6th Sunday after Epiphany

Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26 

Luke 6:17-26

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

  ²⁰ Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
 “Blessed are you who are poor,
  for yours is the kingdom of God.
 ²¹ “Blessed are you who are hungry now,
  for you will be filled.
 “Blessed are you who weep now,
  for you will laugh.
  ²² “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. ²³ Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
 ²⁴ “But woe to you who are rich,
  for you have received your consolation.
 ²⁵ “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.
  ²⁶ “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”

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The Pursue of Christian Happiness

Grace to you, beloved of God, and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Care to the poor is not an invention of socialism nor of the liberation theologians of the sixties and seventies. God always cared for the poor, the oppressed, and the vulnerable. 

The Hebrew Scriptures tell us that God made Joseph the most powerful person in the mighty nation of Egypt so that he could be in a position to save God’s people, Israel – a tribe of nomads – from famine. Later on, after the same people had been enslaved in such land, and after their cries were heard, God freed God’s people and became their sole provider, protector, and preserver. 

God cared for them in many ways, besides parting waters to ensure their escape or bringing down the walls of their enemies on the way to their land. God provided to them when they least deserved it – when they would rather return to slavery – God gave food from the ground and water from the rocks. None of it was the fruit of their labor, but out of Moses’ intercessions for God to have mercy.

God gave much more to the people, unsolicited. God gave them the Law of Moses, or the Torah, a series of instructions and teachings derived from the ten words written in stone and needed for them to survive in the world they lived in. It was a gift of grace and wisdom. God said, follow these instructions, and things will be well with you (Deuteronomy 6: 17-18). In other words, do this, and you will prosper. Nonetheless, it was always meant to be community prosperity and never at the expense of human dignity. God’s concern for the oppressed, the vulnerable, and those at a disadvantage, even the stranger, was made clear in at least these verses:  

“You shall not strip your vineyard bare or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God (Leviticus 19:10);”  

“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God (Leviticus 19:33–34);”

“If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. [Instead, give] liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account, the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land (Deuteronomy 15: 7, 10-11).’”

What can I say? The widow was supposed to have more than two coins. 

Despite Jesus reaffirming for us the tradition of caring for the less fortunate by declaring himself the fulfillment of the promise of good news to the poor and declaring them blessed—later, he instructed the privileged in the community to invite them to their celebratory feasts, and that is in the gospel of Luke alone—Christian communities have always struggled with the perceived fairness of it. Haven’t we? There are always our own mouths to feed, properties to keep, and bills to pay, even in the name of the good news of Jesus Christ. 

Most of the struggle comes from the necessity of economic participation for the well-being or even survival of the community. The notion that one was not to become a burden to the community was present at the very beginning of the church and is expressed in the second letter to the Thessalonians. The author tells the community that “anyone unwilling to work should not eat” (Chapter 3, verse 10b).

Additionally, one of the earliest known Christian teaching documents, the Didache, emphasized to his readers the necessity of almsgiving as part of the “Way of life.” It says: “Give to everyone who asks you, and do not refuse, for the Father’s will is that we give to all from the gifts we have received. Blessed is [the one] who gives according to the mandate … [but] woe to [the person] … who receives it without need.” ¹ The same document also advises Christian communities on the practice of generous hospitality to travelers for a few days. However, when traveling, Christians who wished to remain in a community were to contribute as they could with their labor. ²

The struggle with the mandate to care for the poor and the hungry also became a point of contention in the first years of the Reformation.

It was believed that up to 1/3 of the population was made of itinerant beggars in the early fifteen hundreds. Begging was even a Christian practice in medieval times among a few monastic orders. Becoming free of the patronage of the Church of Rome only aggravated the issue in Saxony. Obviously, Luther was asked to pitch in. 

In a letter to the local Christian nobility, he wrote, “Nobody ought to go begging among Christians. It would even be a very simple matter to make a law to the effect that every city should look after its own poor, if only we had the courage and the intention to do so … Every city should support its own poor, and if it was too small, the people in the surrounding villages should also be urged to contribute.” ³ Nonetheless, later in the letter, the Reformer wrote, “He who has chosen poverty ought not to be rich. If he wants to be rich, let him put his hand to the plow and seek his fortune from the land.” ⁴ However, Luther was speaking against the intentional practice of begging, especially by some of those monastic orders of his time. Luther then clarifies, “It is enough if the poor are decently cared for so that they do not die of hunger or cold. It is not fitting that one [person] should live in idleness on another’s labor, or be rich and live comfortably at the cost of another’s hardship.” ⁵

Beloved, here is what God has made clear. God expects us to contribute to the well-being of our communities with our labor and resources. God hopes for us to be gracious givers and receivers. At the same time, God expects us to be merciful and generous to those who may be less able or caught in a tight spot. God does wish for God’s people to prosper honestly, but never at the expense of the dignity of others. The widow was supposed to have more than two coins. All these practices are expressions of love towards God above all things and the neighbor as ourselves. 

The begging issue troubled Luther in both gracious and not-so-gracious ways, a duality characteristic of him. He ultimately encouraged the establishment of community chests throughout Protestant Saxony, from which those in need could receive assistance. However, he also encouraged “good stewardship” by safeguarding against those who might exploit the community’s generosity. I am sure some injustices occurred in the process. 

Luther never considered himself a saint; he was more like a sinner who hoped against hope that faith in Christ, his Lord, given to him as a gift, would transform him. He would call himself a mere mortal, as Jeremiah described to us today. It is said that he would have a fit if he knew we call ourselves Lutherans, for he had not died and was raised for our sins. We are Christians. We strive to do what Jesus asks us to do, regardless of our personal views of the world. After his death, it is also said that a piece of paper was found in his quarters. He had written, “We are all beggars. That is true.” It is believed that he meant we are all broken to sin and starving for God’s mercy, who gives it to us willingly and freely. Perhaps that is the biggest blessing of all. May we all be fed. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

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 ¹ Lake, Kirsopp, The Didache, (CrossReach Publications: 2017), 10-11. 

² Lake, Kirsopp, The Didache, (CrossReach Publications: 2017), 10-11.

³ Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 44: The Christian in Society I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 44 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 189.

⁴ Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 44: The Christian in Society I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 44 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 190.

⁵ Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 44: The Christian in Society I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 44 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 190.