Woe Now!

Jeremiah 15:5-10

5Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem, or who will bemoan you? Who will turn aside to ask about your welfare?

6You have rejected me, says the LORD, you are going backward; so I have stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you - I am weary of relenting.

7I have winnowed them with a winnowing fork in the gates of the land; I have bereaved them, I have destroyed my people; they did not turn from their ways.

8Their widows became more numerous than the sand of the seas; I have brought against the mothers of youths a destroyer at noonday; I have made anguish and terror fall upon her suddenly.

9She who bore seven has languished; she has swooned away; her sun went down while it was yet day; she has been shamed and disgraced. And the rest of them I will give to the sword before their enemies, says the LORD.

10Woe is me, my mother, that you ever bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Luke 6:17-26

17He came down with them 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. 18They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

20Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23Rejoice 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.

24But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God.

We have this image in our heads.

We have this image of the sermon on the mount. A crowded hillside, Jesus in his simple white clothes, standing above all the people. He speaks in a confident, caring voice that carries over the crowds. The crowds sit on blankets, like a picnic, and later the 5000 of them will eat bread and fish.

We have this image of the sermon on the mount where Jesus teaches all the people, gives them an idea of how the world works when God is with us. Jesus shows the kingdom of heaven breaking through into creation. Jesus teaches us how to live our faith with transformed relationships.

But Luke paints the picture quite differently.

This is not a mountain, Jesus “came down with them and stood on a level place.” Neither is this the event when Jesus feeds the multitude, which will happen in chapter 9. But the beatitudes we picture so clearly are present. However, they are not addressed to “a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.” Jesus addresses his disciples, a great crowd, but not all who are present. These are the folks who have committed to following him, learning from him, and serving.

Jesus is talking to the church. Our savior is talking to us.

“Blessed are you who are poor...but woe to you who are rich.”

“Blessed are you who are hungry now...woe to you who are full now.”

“Blessed are you who weep now...woe to you who are laughing now.”

“Blessed are you when people hate you...woe to you when all speak well of you.”

The blessings Jesus lists fit in well with the image in our heads. The “woes” however, shake us up. They scare us. The woes in Luke call into question the predominant values in which we live: wealth, security, entertainment, and reputation.

Jesus does not associate these with blessings, these are causes of woe.

But they’re not our woes, right? We’ve got a cashflow issue, our spending outstrips our contributions year after year, it’s been long enough since breakfast that most of us are at least a little hungry. We Presbyterians are not known for being overly expressive in worship, so laughter is pretty unusual. These woes belong to other people. Let’s talk some more about our blessings, or about Jesus’s healing in the crowd. Let’s talk about how Jesus drew such crowds, or about what Jesus means when he talks about the Son of Man. These are not our woes.

Let’s not talk about how our congregation is middle-to-upper-middle class in the wealthiest nation in history.

Let’s not talk about how we’re sitting on almost a million dollars of invested and designated funds, even after a down year in the stock market.

Let’s not talk about how members of our congregation have called us the “eatin’est” church they’ve ever seen.

Let’s not talk about how as soon as worship is over, several different groups in our congregation spread across the county to share meals with one another.

Let’s not talk about how much we laugh with one another in the parking lot before and after worship, or during the greeting time.

Let’s not talk about how we are so well that our pastor gets invited to pray at multiple town events a year.

Let’s not talk about how back in the ‘80s, the town council passed a resolution honoring our contributions to the life and development of this town.

Let’s do whatever we can do to avoid these woes, because it’s so much easier to serve Christ when it benefits us, and when service to God aligns with what our society values: wealth, security, entertainment, reputation.

Jesus is talking to his disciples, to the community which has committed to following him, learning from him, and serving. Jesus is talking to us.

“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.”

Maybe these are our woes.

Maybe we are subject to the same temptations that Jesus’s disciples were long ago. Maybe our context has changed, but we as a people are still recognizably the same.

The temptation to place our trust our riches, our fullness, our laughter, and our popularity touches believers in every time and place. Jesus is addressing his disciples here, not curious outsiders. Even all these centuries later, Jesus is still talking to us. The promised blessings are for us, and so are the promised woes. Jesus knows that discipleship is costly, and that the crowds who follow him now will turn on him before the end. We need to know that as well.

Too often in history, we see the Church choosing to compromise what is faithful, to soften its mission, for the sake of riches, fullness, laughter, and popularity. Each step down that path leads us away from discipleship and towards idolatry. It takes us further from loving our neighbors and closer to judging them. Each step down that path leads us away from our identity as the covenant community and towards being just a book club for the Bible. Woe to us when we make those missteps, because we of all people ought to know better.

We have seen Jesus at work in the world. We have heard Jesus preach and teach. We have seen Jesus heal diseases and cure troubles. We have felt Jesus’s presence, maybe not all the time, but in powerful ways at unexpected times. We have seen Jesus create and sustain our congregation for the mission of growing faith together as taught by God’s Word. We know that the gospel is the fulfillment of God’s promises and that our task is to spread that promise and teach people how to trust it. We know that our mission is growing faith together as taught through God’s Word. We know! We know. we know…

And yet we know these are still our woes. How many times have we made a decision based not on religious conviction, but on riches? How many times have we acted not on keeping faith, but on keeping full. How many times have we given someone else grief to lengthen our own laughter? How many times have we silenced righteousness for the sake of our reputation?

Not all the time, maybe not even most of the time, but enough times that when Jesus says Woe..now, it scares us.

These woes are not unique to this congregation. These are our woes, but they also live in other communities. Every group of people on this planet, from small families to international gatherings, has these same woes tempting them away from righteousness. Which one rules our hearts, the blessings or the woes, depends on the choices we make. We can choose to give in to the temptation offered by what ultimately brings us woe, or we can choose the harder paths of discipleship, and embrace the blessings Christ has already given us.

If we fail to see the the fulfillment of what God is calling us to do and to be, a vision I laid out before us last Sunday, it will be because we have chosen the sickly-sweet fruits of the false prophets, rather than the nourishing bread of discipleship to Christ our Lord.a q 

Growing faith together as taught by God’s Word is a prophetic task. This is a mission by which we glorify God and proclaim God’s goodness to the nations. The blessings God has given us are more than sufficient for our prophetic mission. God has given this congregation tremendous gifts for ministry. We are blessed with the finances to weather the changing seas of ministry. We are blessed with a congregational culture that is willing to support one another in grief and mourning. We are blessed with leaders who are willing to choose faithfulness even when that’s unpopular. God is going to do great things around us and has blessed us with a position to participate in that work.

The woes will always be with us, at least until Jesus returns and makes all things new. The blessings, however, will also always be with us. By the power of the Holy Spirit we can navigate the blessings and the woes together, not for the benefit of our bank account, not for the furtherance of our fullness, not for the lengthening of our laughter, not for the promotion of our popularity. We’ll navigate the blessings and woes together for the sake of following our risen Lord. We are not our own, we belong to God. We are called to be disciples of Christ our Lord, and as disciples, we have a mission to do.