All Saints Day C
November 3, 2019
Luke 6:20-31 (Beatitudes)
INTRODUCTION
Today we will
hear a passage from Luke’s Gospel that you might recognize as the “Sermon on
the Mount.” But it’s a trick! That’s not what it is. That is what it is in
Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus gives a sermon on top of a mountain that includes
several “blessed are” statements. But Luke tells the story differently, and
that difference is really important.
First of all,
he’s not on a mountain. He was on a mountain just before this, praying
and choosing his 12 apostles, but now he has come down to be with the people
where they are, and is preaching from a place level with them. Another
difference is that where Matthew is sort of spiritual – “Blessed are those who
hunger for righteousness,” – Luke is more concrete – “Blessed are you who are
hungry now, in your bodies, empty bellies, right now.” And a third difference
is that Luke does not just talk about who is blessed. He also talks about the
other side of the coin. “Woe to you!” he says, about a number of conditions
that many of us experience and enjoy – like being happy, rich, and full. In
this case, “woe” is not a curse, as it is sometimes understood, but a warning,
like, “Beware!” Slightly better… but still not easy stuff to hear!
As you listen, think
about these differences: that Jesus is level with the crowd instead of higher
up, that his words are more corporeal than spiritual, and that he includes also
the warnings. How do these differences change the way you hear or receive the
message of Jesus’ famous sermon? Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The lectionary
leaves out the set-up for Jesus’ sermon today, so I want to read it for you. As
I read, I invite you to close your eyes and try to imagine the scene: the
sights, the smells, the feeling, the mood. Listen: “[Jesus had just been on a
mountain, praying with his 12 apostles, but now] he came down and stood on a
level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of
people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had
come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were
troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And everyone in the crowd was trying
to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. Then Jesus
looked up at his disciples, [the crowd gathered,] and he started to speak.”
What do you notice about this scene,
as you imagine it?
Here are a couple things that I
notice. First, it’s chaotic. I hadn’t really thought of that before, but the
crowd is huge, and they are all in need of something. They are desperate, they
are broken, they are longing for healing. I also notice that it is close –
the people are all touching Jesus, grasping for his power and healing, and he
is right there with them, right close enough to touch.
So, then I wonder: why do these
things strike me? I think it’s because when I imagine the Sermon on the Mount,
Matthew’s version of this sermon, I guess I always imagined Jesus as up, away,
ready to help even as he is sort of safe from the needs of the crowd, but Luke
does not let us go there. In Luke, Jesus is accessible, he is in it with
them, in it with us.
And I guess this is both a comfort
and a bit unnerving. It’s a comfort because of course we want Jesus to be
accessible to us. That was the whole point of the incarnation, of God becoming
human, so that God would be close to us and we to God, and we would know that
love more profoundly than we ever had before. But it is also unnerving because
if Jesus is accessible to me… then that means I am accessible to Jesus. And
there are parts of me that I’d rather keep hidden – from you, from Jesus, even
from myself. Having Jesus quite so close as this makes me feel a bit
vulnerable.
Vulnerability. It’s not a warm fuzzy
word, is it? To be vulnerable is to be unprotected against getting hurt, and
exposed. It is admitting we don’t have it all together. It is recognizing in
ourselves where there is pain and brokenness, and then divulging that to
another. And while I am an absolute proponent of vulnerability and authenticity
and making genuine connection with one another… vulnerability is still just a
scary word.
Yet I wonder if it is what we are
called to explore on this All Saints Day, for a couple reasons. The first is
that, based on the sermon Jesus preaches to this crowd, it seems that
vulnerability might be a part of what it means to be a saint. Usually when we
think of saints, we think of people who have been particularly faithful. But in
fact, in the Lutheran tradition, we believe that everyone who is baptized in
Christ Jesus is a saint (even as we remain sinners), because we are all claimed
and loved by God, and we are all, in our baptism, called into a life of
faithful living. Faithful living means a lot of things. It means some of those
things Jesus mentions in the second part of his sermon today – about loving
your enemies, turning the other cheek, etc. It means reading scripture, and
spending time in prayer, and study, and in fellowship with other Christians. It
means being generous of heart and resources.
But another part of faithful, saintly
living is recognizing our need for God’s grace and mercy. It is acknowledging
that while we may put on a happy face and nice suit, we don’t have it all
together. It is coming into God’s presence not to prove to God,
ourselves and everyone that we are good, but rather to say, “I’m not, and I
need God’s mercy.” And that is what Jesus is getting at in his sermon on the
plain. Blessed are you who are hungry, poor, grieving, accused, he says,
because it is only when we are so physically, mentally, and emotionally compromised
that we are able to recognize and receive God’s grace and mercy. As one
preacher asks, “What is the promise of mercy to those who are not weak,
forgiveness to those who have not sinned, grace to those who do not need it, or
life to those not dead? It is at best meaningless, and more likely downright
offensive.” We can only truly appreciate the blessing Jesus offers, you see,
when we truly need it.
The woes go on to seal the deal. Woe
to you who don’t have these needs, because as long as you are surrounded in
comforts, you cannot receive what God has to offer. It is not until we are
vulnerable, and recognize our brokenness that we will turn to God and be in a
place to receive mercy. Now, comforts aren’t a bad thing, inherently, but
Jesus’ sermon, especially those woes, the warnings, push us to ask ourselves:
what if the things in my life, the very things I thought of as blessings, are
actually diminishing my capacity to know God and receive his grace and mercy
with a truly grateful heart? Maybe they aren’t getting in the way – but Jesus
asks us today to take a good hard look to make sure of that!
There’s another reason I think
vulnerability is a good thing to talk about today, on All Saints Day. Each year
on this day, we remember those saints who have gone before us, who have died in
the faith. So each year we remember together the ultimate vulnerability that we
all share: we all will die. We all have or will experience someone we love
dying. It’s a fact we desperately try to avoid or deny. Yet on this day, we celebrate
that this ultimate vulnerability, the one we dread, is not to be feared,
because Jesus showed us that death leads to life. When we are baptized, you
see, when we become saints, we are baptized into Christ’s death and also into
his resurrection, so, as Paul writes, “If we have been united with him in a
death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like
his.”
That’s a lot of churchy language –
what it comes down to is this: when Jesus rose from the dead, he showed us that
the ultimate vulnerability that many of us fear the most, death itself, is not
to be feared. Not only is it not to be feared, but it is the very means by
which God’s promise of new life comes to be. For the saints we celebrate today,
and for us eventually, that looks like their entry into eternal life. For us
day to day, as we still walk this earth and live this life, this ultimate
promise gives us the courage we need to be vulnerable right now, in the more
mundane things of our daily lives, to be real about our need for God’s grace
and mercy in all those things we face. This sort of vulnerability leads to
meaningful connection, with God and others, and that sort of connection gives
us life. God’s promise of new life day to day looks like letting go of the
things that keep us from authentic relationship with God and one another, all
those things that drag us down – you know what they are for you. It looks like
confession, and faith in the forgiveness God offers. It looks sometimes like
feeling the grief we need to feel about our losses big and small, and then trusting
that God is working in our hearts through it to bring us to something new.
All Saints Day is not just a day we
look backward, remembering the saints whom we have lost. It is also a day for
looking forward, toward the hope of new life that is promised to humanity in
the resurrection, and to each of us when we are baptized into that promise.
Thanks be to God!
Let us pray… Eternal God, we don’t
like to admit when we are broken, even though you have told us and shown us
that where there is pain and brokenness, there also is Christ. Make us
courageous in our authenticity and vulnerability, so that our hearts would be
ready to receive your grace and mercy. In the name of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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