Blessings, Curses and Life in Community
Blessings, Curses and Life in Community
Luke 6:17-26
Feb. 16, 2025
Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney
Jesus 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.
Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kin-dom 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 Humanity.
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 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.
In Luke’s version of the famous Beatitudes, Jesus has just spent the night on a mountainside. As morning dawns, he and the newly called twelve disciples descend from the mountain to a level plain to find a crowd waiting. People in need of help have come from everywhere, and Jesus, with his powerful healing presence, heals them all.
Then, standing “on a level place” with the crowd, he tells his would-be followers what life in God’s upside-down kin-dom looks like. Those who are hungry, and hated and grieving can “leap for joy,” because they have God’s ear and blessing. But those who are have more than enough, are well-fed, and well-liked should know their condition is precarious. The material “blessings” they cherish most, the very possessions and attributes they consider signs of God’s favor, might actually do them spiritual harm.
What should we do with this passage?
One way to look at this passage is to look at it and see we experience those times of blessing and those times of woe. As if to say: this is the human pattern. This is where all of us live. We move throughout life, day to day, season to season, from blessing to woe over and over again in the course of our lives. We invite blessing every time we find ourselves empty and yearning for God, and we invite woe every time we retreat into our egos, our smug and self-satisfaction. When I am “full” of everything but not keeping my heart open to the holy mystery, God “empties” me. And invites me to grace, to loving reorientation. When I am grieving, bereft, vulnerable, and empty in the world’s eyes, God blesses me with the fullness of divine mercy and kindness.
In other words, our God is a God of in all seasons of comfort and challenge.
Maybe, then, our calling is to accept the tensions and complexities of this startling both-and. Maybe our task is to resist our own defensiveness. To overcome our fear of leaning into God’s blessings. To humble ourselves beneath God’s “woes.” How might we do this?
It is inner and outer work. Those who are in a time of blessing and those who are in a time of woe are connected. God designed us to need each other; God made us to live and thrive in community. We are blessed when we know that and live it.
One writer suggests that both Psalm 1 and this passage from Luke are saying – there are two ways to live in the world and two responses. God lifts up the poor and expects all people to be people of compassion. That is a blessing. Woe to those who only see their own needs and ignore injustice and the needs of others. Choose the other.
Here is part of the passage from The Message Woe to you… 24… it's trouble ahead if you think you have it made. What you have is all you'll ever get. 25 And it's trouble ahead if you're satisfied with yourself. Your self will not satisfy you for long. …"There's trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests -…. Your task is to be true, not popular.
We are living in a time in our country when these verses seems particularly relevant. Every day there is more suffering because some of our leaders are acting as if lies are the truth, are acting out of greed and power with no attention to the suffering they are causing. We are called to name it, to resist this movement toward false prophets.
In a sermon by Diane Butler Bass this week entitled “A Sermon of Woe,” she wrote -
Here’s a tweet from Elon Musk (quoted on Bluesky by Bruce Wilson, who writes on authoritarianism and Christianity). The man now running the United States government and who is illegally dismantling food and medical assistance programs calls the poor and those have good civil servant jobs and need food assistance – he calls them “parasites.”
Watching the President slash federal programs knowing it doesn’t affect you because you’re not a member of the Parasite Class.
Contrast that with Jesus in Luke 6. Almost as if he’s tweeting in response to the world’s richest human:
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
And it wasn’t enough for Jesus to insist on this seemingly elusive reality. He added that oppressors aren’t really as powerful as they believe:
But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.*
Luke is direct. While Matthew had a gift for poetry, and placed his sermon on a hillside, Luke is blunter. There’s no rhapsodic rhythm in his words. Indeed, Luke’s Jesus delivers the truth straight up
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.
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.
Nothing is as it seems, Jesus insisted.
“Blessing,” μακάριος (makarios) in Greek, means happy, fortunate, or favored. Butler Bass wrote about the Beatitudes in her book Grateful:
Blessing is not just happiness, but favor. In the Christian scriptures, the word specifically means God’s favor, often called “grace” or “abundance.” ….The sense of the Beatitudes is not “If you are poor, God will bless you” or “If you do nice things for the poor, God will bless you.” Nor is it “Be happy for poverty.” Instead, “Blessed are the poor” means God’s gifts are with you. You are seen, you are loved, you are valued.
As is the case with us today, people in the ancient world thought that the rich were blessed. Indeed, the word makarios itself had a more popular, slang use: It also meant “god” or someone who was “elite.” Basically, a blessing wasn’t just something you had or might get, it was who some people were. They were the Blessed. Caesar was makarios.
Today, some people might say that Elon Musk acts as if the Chief of the Blessed. god-like. makarios.
The “Blessed” were the big shots of the ancient world, the upper crust, those who lived above all the worries of normal existence. The poor, “the losers,” had to live with shame. Even back then, the blessed were the rich, not the poor. In the ancient world you might even say that the poor were “parasites.”
In the Roman Empire, the world in which the Beatitudes were first preached, the richer and more powerful you were, the more valor and virtue you possessed, the closer you were to the emperor at the top of the social hierarchy, the more blessed you were, the more blessings you could seize for yourself,…
When Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor,” he overturned the hierarchical structure of blessing.
“Woe,” οὐαί (ouai) oo-ah'ee in Greek, is an interjection of grief or a denunciation. In the New Testament, Jesus used it to pronounce judgment on the wicked.
In the ancient Near Eastern context, expressions of woe were common in both secular and religious texts. They were used to lament misfortune or impending doom and were often part of prophetic literature to warn of divine judgment, ….often linked to the moral and spiritual failings of individuals or societies.
Blessed are you who are poor…Woe to you who are rich.
The poor are NOT parasites. It is among the poor that the commonwealth of God is made manifest. The poor are closest to the heart of all compassion.
We can have political and policy discussions about how our societies address the problems of poverty, inequity, food insecurity, and people who live under the poverty line. But there’s no question about how Jesus saw the poor and how he treated those who are hungry and need food or unhoused or live in war-torn places.
That’s the Bible. Jesus based these “radical” ideas from the Hebrew scriptures. Ancient prophets, like Jesus, warned that societies who neglected or abused the poor stand under God’s judgment. Jesus was born among the poor; Jesus was poor. His teaching challenged the hierarchy of wealth and power. The early church was built on common property.
Anyone, including any politician who believes that the poor are “parasites” clearly violates the central moral teaching of Jesus. That’s the politics of woe, of those who would demean and mistreat those whom God favors. The poor are not parasites.
In the midst all seasons of life, blessings and woes, we are invited to "choose life." Seek the "abundant life" and "living waters," says Jesus. Align yourself with the goodness of God. Live a life of gratitude in community amidst the joys and sorrows
May we allow Jesus’ teaching to make us uncomfortable and reflect on how we see who we are and what we have. Let us see people with the eyes and heart of Jesus. Amen.
Resources
Diana Butler Bass, “The Politics of Woe,” Sunday Musings – 2.15.25 The Cottage
https://open.substack.com/pub/dianabutlerbass/p/sunday-musings
Dan Clendenin, “The Two Ways,” Journey with Jesus 2.9.25
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay
Rev. Joanne Whitt, “Blessed Are the Ubuntu,” solve by walking blog 2.10.25
https://solve-by-walking.com/2025/02/10/blessed-are-the-ubuntu/