The Great Reversal Dr

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

“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.

“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”

Today and next Sunday we are going to be working in Luke 6, a passage that New Testament scholars refer to as the Sermon on the Plain. In many ways similar to what Matthew includes in the Sermon on the Mount, the Sermon on the Plain describes two kinds of people: people who belong to God’s kingdom and people who don’t. Remember that God’s kingdom is not a place. God’s kingdom is wherever God rules or reigns, including your heart and mine.

To understand what the New Testament means by God’s kingdom, we need to understand eschatology. Eschatology is just a fancy, 75¢ word that means “things which belong to the end” and the earliest Christians believed the end was very near. They believed that within a few decades if not a very few years, Jesus Christ would return to earth and establish the kingdom of God, not just in people’s hearts but in the world. That theme dominates the Book of Revelation and a number of other explicitly eschatological passages sprinkled throughout the New Testament. Even where eschatology is not explicit, we find implicit on almost every page of the New Testament the idea that the kingdom of God would soon be established as history came to an end. The early Christians clearly understood Jesus as teaching that the eschaton — the end — was very near.

We know that the end did not come as expected. But Christians must still live eschatologically, that is, in light of the end. This means the sum total of reality is not contained in this world. We cannot decide things purely on the basis of what appears to be. We must always consider the kingdom. For the kingdom is the great reversal where what appears to be and what truly is are reversed. Jesus says, “Live for what truly is, not what appears to be.” So with that in mind, let’s look at what Jesus said about the kingdom of God.

In the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus pronounced a blessing or beatitude on some people and a woe or lament on others. Beatitudes and laments were common in ancient literature. They were not calls to action but descriptions of reality. In linguistic terms, blessings and woes were not imperatives — “be like this” but indicatives — “you are like this.”[1]

Let’s see what this looks like. Jesus pronounced four blessings and four woes. The blessings are these:

• If you are persecuted for Christ, then you are in good company because God’s true people have always been persecuted.

• If you find yourself spoken well of, then you are in bad company because the world always speaks well of false prophets.

These blessings and woes describe two kinds of people. One kind lives in the kingdom. These people are a part of what will ultimately be, appearances notwithstanding. The others are not of the kingdom and are to be pitied. For what they have is all they will have. Remember the old beer commercial that said, “It doesn’t get any better than this.” In light of God’s kingdom, that is to be pitied, not celebrated.

The poor, the hungry, the mournful, and the persecuted are those left unsatisfied. They long and hunger for something more. But when you are full and happy and rich and when people speak well of you, it is very easy to be self-satisfied and self-sufficient. If you are rich, full, happy, and popular, what more do you need?

“Ah,” says Jesus. “You need God but you don’t know it.” That’s why those who are poor and hungry and sad and persecuted are blessed. They need God and they know it. Those who live in the kingdom are those who know that without God, life is empty. Sometimes we have to be poor and hungry and sad and persecuted to know what we really need, to see things as they really are. It is the self-sufficient and spiritually satisfied who are to be pitied. If we are confused, and feel hopeless and afraid, then Jesus blesses us. Despite what seems to be, God is the God of the great reversal. When we are hungry, we are in the kingdom. Others are not.

But let’s face it, we don’t like woes, especially because they seem aimed at us. I wrote this part of the sermon and didn’t like. I rewrote it. Then I rewrote it again and I still don’t like it. I don’t like preaching this sort of thing, but there it is. Jesus says, “Woe to you.” For we are, in relative terms, rich. We are full. Maybe we skipped breakfast but that doesn’t classify us as hungry. We are relatively happy, that is, content. We like it when we’re popular. We don’t like to hear Jesus say woe to you or to hear him bless the poor, hungry, sad, and persecuted.

In other words, these blessings and woes challenge what we think of as success. And whether we like it our not, we operate on the basis of what we think of as success. But Jesus challenges that. One interpreter paraphrases the blessings and woes this way.

It’s hard to warm up to a Jesus that talks this way or even to a preacher who talks like this in Jesus’ name.

But remember how the text began. The text described a great multitude who wanted to hear what Jesus said, to be healed. In other words, they were hurting and needed help. They were spiritually empty and confused and they needed forgiveness and hope.

