The Blessing That Counts - One Is Enough

The Blessing That Counts – One Is Enough Luke 6:17-26 Question: Does it matter if we count our blessings? “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” the Scripture says. Anybody want to be poor? Does anyone who is poor think it is a blessing? “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” Oh, oh, compared to the rest of the world, guess who are the rich? We are. So what are we to think? Are we in trouble? Is it time to bring out the sack cloth and ashes? Is poverty a blessing and abundance a curse? We’ll get back to that in a moment. Have you ever walked into a convenience store and found an unexpectedly long line at the counter? Chances are good that those people aren’t lined up because there’s been a sudden run on milk, bread or overcooked hot dogs. They’re interested in buying something far less tangible; namely, a sequence of numbers embedded in a distant and very secure computer. When they finally reach the head of the line, they’ll hand over a dollar or two or possibly a good deal more, for what, a slip of paper with some numbers on it. They’re buying lottery tickets, of course. If ever you find yourself in such a situation, take a glance at the lottery marquee displaying the size of that week’s jackpot. With lines like that, chances are it’s valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Only jaw-dropping numbers like that bring out the long lines. Your chances of winning, though, are one in three hundred million, give or take, and you probably will have to share your winnings with others. Then there is the reality check; as in Uncle Sam wants his take, plus the state, leaving the winner with less than half the money. But who said lottery tickets are about reality? Dollar for dollar, they’re one of the worst investments you could possibly make. Lotteries - are not about reality, but hope or fantasy - the pipe dream of instant, undeserved wealth. Haven’t you felt it? Whether or not you’ve ever lined up to purchase a ticket yourself, haven’t you ever daydreamed about what it would be like to win a million dollars, let alone hundreds of millions? How different life would be! Oh, the things you’d buy, the places you’d go! Frankly, most people who do live miserable lives thereafter, but that’s another story… Is wealth a blessing, however much you might have? Most of us would say, Yeah! (with attitude) wealth is a blessing, certainly more so than poverty. But Jesus doesn’t see it that way. “Blessed are you who are poor,” He teaches the crowd, “for yours is the kingdom of God.” Oh, there’s the pot of gold, the kingdom 2 of God. Then, a little later, He has these choice words for the wealthy: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” This is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. It’s strikingly different from Matthew’s better-known version. To begin with, it takes place in a different location. In Matthew, it’s the Sermon on the Mount; in Luke, it’s the Sermon on the Plain. But the biggest difference for Luke, compared to Matthew, is that Luke includes statements of woe. Not only is Jesus blessing certain people; in Luke’s version, He also curses others. Jesus blesses the poor, the hungry and those who weep. He preaches woe to the rich, the satisfied and even those who laugh. It’s no wonder most folks prefer Matthew’s version! Luke’s raises troubling questions: Is it wrong to be rich? Is it a sin to be successful? And what’s Jesus got against laughter, anyway? (He’s probably meaning woe to those who laugh at others, mock them and despise them, especially the poor.) Jesus is doing more, though, than simply telling the poor crowd what they want to hear, putting down the rich and well-to-do. He’s imparting a great spiritual truth, and it has to do with the nature of blessings. Can blessings be counted? In times of trouble, a well-meaning friend may say, “Just count your blessings. Look on the bright side. Concentrate on the good things in life. Look away from the bad!” The world is always eager to count blessings. How blessed are they, with the fine house, the classy car, high-tech gadgets to play with, and just, what a beautiful family they are. They are blessed. Even those who have little in the way of material goods are quick to count, in some very conspicuous ways, what blessings they do have. How else to explain the exorbitant prices charged for certain designer basketball shoes? One person’s pair of Air Jordan’s is another person’s Mercedes-Benz. A pair of threaded, faded, beat-up jeans costs more than the real McCoy by a hundred dollars, but which is more preferred by those who seemingly can’t afford them; and who in their right mind would buy a pair of jeans ready for the clothes recycle bin anyway? Or check out the price of a new iPhone ($1,000+) and how much it costs and who all has one. Counting blessings is really what lottery players are doing; only they’re counting their blessings before they hatch! The world has its own set of beatitudes, in contrast to Jesus’ list. The world’s would be: Blessed are the rich, the famous, those who have big houses on the beach. Blessed are those with perfect children; who move and shake even the movers and shakers; who have their photo on the cover of People magazine. Blessed are 3 those who know what they want - and take it! As Luke tells it, Jesus has no time for any of this. In the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus turns the world’s values upside-down. He blesses those whom the world calls accursed, and He preaches woe upon those whom the world admires. Those Beatitudes of His are revolutionary stuff! Jesus’ words may pinch at times. In our deepest moments of clarity and insight, we realize He’s right. “Money can’t buy happiness,” the old proverb contends. Harmonious family life, a meaningful job, creature comforts and leisure time to pursue hobbies do not guarantee happiness either. You can have all of them, and still feel empty inside. When Jesus says, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation,” it’s a very unusual Greek word He uses for “consolation.” It’s a term that literally means, “having received what is due.” It’s the rubber stamp impression at the bottom of an invoice: “Paid in full.” “Woe to you who are rich, for you have been paid in full,” He says. They’ve been given much in this life, and they won’t receive a penny more. There’s an old parable from the Jewish tradition describing a wealthy farmer who was visited by the prophet Elijah. On this visit, Elijah is accompanied by a young rabbi who wants to observe how