A sermon preached on 13th February 2022, 3rd before Lent; Jeremiah 17:5-10, 1 Corinthians 15:12-20 and Luke 6:17-26
Ahead of Valentine’s Day, Good Housekeeping published 72 supposedly “swoon-worthy love quotes”; “the perfect message for your Valentine”. Inspiration is taken from Barak Obama and Leo Tolstoy, Maya Angelou and Jane Austen, from Shakespeare, Madonna, the Song of Songs, and Mother Theresa.
Who knows if the compiler of these “swoon-worthy” quotes, printed against red-bubble-hearts, would have given thought to the religious hinterland to some of those lines.
But we know, love can bring blessing and woe: yes, love is full of hope and bravery; tenderness and consolation; but, its risky and a life-long labour; there are too many broken hearts in the world, as Jason Donovan sang in 1980-something.
No complier of valentine’s day quotes would turn to Jeremiah, though perhaps his words about the human heart are recognisable too.
First, who can even begin to understand the human heart?
Second, we know the ways our hearts can turn away from loving - loving God, self and neighbour.
Finally, we trust that hearts can be turned outwards in love - that God will search us out, know us and see the fruit of all our doings.
When Jesus came to stand with the crowd on the ‘level place’, he opens up our hearts by speaking a litany of blessings and woes: they’re not words of advice per se; they’re not offering judgement even; but they do weigh our hearts by exploring the truth of how life works.
It’s easy to slip into guilt or romanticism about these words; but I wonder if we can step into this radical topsy-turvy kingdom today. Unlike Matthew, Luke doesn’t soften these sayings by saying hunger for righteousness, rather than hunger; or poor in spirit, rather than poor.
He’s amplifying where God’s heart is in places of need or sorrow, and saying something about the transience of our wealth and privilege. He reminds us that our common human dignity reaches across comfort and discomfort; it doesn’t sanitise hunger and poverty, for moments before this passage Jesus is revealing the abundance of God’s care in healing and compassion.
As we hear them sayings of blessing and woe, as we learn them, say them or enact them, we might have our hearts searched, turned or changed too.
The American monk, Brendan Freeman, says this: “[The Beatitudes] draw our hearts out of themselves into a new way of understanding our lives…they are deliberately incomplete. They await the inclusion of our lives. Each person fills in the blank spaces with the details of his or her own life situation.”
Blessings and woes are part of the fabric of human life: it is where we all live - in our homes, work places, schools and communities. The line between empty and full, tears and laughter is a thin one; we cross it because of one crisis or one act of kindness.
As Jack Monroe has highlighted in her work on food poverty: we all notice the increase in the cost of living but it effects those on low incomes most. When we invest in early interventions and support for children and families, they are more likely flourish at school and attain their potential.
Blessings and woes are woven into the life of the church. We are all members of Christ’s body - when one mourns, our hearts ache; when on is rejoicing we share in the overflow of their gladness.
When one member is wounded, we bleed too. As Lord Boateng reminded the Church of England’s General Synod that racial justice is all about Jesus. He said ‘love is not as soft as sentiment but as strong as strategy, we will wash your feet but sometimes we will hold your feet to the fire’.
If blessing and woe can happen to us all - and if we, as a Body, are hurt by the wounds of another member - perhaps Jesus’ words are not heard as condemnation but as invitation: an invitation to open our hearts in love.
Our calling is perhaps to acknowledge the tensions and to listen carefully to the other; to let go of our own self-sufficiency, and receive the gift of another. As the writer and preacher Barbara Brown Taylor puts it: ‘Much of the power of the Beatitudes depends on where you are sitting when you hear them. They sound different from on top than they do underneath.’
At different points in life, we might hear the challenge; at other points here the hope. The words are the same; they sound different.
Hearing these familiar words in The Message translation highlights that:
You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all.
God’s kingdom is there for the finding.
You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry.
Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal.
You’re blessed when the tears flow freely.
Joy comes with the morning.
But it’s trouble ahead if you think you have it made.
What you have is all you’ll ever get.
And it’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself.
Your self will not satisfy you for long.
And it’s trouble ahead if you think life’s all fun and games.
There’s suffering to be met, and you’re going to meet it.
Is it comfortable to hear the woes, not at all: it reminds us that all that we have is temporary, fragile. Is it easy to hear the blessings, not always: yet they reminds us of the hope of consolation and the possibility of change.
Are the beatitudes comfortable, no: but the do help us understand the human heart. Is this teaching costly, yes it is: but it is a way of turning our hearts to wards God, ourselves and our neighbour in love. Is there a risk of domesticating these words - always: and yet, as we take them to heart, God is with us searching us out and seeing the first fruits of all our doings.
Cutting across the woes and blessings is a word about the treatment of God’s prophets. Blessed when challenging those in power; in trouble when they flattered them. Blessed when speaking uncomfortable truths; in trouble when courting popular opinion.
Jesus walked that way himself: it cost him his life and breath and yet, death was not the final word. As Paul reminds us, our hope is in our risen Lord. He is the first fruit of God’s kingdom breaking in - in our blessings and woes, in comfort and in grief.
May we walk this way in love: our hearts open.
In the words of John O’Donohue:
May we live this day
Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.
© Julie Gittoes 2022
