![Picture](/uploads/5/3/1/4/53145165/hughes-langston-0-lib-cong_orig.jpg)
Peter JB Carman
February 17, 2019
Luke 6:17-26
I.
What is success? What is it to bless and be blessed?
The Teacher came down from the high places, from the quiet hills where he had gone to be near God. The Teacher came down and found a great crowd of disciples and curious folk and hangers-on. Among them he found the poor, the anguished and the seriously ill.
He brought them together in a level place, level ground, where he began to heal. Many many tried to touch him to feel the power, the dynamic energy coming from him.
He healed and he healed, and then he taught. Looking up he began to teach his disciples there, as the people crowded around. He began with blessings and warnings, echoing the ancient laws and prophets from long ago. But these were strange new blessings, and even stranger warnings, a new way, the revolutionary law of love. This was wisdom turned downside up.
“Blessed are you who are poor,” he told them. “For yours is the Reign of God.” Say what? No one thought it was a blessing to be poor, not if they actually had to deal with it themselves, not then and not now. What could he mean? But before they could even process that, he went on—he told them about the promise of a world turned…downside up. “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who mourn now, for you will laugh.” Hunger turned inside out. Grief turned to laughter.
What had happened to this person up in the high places? “Blessed are you when people hate you…and revile and exclude you on account of the Human Being. Rejoice in that day, for surely your reward will be great in heaven. For this is how their ancestors responded to the prophets.”
II.
We gather in this place in memory of that teacher, with his strange ideas about the promise of a good earth in which the old ways of success are turned upside down. We gather here the name of a poor man who had no real place to call home, who threw in with the suffering people of his time, who healed and taught and traveled, and who was crucified for his reward—the death of a rebellious Roman slave or bandit. We come together to follow God the way this Savior showed us. And we know still a great hunger for healing, still need to be told that things can and will be turned around.
How do WE define blessing? In the ancient world, the popular mind assumed that only a few people would or could be free; only a few people would or could have enough to live well. Only a few people…that about sums it up. And in the time when Jesus lived, the few were getting fewer, and the many were getting poorer. Now isn’t so different from back then—the prosperity gospel has never been stronger.
Conventional wisdom seems sometimes to have won, even among Christians! Our mentality often follows the ancient worldview. Even some pastors point to money as a sign of God’s blessing. Only a few can make it—so we hold up for emulation and envy the few who win life’s lottery and “hit the big time”. Live or die, we are more interested in the rich and famous than in the poor and the obscure. Live or die we continue to assume that privilege rightly belongs to some while the great mass of humans gets left out. And we are fascinated with the ones who “make it.”
This fascination with the ones “who make it” –even when “making it” clearly isn’t great, leads many of us to live as though we were less than footnotes on the pages of history, just onlookers or nobodies. But it isn’t so.
Jesus Christ, teaching on that level place, taught that greatness and success are not reserved for the few, that a better “making it” is secure in the hands of a just God. He wasn’t just talking about the sweet by and by. Jesus insisted on a moral arc to the universe, to echo a phrase Martin Luther King Jr. used. Jesus dared to insist that greatness isn’t reserved for the few. He proclaimed that God wants a blessing-- flourishing, happiness, fruitfulness, call it what you will—for those whose prosperity has been stolen. And he dared to suggest a way of living, simply and peaceably and boldly and generously, that is an alternative to either making it in the world’s old way or simply giving up and disappearing into the crowded alleys of business as usual.
These teachings this healing, this downside up proclamation, made Jesus a dangerous person. Because people who start to have hope start to insist on what is right. They are no longer easy to control.
III
Often, we act as though all the miracles happened long ago. But the best ones are the human transformation that goes unnoticed—occasionally in church! I knew a man who walked into a community dinner at a church where a lot of people looked different from him. And he decided this was not just a place to eat, but also a place to make his spiritual home, a place to grow in faith, a place to find some hope, a place to start over. I knew a woman that some churches have defined as unwelcome, because she is open about her love in life being another woman. But thanks be to God, she discovered a sense of calling to the ministry, discovered that God has more room for her, more need for gifts, than she could ever have imagined. I met another woman, a poor black woman, mind you, who first came into a certain mostly white church for her murdered brother Royce’s funeral—after which she walked up to me and said, “This is our church now.” Becoming part of that community over the next decade she taught us all what it meant to do ministry.
What kind of healing do you need? What part of you still believes the conventional wisdom that you’re junk, or worthless, or a footnote to history—and where do you need to be blessed downside up?
When it comes to building a new reality where the meek aren’t so meek any more, what will your job be? When it comes to offering hope for other people who have been told they are nothing for so long that they have come to believe it, what will your part be? When it comes to success in the Jesus sense of a healed world, what kind of healing will you offer?
Let’s take the Jesus approach to heart. Let’s look through eyes that dare to see a new reality, to see ourselves even as we see our neighbors-- with love. What we were born into is one thing. What we do with it is another. Christ teaches us that those born into nothing are already something in the eyes of God. And conversely, just because you have a heaped-up silver platter doesn’t make you a big success where it matters the most. Let’s look at ourselves—and the people around us-- through the eyes of Christ!
IV.
We follow the teachings of Jesus. And the Gospel of Luke in the sixth chapter teaches us that Jesus invites us to let go every bad old conventional assumption we had of what it means to strive for greatness, Jesus invites us to try on a different greatness: compassion, joy in the face of adversity, resurrection hope and love. A greatness that that affirms the essential worth and dignity and blessedness of every child of God.
Jesus says to us: “Blessed are you who thought you were invisible—because God sees you, and cares about what you are up to—even when you have become invisible to yourself!” Jesus says to us, “Blessed are you who grow up in the desert, who move to a tenement, who spend a couple of years in prison while you find your way, who have trouble finding a job that pays or lasts, who aren’t sure where the next meal will come from. You will inherit the majority shares before it’s all over.” And Jesus says to us: “Blessed are you when you find the prayer resources and spiritual strength to speak truthfully and act lovingly and risk calling for justice. It’s ok if the whole world laughs, or worse yet yawns. I see you, I hear you, and your vision will be fulfilled, the healing and the hope you long for will be fulfilled.”
Conventional wisdom teaches that the only way we get anything is to take it, that the path to success is a way of war. But there is a better way. Langston Hughes, that extraordinary poet, writing just about the end of the Second World War, penned words pronouncing a downside up blessing. Let me close with his prayer for a different peace.
Give Us Our Peace
Give us peace equal to the war
Or else our souls will be unsatisfied,
And we will wonder what we have fought for
And why the many died.
Give us peace accepting every challenge--
The challenge of the poor, the black, of all denied,
The challenge of the vast colonial world
That long has had so little justice by its side.
Give us peace that dares us to be wise.
Give us peace that dares us to be strong.
Give us peace that dares us still uphold
Throughout the peace our battle against wrong.
Give us peace that is not cheaply used
A peace that is no clever scheme,
A people’s peace for which [all] men can enthuse
A peace that brings reality to our dream.
Give us a peace that will produce great schools--
As the war produced great armament,
A peace that will wipe out our slums--
As war wiped out our foes on evil bent.
Give us a peace that will enlist
A mighty army serving human kind,
Not just an army geared to kill,
But trained to help the living mind.
An army trained to shape our common good
And bring about a world of brother [and sister]hood.
Langston Hughes, 1945
Photo source: Library of Congress
February 17, 2019
Luke 6:17-26
I.
What is success? What is it to bless and be blessed?
The Teacher came down from the high places, from the quiet hills where he had gone to be near God. The Teacher came down and found a great crowd of disciples and curious folk and hangers-on. Among them he found the poor, the anguished and the seriously ill.
He brought them together in a level place, level ground, where he began to heal. Many many tried to touch him to feel the power, the dynamic energy coming from him.
He healed and he healed, and then he taught. Looking up he began to teach his disciples there, as the people crowded around. He began with blessings and warnings, echoing the ancient laws and prophets from long ago. But these were strange new blessings, and even stranger warnings, a new way, the revolutionary law of love. This was wisdom turned downside up.
“Blessed are you who are poor,” he told them. “For yours is the Reign of God.” Say what? No one thought it was a blessing to be poor, not if they actually had to deal with it themselves, not then and not now. What could he mean? But before they could even process that, he went on—he told them about the promise of a world turned…downside up. “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who mourn now, for you will laugh.” Hunger turned inside out. Grief turned to laughter.
What had happened to this person up in the high places? “Blessed are you when people hate you…and revile and exclude you on account of the Human Being. Rejoice in that day, for surely your reward will be great in heaven. For this is how their ancestors responded to the prophets.”
II.
We gather in this place in memory of that teacher, with his strange ideas about the promise of a good earth in which the old ways of success are turned upside down. We gather here the name of a poor man who had no real place to call home, who threw in with the suffering people of his time, who healed and taught and traveled, and who was crucified for his reward—the death of a rebellious Roman slave or bandit. We come together to follow God the way this Savior showed us. And we know still a great hunger for healing, still need to be told that things can and will be turned around.
How do WE define blessing? In the ancient world, the popular mind assumed that only a few people would or could be free; only a few people would or could have enough to live well. Only a few people…that about sums it up. And in the time when Jesus lived, the few were getting fewer, and the many were getting poorer. Now isn’t so different from back then—the prosperity gospel has never been stronger.
Conventional wisdom seems sometimes to have won, even among Christians! Our mentality often follows the ancient worldview. Even some pastors point to money as a sign of God’s blessing. Only a few can make it—so we hold up for emulation and envy the few who win life’s lottery and “hit the big time”. Live or die, we are more interested in the rich and famous than in the poor and the obscure. Live or die we continue to assume that privilege rightly belongs to some while the great mass of humans gets left out. And we are fascinated with the ones who “make it.”
