This morning we meet Jesus on a journey between two places. Our reading from Luke’s historical account of Jesus’ life and ministry began,
“And he came down with them.”
Which prompts the questions. Where did he come down from and who is “them”? To find the answers to these questions we need to look back to verse 12 and following, where we discover that Jesus had gone up the mountain to pray, and then had called the disciples to him, and from his disciples had chosen twelve to be apostles.
So, what’s the difference between a disciple and an apostle?
The word disciple means someone who follows, a learner, an apprentice. All of these roles imply that there is someone that they are following, learning from, apprenticed to. It is a relational idea. All of these people were Jesus’ disciples. They had been called to follow him, were learning from him by seeing what he did, and being shaped by it.
They were his apprentices, learning to tell people about the Kingdom of God, and showing people what the Kingdom of God looks like.
An apostle is someone who is sent. Usually with a task or a message. When Jesus talks about the fact that he was sent by the Father, he uses a word that has the same root as apostle. Jesus’ was God the Father’s apostle on earth, he was sent by the Father with a task to do and a message to share. In the same way, Jesus chose these twelve as his initial apostles, those who were sent out with his message.
The apostles didn’t stop being disciples, they still had a lot to learn, and they weren’t the only apostles, the most famous one who wasn’t there on that mountain top was Paul, but there are others in the New Testament, especially Acts who are called apostles, who have the special gift of being sent somewhere new to bring the good news of Jesus.
Jesus comes down the mountain with a group of his disciples, some newly minted apostles and what does he find? Another whole crowd – more disciples and other people who have heard about Jesus and have gathered from far and wide. There are people from Judea and Jerusalem, they haven’t come quite as far but there were also people all the way from the coast, from outside of Jewish Palestine, from Tyre and Sidon. What could have brought all these people all that way?
We read in verse 17:
“who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.”
They came to listen to what he had to say, and to ask him to meet them in their need.
And as we read on we discover that Jesus sorted these things in the reverse order. He didn’t make them sit and listen to him before he healed them. No, he healed them and then taught them. That feels important to me, I’m not sure why, but it does. That he healed them and then taught them, he didn’t leave them in pain, or weary, or oppressed, but freed them and healed them – perhaps so that they were more able to listen?
I wonder which part of this crowd you would imagine yourself in. Have you just come down from a mountain top experience with Jesus? Are you committed to follow Jesus and learn from him? Are you excited or anxious about being sent out by Jesus? Does it feel like you’ve had a long journey to get here? Have you got wounds or infirmities of body or spirit that you want Jesus to heal? Are you ready to hear what he has to say?
Take a moment to think about that.
Then Jesus begins with this contrast of blessings and woes.
There are a couple of different words for “blessed” in New Testament Greek, and the one used here has a range of meanings that are reflected in the different ways it is translated in different English Bibles. Happy, fortunate, blessings on, blessed. These are all good things, with slightly different flavours, but all positive things. Offer most people the opportunity to be happy, fortunate, or blessed, that is something that they would say yes to, and know what it looks like.
I love the Greek word for woe. It is, “ouai” – it sounds like the emotion it expresses, it is a cry of grief, of pain. It means woe betide, alas, terrible times. These are all painful, horrible things. Warn people that something is going to cause them woe and grief, will cause them to wail, “ouai”, they will want to avoid it, to run away from it, they know what things like this look like.
The thing is that Jesus seems to have got confused. He teaches that the things that most people would put in the category of woes – poverty, hunger, weeping, persecution are actually blessings, and that things most people would count as signs of blessing – riches, being full, laughing, being well spoken of, are actually sources of woe.
My suspicion is that for those of us who have heard or read these verses or similar ones in Matthew’s eye witness account of Jesus’ life, this has lost some of its shock value. We know that this is the kind of thing Jesus’ says, so we aren’t surprised by it any more. But just imagine how it came across on the Judean plain when this crowd heard it for the first time.
Jesus was turning their world upside down. Whole categories of ways of understanding the world upended. What did he just say?
Ever since Jesus said it, people have been trying to work out the answer to that question. “What did he just say?” and another, related one, “what does it mean for us.” I’m going to make some suggestions, based on my best understanding and reading, but there are other ways of reading and understanding this teaching, and I encourage you to explore these.
The first thing I’d like to suggest is that the thing that Jesus says at the end of the blessings in verse 22, “on account of the Son of Man” is the controlling theme for all of the blessings. It is not so much that the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the persecuted in general are blessed, but those who have ended up there, “on account of the Son of Man.” It seems to me that Jesus is speaking about those who have chosen to follow him, or are thinking about following him, and encouraging them that though the road will be difficult there is blessing on it.
This understanding is, for me, strengthened by the blessing of those who are poor. Theirs is the kingdom of God. Not “Theirs will be the Kingdom of God” but “theirs is the kingdom of God. As soon as we become followers of Jesus, we become citizens of the Kingdom of God. Those who hunger and weep as a result of their poverty, shall be filled and will laugh when the fulness of the Kingdom is seen, that hasn’t happened yet, which is why these blessings are in the future, but the citizenship has been granted, and the reward secured in heaven.
This is mirrored in the woes. Those who are rich, but who do not follow Jesus, who have rejected God’s ways, they have received their consolation in full. It has already happened. They’ve had everything that they’re going to get. There is no more for them. So, in the future, when God’s Kingdom breaks through, there will be nothing for them and they will hunger, they will mourn, because they will realise that their love of money and delight in wealth was, in the end, a fatal distraction from the way to true wealth and treasure in heaven.
So, where does this leave us, what practical difference does it make to our lives?
I don’t believe that Jesus was teaching that there is anything particularly blessed about poverty or persecution, he acknowledges that they lead to hunger and weeping. What he does teach is that those who experience poverty and persecution, and their associated pains, for his sake are blessed, because they are citizens of his kingdom, and will find satisfaction and joy in the end.
On the other side of the coin, I don’t believe that Jesus was teaching that riches and a good reputation are bad things in themselves, but that they are empty things that being overly concerned about can cause us great damage, if we don’t focus more on what Jesus is calling us to, and to living the ways of God’s kingdom.
This understanding is beautifully expressed in a prayer which many Methodist Congregations use at the beginning of the year as they recommit their lives to following Jesus, and to going where he sends them.
I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,
exalted for you, or brought low for you;
let me be full, let me be empty,
let me have all things, let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessèd God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.
And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
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