BLOG 2/7/16. “BLESSED ARE YOU WHO ARE POOR.” DID JESUS SAY THAT?
Politician, advertisers, preachers, (and bloggers such as I) tend to avoid anything that is not going to be positively received by their readers, or listeners. They want to generate as much positive approval as possible. This is why there are some of Jesus’ key teachings that don’t get much attention. For-instance, the gospel of Luke, whose purpose seems to be to give a very accurate record of Jesus’ life and teaching, comes early on to a summary of Jesus’ essential sermon about the realties of his in-breaking Kingdom, or New Creation. It is known as Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, and is found in Luke 6. Listen to the things he says that are so contradictory to so much of the religious talk floating around these days.
“Blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice on that day and leap for joy … But woe to you who are rich for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now for you shall be hungry …” And so it goes.
Did Jesus really say that? He certainly did. In Matthew’s gospel account it comes out slightly differently, but begins with “Blessed are the poor in spirit …” which many translators and commenters have sought to make into some sweet attitude of humility, but that just doesn’t fit. He goes on to say that those who are persecuted and reviled are blessed. The best unpacking of that which I have found is that Luke records Jesus actually preaching to poor people, and Matthew, writing later on, as the apostolic leader of the church, maybe in Syria, which was a bit more economically secure, wants to remind his readers that Jesus wanted them always to remember and identify with the poor, and the hungry, and helpless.
Still, this is one of those key teachings of Jesus that you are not likely to hear in the comfortable First Presbyterian Church, or the prestigious Episcopal cathedral. It is not denied. It is just avoided because it is not what folk want to hear. It is not the kind of ostensible evangelical talk you are likely to hear in the New Hampshire primary in this election season. But one ignores this realistic essence of Jesus’ teaching to one’s own peril. Christ’s people are never called to seek popular approval, but to be faithful in ministering to the hungry, naked, broken, helpless, etc. of our society … and in so doing to be doing it unto him.
The ‘health and wealth’ interpreters of the Christian faith totally miss the essence of Jesus’s radical New Creation calling. So do those looking for comfort-zone Christian communities, and spiritual disciplines that do not transform our daily lives and praxis into those who are the incarnations of his teachings.
Some ‘wag’ once said that there were three things they never discussed in his church: sex, politics, and religion. We can laugh at the contradictions there, but to ingest Jesus’ teachings means that we are attentive to the realities of those around us, to their needs, and to our responsibilities to be the “doers of his word.” And in this current global scene of so much human tragedy, … aesthetic, comfortable, dis-incarnated/excarnate claims to Christian faith needs to go back and digest the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament apostles. Yes, Jesus really said those uncomfortable teachings that do not generate popular approval. Maybe I’ll lose you here … but we need to be reminded. To follow Jesus faithfully has very real costs, and takes real acts of will. Blessings.
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