Sermons for the Month
God Is Awesome In Love
DATE: February 15th, 2004
SERVICE: Sixth Sunday After The Epiphany
TEXT: Luke 6:17-26To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
Last week at the 9:15 a.m. service I told a story about my friends' children - ages 6, 7 and 8 who visited my home and requested that I play the Flashlight Band's CD for our listening enjoyment. I alluded to the fact that, due to the lyric in one of the songs, we had a "theological" discussion.
That conversation, it turns out, is connected to today's theme. You see, the youngest child questioned the words of a song titled, "Awesome God." What does it mean, she asked, that God has thunder in his footsteps and lightening in his fists? It was a question about the nature of God. She was asking, in essence, "Who is God?"
So, we talked about who God is; we imagined a powerful God marching across the heavens, creating the thunder of a storm with each step, and throwing lightening bolts toward earth. The point was, of course, that God is stronger than anything known to us, even the forces of nature. That is, in part, who God is. God is awesome!
That song helps us to grasp the character of God. However, the primary way we know God is through Jesus who, as we've been saying in the closing of the prayers throughout this Epiphany season, shows us God's face. In today's Gospel lesson Jesus helps us to understand who God is.
In this text from Luke, Jesus speaks words that have come to be called the blessings, or the beatitudes, and the woes. These words are similar to the ones that are recorded in Matthew as a part of the Sermon on the Mount. But in Luke's version the conversations takes place on a plain, a level place, and includes sayings that are not recorded in Matthew.
In Luke's account, before speaking these words Jesus has healed many people. He has cast out demons and brought new life to those who are following him. But he also has offended others. The religious leaders are not exactly pleased with him because he keeps veering away from the traditional understanding of who are God's people (the Jews) and how one is accepted by God (by being moral).
Now, keep in mind that the religious leaders have a particular view of the world which includes the idea that those who are wealthy, well-fed, healthy and have avoided life's traumas have found favor with God. In fact, these things are the rewards that they have received because God is pleased with them. (I'm compelled to note that you do not have to turn too many channels on the TV to hear that very same philosophy proclaimed in 2004.)
The opposite belief, then, is that those who are poor, hungry, ill or grieving have fallen out of favor with God, and it probably is their own fault that this has happened.
Well, Jesus takes this way of seeing the world, and God, and turns it upside down. He says, "Blessed are you who are poor and blessed are you who are hungry and blessed are you who weep and further more, blessed are you who suffer for the sake of the Gospel. (Remember, anyone who faithfully delivers the message that Jesus proclaims can expect to suffer.)
His "upside down" proclamation may cause us to ask what it means to be blessed. That word has sometimes been translated happy, but that's not the best rendering of it. The idea is, really, that the person is blessed because he or she is "right" with God. In the midst of their suffering - right now - they are God's favorites. What's happening in this text is this - Jesus is saying that in spite of what may seem to be true as we look around the world, the reality just the opposite.
Do you want to know about the nature of God? Yes, God is awesome. But, Jesus says, God also is the one who especially loves - or as one commentator put it, "has a prejudicial commitment" - to the poor, the hungry, the grieving, the vulnerable and the persecuted. That's who God is.
The reversal continues, then, as Jesus says that those - including, I suppose, the religious leaders of his day - who are rich, well-fed, happy and who are loved by everyone because they never speak the difficult word of God - may not be on the top of God's list.
Are you squirming yet? I am. I do not consider myself to be rich, but that's because I measure myself against others in this little corner of the world. By the standards of most of the world I am rich. I've never been hungry and unable to get something to eat. I've experienced grief in my life, but not the on-going mourning that people face in war-torn, famine-stricken places in the world. And, although I try to be a faithful preacher, I imagine there are times when I avoid doing and saying what God wants.
Many of us Americans talk about being blessed because we have more than enough of everything. We live in a country where so many people are well-fed, and so many are on a diet, that it impacts the fast food industry as they quickly add low-carbohydrate pizzas and sandwiches to their menus. We have homes in which to live, money to pay bills and entertainment to keep us from being bored. (Boredom itself is a luxury, isn't it?)
But, according to Jesus, having those things is not what it means to be blessed. Instead, we are blessed if we are secure in our relationship with God, if we trust God above all else and if we show that in our lives.
Does God "hate" us if we are among those who have more than enough? Of course not, nothing can separate us from God's love in Christ Jesus. But, does God expect more of us? I think so.
One of the writers I was reading this week said that there are two things with which God has little patience, failing to care about God and failing to care about other people. So, if we are among the "rich" of the world, then we must be very careful about feeling superior. We must guard against becoming apathetic or self-centered. And, it's especially vital that we not turn all the stuff we have into our gods, trusting it to save us. Instead, we must be among the blessed because we are secure in God's love, because we trust God above all else, and because we live as if the first two statements I just said are true.
And, just as those who are suffering occupy a special place in God's heart, they should have a special place in our hearts as well. We have the ability to equal things out. Or, to quote the great Eleanor Roosevelt, "We cannot exist as a little island of well-being in a world where two-thirds of the people go to bed hungry every night."
There are many ways we can strive to "equal things out", I'm not going to list them all. But, I would like us to consider that it is possible for us to take the woes of today's text and turn them in to blessings.
Instead of "Woe to you who are rich," the saying could be, "Blessed are you who are rich, because you had compassion on the poor."
Instead of "Woe to you who are full now," the saying could be, "Blessed are you who are full now, because you fed the hungry."
Instead of "Woe to you who are laughing now", the saying could be, "Blessed are you who are laughing now, because who brought smiles to the faces of those who are suffering."
"Blessed are you when you proclaim and live the Good News of Jesus Christ." And that Good News is, in part, that our God is an awesome God with an awesome love for those who suffer, a love that defies the reality of their lives. That is who God is. AMEN