This morning we meet Jesus on a journey between two places. Our reading from Luke\u2019s historical account of Jesus\u2019 life and ministry began,<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he came down with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which prompts the questions. Where did he come down from and who is \u201cthem\u201d? 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. <\/p>\n
So, what\u2019s the difference between a disciple and an apostle? <\/p>\n
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\u2019 disciples. They had been called to follow him, were learning from him by seeing what he did, and being shaped by it.
\nThey were his apprentices, learning to tell people about the Kingdom of God, and showing people what the Kingdom of God looks like. <\/p>\n
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\u2019 was God the Father\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
The apostles didn\u2019t stop being disciples, they still had a lot to learn, and they weren\u2019t the only apostles, the most famous one who wasn\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n
Jesus comes down the mountain with a group of his disciples, some newly minted apostles and what does he find? Another whole crowd \u2013 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\u2019t 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?<\/p>\n
We read in verse 17:<\/p>\n
\u201cwho came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n
They came to listen to what he had to say, and to ask him to meet them in their need. <\/p>\n
And as we read on we discover that Jesus sorted these things in the reverse order. He didn\u2019t 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\u2019m not sure why, but it does. That he healed them and then taught them, he didn\u2019t leave them in pain, or weary, or oppressed, but freed them and healed them \u2013 perhaps so that they were more able to listen? <\/p>\n
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\u2019ve 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?<\/p>\n
Take a moment to think about that.<\/p>\n
Then Jesus begins with this contrast of blessings and woes.<\/p>\n
There are a couple of different words for \u201cblessed\u201d 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. <\/p>\n
I love the Greek word for woe. It is, \u201couai\u201d \u2013 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, \u201couai\u201d, they will want to avoid it, to run away from it, they know what things like this look like. <\/p>\n
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 \u2013 poverty, hunger, weeping, persecution are actually blessings, and that things most people would count as signs of blessing \u2013 riches, being full, laughing, being well spoken of, are actually sources of woe. <\/p>\n
My suspicion is that for those of us who have heard or read these verses or similar ones in Matthew\u2019s eye witness account of Jesus\u2019 life, this has lost some of its shock value. We know that this is the kind of thing Jesus\u2019 says, so we aren\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n
Jesus was turning their world upside down. Whole categories of ways of understanding the world upended. What did he just say?<\/p>\n
Ever since Jesus said it, people have been trying to work out the answer to that question. \u201cWhat did he just say?\u201d and another, related one, \u201cwhat does it mean for us.\u201d I\u2019m 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. <\/p>\n
The first thing I\u2019d like to suggest is that the thing that Jesus says at the end of the blessings in verse 22, \u201con account of the Son of Man\u201d 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, \u201con account of the Son of Man.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
This understanding is, for me, strengthened by the blessing of those who are poor. Theirs is the kingdom of God. Not \u201cTheirs will be the Kingdom of God\u201d but \u201ctheirs 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\u2019t happened yet, which is why these blessings are in the future, but the citizenship has been granted, and the reward secured in heaven.<\/p>\n
This is mirrored in the woes. Those who are rich, but who do not follow Jesus, who have rejected God\u2019s ways, they have received their consolation in full. It has already happened. They\u2019ve had everything that they\u2019re going to get. There is no more for them. So, in the future, when God\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
So, where does this leave us, what practical difference does it make to our lives? <\/p>\n
I don\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n
On the other side of the coin, I don\u2019t 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\u2019t focus more on what Jesus is calling us to, and to living the ways of God\u2019s kingdom.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I am no longer my own but yours.
\nPut me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
\nput me to doing, put me to suffering;
\nlet me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,
\nexalted for you, or brought low for you;
\nlet me be full, let me be empty,
\nlet me have all things, let me have nothing:
\nI freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
\nto your pleasure and disposal.
\nAnd now, glorious and bless\u00e8d God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
\nyou are mine and I am yours.
\nAnd the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This morning we meet Jesus on a journey between two places. Our reading from Luke\u2019s historical account of Jesus\u2019 life and ministry began, \u201cAnd he came down with them.\u201d Which prompts the questions. Where did he come down from and who is \u201cthem\u201d? To find the answers to these questions we need to look back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[477],"tags":[990,1372],"class_list":["post-1090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eyton","tag-1-corinthians-1512-20","tag-james-12-12"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1091,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions\/1091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}