Sermon All Age Communion 16-02-2025 – Luke 6:17-26, 1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Friday was Valentine’s Day, and I remember that, especially when I was a teenager, there was this excitement, this hope, that you would receive lots of cards or even flowers. From this one person, but also preferably from a lot of others. There is a great appeal to being the kind of person that breaks a lot of hearts. As a sign of being seen and acknowledged. As a sign of being liked, even loved. As a sign of being part of the group, being popular.

All of us have a hunger for this validation, the need to be seen, acknowledged, and loved.

This validation in our world very often happens by the rules of ‘the survival of the fittest’, who is the strongest, loudest, coolest, richest, most influential person, rather than by the rules of ‘blessed are the poor’. This is something that is a problem in the world in general – where it is easier to see and have a grump about – but it is also often true in our own lives. Who are the people we admire or respect especially in our community and society? And how many of them are poor or oppressed?

And then the Good News of Jesus comes crashing into this worldview that most of us take for granted in every-day life, in today’s reading from what is called the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17-49).

• Blessed are the poor
• Woe to you who are Rich (Luke 6:24)
• Jesus Heals

Our reading, as you can see in the News Sheet, is made up of four beatitudes or blessings, followed by four woes. They consist of four opposing pairs.  

The poor will receive the Kingdom of God, the rich have already received their consolation in this life. The hungry will be filled, the full will be hungry. Those who weep now will rejoice, those who laugh now will weep. And those who are reviled now on account of the name of Jesus will receive their reward in heaven, whereas those who are spoken well off are warned as it is usually false prophets who receive praise.

It is the world upside-down. And that is incredibly Good News for all those who are poor and weak. The poor will be rich, the rich will be poor, the hungry will be full, the full will be hungry, and so on. 

It is the core of the Good News that Jesus comes to bring that this is all turned upside down. As his mother Mary already sang in her famous song, God filled the hungry with good things, but the rich He has sent empty away.

It is based on a well-established theme in the Old Testament. The poor will be vindicated by God (For instance, Psalm 40:17, 70:5, 86:1, Isaiah 61:1-3). God will not let the strong, powerful, and rich oppress and exploit the poor. God will come and set things right.  

This is probably not the bit that most of us have problems with. But the upside down goes much further. Not only blessed are the poor, but also:

Jesus doesn’t mince his words here. Maybe that’s why this Sermon on the Plain is less well-known than the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. It’s similar in many ways, but the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount only focuses on those who are blessed. Matthew does not include what seems to be an outright condemnation of all the rich.

Woe. Alas. How dreadful, for you who are rich!

Jesus very clearly is talking about material riches, not about spiritual poverty or riches as we may be tempted to argue in other places. Jesus is speaking about people who are rich in the sense that they have money.

A. Not because riches are a problem in themselves. Later in the sermon there are instructions for the rich how to use their money. To lend without expecting anything in return. And to give.  

And later in the Book of Luke, and in his second instalment, the Book of Acts, we find there are still rich Christians, who share of their possessions with the Christians that are poor. Clearly, if you give freely, it is no problem to be rich.

B. However, being rich and comfortable also makes us just less open to Jesus’ message.

Having it good in this life and this world just means we are so much more likely to trust in the things of this world, our comfort, our bank account, rather than to rate it all of no importance at all compared to the Kingdom of God.

C. But it goes further than that. If we use our riches to oppress and exploit the poor, God will judge and turn things around. It is really no surprise that Jesus was not very popular with the rich and powerful.

And many throughout history, taking Jesus’ call seriously, have over the centuries started to turn things around, not keeping their money for themselves, but using it to care for the poor. Our Church is of course named after one, but there are many others.

This is why the 19^th century atheist philosopher Nietzsche hated Christianity so much. Having discovered the law of the survival of the fittest, based on the natural order of the world, he noticed that Christianity had turned around this natural order of things. Instead of the ‘Survival of the Fittest’, Christianity preached ‘Blessed are the Poor’. Instead of getting on with progress for humankind, getting on with evolution, Christianity had made the strong and powerful spend their money not to get richer, stronger, better, but to care for the poor, weak and oppressed.

Nietzsche thought this obsession with caring for the poor was a weakness, a disease that Christianity had brought on humankind, a disease that stopped humankind from progress.

Nietzsche saw better than most that this care for the poor is something that does not come naturally to us, and that it is only the result of Jesus, the Son of God, coming into this world, and changing us, teaching us and helping us through the Holy Spirit, to do this.

But Nietzsche was wrong to call this care for the poor a disease. Instead, the care for the poor is healing. It is healing to the poor and oppressed. And it is healing for the rich too. 

It is also Luke, in the Book of Acts, who gives us the words Jesus said, ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive’ (Acts 20:35).

It is striking in our reading that Jesus, just before preaching this message that is uplifting to the poor and difficult to the rich, heals everyone who comes to him. It even says ‘all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them’ (Luke 6:19). Then he preaches, as the Healer, healing not only the physical ailments but also our many spiritual illnesses.

And all of us need healing from our attachment to money, luxury, comfort, holidays, ambition, our social media profile, and all things this world has to offer. All of us need healing of our constant doubt of our worth, the constant seeking for validation and love from people and places that will never fulfil us.

Don’t we long for healing from this endless rat race, from this endless survival of the fittest, in which we have to prove our worth all the time. Don’t we long to leave it all behind and just give up on this identity, image and reputation we have crafted for ourselves, and go and live in the identity of being a child of God?

We are invited today to the table of the Lord, to come and receive, to leave behind all those other things we trust in, and trust only in Him and His love for us. We are invited to be a child again.

Amen.