the prophet metes out divine justice. The two arrive at the farm disguised as poor and weary travelers. The farmer banishes them to the barn, with only bread and water for supper. He has no time for visitors, he gruffly explains. He has to dig a well the next day. After a cold and sleepless night, Elijah arises before dawn. He goes out from the barn and digs the farmer’s well. “Why did you do that?” his young protégé asks him later. “Our host is cruel and heartless. He neglects the sacred laws of hospitality. But you have blessed him by digging his well!” “It’s true that I’ve dug his well,” Elijah admits. “And the place where I have dug it will yield sweet water for many generations. What you don’t know is that this farmer was planning to dig the well in another place: and a few feet below the ground in that location lies a secret treasure. Because I’ve dug his well, rather than he, that treasure will go undiscovered for a hundred years: long after our host has gone to his grave. What seems like a blessing is not always a blessing!” The rich farmer has received his consolation. The debt owed him has been paid in full, and then some. But now that it’s been paid, that’s all there is. Beyond his present wealth, there’s no promise of future blessing. 4 It’s kind of like that classic TV beer commercial, the one with a group of men sitting around a campfire, doing the male-bonding thing. Their canoes are pulled up on the beach, their tents are pitched, their dinner is cooked, and there’s a gorgeous sunset on the horizon. “It doesn’t get any better than this,” one of them contentedly exclaims, before cracking open his beer. How sad. It’s good where they are. Very good. There’s food and fire and friendship; hope to have some of that tonight for the Super Bowl, minus the fire, but maybe a cold beer. Yet, if it truly doesn’t get any better than that, if there’s nothing more to life than a tasty meal, a fleeting sunset and a few cold ones consumed in good company, well, woe to them, for they have received their consolation! The wonder of God’s power to bless is that it happens regardless of our circumstances. It was Helen Keller, the blind and deaf mute who triumphed over her disabilities, who wisely pointed out, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” God’s way of blessing us, sometimes, is not to remove the cause of our complaint, but to give us power to prevail over it. It’s like the remark of the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson: “It is the wounded oyster that mends its shell with pearl.” Or it’s like the verse from The Blessing of the Old Woman. “To be blessed, said the old woman, is to live and work so hard God's love washes right through you like milk through a cow.” Who’s to say what a blessing is and what is a curse in the great scheme of things? From our human perspective, what looks like the greatest of calamities may, in a God’s-eye view, really be our salvation. There’s an old story, a true one, about a man who had a hard life. When he was seven years old, his family was evicted from their home. When he was nine, his mother suddenly died. At 22, he lost his job as a store clerk. He’d always wanted to go to law school, but his education wasn’t good enough. He went into business instead, and at age 23 became a partner in a small store. Three years later, his partner died, leaving a huge debt that took him years to repay. At 28, he asked the woman he’d been courting for years to marry him. She said no. Then, for a moment, his luck seemed to change. At 37, he was elected to Congress on his first try! But then, two years later, he was voted out. At 41, his four-year-old son died. At 45, he ran for the Senate and lost. At 47, he failed as the vice-presidential candidate. At 49, he ran for the Senate again and lost. Then, at age 51, he was elected president of the United States. His name was Abraham Lincoln. Some people get all the breaks. Well, 5 maybe not, and Lincoln certainly didn’t; but his life, for the most part, he considered blessed, and indeed was a blessing to untold millions since. It really doesn’t do us much good to count our blessings. Nor does it help to count our misfortunes, either. Romans 8:28 promises that “all things work together for good for those who love God.” Somehow, we’ve got to learn to trust that word, as hard as it may be to do at times. When Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor … the hungry … and those who weep,” He’s bearing witness to the truth that God is in charge and that God isn’t finished with us yet. God will inevitably bless us, in His own way, if we have faith. God might bless us some day with what we most desire. Or, perhaps more likely, God may bless us despite our desire we don’t receive. But it’s not counting our blessings that’s important. It’s counting on the blessing: God’s blessing that sojourns with us through wealth and poverty, health and sickness, laughter and tears. Praise to God, for knowing us better than we know ourselves, and for blessing us in every circumstance! The wonder of God’s power to bless is that it happens regardless of our circumstances. As for having wealth; it can be a blessing, if it blesses others for Christ’s sake, if we are good stewards with God’s riches He has entrusted to us. I love to read about Biblical archeology. So I leave you with this: In 1979, archaeologists began excavating in the area that is believed to be ancient Gehenna; the violent, disgusting place of filth, the dumping ground of the city where the bodies of the dead were thrown. It smoldered with fire and stunk. It is where we get the portrayal of hell. Well, not far from the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, they found what is considered to be one of the oldest bits of Scripture that exists in the world, more than 500 years older than the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls. It dates from the time just before the destruction of the first temple, the Temple of Solomon, in 586 B.C. The scorched ground yielded two rolled-up silver amulets that are on display to this day in the Israel Museum. When painstakingly unfurled, the text was almost verbatim to the Bible verses: “May God bless you and keep you. May God’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May God turn His face toward you and give you peace” (Numbers 6:24-26). This is Aaron’s priestly blessing, a fervent prayer for the future. In other words, the oldest bit of Scripture that exists in the world today is a blessing of peace that was snatched from hell. In that beleaguered and beautiful land, the prayer endures.