Sixth Sunday after Epiphany; 13 February 2022; Epiphany 6C (RCL); Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26.
We are used to hearing the Beatitudes in Matthew’s version, and Luke’s version is a little shocking. Matthew’s Jesus addresses the Beatitudes to a third-person, plural group — blessed are those people. Luke’s Jesus addresses his to a second-person, plural audience — blessed are you all. Matthew’s Jesus spiritualizes the Beatitudes — blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Luke’s Jesus speaks directly to real situations — blessed are you poor; blessed are you hungry.
Most shockingly, Luke’s Jesus adds some curses at the end (we translate, “Woe to you rich” — a better translation would be “Cursed are you rich”). What is Luke doing. The Old Testament reading and Psalm give us a clue. The Two Ways was a standard trope of ethical instruction in the ancient world. Moses, in Deuteronomy, sets before the people life and blessing, or death and curses, and then says, “Choose life.” The Didache actually uses the language of two roads or ways.
Blessing and curse set before the audience a choice, and typically a choice of ethical conduct. The Psalm is a great example. The cursed walk in the counsel of the wicked, and linger in the way of sinners, and sit in the seat of the scornful, while the blessed delight in the law of the Lord. The choice is clear. And the blessed will be like trees planted by streams of water, while the wicked will be like chaff blown by the wind. Jeremiah uses very similar imagery.
The righteous are characterized by stability, while the wicked by transience. Luke uses the device of the two ways, but to an unexpected purpose. One would not expect the poor or the hungry or the mourning to be held up as examples of stability, while the rich, the full, and the rejoicing held up as examples of instability. This turns social expectations on their head.
The word we are translating “blessed” in Luke actually means something like “How honorable!” We, who are poor, who are hungry, who mourn, are to be held up for honor. Which raises the question, in what kind of community or social formation would such be honored. That is exactly Luke’s point. Every ethic is by definition a community ethic, a way of being together in community. The community being constructed in the Sermon on the Plain is an upside down community, in which the poor, the hungry, and the mourning are honored.
If these are the righteous, who remain stable while the rich, the full, and the rejoicing are blow away like chaff, the community imagined is not the one we are used to. I suppose though, when you think of it, when calamity strikes, the poor, the hungry, and the mourning are used to the situation. This provides a way of living (an ethic) for living in ethically troublous times. While the decadent are eating each other and their young, those on the fringes know how to get by. We are being encouraged to form a community that sticks together in difficult times, holding each other up, rather than looking to the rich, the full, and the rejoicing for help. It’s a perfect use of the two ways.