Nothing Lasts Forever

Common English Bible Chapter 6

17 Jesus came down from the mountain with them and stood on a large area of level ground. A great company of his disciples and a huge crowd of people from all around Judea and Jerusalem and the area around Tyre and Sidon joined him there. 18 They came to hear him and to be healed from their diseases, and those bothered by unclean spirits were healed. 19 The whole crowd wanted to touch him, because power was going out from him and he was healing everyone.

Happy people and doomed people

20 Jesus raised his eyes to his disciples and said:

“Happy are you who are poor,

because God’s kingdom is yours.

21 Happy are you who hunger now,

because you will be satisfied.

Happy are you who weep now,

because you will laugh.

22 Happy are you when people hate you, reject you, insult you, and condemn your name as evil because of the Human One. 23 Rejoice when that happens! Leap for joy because you have a great reward in heaven. Their ancestors did the same things to the prophets.

24 But how terrible for you who are rich,

because you have already received your comfort.

25 How terrible for you who have plenty now,

because you will be hungry.

How terrible for you who laugh now,

because you will mourn and weep.

26 How terrible for you when all speak well of you.

Their ancestors did the same things

to the false prophets.

Introduction: The Long Hill

A while ago I was on a bike trip, and I remember one particular part with equal parts fear and joy!

This particular trip had one section that was a 24 mile uphill climb.

It was only ever 2% grade or so, so it wasn’t a particularly hard climb.

But it just wouldn’t let up!

And while I was riding, I had this little mantra that I kept repeating to myself.

Nothing lasts forever.

I’ve been on enough of these rides that I know that what is uphill will eventually turn downhill.

The struggle will end.

The wind will come at our backs.

We’ll get to some smoother sailing.

Nothing lasts forever.

And I also know that when you’re enjoying the downhill parts, you need to really enjoy them, because nothing lasts forever.

The tail wind will eventually come around and smack you in the face.

The sunny skies will eventually cloud up and dump rain.

The hill you just came down will eventually need to be climbed.

Nothing lasts forever.

Bible Breakdown

The Sermon on the Level

This is Lukes’s understanding of a teaching from Jesus, the more famous version of which is in Matthew and called the Sermon on the Mount.

In this case though, Jesus comes down from that mountain and speaks to us on the “level ground.”

One of the pastors I was reading this week took that to an interesting place: Jesus is about to speak to us “on the level.”

Jesus is going to be a straight shooter here.

Jesus isn’t going to beat around the bush.

And…we have to be honest, that is usually code for something that’s going to be hard to hear.

Usually if someone says “I have to level with you...” you know that you’re in for something uncomfortable, right?

Audience is important

Jesus starts this passage healing the crowd.

People with diseases and unclean spirits and all manner of afflictions come and get healed.

There are apparently a whole bunch of people standing around.

But the text tells us that this teaching has a very specific audience:

“Jesus raised his eyes to his disciples.”

This is not for the rest of the world, the common folk, the outsiders.

This teaching is all about those of us who would commit ourselves to being disciples of Jesus.

This is not for everyone.

But it is a challenge for those twelve disciples, and any of us who would call ourselves followers of Jesus.

This may not be how the world works, but it is how our world is supposed to work in here.

Blessing Defined

The word in each of these first few lines is translated Happy here in the Common English Bible.

The NRSV translates it as “blessed.”

But neither translation gets the whole heart of this word.

One language expert said that it would be better translated as “Respected” or even “on the right path.”

And this is important because there is a common misunderstanding that blessed means “getting what you want” or “financial benefit.”

Like when Televangelists say “If you would just bless us with a $100 donation.”

If this was how we viewed this, Jesus teaching wouldn’t make sense right off the bat.

“Blessed are you who are poor, because you’re going to get a whole bunch of cash!”

So perhaps it requires us to open our minds up to what blessing is.

If blessing is being on the right track, then we’re blessed when we speak up for those who experience injustice.

If blessing is being on the right track, then we’re blessed way more when we give than when we receive.

If blessing is being on the right track, we could be extremely blessed even with a completely empty bank account.

On the Right Track:

Poor

I have mentioned this before, but this particular teaching from Jesus is something I have seen with my own eyes.

I have traveled the world over in some pretty impoverished places.

I have been to places where folks live on less than a dollar a day.

I have seen some of the most abject poverty in the world up close and personal.

And in all of those places, I have seen the most incredible faith.

