Sixth Sunday of Epiphany

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!” +In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
 
One of my favorite episodes of that 1990’s sitcom Seinfeld! is the one entitled “Opposite Day.” It’s the episode where Jerry Seinfeld’s friend, George Costanza, is so fed up with the way his life is going that he decides one day that he is going to do the opposite of what his natural impulses tell him to do in any given situation. George tells Jerry and Elaine, “all of my decisions have been wrong, so, why not try doing the opposite?” George starts by ordering a different kind of meal than what he usually orders at the diner. Things then get interesting when Elaine points out to George that an attractive woman nearby has been looking at him. At first, George says, “So what? I’m unemployed and I live with my parents! Who would be interested in me?” Then he remembers that his own instincts have always been wrong.  George decides again to do the opposite: he goes up to the women and introduces himself to her, says, “Hi, I’m George, I’m unemployed and I live with my parents!” And hilariously, the woman responds, “I’m Victoria. Hi!”

Reading today’s lesson from St. Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that the secret to living the good life is the opposite of what the world tells you is the good life. The world says that the good life is found in wealth, happiness, and success. Jesus tells us that the good life is found in knowing God, not in wealth, happiness or success.

Today’s Gospel begins with Jesus continuing His public ministry. And as we observed last week, Jesus’ ministry is getting a lot of attention. People come from Judea, Jerusalem and from Tyre and Sidon to hear Jesus teach and be healed of their diseases. And Luke tells us that Jesus healed them all. Then Jesus begins to teach.

It’s important to note that Luke tells us that Jesus came down from the mountain and “stood on a level place.” This is reminiscent of what we see in Exodus. In Exodus, Moses goes up Mt. Sinai to talk to God and then come down and talk to the people of Israel. This is what happens when God gives the Ten Commandments. He first gives them to Moses, who then goes back down to the foot of the mountain to share them with the people.

But this morning, we see Jesus coming down from the mountain to speak to the people. He does not give them the Ten Commandments, but rather His own updated version called the Beatitudes. What is significant here is that the Ten Commandments were God’s rules for living a righteous life and thus living as a member of God’s covenant community, the people of Israel. The Beatitudes, on the other hand, are Jesus’ description of what the benefits of life in the Kingdom of God include. Principally, this means that those who are Jesus’ followers will be the beneficiaries of the “Great Reversal” that Jesus is bringing about in the world: the first are last, the last first, the proud are being brought low and the humble are being raised up. In this new world, the poor and the outcast are the ones who enjoy the special attention of the Lord and are given a special place in His heart.

For the past few weeks, we in Adult Sunday School have been reading and discussing The Didache, an ancient Christian document that was written shortly after the completion of the New Testament. And what we find in The Didache is the contrast between two ways: The Way of Life and the Way of Death. This notion did not originate in The Didache. It comes to us from Jesus Himself and we hear it in His teaching in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus’ Beatitudes—blessed are you who are poor, blessed are you who hunger now, blessed are you who weep now, blessed are you who are hated and excluded and reviled. This is the Way of Life. St. Ambrose says that one who is poor is not greedy, one who weeps is not proud but submissive and tranquil. One who mourns is humble. One who endures persecution has gentleness.

In other words, what Jesus is teaching us is that those things that we would rather avoid in this life, being poor, experiencing hunger, mourning, experiencing persecution, all these things can and will bring us closer to God and grow in us His life and love, if we will simply turn to Him for help in all these things.

Conversely, the Way of Death is to think oneself rich, to be full of the things of this life, to laugh, and to be spoken well of by others. Why would this be so? It sounds so counterintuitive to us. But how often have we seen in our lives or in the lives of others that complacency that sets in when everything is going well—I’ve got lots of money, lots of friends, and everything seems to be going my way—that we forget about God? We forget about Him and we allow ourselves to think that our blessings are the result of our own hard work and smarts, and that we really don’t need God very much at all. It is a terrible temptation.

Last year I had the privilege of listening to Fr. Jerry Kramer talk about the great spiritual awakening that is taking place in the Middle East, in places like Kurdistan and Iran, where the Church is growing by leaps and bounds. One thing that Fr. Kramer told us that really stuck with me was that the Christians there do not pray for an end to the fierce persecution that they experience every day, because if it did, it would mean that they would not experience the power and presence of God that they do now. They understand that as long as the persecution continues, that God’s power and presence will continue to be among them, to help transform the lives and win many souls to Christ.

The big message that Jesus is trying to give us here is that the Prosperity Gospel preachers have it backwards. Becoming a follower of Jesus Christ is not the ticket to health and wealth. Indeed, becoming a Christian is the means to the Good Life, but health and wealth is not the Good Life. The Good Life is fundamentally to be found in union with God and His Son Jesus Christ and becoming more like Him. There is great joy and fulfillment to be found as we each seek to pursue God with all our hearts, souls, and minds. But it will lead to trouble. Conversely, if we seek a trouble-free life, such a desire will lead us away from God and it will not give us the fulfillment or joy that God promises.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit