“Blessings and Woes”
All Saints Sunday C –
Luke 6:20-31
Brothers and sisters in Christ, Grace and Peace to you from the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
It was about this time of year. In fact, I think All Saints day might have been the occasion for this little scene. I was staying with Grandpa and his wife Koula at their home on the outskirts of
Now you need to know that Grandpa was over 80 at the time, with both hips replaced, and he walked with a cane. Nonetheless, he was still making pretty good time around the kitchen table. Oxi is the Greek word for NO, and I can tell you that the Oxi’s were flying fast and furious from Grandpa. But Koula was gaining ground. So up went the cane, like a sword, Koula with her arm stretched out with the finger pointing at Grandpa. It was like fencing for seniors!
Finally, Koula gave up. I think she was Grandpa would fall over because he was using the cane for self-defense, instead of support. I asked Grandpa what was going on. Turns out at the monastery, which is hundreds of years old, you can get the ashes of the monks, these holy men of Eastern Orthodoxy to take home with you – the little tin. The bones pile up over the centuries – reduce them to ashes. So what Koula was trying to do was impose the ashes on Grandpa’s forehead, sort of like we do on Ash Wednesday, but here the idea is to connect you with the saints who have gone before, and it was also supposed to bring good health over the coming year. It was a nice thing Koula was trying to do, but Grandpa was having none of it.
But you know, we run from our sainthood just as surely as Grandpa Butch ran from that saints-in-a-can business. We often seem more reluctant to accept the fact that we are saints than we terrified at the thought of being sinners. Luther says this is a great pity because when we forget that we are saints, we forget Christ and baptism. It is not pride or an inflated sense of self, but the Holy Scriptures which call us saints.
So we end up in this strange predicament where people who are truly sinners don’t want to be considered sinners, and those who are saints don’t want to be called saints either. “The latter don’t believe the gospel which comforts them, and the former don’t believe the law which accuses them.”
The fact is we are both sinner and saint. To deny either, is to deny Christ. To accept that we are both is to affirm the reality of who we are, and to receive the grace to live in hope.
Beatitudes: Pronouncements that confer and end-time blessing upon persons characterized by what they are or do. The blessing assures the vindication and reward of that the attend the salvation of God’s end-time rule. The beatitudes of Luke’s gospel are promise and hope for those for whom life has gone awry, who find themselves
Blessings
1. Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the
2. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
3. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
4. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. (1)
But there is more than blessings here. Jesus addresses those for whom things are going very well, thank you very much.
Woes
1. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
2. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.
3. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
4. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.
Is Jesus saying these people are cursed? Damned to disconsolation, hunger, mourning and weeping, and slander? Is there no hope for people like many of us whose lives have not gone awry? Does the
Perhaps Jesus anticipates these questions when he turns from the disciples and directly addresses the others who have gathered on the Plain to hear him speak:
Commands
‘But I say to you that listen,
1. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28
2. bless those who curse you,
3. pray for those who abuse you.
4. 29If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also;
5. and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.
6. 30Give to everyone who begs from you;
7. and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.
8. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
These are radical, Kingdom commands that puzzle and dismay us. They are almost like parables in their ability to turn logic and the world upside down. Who would possibly give their shirt to someone who just stole their coat? Who would not their stolen goods returned to them?
Perhaps a person who is able to see beyond this world to the
Just maybe a person who loses his life to save it?
What Jesus proclaimed today is an ultimate reality check. The truth of who we are today. And the truth of what God promises tomorrow. And that tomorrow may be November 7th or it may be on the other side of the grave.
The beatitudes describe God’s action in your lives and mine, lives that we live as sinner and saint at the same time. Blessed and cursed. Full of hope and filled with despair. As Sinatra sang, “That’s life! Ridin’ high in April, shot down in May.” Not by fate or destiny but by our own human nature. A broken nature that Jesus has come to heal. Indeed, the beatitudes of Luke are bracketed by two episodes of healing. The point I think being that these beatitudes are sort of medical diagnoses of what the consequences are of being both sinner and saint. And the commands that follow indicate the prescription for our blessed and broken condition.
The remedy is not the imposition of the ashes of Greek monks on the forehead. It is not a wonder drug or a new therapy. It is the Word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is for you as sinner and saint, as cursed and blessed, damned and redeemed. It is for you today, tomorrow and in the future. It is this Word and the faith it brings -- nothing more, nothing less -- that connects you the saints who rest now in Christ. And which calls you now live and serve in his name. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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