An Unromantic View
Commentary
Valentine’s Day isn’t likely a prominent part of our liturgical calendar, and it doesn’t factor into our lectionary assignments. Yet it is part of our culture and therefore on our people’s radar. There’s a better chance that they personally observe Valentine’s Day, after all, than Transfiguration Sunday or Christ the King Sunday.
With Valentine's Day still so prominent in their rear-view mirrors, therefore, it might be worth bringing to our people’s attention Jeremiah’s singularly unromantic observation about the human heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things,” Jeremiah laments, “desperately sick; who can understand it?” That doesn’t square with all of the cheerful heart-shaped candies and heart-themed greeting cards, but that discord may make the sobering word all the more necessary.
We live in a “follow your heart” culture, but Jeremiah would call that a dangerous policy. When we talk about being “heartsick,” we are thinking in terms of romance. But scripture knows that we suffer from a far more serious heart condition.
In the assigned passage from Jeremiah, we encounter a paradigm that is echoed across the pages of scripture. It’s a binary paradigm, in which there are two paths, two choices, and they lead to dramatically different (but predictable) results. Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Proverb all make this principle explicit. The Old Testament historians portray the truth being played out in the larger story of Israel’s history. For Jesus, it is the choice between the wide and narrow ways. For John it is light versus darkness. For Paul, it is spiritual versus carnal.
In our Old Testament lection, that either-or dichotomy is expressed in terms of “the man (who) makes flesh his strength,” on the one hand, and “the man who trusts in the Lord,” on the other. The difference between them is reminiscent of Psalm 1. The former man is portrayed in terms of a land that is dry and unproductive. The latter, by contrast, is portrayed in terms of lushness and fruitfulness. We know from the creation story that the latter more accurately symbolizes the design, the intent, and the perfect will of God. And in the predominantly agricultural world of the Bible, the imagery would have been potent and meaningful, indeed.
The key revelation about the former, undesirable character is that he is the person “whose heart turns away from the Lord.” That diagnosis, then, sets the stage for the general indictment that follows: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.” As we consider this Old Testament passage in concert with our two assigned New Testament texts, we discover not only the unhappy diagnosis of the human condition, but also the treatments and cure.
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Two different testaments, two different languages, and two quite different historical settings and contexts, yet I can't help but read a part of what the Lord said through Jeremiah without thinking of what Jesus said to his disciples and Gethsemane. As Peter, James, and John were so overcome by tiredness that they could not be good friends and companions to their Lord, Jesus remarked to them, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:51 ESV). Meanwhile, six centuries earlier, the Lord had said through Jeremiah, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength.”
It's a tragic business for a person to make their strength that which is weak. Imagine giving the greatest responsibility to the least reliable employee. Imagine calling a play for your poorest shooter for the final, decisive shot of a basketball game. Imagine choosing the thinnest branch of the tree on which to build your children's treehouse. So unhappy, vulnerable, and miserable is the man who makes his flesh (which Jesus says is weak) his strength!
Overall, the message of this selection from Jeremiah echoes the larger either-or theme that characterizes so much of scripture. Moses tells the people that they can choose life and blessing or death and curses. The writer of Proverbs portrays life as a series of choices between wisdom and folly, between self-discipline and self-indulgence, between righteousness and wickedness, and so on. The Apostle Paul juxtaposes the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit. A person can be like either the wise or the foolish builder. And Jesus urges his hearers to choose wisely between the broad road that leads to destruction and the narrow way that leads to life.
In the Jeremiah passage, that either-or choice is presented in the picturesque language of two different plans. The miserable shrub in the desert is what we do not wish to be like. The lush and fruitful tree planted by water, on the other hand, is the lovely option that is available to us. And what makes the difference between the two? Trust. The former puts his trust in flesh, while the latter puts his trust in the Lord.
