Sunday, February 16th, 2025: "Gifts: The Gift of Hearing"
The First United Presbyterian Church
“Gifts: The Gift of Hearing”
Rev. Amy Morgan
February 16, 2025
Luke 6:17-26
[Jesus] came down with them and stood on a level place with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.
20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Humanity. 23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
24 “But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
25 “Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
“Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
Since 2013, one of the many things our nation has been divided over is which lives matter. After the acquittal of the murderer of Trayvon Martin, the Black Lives Matter movement was founded. A year later, in response to mounting criticisms of police officers, the Blue Lives Matter movement was formed. The hashtag All Lives Matter began to circulate, pushing back on the idea that particular groups deserved to have the worthiness of their lives recognized.
It's clear from the beginning to end of scripture that God cherishes all life. There is no divine judgment on which lives matter and which ones don’t. But there is a distinction concerning which lives are blessed and which ones, well, aren’t.
The prophet Jeremiah, in a scathing indictment of his own people, pronounces curses on those who trust in anything or anyone other than God. At this point in Israel’s history, that group includes just about everyone, but especially Israel’s leaders. The first 25 chapters of Jeremiah are filled with condemnation for Israel’s abandonment of its covenant relationship with YHWH. Jeremiah warns that bad, bad things are about to happen to all the people who’ve oppressed the poor and failed to care for orphans and widows and refused to show hospitality to strangers. These people have worshiped other gods and put their faith in their own wealth and power and self-righteousness. Their lives matter. But their lives are about to get terrible.
And they do. Babylon comes and destroys Jerusalem and carts them all off into slavery in a foreign land for 70 years. Jeremiah wasn’t kidding. These people were cursed.
But Jeremiah also says that those who do trust in God will be blessed. No matter what happens, what catastrophe comes, drought or war or famine, they will be nourished by God and persistently bear fruit.
And they do. Those who were left behind in Jerusalem during the Babylonian exile were those Babylon didn’t think were worth bothering with – mostly the poor, widows and orphans, strangers in their midst. The Babylonians assumed they wouldn’t be useful as slaves and would die off soon enough. To Babylon, their lives didn’t matter. But their lives did matter to God. They trusted in God, because they couldn’t trust in their own resources or in their own people. And their lives were, in a way, blessed.
This group of human beings treated as worthless by both their own people and the invading Babylonians were the remnant that occupied the city of Jerusalem for the next 70 years, and they were there to welcome back the exiles and help rebuild. Jeremiah wasn’t kidding. At least in comparison to those taken into exile, these people were blessed.
This tradition of blessing and cursing goes back well before the time of Jeremiah. The very first Psalm offers this distinction of who is blessed and who is cursed. “Blessed are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked … but [the wicked] are like chaff that the wind drives away.” The prophet Isaiah pronounced, “Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord, who carry out a plan but not mine…[but] blessed are all those who wait for God.”
In the Hebrew scriptures, the blessed lives are the ones who trust in God and follow God’s ways. The cursed lives are those who rely on themselves or other people or other gods and who follow the way of injustice. In the books of Israel’s history, in the wisdom of the Psalms and Proverbs, and in the prophets, this theme is repeated, again and again.
So when Jesus begins talking about blessings and curses, he is continuing a long tradition.
The blessings Jesus pronounces are not about following a righteous way or even trusting in God. But he says those are blessed who have no other option other than relying on God. People who don’t have the resources to be self-reliant, people who don’t have the energy to do for themselves, people who don’t have the will to make their way in the world, people who don’t have the influence to bend reality to their whim.
This would have sounded shocking to first-century Jews, who were taught that things like poverty and tragedy and illness were signs of God’s punishment for sin. Instead, Jesus says these people will laugh and eat their fill, will be rewarded and inherit a kingdom! This would have sounded bonkers to the people in this crowd!