The people that will put my trust in Jesus to shame are the people who don’t have anything else to lean on.

The people that worship the hardest and the loudest and the most passionately are the folks that we might look at and wonder what they could possibly have to thank God for.

The people that this world has counted out as lost and forgotten are surely at the front of the line of the Kingdom of God.

A big piece to the blessing of this teaching is trust.

When you’re poor, the only thing you have left to trust is God himself.

When you’re poor, you’re on the right track, because the Kingdom of God is yours.

Hungry

Sadly, a whole bunch of our world falls in to this category too.

And what I think is the most difficult about this reality is how ironic the statistics sound:

As many as 811 million people worldwide go to bed hungry each night, even though there is more than enough food produced on this planet to feed everyone.

The professions that are most associated with food insecurity are farmers, herders, and fishermen, who produce about 70 percent of the global food supply.

An estimated 14 million children under the age of five worldwide suffer from sever acute malnutrition, and only 25 percent of those have access to lifesaving treatment. (From Action Against Hunger)

Once again, when you are this hungry, you have a special relationship with the God of abundance.

Instead of wanting something that tastes good, you’re leaning on God to provide something to keep you moving.

Instead of getting angry at the slow pace of the drive thru lane, you are overjoyed every single time you sit down for a meal.

Instead of watching cooking shows, you have the deepest possible table fellowship every single time you sit down to enjoy a meal.

Mourning/Weeping

Ironically, I think this is the blessing that those of us in the room have the most access too, and also the one we tend to run away from the hardest.

I can’t tell you how many Presbyterians I have worked with in my career, who in the midst of devastating loss or unimaginable grief will break down in tears in my office only to apologize to ME.

Some how, we came to the understanding that it is un-becoming of a Christian to show any kind of sadness or mourning.

This teaching flies right in the face of that, doesn’t it?

Blessed are you who are weeping, because you’re on the right track!

Blessed are you who look at the news each night and shed a tear.

Blessed are you who know what loss and grief on an unimaginable level look like.

Blessed are you who are empathetic enough to feel that grief for your brothers and sisters in Christ who are grieving, even when you are not.

Sure, laughter is coming because nothing lasts forever.

But that doesn’t mean you have to run away from weeping.

Hated

When I was in college, a traveling band of evangelists came to campus.

They had banners that were easily 10 feet tall, and belts to hold not only the banner, but a full size study bible holster on the side.

And they were loud and disruptive and had actually caused me to loose some traction with some folks that I was speaking to about the faith.

So after class, I got up the nerve to go up to one of the women and say “Hey, I think this is pretty dumb”

To which she responded by quoting this verse:

Jesus says that people are going to hate us…so I guess I’m allowed to be a jerk then, eh?

That’s not exactly what this passage is getting at, is it?

This is saying that if you pay close attention, even just to what we’ve covered so far this morning, if you’re on the way of Jesus, it’s going to sound actually insane to some of the rest of the world, isn’t it?

Blessed are the poor?

Blessed are the hungry?

You want to be weeping? What are you, nuts?

And never mind teachings like greater love has no one than to lay down their lives for their friends.

Living in to this way will in fact naturally put you at odds with the dominant culture Jesus says.

Leave it there?

I am confident that somewhere out there, since this text is in the lectionary for this week, some preacher is wrapping up their sermon right here.

Because what comes next is squishy and difficult and we don’t want to talk about it.

How Terrible Defined

This word needs some definition to it as well.

How terrible as it is translated here is the word woe.

Let woe to you who are rich.

But what’s critical to understand here is that it is not the same thing as curse.

Curse is permanent, whereas woe is temporal.

Woe carries with it more of a sense of warning, of a “hey, there’s still time to turn this around, isn’t there?”

Woes and Warnings:

Rich

First thing’s first, there is no getting around this simple fact: You and I are rich.

I don’t care what kind of car you drive, how big your house is, or how empty your bank account.

One person I heard teach on this said that globally, if you have water that comes out of a tap, you are wealthy.

We are the rich Jesus is talking about here.

And he tells us to watch out because we’ve already recieved your comfort.

Imagine a culture that relies more on its economy than on its God.

Imagine a culture that relies on its work ethic than on God’s grace.

Imagine a culture that distracts itself with entertainment options in the thousands because otherwise things would be boring.

We don’t need to rely on God when we live in a culture like that.

We’ve already recieved our comfort.