This is immediately understandable to us in ordinary life. Our people needn’t think very spiritually to recognize that success and failure are so often tied to trust. Which person’s advice do you trust? Which investment do you trust? Which sales rep do you trust? Which product do you trust? The list of day-to-day examples goes on and on. When we put our trust in the wrong person or thing, it almost invariably leads to trouble for us. Conversely, when we put our trust in the right person or thing, we find it is a decision for which we are ever grateful.
And what is true in the ordinary business of life is even more profoundly true when it is a question of ultimate trust. Do we turn to, believe, and rely on the flesh and its representatives? Or do we turn to, believe, and rely on the Lord? The biblical narrative is filled with examples of both choices, and the results are predictable.
Perhaps a little reflection on our own life experiences – and a prompting for our people to do such reflecting – would bring the principles of Jeremiah 17 closer to home. When have we trusted in this or in that? When have we felt like a dry and scraggly shrub? When have we flourished like a fruitful tree? Perhaps we can prove from our own testimonies the truth that the Lord spoke through Jeremiah.
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
The Apostle Paul is writing to a Greek audience in his letter to the Corinthians, and as such he is probably communicating with people who may have had some exposure to training in logic. It makes sense, then, that he would reason with them in this way. He presents his audience with a series of conditional statements, arguing that “if” this, it is inevitable that “then” that.
The initial “if” is presented not as a conditional statement but as a question. If Christian is proclaimed as raised from the dead, then how is it that some people are saying there is no resurrection of the dead? Paul wants them to recognize that that makes no sense. If Christ was resurrected, then there must be a resurrection. Yet evidently there are some who are saying that there is no resurrection. And that triggers Paul’s string of conditional statements of logic.
First, the assertion of both verse 13 and verse 16 is that if, as some were saying, there is no resurrection, then Christ himself has not been raised. The two go together for Paul, you see. Either there is a resurrection or there is not; but you can’t claim that it is both yes and no, both true and false, at the same time. And so Paul takes the heretical assertion being made by some and carries it forward to its devastating logical conclusions.
So if the dead are not raised, then Christ was not raised; and if he was not raised, then all sorts of terrible implications follow. There is no purpose to the apostles’ preaching, and, worse, they are guilty of lying about God. Furthermore, the Corinthians’ faith amounts to nothing. Moreover, the freedom and salvation assured by the apostles’ preaching and laid claim to by the Corinthians’ faith turn out to be falsehoods. They are not saved and set free, after all, but are “still in your sins.”
Additionally, one of the terrible “then” conclusions pertains to those who have already died. You and I know how we cherish the prospect of resurrection for our deceased loved ones. But Paul is abrupt and perhaps ruthless in notifying the Corinthians that there is no hope for their loved ones who have passed on. It is a logical deduction from the premise; but it goes beyond logic, for this “then” is also a deeply emotional appeal.
Finally, Paul concludes with a terse and dramatic assertion: “If in Christ we have hope for this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” If there is no resurrection, you see, then Paul acknowledges the significant limitations on what Christ has to offer us: namely, whatever it is, it is for this life and this world only. And when we observe the treatment and experiences that Paul’s loyalty to Christ earned him in this world, we understand why he would argue that the Christian becomes a ridiculous personage. For if we are not hopeful, we are pitiful.
That, however, is not the final word in the apostle’s line of reasoning. For having explored the “thens” of “if Christ was not raised,” Paul wants also to explore the alternative. And now there is no “if.” No, Paul declares not as a hypothetical but as a fact that Christ has been raised. And inasmuch as he has been raised, Christ is, Paul says, “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” That affirmation, then, undoes all of the unhappy “thens” that the apostle had articulated. We do have a hope beyond this world and this life. Our salvation is sure. The apostolic preaching is true. And our loved ones who have gone before -- like us who will come after -- all look with certainty to our resurrection. For if Christ was raised, then the dead in Christ are raised.
