Luke 6:17-26 we have a summary statement in verses 17-19 that prepares the way for the Sermon on the Plain in verses 20-49, of which we will consider verses 20-26 today.
Luke 6:17-19 is a summary statement of the crowds following Jesus. Luke stresses the importance of hearing as over against the mighty works of Jesus. Luke's setting is both personal and poignant.
Before Luke begins his presentation of Jesus' lengthy "Sermon on the Plain" (6:20‑49), he sets the scene. Unlike Matthew's version, in Luke a large and varied crowd of listeners has gathered to seek healing from Jesus' hands and to hear truth from Jesus' preaching. Three types of individuals make up this multitude. 17 He came down with them and stood on a level place, standing amid this needy crowd. with a great crowd of his disciples, including 1) the twelve and 2) a larger group who identified themselves as committed to the way of Jesus and to be his witnesses,and 3) a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. This third group had not yet committed themselves to the way of Jesus. Luke also places importance upon the needs of the crowd. 18 They had come to hear him. They were as hungry for the word as they were for the works of Jesus. They had come to receive physical healing of their diseases from Jesus. Further, Jesus cured those whom unclean spirits troubled. Jesus offered what we might call a form of spiritual and emotional healing as well. 19 And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.
Luke 6:20-26 is part of a segment that extends to verse 49. It is the version of Luke of the sermon on the plain.
Its source is Q and material unique to Luke. In fact, the sermon constitutes what scholars call the “little interpolation” in the material Matthew and Luke had in Mark. They have reworked the sermon in their unique ways. Matthew has incorporated material from other settings and group them topically in his presentation of the Sermon on the Mount. Luke has omitted some of the sayings in Matthew. Matthew has a tightly structured sermon, while the presentation in Luke has a loose construction.
Jesus preached a significant sermon early in his Galilean ministry. One might call it his inaugural sermon. The sermon on the plain becomes a sample of the preaching of Jesus. Luke has stressed that the people came to listen. Now he shows Jesus' response and his giving a challenge to them. Although surrounded by a crowd, 20 Then Jesuslooked up at his disciples and said. He addressed the sermon to his disciples. By using his eyes to hold his disciples' attention, he lets his closest companions know that these words are of particular importance for them. Before Luke begins the recitation of blessings and woes, he masterfully intertwines this public discourse with a private lesson specifically for Jesus' chosen disciples.
How do we live in a world gone so wrong? It may surprise us, but Jesus has offered to those who seek to follow him some sayings on which to ponder.
People often praise the beatitudes. It seems as if people rarely read them. We can easily praise them, but our words are empty when they fail to consistently to translate into action.[1] Martin Marty commented on the difficulty of preaching or teaching on this part of scripture. It would be easier to preach ten sermons than to live just one sermon. Such a statement is true in spades when considering the text before us.
The temptation not to preach on the Beatitudes must be strong. People have stitched them on so many samplers, engraved on so many walls, used and misused so much by those who rip them out of context. Yet, there is nothing but freshness in them, and we will hear them if we let the lines of the Sermon speak. Von Balthasar used a phrase out of Nietzsche to describe this: "Jesus did not `think what the day thought.'" Those who think today’s conventional, expectable thought see it fade and disappear with the day. These Beatitudes are fresh, radical, and thus capable of unsettling and healing anyone in range.[2]
Jesus describes the life blessed by God with the rewards of that life. One should imagine a discussion between Jesus and his students organized around a problem they are pondering. The rabbi in that day would crystallize his teaching with a short and memorable saying. The beatitudes here are the result of that process. They are profound statements. Yet, they would make little sense without some of the background just suggested.
The church, at its best, keeps directing us to what is important and relevant in a human life, even when it goes against the way the culture defines relevance. These beatitudes are inviting us to reflect upon what “success” means to God. Jesus wants to clarify for the disciples and for the people what it means to follow him. These sayings of Jesus are wisdom sayings. Their design is to bring us to a place of insight concerning what Jesus thinks genuine happiness might be. Thus, if we approach them as a set of rules, we will miss the point. Rather, if we spend some prayerful time using it as a mantra or brief prayer, letting its truth sink into our hearts, we will be far closer to what Jesus wanted. What is your calling? What should you do with your life? What really matters? Here is the challenge for us today. Your happiness may not be where you think it is. If we listen carefully, Jesus will turn our sense of happiness upside down.
