesus share his sermon on level ground with a bunch of people from all over the place. So which account is accurate? I have no idea. But most scholars believe that Luke’s was written first, and that Matthew had read Luke’s version before writing his own. Do with that information whatever you will.
But I have to tell you, Luke’s version is the one that’s really resonating with me today. I had been reading this story about all of these people, from all of these different places, standing there on common ground, hearing about what really matters in God’s eyes. Folks from Judea and Jerusalem (who were mostly Jews), together with folks from Tyre and Sidon (who were mostly Gentiles), hearing about God’s concern for the poor and the hungry and the oppressed, hearing God’s caution to the rich and the powerful to not get too comfortable, hearing God’s implicit call to the latter to care for the former, hearing God’s call to all of us to care for everyone.
And then, when my attention was suddenly drawn to this lawsuit, the connections between that document filed in court just this past week and this story written two thousand years ago became increasingly clear to me. Even though they’re written in different genres, in different places and times, they kind of say the same thing: Poor people matter, hungry people matter, scared and desperate people matter, all people matter. And in that moment, the “Sermon on the Plain” — this “really big text” — suddenly didn’t seem so hard to wrap my mind around anymore. Sometimes I think that we make Jesus’s teachings a lot more complicated than they really are.
In the introduction to this week’s court filing, the plaintiffs’ cause for action is described as follows:
“They bring this suit unified on a fundamental belief: Every human being, regardless of birthplace, is a child of God worthy of dignity, care, and love. Welcoming the stranger, or immigrant, is thus a central precept of their faith practices.
The Torah lays out this tenet 36 times, more than any other teaching: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love them as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34). In the Gospels, Jesus Christ not only echoes this command, but self-identifies with the stranger: “For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35). Plaintiffs’ religious scripture, teaching, and traditions offer clear, repeated, and irrefutable unanimity on their obligation to embrace, serve, and defend the refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants in their midst without regard to documentation or legal status.”
Seems pretty straightforward to me. And yet, as we all know, this is not a popular opinion in some quarters of our society in this place and time. And certain people, some of whom profess to be followers of Christ, haven’t been shy about saying so, about venting their vitriol at people who don’t agree with them. Thankfully, though, Jesus had a little something to say about that too:
“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; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.”
And so if some people choose to hate and exclude and revile and defame those who simply want to do exactly what the Torah and the Gospels say that they’re supposed to do, in their own places of worship, that’s their choice to make, I suppose. But I, for one, will be over there hanging out with all of those other people who are gathering on common ground to rejoice and leap for joy instead. How about you?