Luke 6:17-26
Jesus has not been a public figure for very long, it seems, by the time of this episode in Luke 6. And yet see the scope of his renown and popularity. He is presumably functioning in the Galilee region, yet Luke reports that he has crowds coming from Tyre, Sidon, Jerusalem, and Judea. These are not just the nearby towns and villages. And in a time when most folks would be traveling by foot, the crowds coming from Sidon and Jerusalem were making a considerable investment of time and energy in order to come to Jesus.
Why did they do it? Why did all of those people set aside their various obligations back home to make the journey to get to where Jesus was? Luke tells us simply and concisely: they came “to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.”
Traveling “to hear” someone has been a phenomenon throughout most of human history, with only a very recent decline. Now that almost any author, celebrity, business leader, sports figure, politician, or preacher can be “heard” online, people do not make as much effort anymore to hear speakers in person. But that contemporary phenomenon is the exception to the rule.
Meanwhile, traveling “to be healed” always has been, continues to be, and will likely always be a widespread human practice. The only adage says that “when you have your health, you have everything.” I can think of a number of people whose circumstances would make the dispute that thesis. Nevertheless, when you lose your health, it’s easy to feel that everything else is also lost, or at least vulnerable. And so, while we humans may not be excellent at preserving our health, we are most eager to regain it when it is lost. And so we have always been willing to make whatever journey is necessary and possible in order to be healed.
So it was that people were coming from all over in order to hear Jesus and to be healed by him. Perhaps some people in the crowd were members of both groups. In all likelihood, however, those motivations represented two distinct groups. And each one, therefore, got a bonus experience. Those who came to hear him had the benefit of witnessing his miraculous and compassionate healing ministry. And those who came to hear him had the benefit of listening to his teaching.
Luke records here a portion of that teaching. It resembles some of what we associate with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, but with several well-documented distinctions. First, the setting is explicitly different, for this material in Luke is often referred to as the Sermon on the Plain. Second, this version of the beatitudes tends at times to be somewhat more material and less spiritual than what we find in Matthew. And, finally, while the famous Beatitudes in Matthew feature only the “blessed are” statements, Luke records Jesus’ flipside teachings: “woe” statements directed to folks who are in other conditions than those he lists as “blessed.” We will give some specific consideration to those blessings and woes below.
Application
According to scripture, life always features a fork in the road. It may seem at times like an endless variety of choices, but the Bible consistently thinks in terms of two. There is obedience or disobedience, wisdom or foolishness, self-discipline or self-indulgence, industry or sloth, prudence or rashness, righteousness or wickedness, spirit or flesh. And while the choice may seem unclear at the fork, we are assured again and again that the two paths lead to glaringly different destinations.
In what is often referred to as “the Sermon on the Plain” in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus offers a surprising twist on the familiar paradigm of two-paths-two-destinations. He anticipates a kind of kingdom reversal in which the present experience is turned on its head, whether for good or for ill. And so, for example, while conventional Old Testament wisdom would have said that the path of wickedness and disobedience leads to unhappiness and unfavorable circumstances, Jesus seems to indicate that pleasure and plenty in the present lead to pain and want in the future. Conversely, if neediness and trouble are your present path, then you may be assured of blessing and joy at the end of your journey.
Does this make life and eternity a zero-sum game? Is that all it comes down to, with neither faith nor morality involved in our eternal destiny? No, I don’t think that is the thrust of Jesus’ teaching within the larger context of scripture. Rather, I suspect two other principles are at work.
First, in the pervasive two-path paradigm of scripture, there is a prevailing recognition that how the paths appear at the fork and where they lead in the end may be quite different. The exit ramp of sin, as it were, may look bright, comfortable, and very appealing. Where that road ends, however, is ugly, empty, and desperate. It may be, therefore, that the turn-the-tables teaching of Jesus is simply an affirmation of the deceitfulness of sin in the present. And so, while certain people may appear to be traveling the more desirable path in this life, the real issue to be considered is where any individual’s path leads in the end and eternally. Hence, the script-flipping of present comfort with future sorrow and present trouble with future reward.