The Beatitudes receive this name due to the Latin adjective beatus (“fortunate”) that stands at the beginning of verses 3-11 in the Vulgate. The word in Greek is makarioV, and one best translates it as “happy” or “blissful” to distinguish it from euloghtoV (“blessed”), which does not occur in the Beatitudes. Beatitudes (i.e., any statements that begin “Happy is the one who ...”) are thus distinct from blessings; beatitudes acknowledge praise due to an individual for some deed or quality, while blessings (“Blessed be the one who ...”) are petitions that God bless the one who possesses a particular characteristic or performs certain acts.
"Blessed" is a formula of congratulations in relation to piety, wisdom, and prosperity. The word has an association with the joy and peace associated with a relationship with divinity. These are not statements, but punctuation. How Blest, How wonderful. There is an emotional quality of blessedness and joy.
There are other beatitudes in 11:6, 13:16, 24:46, Luke 11:27-28, Revelation 1:3; James 1:12; Romans 14:22; and John 20:29.
Barth says that the statements are synthetic rather than analytical. They do not refer to human endowments or virtue. They are the proclamation in human words of a divine judgment. They stand opposite to current ideas of happiness and good fortune. He is giving them added information about themselves. For Barth, not surprisingly, the presence of Jesus makes these persons blessed.[3]
Barth, in a discussion of Jesus as the royal man, says Jesus ignored, to the point of prejudice, the high, mighty, and wealthy in favor of the weak, meek, and lowly. He ignored the righteous for the sinners. He ignored Israel for the Gentiles. God is poor in this world, and the royal man Jesus is poor. He fulfills this transvaluation of all values, acknowledging those who are in diverse ways poor people as this world counts poverty.[4]
The beauty of the beatitudes is that all to whom they apply will have a share in the coming salvation, regardless of whether they ever heard of Jesus in this life. The reason is that they factually have a share in Jesus and his message, as the Day of Judgment will make obvious.[5] Congratulating the poor without qualification is unexpected, even paradoxical, since one reserves such congratulation for those who enjoy prosperity, happiness, or power. The congratulations to the weeping and the hungry are expressed vivid and exaggerated language, which announces a dramatic transformation.
The poor, the sick, and the possessed ‑‑ those who stood listening ‑‑ could easily identify with the physical nature of Jesus' blessings.
We do not look as good nor do have everything in order as we present ourselves to others. Pain brings us to our search for happiness, meaning, and joy. Our inner aches and pains tip us off that something is wrong, either within us or in our world. We come to Jesus and to those who follow him today in hopes of finding some satisfaction. One author gave the following assessment of happiness. Happy people are at ease only because the unhappy ones bear their burdens in silence. If there were not this silence, happiness would be impossible. It is a general hypnosis. Behind the door of contented, happy people, there ought to be someone standing with a little hammer continually reminding them with a knock that there are unhappy people. However happy they may be, life will eventually show their flaws and trouble will come to them. However, there is no one with a hammer. Happy people live at ease, faintly fluttered by small daily cares, and all is well. However, if life has a meaning and purpose, it is not our happiness but something greater and grander. Is the role of the preacher to be "the person with the little hammer"?[6]
Jesus will invite us to consider that genuine happiness arises when we listen to the persistent voice inviting us to move from where we find it comfortable, where we want to stay and where we feel at home. The voice invites us to consider a form of voluntary displacement that recognizes our inner brokenness that brings us into solidarity with the brokenness of our fellow human beings.[7] Jesus bids his followers to extend their hands over the gulf between those who have and those who do not have. They do so in recognition that while the eternal happiness with God is their destiny, they focus their attention upon the needs of this time and this place.
20b“Blessed are you who are poor (πτωχοί), for yours is the kingdom of God. Jesus pronounces a beatitude promised to God's poor, oppressed people, with the need for them to show love and mercy. Those blessed are those who outwardly whom we should pity. God’s future action will meet their present need. Jesus' blessings are a proclamation of the way the world is in the Kingdom of God. Note that there are no imperatives here, no exhortations to do better. The poor refers to those who are "so poor as to have to be," that is, those who are completely destitute. Jesus does not find any blessing in being poor; he does find that God's promise makes the poor blessed.
