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The Rev. Frank
Logue
Woe to You! How you hear the Gospel does depend on your own context, your own situation in life. It’s not that the Gospel changes, but the way you hear that is different. If someone you love is in the hospital and you don’t know whether they are going to live or die, there are obviously passages that will stand out to you as being just what you need to hear. While one floor below, in the maternity ward a new Mom who is thumbing through the Bible as her healthy baby sleeps will have other passages of scripture stand out. This morning and every Sunday, we gather together coming from different places. Different places in our jobs, different places in our families, different places in terms of health and different places in terms of where God is leading us on our spiritual journeys. And to those different places, God speaks through the Word and Sacraments. Not a generic word that speaks little to anyone. But God comes with a universal word that speaks in varying and meaningful ways to people who come from very different places. I’ll give you an example. My friend, Dr. A.L. Addington attends St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on Skidaway Island outside Savannah. It is a large church on the edge of the very exclusive development The Landings. The congregation is largely quite comfortable to down right wealthy. One week, A.L. visited a neighboring church to thank them for their ministry and to provide some support for the work this much smaller, much poorer church provided. The preacher talked of prosperity and blessings that come to those who are faithful Christians. A.L. later mused on how the same message who be heard in the two congregations: In this small church with a struggling congregation, and at his own St. Peter’s someone could say, “I predict that within one year, there will be five millionaires in this church.” Those in the poorer congregation would rejoice at the wealth to come. While over by The Landings one would hear weeping, and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Which five millionaires would be left? What is going to happen? Is the stock market going to tank? Same words. Two responses. You have come to the wrong place if you think I am going to preach the prosperity Gospel as if it is what Jesus taught or if you think I might be graced by God with sucha specific prophecy for five families gathered here this morning. And yet, the two responses fit with what I was taught is the job of the preacher. I am to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comforted. In case you are wondering where anyone got that idea, listen to Jesus’ words of blessing and woe in this morning’s Gospel reading. Half of the words are those of comfort and half are words of affliction. This sermon of his must have resonated deeply with those first disciples and then with the persecuted early church. They were (in many cases) poor, hungry, and mourning. They were certainly persecuted for their faith. And so they would have heard these words resonating in their own lives: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. But we are not those disciples. We are relatively rich by the standards of the world we live in rather than the standards of our own strong economy. We are positively full rather than hungry from any perspective. We laugh so much that I like to say of any event, “If laughter is not involved, I’m not going, and that includes funerals.” And we Christians are generally well thought of, including the Christians I see here today. So how do we hear these words now? Especially as Jesus continues with words of woe that land right between my own eyes with the subtlety of a well swung baseball bat: But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets. How do we do more than shrug our shoulders and move on to the parts of the Gospel we like? Usually, we don’t. Methodist Bishop William Willimon has said with some disapproval that, “In our preaching, Jesus is worked over into one who always blesses and never condemns.” So what do we do with these words of Jesus? Do we latch on to blessings and ignore condemnation? That’s tempting. It was also tempting to preach on a different reading this morning and then we could have avoided the unpleasant part of Jesus’ teaching and come back when he had more blessings for us. That is not a viable Christian option. We have to struggle with the text and then prayerfully ask God to show us how the difficult parts speak to us. Rather than thumbing along to the passages we like, we are to hear it all. This is why I often teach the very Christian discipline of reading through the Bible in a systematic way which will have you encountering the fullness of its teaching rather than the “safe” parts. This is why we have Forward Day by Day out in the entry hall available for free. The little booklet provides a pattern for reading the Bible through in two years. We also read four readings every Sunday so that in our worship we work our way through almost all of the scriptures in three years. King of Peace is now working on its third time through the Bible and in the process finding passages like this one, that are tempting to skip, but have something to teach us just the same. I think the point is that God does take a special interest in blessing those in need. And for those who have been blessed, the blessings we await are not more goodies from God, but the real joy that comes from reaching out in love to others. So one good way to respond to the blessings and woes Jesus preaches this morning is to grow a spine. We need to get the backbone to stand up for the poor, the hungry and to be present with those in mourning. We need to identify with those in need in order to give consolation, food and companionship. We become the ones who bless those in need from the blessings we have received. Yesterday, we took one small step that direction by joining with other churches to work on a Habitat for Humanity House. This coming Saturday will be King of Peace’s main day to provide workers for that project taken on by twelve Camden churches joining together. But I have no doubt that God sees many more needs here in Camden County and that the Holy Spirit is laying those needs on the hearts of the faithful. There are things we can do as individuals, as a congregation, and as a community which can turn lives around for the better. It will be a blessing to us and to those we help. Along the way we will get used and abused by people who want more and more given without living into the blessing God has for them. We’ll end up paying an electric bill for someone who then uses the extra money to buy drugs. Or we’ll give a homeless person a place to stay and a chance at a job and then he or she will refuse to take the work and will move on to the next church. That’s fine. Mistakes will be made. But the biggest mistake comes in not trying to share the blessings you have been given. And this is where the words of woe come back in and I am not kidding here. These are Jesus’ words of fair warning of dire consequences. Woe to you if you just sit back fat and happy on your pile of blessings. I know that it might seem like you don’t have that much money or that great of circumstances. Certainly we have among those worshipping at King of Peace homeless persons from time to time. And for those in real need, this sermon contains nothing but blessings, the promise that Jesus wants this congregation to help you help yourself. Not to give you everything you need, but to partner with you in turning your circumstances around. But that kind of need is honestly speaking only the rare exception this morning. Woe to us if we don't do what we can to join in Jesus’ work here in our own time and place. And in just a moment we are going to baptize Carter into the Body of Christ. Woe to us if we don’t teach this dear boy to count his blessings and to reach out in love to those less fortunate. Amen.
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