Second, I am reminded of some of the messages of the Old Testament prophets, as well as some prayers of the psalmists. We find peppered throughout these books an affirmation of the goodness of God’s judgment. That is to say, for God to step in and judge – whether in some temporal version of “the day of the Lord” or in the eschaton – he makes things right. And making things right in a world gone wrong inevitably means turning the tables. It stands to reason, therefore, that when he makes things right in the end, some who seem to be on top now will find themselves on the bottom, and others who suffer will be made whole, comforted, and exalted.
It is at this level, then, that we recognize some of the significance of what Paul says to the Corinthians about the resurrection. Paul is pointing to an eschatological and eternal future, which is anticipated and guaranteed by Christ being raised from the dead. That resurrection becomes our hope, as well. And Paul knows that if that hope is untrue, if that prospect is fallacious, then we are pitiable, indeed. For then those who are on life’s underside in the present live with the cruel reality that things will never be made right, their condition will never change, evil will never be defeated, and righteousness will never be rewarded.
Life features both small-scale and large-scale binary choices. We may choose the right or wrong path in any given moment or situation, any particular fork in the road. And, in the long run, we make an ultimate choice about which path we will travel in life. The right path may not be lovely or desirable in the present, but the promises on which we hang our hope are for the future. Yet as we make those fork-in-the-road choices, Jeremiah would caution us about the culture’s follow-your-heart policy. For even in the wake of Valentine’s Day, we must remember that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.”
Alternative Application(s)
Luke 6:17-26 — “On the Flipside”
You can’t have just one side of a coin. That’s why we have the very helpful adage that says, “Two sides of the same coin.” The principle is that what is on one side may be markedly different from what is on the other side, but they are still both parts of the same entity. And, when it comes to our currency, at least, you can’t have one without the other.
Luke’s rendition of Jesus’ beatitudes offers us both sides of the coin. What we read in Matthew’s recording of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount focuses exclusively on the positive – the “blessed are” statements. But Luke’s record acknowledges the inevitable flipside. For as surely as some folks may be assured of blessings, others must be warned of woes.
This is consistent, of course, with so many of the teachings of the New Testament, as well as a larger pattern throughout all of scripture. Thinking just about Jesus’ parables for the moment, however, we recognize the many “flipside” portraits. There is the soil that does produce handsomely, but the flipside is the soils that are ultimately fruitless. The harvest generates both wheat and weeds. The dragnet pulls in both good fish and bad. The storms reveal both a wise and a foolish builder. And the threshing floor features both wheat and chaff.
In terms of our selected passage from Luke, the “blessed” statements, as in Matthew, are counterintuitive. The groups of people that Jesus identifies as blessed are not who the world regards as blessed: the poor, the hungry, those who weep, and those who are mistreated and persecuted. Who in their right mind volunteers for those designations? Yet Jesus calls them “blessed.”
The flipside woes, likewise, are counterintuitive. Jesus identifies groups of people – or types of circumstances – which we typically regard as desirable. He points to people who are rich, who are full, who are laughing, and who are well spoken of by others, but he addresses statements of “woe” to them. On the surface, it doesn’t make sense.
Yet the counterintuitive nature of Jesus’ message here is consistent with the not-what-you’d-expect quality of so many of his teachings. The first will be last and the last will be first. The one who would be greatest should be the servant of all. The ones invited first won’t taste the feast, while a host of improbables will sit down at the king’s table. The tax collector goes home right with God rather than the Pharisee.
The truth involved in this section from Luke 6, therefore, is not just about the inevitable flipside, but also about a providential flipping. In other words, the truth is not simply that where you have wheat you will also have chaff, that there you have blessings you will also have woes. No, the truth goes further to assure that the present reality is going to be flipped by and in the reign of God.
I am reminded of the “day of the Lord” theme that we see so prominently in the Old Testament prophets, and which is carried over into the New Testament, as well. What will that day be like? How is it characterized? Is it darkness or light, bad news or good? The answer, of course, is both. What will be bad news for some will be good news for others, for on that day the Lord will step in and make things right. But in a world so full of wrong, to make things right will require a great deal of flipping.
With Valentine's Day still so prominent in their rear-view mirrors, therefore, it might be worth bringing to our people’s attention Jeremiah’s singularly unromantic observation about the human heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things,” Jeremiah laments, “desperately sick; who can understand it?” That doesn’t square with all of the cheerful heart-shaped candies and heart-themed greeting cards, but that discord may make the sobering word all the more necessary.
We live in a “follow your heart” culture, but Jeremiah would call that a dangerous policy. When we talk about being “heartsick,” we are thinking in terms of romance. But scripture knows that we suffer from a far more serious heart condition.
In the assigned passage from Jeremiah, we encounter a paradigm that is echoed across the pages of scripture. It’s a binary paradigm, in which there are two paths, two choices, and they lead to dramatically different (but predictable) results. Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Proverb all make this principle explicit. The Old Testament historians portray the truth being played out in the larger story of Israel’s history. For Jesus, it is the choice between the wide and narrow ways. For John it is light versus darkness. For Paul, it is spiritual versus carnal.
In our Old Testament lection, that either-or dichotomy is expressed in terms of “the man (who) makes flesh his strength,” on the one hand, and “the man who trusts in the Lord,” on the other. The difference between them is reminiscent of Psalm 1. The former man is portrayed in terms of a land that is dry and unproductive. The latter, by contrast, is portrayed in terms of lushness and fruitfulness. We know from the creation story that the latter more accurately symbolizes the design, the intent, and the perfect will of God. And in the predominantly agricultural world of the Bible, the imagery would have been potent and meaningful, indeed.
The key revelation about the former, undesirable character is that he is the person “whose heart turns away from the Lord.” That diagnosis, then, sets the stage for the general indictment that follows: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.” As we consider this Old Testament passage in concert with our two assigned New Testament texts, we discover not only the unhappy diagnosis of the human condition, but also the treatments and cure.
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Two different testaments, two different languages, and two quite different historical settings and contexts, yet I can't help but read a part of what the Lord said through Jeremiah without thinking of what Jesus said to his disciples and Gethsemane. As Peter, James, and John were so overcome by tiredness that they could not be good friends and companions to their Lord, Jesus remarked to them, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:51 ESV). Meanwhile, six centuries earlier, the Lord had said through Jeremiah, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength.”
It's a tragic business for a person to make their strength that which is weak. Imagine giving the greatest responsibility to the least reliable employee. Imagine calling a play for your poorest shooter for the final, decisive shot of a basketball game. Imagine choosing the thinnest branch of the tree on which to build your children's treehouse. So unhappy, vulnerable, and miserable is the man who makes his flesh (which Jesus says is weak) his strength!
Overall, the message of this selection from Jeremiah echoes the larger either-or theme that characterizes so much of scripture. Moses tells the people that they can choose life and blessing or death and curses. The writer of Proverbs portrays life as a series of choices between wisdom and folly, between self-discipline and self-indulgence, between righteousness and wickedness, and so on. The Apostle Paul juxtaposes the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit. A person can be like either the wise or the foolish builder. And Jesus urges his hearers to choose wisely between the broad road that leads to destruction and the narrow way that leads to life.
In the Jeremiah passage, that either-or choice is presented in the picturesque language of two different plans. The miserable shrub in the desert is what we do not wish to be like. The lush and fruitful tree planted by water, on the other hand, is the lovely option that is available to us. And what makes the difference between the two? Trust. The former puts his trust in flesh, while the latter puts his trust in the Lord.
This is immediately understandable to us in ordinary life. Our people needn’t think very spiritually to recognize that success and failure are so often tied to trust. Which person’s advice do you trust? Which investment do you trust? Which sales rep do you trust? Which product do you trust? The list of day-to-day examples goes on and on. When we put our trust in the wrong person or thing, it almost invariably leads to trouble for us. Conversely, when we put our trust in the right person or thing, we find it is a decision for which we are ever grateful.
And what is true in the ordinary business of life is even more profoundly true when it is a question of ultimate trust. Do we turn to, believe, and rely on the flesh and its representatives? Or do we turn to, believe, and rely on the Lord? The biblical narrative is filled with examples of both choices, and the results are predictable.
Perhaps a little reflection on our own life experiences – and a prompting for our people to do such reflecting – would bring the principles of Jeremiah 17 closer to home. When have we trusted in this or in that? When have we felt like a dry and scraggly shrub? When have we flourished like a fruitful tree? Perhaps we can prove from our own testimonies the truth that the Lord spoke through Jeremiah.
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
The Apostle Paul is writing to a Greek audience in his letter to the Corinthians, and as such he is probably communicating with people who may have had some exposure to training in logic. It makes sense, then, that he would reason with them in this way. He presents his audience with a series of conditional statements, arguing that “if” this, it is inevitable that “then” that.
The initial “if” is presented not as a conditional statement but as a question. If Christian is proclaimed as raised from the dead, then how is it that some people are saying there is no resurrection of the dead? Paul wants them to recognize that that makes no sense. If Christ was resurrected, then there must be a resurrection. Yet evidently there are some who are saying that there is no resurrection. And that triggers Paul’s string of conditional statements of logic.
First, the assertion of both verse 13 and verse 16 is that if, as some were saying, there is no resurrection, then Christ himself has not been raised. The two go together for Paul, you see. Either there is a resurrection or there is not; but you can’t claim that it is both yes and no, both true and false, at the same time. And so Paul takes the heretical assertion being made by some and carries it forward to its devastating logical conclusions.
So if the dead are not raised, then Christ was not raised; and if he was not raised, then all sorts of terrible implications follow. There is no purpose to the apostles’ preaching, and, worse, they are guilty of lying about God. Furthermore, the Corinthians’ faith amounts to nothing. Moreover, the freedom and salvation assured by the apostles’ preaching and laid claim to by the Corinthians’ faith turn out to be falsehoods. They are not saved and set free, after all, but are “still in your sins.”
Additionally, one of the terrible “then” conclusions pertains to those who have already died. You and I know how we cherish the prospect of resurrection for our deceased loved ones. But Paul is abrupt and perhaps ruthless in notifying the Corinthians that there is no hope for their loved ones who have passed on. It is a logical deduction from the premise; but it goes beyond logic, for this “then” is also a deeply emotional appeal.
Finally, Paul concludes with a terse and dramatic assertion: “If in Christ we have hope for this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” If there is no resurrection, you see, then Paul acknowledges the significant limitations on what Christ has to offer us: namely, whatever it is, it is for this life and this world only. And when we observe the treatment and experiences that Paul’s loyalty to Christ earned him in this world, we understand why he would argue that the Christian becomes a ridiculous personage. For if we are not hopeful, we are pitiful.
That, however, is not the final word in the apostle’s line of reasoning. For having explored the “thens” of “if Christ was not raised,” Paul wants also to explore the alternative. And now there is no “if.” No, Paul declares not as a hypothetical but as a fact that Christ has been raised. And inasmuch as he has been raised, Christ is, Paul says, “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” That affirmation, then, undoes all of the unhappy “thens” that the apostle had articulated. We do have a hope beyond this world and this life. Our salvation is sure. The apostolic preaching is true. And our loved ones who have gone before -- like us who will come after -- all look with certainty to our resurrection. For if Christ was raised, then the dead in Christ are raised.
Luke 6:17-26
Jesus has not been a public figure for very long, it seems, by the time of this episode in Luke 6. And yet see the scope of his renown and popularity. He is presumably functioning in the Galilee region, yet Luke reports that he has crowds coming from Tyre, Sidon, Jerusalem, and Judea. These are not just the nearby towns and villages. And in a time when most folks would be traveling by foot, the crowds coming from Sidon and Jerusalem were making a considerable investment of time and energy in order to come to Jesus.
Why did they do it? Why did all of those people set aside their various obligations back home to make the journey to get to where Jesus was? Luke tells us simply and concisely: they came “to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.”
Traveling “to hear” someone has been a phenomenon throughout most of human history, with only a very recent decline. Now that almost any author, celebrity, business leader, sports figure, politician, or preacher can be “heard” online, people do not make as much effort anymore to hear speakers in person. But that contemporary phenomenon is the exception to the rule.
Meanwhile, traveling “to be healed” always has been, continues to be, and will likely always be a widespread human practice. The only adage says that “when you have your health, you have everything.” I can think of a number of people whose circumstances would make the dispute that thesis. Nevertheless, when you lose your health, it’s easy to feel that everything else is also lost, or at least vulnerable. And so, while we humans may not be excellent at preserving our health, we are most eager to regain it when it is lost. And so we have always been willing to make whatever journey is necessary and possible in order to be healed.
So it was that people were coming from all over in order to hear Jesus and to be healed by him. Perhaps some people in the crowd were members of both groups. In all likelihood, however, those motivations represented two distinct groups. And each one, therefore, got a bonus experience. Those who came to hear him had the benefit of witnessing his miraculous and compassionate healing ministry. And those who came to hear him had the benefit of listening to his teaching.
Luke records here a portion of that teaching. It resembles some of what we associate with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, but with several well-documented distinctions. First, the setting is explicitly different, for this material in Luke is often referred to as the Sermon on the Plain. Second, this version of the beatitudes tends at times to be somewhat more material and less spiritual than what we find in Matthew. And, finally, while the famous Beatitudes in Matthew feature only the “blessed are” statements, Luke records Jesus’ flipside teachings: “woe” statements directed to folks who are in other conditions than those he lists as “blessed.” We will give some specific consideration to those blessings and woes below.
Application
According to scripture, life always features a fork in the road. It may seem at times like an endless variety of choices, but the Bible consistently thinks in terms of two. There is obedience or disobedience, wisdom or foolishness, self-discipline or self-indulgence, industry or sloth, prudence or rashness, righteousness or wickedness, spirit or flesh. And while the choice may seem unclear at the fork, we are assured again and again that the two paths lead to glaringly different destinations.
In what is often referred to as “the Sermon on the Plain” in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus offers a surprising twist on the familiar paradigm of two-paths-two-destinations. He anticipates a kind of kingdom reversal in which the present experience is turned on its head, whether for good or for ill. And so, for example, while conventional Old Testament wisdom would have said that the path of wickedness and disobedience leads to unhappiness and unfavorable circumstances, Jesus seems to indicate that pleasure and plenty in the present lead to pain and want in the future. Conversely, if neediness and trouble are your present path, then you may be assured of blessing and joy at the end of your journey.
Does this make life and eternity a zero-sum game? Is that all it comes down to, with neither faith nor morality involved in our eternal destiny? No, I don’t think that is the thrust of Jesus’ teaching within the larger context of scripture. Rather, I suspect two other principles are at work.
First, in the pervasive two-path paradigm of scripture, there is a prevailing recognition that how the paths appear at the fork and where they lead in the end may be quite different. The exit ramp of sin, as it were, may look bright, comfortable, and very appealing. Where that road ends, however, is ugly, empty, and desperate. It may be, therefore, that the turn-the-tables teaching of Jesus is simply an affirmation of the deceitfulness of sin in the present. And so, while certain people may appear to be traveling the more desirable path in this life, the real issue to be considered is where any individual’s path leads in the end and eternally. Hence, the script-flipping of present comfort with future sorrow and present trouble with future reward.