Thus, (in common with Luke) the poor (this part added by Matthew) in spirit receive the kingdom of heaven. Matthew may shift the meaning from the poor economically to a quality of the inner life. Matthew has correctly interpreted what Jesus meant here. This poverty, true and saving despair, is the gift of the Holy Spirit and the work of Jesus Christ. In this, it resembles faith, of which it is a part. It is to know our sin and divine compassion, forgiving us our sins. For him, it suggests despair about ourselves and the possibilities of existence. [8] The notion of the poor in spirit focuses upon inner life. It has in mind inner resources. It is close to the ethical attitude of humility. It contrasts lack of sufficiency for life verses self-sufficiency. It suggests the poverty of human resources. It has some similarities with the Old Testament. The Lord will look upon those who are humble and contrite in spirit (Isaiah 66:2b). The Lord hears the oppressed and needy (Psalm 69:32-3). God is forever kind and full of pity (Psalm of Solomon 10:7). In the Old Testament, the poor recognize their state of poverty before God. "Poor" people do not have to do something first.
Prosperity is so often a sweet poison. Pain is often a bitter medicine.[9]
As Jesus speaks, the future kingdom comes. God's authority is behind him. One must hear in the beatitudes one's own lack. Although the economically poor are in view, Matthew’s version of the beatitude makes it clear that it refers to the poverty of people before God. In the history of influence, many of the ancients viewed this as a spiritual poverty, humility. The humble are promised the kingdom. In doing so, the salvation that Jesus mediates consists of fellowship with God and the related life, which also embraces a renewal of fellowship with others. To have part in the rule of God is of the very essence of salvation.[10]
It may be that Luke preferred this less “spiritualized” version of the beatitudes precisely because it fit so well with his own theological concerns. From his account of Mary’s pregnancy all the way through the end of Acts, Luke has a special interest in what we would call matters of social justice. As is clear in Mary’s prayer in response to Elizabeth’s pronouncement of blessing on her (see Luke 1:39-55), the work and ministry of Jesus is about provision for those who are hungry and the demonstration of God’s mercy for those who are “lowly” even as it is also judgment for the “proud,” the “powerful” and the “rich.” It is precisely this same pairing of blessing for some and judgment for others that is found here in the opening of Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain.”
21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. The second beatitude has an intimate relation to the first. For where there is poverty there is surely hunger. Again, Luke's text emphasizes a bodily condition, not a spiritual malaise. The particle "nun" (now) focuses this beatitude because while hunger did not describe a social status like poverty, for many, hunger was a constant in their lives. Jesus' blessing promises that this unwanted companion God will banish and instead God will at last fill the hungry. Their hunger is for "now," but God will give complete and unwavering satisfaction. True spirituality, then, focuses our attention upon “now” rather than escaping our “now” for another world.[11]
In pronouncing this blessing, Jesus demonstrates two aspects of his messianic authority. He reveals that the rule of God is near. He proclaims his authority to declare this kingdom of God as the special possession of the poor. Upon those who have nothing in this world, Jesus bestows the whole of the kingdom. A life without political power or material prosperity was neither inevitably defeated nor depressed, but instead somehow blessed. The Cynic epistle, in a similar vein, says: "Practice needing little, for this is nearest to God, while the opposite is farthest away." The rule of God is this ability, this wisdom, to incorporate adversity into the enjoyment of contentment.
In Matthew, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will receive satisfaction. They have not attained righteousness. It suggests continual hungering and thirsting, the longing of the pious. What they lack, the long for what only God can give. The “righteousness” to which Jesus refers receives a description in Matthew 5:20-48. The Old Testament knows of hungering and thirsting for God's word, mercy, and presence. The people will experience famine of the word of the Lord (Amos8:11). The Lord will provide a rich feast (Isaiah 25:6). Those who thirst are to come to the waters and those without money are to buy and eat that which will satisfy (Isaiah 55:1-2, 7). They shall not hunger or thirst for the Lord will guide them by springs of water (Isaiah 49:10). His tears have been his food day and night (Psalm 42:3). Some wandered in the desert, hungry and thirsty, but they cried to the Lord the Lord and the Lord satisfied the thirsty and hungry (Psalm 107:4-9).
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. The third beatitude Jesus proclaims upon those who "weep now" (again the "nun" particle focuses the time and place). The Lucan term for weeping expresses general sorrow, not some specialized mourning over the ways of the world. This weeping accompanies everyday life and its losses. Luke contrasts this weeping with ordinary laughter in his elevated declaration that those with tears will comfort ("paraklethesontai"). Those who mourn receive comfort. Mourning here is over one’s own sin as well as the sins of others. It suggests mourning over the state of the world. God will replace the mourning of this age with the comfort of the next age. It suggests strengthening and consoling. We also need to note the prophetic promise is the year of the favor of the Lord will bring comfort those who mourn and gladness instead of mourning (Isaiah 61:2-3).
