“The Blessed”

Scripture: Luke 6:20-31

Some people see scripture simply as evidence of Immanuel - that God is with us. And while it certainly is that evidence, I believe that it must be much more. The Word of God must also be insight into the Lord’s plan, his desire for our lives, and it teaches us right and convicts us of wrong and changes the life that we are so bent on living.

The gospels are a good example of this. Jesus is seen healing the injured and the infirm, he reveals the depth of the truth of God, and he is constantly challenging both his followers and his tormentors to live a different kind of existence.
His life is the very proof that God is with us, but if there is no call to change, if we are allowed to continue living a worldly life while in the presence of a divine Lord, then what is the point?
But I also have to confess that as I read the word more and more, I have to dig deeper and deeper into its meaning for my life. What is it that Jesus wants me to know? What is it that he wants me to do?

Maybe he simply wants me to be more like him!

Read Luke 6:20-23

Last week, I read from Romans 5 – “we rejoice in our suffering..” Our passage today seems to be taking the same tack, except that Romans describes the change that enduring suffering will bring to our lives, while this passage is about the future rewards that will come to those who must struggle now.
Jesus tells us that the poor are to inherit the Kingdom, the hungry will be fed, the sorrowful will be filled with great joy.
This can’t be about today – the poor are still with us, the hungry are still hungry, and the tears of grief and regret still flow, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be doing something about these conditions now! We could probably spend a week on each of these issues, considering what we should be doing about them in the here and now! But that may be the topic for a future series. For today, we’ll take them as a whole.
Jesus is telling us that these conditions are only temporary, and more importantly, that they are not of him, but of the world. And verses 22 and 23 remind us that we aren’t alone. That while the world has hated and discriminated against and snubbed and demeaned his beloved for ages, God is seeing them in a whole different light. His promise is that one day, all will be changed.

The New Interpreter’s Bible says this about the passage “Jesus teachings are scandalous because they overturn every conventional expectation. The scandal of his ministry is that he associated with outcasts, and it was on them that he pronounced God’s blessings.”

Scandal, of course, is from the secular perspective, and it is all because Jesus is about the overturn the “conventional wisdom” of the earth, that all things will be made new!

Isaiah 61 begins with the words “The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.” And the chapter then goes on to list all of the pains and troubles that haunt us in this life, and to describe the restoration that God is going to bring to the oppressed. The expectations of earth are expressed in that famous bumper sticker – “Those who die with the most toys wins!” Jesus overturns that saying, and makes it read “Those who die with the most toys just die, but my people will live forever!” And we can rejoice, even in our suffering, for we have Christ’s promise that the day of “overturning” is on its way!

Read Luke 6:24-26

And the “overturning” will not be limited to only those who have been oppressed. Those who have been the oppressors, and even those who have turned a blind eye to the oppression, will also have a reversal of fortune.

John Killinger, in his book on the Beatitudes (Letting God Bless You [Nashville: Abingdon, 1992], 74, cites Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the great novel about the American whaling industry of the 19th century.
There is an unforgettable passage about a ship's lantern that hung in the captain's room on the Pequod. No matter which way the ship yawed and hawed in the rolling, pitching waves, the lantern always hung down exactly perpendicular to a line drawn through the center of the earth. As Melville said, it 'revealed the false, lying levels' of everything around it.
So it is with Christ.
- Homeletics OnLine

Amos (7:7-8) also speaks about the measuring and plumb lines for Israel, and God has set a reference for us, too. Jesus tells us that those who have received the pleasures of this life are not meeting his standard. The prophets of old received the enmity of earth, and the false prophets of all time receive the accolades.
Have you noticed that we never seem to get it right? Every person in the world is too much like the ship in Melville’s tale – we tend to rock and pitch wherever the winds of life take us, and we fail to meet the standard that is set before us in Christ!
This, too, will be overturned! Jesus Christ reveals the false and lying intents of everything around us, and it’s there for all to see.

Read Luke 6:27-31

Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel writes that God needs not only sympathy and comfort, but partners, silent warriors. We not only need God for help, but God also needs us for help.

God does not need those who praise him when in a state of euphoria. He needs those who are in love with him when in distress....
This is the task: in the darkest night to be certain of the dawn, certain of the power to turn a curse into a blessing, agony into a song. To know the monster's rage and, in spite of it, proclaim to its face (even a monster will be transfigured into an angel); to go through hell and to continue to trust in the goodness of God - this is the challenge and the way.
(Heschel, A Passion for Truth [New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973], 300-301)

Love your enemies, even if they will never love you.
Do good to those who hate you, even if they keep all of their goodness for themselves.
Bless those who curse you, even if they will never deserve your blessing.
Pray for those who mistreat you, even if their abuse is endless.
If anyone strikes you, don’t retaliate – even if they continue to swing.
If they demand your coat, surprise them by giving them your shirt, too.
Whatever they may need so badly, give them even more – let your generosity toward the world mimic that which you would like God to shown to you.

This is what the blessed of God are called to be, and if anyone ever tells you that only weaklings can be a Christian, know that only the strong, the faithful of Christ can ever stand up to the standard that God has set for us; that the Body of Christ gains its strength and resolve, not by individual efforts, but by being united in Christ Himself; and not by physical dominance but by spiritual grace.

William Barclay writes “We have a Christian duty to encourage one another. Many a time words of praise or thanks or appreciation or cheer have kept people on their feet. Blessed is the one who speaks such a word.”

Receive God’s blessings, not for personal gain, but to be able to share those blessings with those who are without. Be the Lord’s partner, and begin overturning the “conventional expectations” of the world today.