Ferris Wheel

Transcribed from the sermon preached July 3, 2005

The Reverend Jim Di Egido

Scripture: Luke 6:17-26

Charles Page is a biblical scholar who lives and works in Israel. His specialty is the land of Israel and how it figures into biblical accounts. In fact, the land itself dominates his thinking about our scripture so that it would be impossible for him to read accounts such as the Exodus story of the Hebrew people being led into “a land flowing with milk and honey,” or Psalm 121, “I look to the hills, from where will my help come?” or this passage about Jesus’ great sermon, without seeing the story geographically or put another way, the story’s geography.

His teaching has alerted me to the fact that each of the gospel writers chose his geography for a reason. How clear this is with this particular story. By putting Jesus on a mountain, Matthew wanted us to think of Moses on Mount Sinai. As Moses gave the law to Israel from on high, so Jesus gave the gospel from on high too. By putting Jesus on a plain, Luke wanted us to see how accessible Jesus was—not above but among the people to whom he spoke.

According to Luke, Jesus had just spent all night on the mountain praying. Then he came down and stood on the flat part, surrounded by people from all over the place. Some of them were already sold on Jesus and others were still trying to figure him out, but they all wanted something from him.

There were a lot of sick people in the crowd, Luke says. There were a lot of people with crazy looks in their eyes and others who clearly had not eaten for a while. They had heard about Jesus’ power—about how all you had to do was get near him and the demons would fly right out of you. If you had a fever, he could make it go away, and if your leg did not work right he could fix it.

If you could just manage to get his attention, then there was no telling what might happen to you. Some even said he could help you set your business straight. There was a story going around that he hand walked up to a local fisherman, Simon Peter by name, who had nothing to show for a whole night’s work. When Jesus told him to toss his nets back in the water, he did it, and before he knew it he had more fish than he could fit in his boat. There was apparently nothing Jesus could not do. To make contact with him was the first century equivalent of winning the lottery, or at least that was the word that was going around.

It was why they were all there trying to touch him, which made it even more remarkable that he remained down there on the plain, where they could all get to him—patting him, pulling him, grabbing him, poking him. Anyone else would have hired some bodyguards, but Jesus did not seem to mind, or if he minded, he did not let that stop him from offering himself to all those people. Some of them were really hurting and some of them were just plain greedy, but he did not discriminate among them. He stood among them instead, preaching a silent sermon to them with his presence before he ever opened his mouth to say a word.

But then he did open his mouth, and what came out were the beatitudes—a series of blessings he pronounced on those who were there. The form of speech he used was a common one. Beatitudes are short, two-part affirmations that sum up common knowledge about the good life. “Blessed are they who have good 401(k) plans, for their old age shall be comfortable.” “Blessed are they who floss, for they shall keep their teeth.” That sort of thing.

So the form of what Jesus said was familiar to his hearers. He said, “Blessed are…” and they all got ready for some nuggets of wisdom. But the content of what he said rocked them back on their heels. “Blessed are…you who are poor?…who are hungry?…who weep now? Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they excluded you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man….?”

Hearing this was like drinking from a glass of what looked like lemonade and finding out that it was bug stray instead. It was a shocking substitution of bad things for good things, in which blessedness was equated with the very things people did their best to avoid—poverty, hunger, grief, hatred. In every case, Jesus made those equations even stronger by tacking a reversal of fortune onto them. “Blessed are you who are poor,” he said, “for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”

In Matthew’s gospel, there are nine of these beatitudes. In Luke’s gospel there are only four, plus four “woebeaitudes” that only Luke seemed to know about. These were mirror images of the beatitudes, in which woe was equated with things that people did their best to achieve—wealth, food, laughter, esteem. In the same way that Jesus made the bad things sound good, he made the good things sound bad. “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.”

Since we are used to hearing them by now, it is hard for us to get a sense of their original shock value. Perhaps if I said, “Blessed are you who suffer an illness, for you shall be made whole,” or “blessed are you whose prayers are not answered, for you shall see God face to face,” or “Woe to you with college degrees, for you have received your reward.”

As you may be able to tell from your reactions to these statements, the impact of the beatitudes has everything to do with who you are. If you happened to be one of the hungry people, then what Jesus is saying sounds like pretty good news. If you happen to be one of the well-fed people, then it sounds like pretty bad news. The words themselves do not change. They simply sound different depending on who happens to be hearing them.

I think it is fair to say that most of us hear them from the well-fed end of the spectrum. Not may of us walked here today, and if our stomachs are growling it is not because our cupboards are bare. Most of us are rich, by global standards. Many of us have worked hard in hopes that people would speak well of us, and when they do not, we take it as a sign that we still have more work to do.

What this means, I’m afraid, is that many of us hear the beatitudes and take the high dive into a deep tank of guilt. Not many of us sell all that we own and give it to the poor, I have noticed, but at least we feel bad about what we have. Or else we learn to ignore this passage by putting it into the same file with all the other good Christian advice that no one we know personally has ever followed.

The catch is that the beatitudes are not advice. There is nothing about them that remotely suggests Jesus was telling anyone what he thought they should do. When Jesus is giving advice, it is hard to miss. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” Now that was advice—love, do, bless, pray—one imperative after the other, with no distinction between rich or poor, hungry or well-fed. It is the same list for all of them, whether they happen to be weeping or bent over with laughter.

The beatitudes are not like that. In them Jesus does not tell anyone to do anything. Instead, he describes different kinds of people, hoping that his listeners will recognize themselves as one kind or another, and then he makes the same promise to all of them: that the way things are is not the way they will always be. The Ferris wheel will go around, so that those who are swaying at the top, with the wind in their hair and all the world’s lights at their feet, will have their turn at the bottom, while those who are down there right now, where all they can see are candy wrappers in the sawdust, will have their chance to touch the stars. It is not advice at all. It is not even judgment. It is simply the truth about the way things work, pronounced by someone who loves everyone on that wheel.

It is the blessing and woe language that trips us up on this passage. Whenever we hear words such as “blessing” and “woe” we think “reward” and “punishment.” The blessing things must be what he wants us to do and the woe things must be what he does not want us to do, only where does that leave you exactly? Finding some reason to sit down and sob in hopes you can move from one list to the other? Doing your best to ruin your own reputation so no one will speak well of you? Blessings and woes cannot be manipulated like that. God cannot be manipulated like that. The beatitudes do not tell us what to do. They tell us who we are, and more importantly, they tell us who Jesus is.

When he first said them out loud, everyone heard them in a different way, depending on who they were. Jesus never said who was who. He let them all sort themselves out, but after they had done that, there was no mistaking what Jesus was good for and what he was not.

Anyone who was there that day to win the lottery could go on home. Even if they managed to nab a little bit of his power, it would not help them get on top and stay on top. Jesus was not any good for that. In fact, people who are attracted to that were in for some woes, because they way things are is not the way they will always be, and no one gets to stay at the top of the Ferris wheel. What goes round comes round. That is not advice. It is not even judgment. It is God’s own truth. It is also pure blessedness for those on the bottom, who never really expected to get off the ground.

Although Luke does not say so, I believe it is also pure blessedness for those on top, because there are some vitally important things about human life on earth that you simply cannot see with your feet so far off the ground. To get a good look at them you have to come down, as Jesus did, from the mountain to the plain. Things may not look as pretty from down there. You may see some things that make you cry, but your grief may teach you more than your good fortune ever did.

Neither the going up nor the coming down is under our control, as far as I can tell but wherever we happen to be, the promise is the same. Blessed are you who loose your grip on the way things are, for God shall lead you in the way things shall be. Amen.