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 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. What kind of reception can Jesus' followers expect? What would happen if the answer were to have others hate, exclude, revile, and attack you? Being "defamed" ("casting out your name as evil") refers to an official excommunication from the synagogue ‑‑ an attack leveled by one's entire community. Jesus' surprising revelation to his disciples is that this experience of rejection is in fact a sign of blessing. Pannenberg reminds us that the reference to the Son of Man here may not be “authentic,” but the general New Testament reference to Jesus as the Son has its basis in the way Jesus referred to God as his Father.[12]
Some scholars have suggested that the pointedness of the "woes" in Luke's beatitudes section indicates that many of these listeners may have been actively hostile toward Jesus and his message.
24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. The "woe" declared upon those who are rich in this world stipulates that these rich ones have nothing to look forward to at all. Having "received their consolation," that is, they have all their receipts, they have no future claims whatsoever.
True, we make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.[13] Yes, prosperity is often a sweet poison. Pain can be a bitter medicine.[14]
25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. The particle “nun” also focuses the “woe” that parallels this “hunger” blessing (v.25). The fullness enjoyed by those sated now is as temporary as it can be. A hungry future awaits them. The underlying reference in both this blessing and woe is to the messianic banquet. The rule of God was often described as a feast with humanity in fellowship at the table with God (see Luke 13:28f; 22:16, 30; and 15:20‑ 24).
“Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. The parallel "woe" text of 21b declares those now laughing have a messianic future of mourning and weeping ahead of them. The laughter derided by this woe is a smug self‑satisfied laughter that is indifferent to the plight of others. It may even suggest a kind of idolatry of pleasure‑seeking that refuses to consider what the cost may be to others. Luke's final blessing/woe proclamation switches to the second person.
In Luke 6: 24-25, we find an element of compensation for the suffering and deficiencies of the present world, which is part of the eschatological transformation that will take place. Those compensated now and find satisfaction in what they receive now, and therefore no longer yearn for the coming salvation of God, will be those whom God shuts out of the participation in salvation.[15]
Helen Keller, the blind and deaf mute who triumphed over her disabilities, wisely pointed out, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” It is like the remark of the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson: “It is the wounded oyster that mends its shell with pearl.” Jesus is reminding us of the challenge in leading a human life out of lits challenges can come a new person with renewed vision and purpose.
26 “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets. Jesus directs the linked declarations in verses 22 and 26 to those who have at least established themselves in some sort of relationship with Jesus. The "woe" that Jesus warns the disciples to stay away from is the experience of acceptance, the disaster of having "all speak well of you." Jesus contrasts the historic treatment of genuine and false prophets to demonstrate his disciples' own acceptance or rejection by their communities. The false prophets, those crowd‑pleasers who used smooth words to hide evil intentions, stand as a warning to all who may be tempted to accommodate the gospel message to make it more acceptable to everyone. Followers of Jesus need to reconcile themselves to adversity. In fact, we need to consider that when the culture or the tribe to which we belong smiles upon us, we need to have some caution.[16]
Luke is insisting that the grand eschatological reversal expected at the end of the age has already begun (cf. Luke 4:16-21, especially v. 21), and Luke explicitly emphasizes that the reversal is complete. Not merely are those who are “hungry” going to be “filled” and those who “weep” begin to “laugh” (6:21), but those who are “full now” will become “hungry” and those who “laugh now” will “mourn and weep” (6:25). Through Jesus’ ministry, God is acting for some and against others.
[1] Archbishop Desmond Tuto.
[2] Martin Marty, Emphasis Ja-Fe 1996
[3] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.3] 188)
[4] Barth CD, IV.2 [64.3] 168-9.
[5] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 615.
[6] Anton Chekhov, "Gooseberries."
[7] Henri Nouwen, Compassion.
[8] Barth (Church Dogmatics, I.2 [16.2] 265)
[9] John Wesley.
[10] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Vol II, 398)
[11] Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, inspired this thought.
[12] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 364
[13] Winston Churchill
[14] John Wesley.
[15] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 3 p. 639.
[16] John Wesley.
I have always missed the type of crowd. Could this be a Sunday morning crowd? Pondering the beatitudes day by day is a good point. Lynn Eastman
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