Epiphany 6C 2007
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12-2-
Luke 6:17-26
How about that game last week? Were you keeping score? Who won the point spread guess at your party Lon? Wasn’t me. I was going for the Bears.
It’s fun to keep score,
though. To guess and figure and know who
is ahead. We keep score of
ball-games, Miss
Some people keep scores for a living. Counting missile attacks, stock market numbers, earthquake statistics.
Others keep track of weather scores…student grades…giving percentages….
Then there are those other scores we keep. Fights with our spouse, insults from a co-worker, squabbles with a friend…
We keep track of who’s in and who’s out, what’s hot and what’s not, what’s right and what’s wrong.
We keep score of our mistakes. Or those of others.
We want to know who is blessed and who is “woed’.
Are you a shrub in the desert or a tree by the stream? Wicked or righteous?
Isn’t it nice to set everything up so black and white? In/Out, Christian/Pagan, Swedish/German….
But it doesn’t work that way, does
it…For just like each new generation of children in the
And we don’t see the rest of the world like we used to either…for we have, hopefully, learned to appreciate the spirituality and gifts of other religions.
And the whole in and out thing? Who knows? Most of us, all of us, are a mix of wicked and righteous, tree and shrub. Sometimes we believe thoroughly in the truth of the resurrection. But some days we wonder what sort of fairy tale this might be.
We often look at the Beatitudes as an either/or score keeping lesson.
Blessed are the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated. Woe to the rich, the full, the laughing, the popular.
Now, poor to the left, rich to the right…
But look deeper into the text…
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is surrounded by people who are seeking healing. He heals…he cures unclean spirits. He is surrounded by folks, who due to their mental or physical state are considered to be unclean.
And Jesus makes them whole, restoring them not just to health, but back into the community.
In the midst of this healing…non-discriminatory healing by the way….
Jesus looks at his disciples and
says “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the
And after this part from today’s reading he goes on to say “love your enemies, do good to those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”
Now, if you are keeping score...the rich, full and laughing are ahead because they are, well, rich, full and laughing. And the poor, hungry and weeping are loosing because they are, well, poor, hungry and weeping.
But Jesus score book turns it over. The poor, hungry and weeping at the blessed ones. The rich, full and laughing are loosing.
But then again, this type of scorekeeping only works in an attitude of scarcity. If there is only so much to go around, so much money, food, joy…then we have winners and looser. And the winners often win by taking advantage of the loosers.
But if the attitude is that of abundance…if there is more than enough to go around…the poor will get enough…the hungry will get food, the weeping will get comfort…
Because the rich don’t have to hold on so tightly to the riches. And the full can share there food without fear of going hungry, and the laughing can comfort the weeping….actually the hungry and weeping were also signs of protesting injustice. So the full and laughing can join with the hungry and weeping without fear.
If we keep score, we want to be the winners…the rich, the full, the laughing.
If we throw out the score card and trust in the abundance of God…the playing field is leveled. And we don’t have to worry about whether we are “winners” or “loosers”. We just want to make sure everyone is on the field!
This is healing. Not just the physical or the emotional…but the societal. The communal.
Jesus wants his disciples to understand that they are called to love shrubs and trees alike. To quit being so concerned that they have their own needs and wants attended to. And to trust in a God that brings relief to the shrubs in the desert and water to the trees by the stream.
Either/ or turns into both/and in the eyes of God. Followers of Jesus are free to become one community, breaking down the walls of social strata, honor and shame, rich and poor, Swedish and German.
The blessed share their blessing with the “woes”. The blessed give the gift of trust…of knowing who to depend on because all else is temporary. Of being the trees rooted by the stream…learning to have trust instead of anxiety, because they have less to lose and more to gain.
And the rich have a chance to be a blessing through their compassion and generosity. Through their trust that, as the offertory hymn says, “the Lord alone is all I need, true treasure of my soul.”
When Jesus healed those folks that followed him around, it had enormous social consequences. For the old categories of in and out no longer worked. Remember the guy in the graveyard who was possessed? Jesus sent the demons into a herd of pigs. And healed the guy.
That upset the towns folks so much they ran Jesus out of town. For what happened to their scapegoat? Who could they blame now for what goes wrong? How will they know who is winning if the loser gets extra points?
Now not even death is a winner…and we are the losers. Not if the Christ has truly been raised from the dead.
The same God who gives Jeremiah the strength to preach to people who aren’t listening, who sends relief to the shrubs who don’t look…the God who sent Jesus to heal the sick and make the outcast insiders…
This God even turns the score on death.
If death looses, what do we have to fear? If we can tear up our personal scorecards, throw out our societal tallies, and trust in the abundance of God…what will life look like?
If we can continue to break down the barriers of class and gender and ethnicity…the Lutheran church will not only survive…but thrive.
For there is enough for all. With plenty of leftovers.
Bears? Colts? Who cares. It was good party…
Black? White? Doesn’t matter. We are colorblind here.
Rich? Poor? We’ll learn from each other.
Swedish? German? Hey! We also have Indian, Native American, Chinese…and always, always room for one or two or three more!