This fascination with the ones “who make it” –even when “making it” clearly isn’t great, leads many of us to live as though we were less than footnotes on the pages of history, just onlookers or nobodies. But it isn’t so.
Jesus Christ, teaching on that level place, taught that greatness and success are not reserved for the few, that a better “making it” is secure in the hands of a just God. He wasn’t just talking about the sweet by and by. Jesus insisted on a moral arc to the universe, to echo a phrase Martin Luther King Jr. used. Jesus dared to insist that greatness isn’t reserved for the few. He proclaimed that God wants a blessing-- flourishing, happiness, fruitfulness, call it what you will—for those whose prosperity has been stolen. And he dared to suggest a way of living, simply and peaceably and boldly and generously, that is an alternative to either making it in the world’s old way or simply giving up and disappearing into the crowded alleys of business as usual.
These teachings this healing, this downside up proclamation, made Jesus a dangerous person. Because people who start to have hope start to insist on what is right. They are no longer easy to control.
III
Often, we act as though all the miracles happened long ago. But the best ones are the human transformation that goes unnoticed—occasionally in church! I knew a man who walked into a community dinner at a church where a lot of people looked different from him. And he decided this was not just a place to eat, but also a place to make his spiritual home, a place to grow in faith, a place to find some hope, a place to start over. I knew a woman that some churches have defined as unwelcome, because she is open about her love in life being another woman. But thanks be to God, she discovered a sense of calling to the ministry, discovered that God has more room for her, more need for gifts, than she could ever have imagined. I met another woman, a poor black woman, mind you, who first came into a certain mostly white church for her murdered brother Royce’s funeral—after which she walked up to me and said, “This is our church now.” Becoming part of that community over the next decade she taught us all what it meant to do ministry.
What kind of healing do you need? What part of you still believes the conventional wisdom that you’re junk, or worthless, or a footnote to history—and where do you need to be blessed downside up?
When it comes to building a new reality where the meek aren’t so meek any more, what will your job be? When it comes to offering hope for other people who have been told they are nothing for so long that they have come to believe it, what will your part be? When it comes to success in the Jesus sense of a healed world, what kind of healing will you offer?
Let’s take the Jesus approach to heart. Let’s look through eyes that dare to see a new reality, to see ourselves even as we see our neighbors-- with love. What we were born into is one thing. What we do with it is another. Christ teaches us that those born into nothing are already something in the eyes of God. And conversely, just because you have a heaped-up silver platter doesn’t make you a big success where it matters the most. Let’s look at ourselves—and the people around us-- through the eyes of Christ!
IV.
We follow the teachings of Jesus. And the Gospel of Luke in the sixth chapter teaches us that Jesus invites us to let go every bad old conventional assumption we had of what it means to strive for greatness, Jesus invites us to try on a different greatness: compassion, joy in the face of adversity, resurrection hope and love. A greatness that that affirms the essential worth and dignity and blessedness of every child of God.
Jesus says to us: “Blessed are you who thought you were invisible—because God sees you, and cares about what you are up to—even when you have become invisible to yourself!” Jesus says to us, “Blessed are you who grow up in the desert, who move to a tenement, who spend a couple of years in prison while you find your way, who have trouble finding a job that pays or lasts, who aren’t sure where the next meal will come from. You will inherit the majority shares before it’s all over.” And Jesus says to us: “Blessed are you when you find the prayer resources and spiritual strength to speak truthfully and act lovingly and risk calling for justice. It’s ok if the whole world laughs, or worse yet yawns. I see you, I hear you, and your vision will be fulfilled, the healing and the hope you long for will be fulfilled.”
Conventional wisdom teaches that the only way we get anything is to take it, that the path to success is a way of war. But there is a better way. Langston Hughes, that extraordinary poet, writing just about the end of the Second World War, penned words pronouncing a downside up blessing. Let me close with his prayer for a different peace.
Give Us Our Peace
Give us peace equal to the war
Or else our souls will be unsatisfied,
And we will wonder what we have fought for
And why the many died.
Give us peace accepting every challenge--
The challenge of the poor, the black, of all denied,
The challenge of the vast colonial world
That long has had so little justice by its side.
Give us peace that dares us to be wise.
Give us peace that dares us to be strong.
Give us peace that dares us still uphold
Throughout the peace our battle against wrong.
Give us peace that is not cheaply used
A peace that is no clever scheme,
A people’s peace for which [all] men can enthuse
A peace that brings reality to our dream.
Give us a peace that will produce great schools--
As the war produced great armament,
A peace that will wipe out our slums--
As war wiped out our foes on evil bent.
Give us a peace that will enlist
A mighty army serving human kind,
Not just an army geared to kill,
But trained to help the living mind.
An army trained to shape our common good
And bring about a world of brother [and sister]hood.
Langston Hughes, 1945
Photo source: Library of Congress