And then, Jesus pronounces woe to those people who were well-off, those who first-century Jews would have looked up to as people who are clearly doing what God wants and being rewarded for it. He doesn’t say those who rely on themselves are cursed, but he does say that those who can rely on themselves are cursed. People who have enough money, nourishment, good humor, and affirmation are tempted to believe they don’t need God. And Jesus says they will be hungry, they will mourn and weep, they will get nothing, and they are no better than false prophets. This is a total reversal of their way of thinking.
And that’s why these massive crowds are being drawn to Jesus. Luke tells us that people came to hear him and be healed. Yes, they wanted the miracles, the relief from suffering and disease. But what has really made Jesus famous are the things he’s been teaching about the reign of God, about how the world is different from what they perceive, about God’s invitation to the way of wholeness. The crowds recognize this message from their scriptures, but it isn’t how their community is operating. So hearing this teaching is healing in and of itself. And throughout Jesus’s ministry so far, hearing and healing are intimately connected.
Unclean spirits take off at the sound of his voice. He verbally rebukes a fever, and he heals a leper with the words, “Be made clean.” He speaks forgiveness to a paralyzed person and then tells them to “stand up and walk.” In last week’s scripture, we heard that Jesus had to borrow Simon’s boat because crowds were “pressing in on him to hear the word of God.” People wanted to hear Jesus, because that’s where the healing really was.
Jesus healed individuals of their diseases and ailments. But what he really came to do was to heal the whole of humanity of our addiction to ourselves that turns us away from the love and grace of God. For those who can’t rely on themselves or trust others to care for them, this message is indeed healing. For those who enjoy the privilege of being self-reliant and well-off, this message is indeed a curse.
The rest of Jesus’s sermon on the plain teaches people how to live in ways that will ensure they end up poor, hungry, mournful, outcast and reviled. Loving your enemy, being merciful and non-judgmental, humble and repentant are not the steps to wealth and acclaim. But they are, Jesus says, the way to a blessed life.
As a nation, we are far from settling the question of which lives matter. More accurately, it seems like everyone has a reason to feel like their lives don’t matter. Policies restricting the rights of transgender persons signals to them that their lives don’t matter. A friend of mine shared his feeling that being white, male, heterosexual, cis-gendered was now the original American sin, making people in that category feel that their lives don’t matter. For years, people in rural America, “flyover country,” have felt like their lives don’t matter. As U.S. aid to foreign nations is rescinded, people living in the poorest parts of the world feel like their lives don’t matter. We listen to media that sympathizes with and reinforces our feeling of not mattering so that we can be convinced that this or that politician or party or company or cause understands us and believes that we do matter.
The way to healing is not through abolishing identity politics or starting a new empowerment movement. The way to healing is hearing. Hearing Jesus’s blessings and woes, hearing the history, wisdom, and prophecies of Israel, hearing about the reign of God, about how the world is different from what we perceive, about God’s invitation to the way of wholeness. Hearing is healing.
Each of our lives matters to God. But each of us has to discern when Jesus is addressing us in his blessings and woes. They are all addressed to “you.” When does that “you” mean “me”? Am I blessed, or…well, not?
It may not be one or the other. Jesus’s statements are provisional. Blessed are you who are hungry or mourning now, woe to you who are full and laughing now. Blessed are you when people hate and exclude you; Woe to you when people speak well of you. There are times when we are hungry and when we are full; when we weep and when we laugh; when people hate us and when people love us.
When we are living the way of Jesus, experiencing the reign of God, relying on God alone, hearing Jesus’s declaration of blessing is healing. When we are self-reliant and self-satisfied and self-assured, Jesus’s declaration of woe is hard to hear, but it can still be healing if it turns our hearts back to trust in God.
And when we, as a society, as beloved children all made in the image of God, hear Jesus’s teaching, we can be healed. When we recognize the curse of wealth inequality, of hoarding resources, of privilege and false prophets and appreciate the blessedness of those among us who are poor, hungry, mourning, and persecuted, the whole of humanity can be healed of our addiction to ourselves that turns us away from the love and grace of God. When we hear and are healed, we can more than matter. We can be blessed.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
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