Second, I am reminded of some of the messages of the Old Testament prophets, as well as some prayers of the psalmists. We find peppered throughout these books an affirmation of the goodness of God’s judgment. That is to say, for God to step in and judge – whether in some temporal version of “the day of the Lord” or in the eschaton – he makes things right. And making things right in a world gone wrong inevitably means turning the tables. It stands to reason, therefore, that when he makes things right in the end, some who seem to be on top now will find themselves on the bottom, and others who suffer will be made whole, comforted, and exalted.
It is at this level, then, that we recognize some of the significance of what Paul says to the Corinthians about the resurrection. Paul is pointing to an eschatological and eternal future, which is anticipated and guaranteed by Christ being raised from the dead. That resurrection becomes our hope, as well. And Paul knows that if that hope is untrue, if that prospect is fallacious, then we are pitiable, indeed. For then those who are on life’s underside in the present live with the cruel reality that things will never be made right, their condition will never change, evil will never be defeated, and righteousness will never be rewarded.
Life features both small-scale and large-scale binary choices. We may choose the right or wrong path in any given moment or situation, any particular fork in the road. And, in the long run, we make an ultimate choice about which path we will travel in life. The right path may not be lovely or desirable in the present, but the promises on which we hang our hope are for the future. Yet as we make those fork-in-the-road choices, Jeremiah would caution us about the culture’s follow-your-heart policy. For even in the wake of Valentine’s Day, we must remember that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.”
Alternative Application(s)
Luke 6:17-26 — “On the Flipside”
You can’t have just one side of a coin. That’s why we have the very helpful adage that says, “Two sides of the same coin.” The principle is that what is on one side may be markedly different from what is on the other side, but they are still both parts of the same entity. And, when it comes to our currency, at least, you can’t have one without the other.
Luke’s rendition of Jesus’ beatitudes offers us both sides of the coin. What we read in Matthew’s recording of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount focuses exclusively on the positive – the “blessed are” statements. But Luke’s record acknowledges the inevitable flipside. For as surely as some folks may be assured of blessings, others must be warned of woes.
This is consistent, of course, with so many of the teachings of the New Testament, as well as a larger pattern throughout all of scripture. Thinking just about Jesus’ parables for the moment, however, we recognize the many “flipside” portraits. There is the soil that does produce handsomely, but the flipside is the soils that are ultimately fruitless. The harvest generates both wheat and weeds. The dragnet pulls in both good fish and bad. The storms reveal both a wise and a foolish builder. And the threshing floor features both wheat and chaff.
In terms of our selected passage from Luke, the “blessed” statements, as in Matthew, are counterintuitive. The groups of people that Jesus identifies as blessed are not who the world regards as blessed: the poor, the hungry, those who weep, and those who are mistreated and persecuted. Who in their right mind volunteers for those designations? Yet Jesus calls them “blessed.”
The flipside woes, likewise, are counterintuitive. Jesus identifies groups of people – or types of circumstances – which we typically regard as desirable. He points to people who are rich, who are full, who are laughing, and who are well spoken of by others, but he addresses statements of “woe” to them. On the surface, it doesn’t make sense.
Yet the counterintuitive nature of Jesus’ message here is consistent with the not-what-you’d-expect quality of so many of his teachings. The first will be last and the last will be first. The one who would be greatest should be the servant of all. The ones invited first won’t taste the feast, while a host of improbables will sit down at the king’s table. The tax collector goes home right with God rather than the Pharisee.
The truth involved in this section from Luke 6, therefore, is not just about the inevitable flipside, but also about a providential flipping. In other words, the truth is not simply that where you have wheat you will also have chaff, that there you have blessings you will also have woes. No, the truth goes further to assure that the present reality is going to be flipped by and in the reign of God.
I am reminded of the “day of the Lord” theme that we see so prominently in the Old Testament prophets, and which is carried over into the New Testament, as well. What will that day be like? How is it characterized? Is it darkness or light, bad news or good? The answer, of course, is both. What will be bad news for some will be good news for others, for on that day the Lord will step in and make things right. But in a world so full of wrong, to make things right will require a great deal of flipping.