Just like us. Oh, but we don’t like feeling needy. Hunger is uncomfortable. Weeping is painful. Being poor is not to be desired. Persecution is unpleasant and frightening if not dangerous and deadly. We don’t like feeling this way. But that’s who we really are. It’s just hard to admit it.

And isn’t that really why we come here each week. We come here, not because we’re full, but because we’re hungry. The text said “and all in the crowd were trying to touch Jesus, for power came out of him and healed all of them.” We need that. We need to touch Jesus and be healed. But it’s hard to admit that we are needy. So the blessings and woes are meant to shake us up so we can see our real need.

Fred Craddock, one of America’s greatest preachers, says he went to summer camp every year. He liked summer camp — beautiful place, good friends, and a lot of playing and eating and having fun. There was a minister at Fred’s summer camp, the first minister Fred was ever around very much, and the minister’s name was Frank Drowota. He was a pastor from Nashville. Frank was always one of the counselors at summer youth camp.

Fred remembers one evening after they left the dining hall, Frank Drowota walked along with him and said, “Can I talk to you?”

Fred says he was seventeen, about to begin his senior year in high school, and that minister ruined everything for him. What a thing to lay on a kid. All Fred wanted to do was go where the girls were, save some money to get a car, go to school some more, someday get married, have a house, a garden, and two weeks of vacation in the summer. What else is there?

“And then he lays that on me,” Fred says. “I thought about it when I got up in the morning. I thought about it when I went to bed and night. I am still thinking about it.”[3]

After nearly 50 years of ministry, still thinking about it. Fred wanted all the normal things but he heard a word still challenges him to look for God’s kingdom instead of what appears to be normal.

You see, Jesus’ word is meant to come and shake us up so that we can’t stop thinking about it. It’s meant to be a word that makes us uncomfortable with what appears normal. The question is, do we trust Jesus and the word Jesus speaks?

Remember the old story about being lost in the desert. You’re very thirsty, there’s no water, and you’re getting scared. And then, in a certain rock formation, you come across an old-fashioned pump. You run to the pump, start working the handle up and down, but get no water. Then you see a can wired to the pump. You open the can and there’s a note.

“This pump needs to be primed, so I left a jug of water underneath the white rock. You’ve got to pour some water down the pump to wet the leather washer and make a seal, and then pour the rest down to create a back suction. Now don’t you go drinking that water — you’ll need every bit of it to prime the pump. Pour it in and pump like crazy and you’ll get all the water you need. Just make sure you fill the jug up and leave it under the white stone for the next guy.” The note was signed “Desert Pete.”

So there you are, dying of thirst. You’ve got his jug of water and some guy named Desert Pete says to pour it all down the well. So what are you going to do? What if the pump doesn’t work anymore? Wouldn’t you be better off drinking the jug of water? Are you going to trust someone named Desert Pete?[4]

That’s a parable for whether or not we trust Jesus. We can drink the safe, brackish water of conventional living, the only water we can see. Or we can trust that there is living water in God’s kingdom, gushing rivers of water that satisfy what we really need. How much do we trust Jesus?

To talk about the kingdom is to talk about mystery. We live in the mystery that appearances are deceiving. This world is not the way reality is moving. Reality is moving towards the kingdom of God, even when we can’t see it. What will be is not yet and what is will not be. That’s the mystery.

Remember the text. “And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.”

It is a great mystery, my friends. But seek to touch Jesus. Trust Jesus. There is power in him. Power that reverses things. Power to heal and power to bless. And it is ours in our poverty and our hunger and our sadness. It is ours when we know and trust that what we really need is the kingdom of God.

[1] Most often the blessings and woes of the New Testament are eschatological. That is, they see the present in light of the ultimate reality of God’s kingdom. How things appear here and now is unimportant. The important thing is how God looks at things. So blessings and woes signal the reversal of all human values. See Charles H. Talbert, Reading Luke: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Third Gospel (New York: Crossroad, 1989) 69-70.

[2] Lorain Giles, Aha!, online, http://www.joinhands.com/aha_online/, Internet, 15 Feb. 2004.

[3] Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories, Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward, eds., (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001) 136-137.

[4] Jim Moore, Aha!, online, http://www.joinhands.com/aha_online/, Internet, 15 Feb. 2004.