Plenty

Remember when I said that there was enough food in the world to feed everyone, and in spite of that millions go to bed hungry?

I read that every year Americans spend $33 billion dollars on weight loss programs and products.

AND I read that to eliminate world hunger would cost somewhere around $45 billion per year for just 6 years.

I wonder if those are two related thoughts...

Let’s be honest: Most of us have never had to worry about where our next meal will come from.

Heck, I’m nearly on a first name basis with the Chipotle Delivery Driver, they bring the food right to me!

What if we’ve learned to rely on our own strength and the strength of Door Dash rather than our God?

Laughter

This is a hard one for chuckles the youth pastor:

But when we laugh, we know that mourning is coming.

And again, I don’t think this is Jesus saying don’t laugh. I actually think that Jesus was a pretty funny guy!

But it is to say that we need to be careful here.

We need to not be the camp counselor Christians that try to use toxic positivity to keep everyone happy all the time.

We need to recognize that there’s a time for laugher, and there’s a time for weeping.

Mr. Popular

And we have to be careful when everyone always speaks well of us.

You know the type, right? Who amend who they are and what they believe in just to make sure as many people are happy with them as possible? You know…politicians!

But aren’t we all a bit political in how we present ourselves?

I mean, I am a world class people pleaser.

I hate when people are mad at me.

I never want to be the cause of conflict.

And Jesus is warning about what can happen when we cave on our Kingdom Values in order to make that happen.

Nothing Lasts Forever

To all of this, Jesus would say “Nothing lasts forever.”

To those of us who are rich, maybe we won’t always be.

To those of us who are full, maybe some day we’ll know real hunger.

To those who are poor now, they’ll know the satisfaction of relying on God.

To those who are weeping now, they’ll have a day when joy will find them.

But perhaps what is most important is to recognize what our station in this particular teaching has to say about our relationship with God.

Those who are blessed seem to be blessed because the distractions have been removed, and they find their way to focus on God entirely.

Those who are warned have allowed our distractions to become our God.

Apprentices

Take Warnings to Heart

Like I mention, I am sure there are pastors who ended their sermons about 3 verses earlier than I did.

We want to assume that these warnings that Jesus is passing out are about someone else.

We want to assume that we are on the right side of God’s blessing.

We don’t want to open ourselves up to that which is uncomfortable.

But we have to be unafraid to ask ourselves if we are the ones that Jesus is warning in this teaching.

We have to be unafraid to wonder if we are the rich who rely on our own wealth and strength more than God.

We have to be unafraid to wonder if we are those who are getting in the way of other’s having enough because of our over-indulgence.

We have to be unafraid to wonder if our joy comes at the expense of those who are mourning.

We have to be unafraid to wonder if we seek the approval of those around us more than God’s.

And we can be unafraid to wonder these things because of the grace of Jesus Christ.

None of this is about a guilt trip to make us feel bad about our station in life. That doesn’t get us anywhere.

This is about seeking forgiveness, finding grace, and experiencing growth in our walk with Christ.

Befriend those who are blessed

One truth in our world is that we are never far away from the blessed in Jesus message today.

There are poor folks living on the streets in Washington.

There are hungry folks in our neighborhood.

We all know someone who in the midst of a season of mourning.

We know what it’s like to be hated for our devotion to Christ.

What does it look like to befriend those who are blessed in this way?

What does it look like to let them be our teachers?

It’s an active question!

We can’t just wait around for those folks to come find us.

It’s up to us to put ourselves out there, to find ways to interact with the least of these, and to allow them to teach us what they know.

Put our trust where it belongs

I think the major message out of these blessings and woes is a question of where our trust lies.

Do we trust in our own wealth?

Do we trust even more in our ability to work and to earn that wealth?

Do we trust in our food supply for sustanance?

Do we trust in our own happiness?

Or...

Are we bold enough to trust God over our money?

Are we bold enough to trust Jesus Christ, the bread of life, over our abundance?

Are we bold enough to trust the Spirit of Joy in our midst?

The beautiful thing about trusting God is that we can always go a little bit deeper right?

If you sit here today and say, “yes, I have a super high level of trust in God!” that’s awesome!

But you know it could be higher right?

And if you’re sitting here today and you’re saying “Oh man, no. I don’t trust God as much as I could.”

Well, I have some good news for you.

Jesus is inviting you to trust God more.

The lack of trust is not your perminant state.

After all…nothing lasts forever.