Sermon for the 16th of February - Third Sunday Before Lent

Lectionary Readings for the Third Sunday before Lent

Jeremiah 17: 5-10

Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse— who can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.

Psalm 1

Blessed are those who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the assembly of the scornful; Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and they meditate on his law day and night. Like a tree planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither, Whatever they do, it shall prosper. As for the wicked, it is not so with them; they are like chaff which the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked shall not be able to stand in the judgement, nor the sinner in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

1 Corinthians 15: 12–20

If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are, of all people, most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.

Luke 6: 17-26

He 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. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. Then he looked up at his disciples and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. ‘Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. ‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. ‘But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. ‘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. ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

Sermon for the Third Sunday before Lent

Sometimes the lectionary readings for a given Sunday are all so beautiful, so good, so true, that it is hard to leave any of them out. But I had to leave the Old Testament reading out for these service sheets---no room. The cover illustration on your service sheet, however, is taken from both Jeremiah and from Psalm 1, which you did hear. They both contain the image of a well-watered tree, roots sunk deep beside a stream of water that will always run past, that will never stop---a source of never-ending life. Blessed are the people who are like that tree beside that stream!

Whose trust is in God.

 What makes for a life that is well-watered and flourishing, like that tree? How do we deepen our trust in God so that day in, day out, we are sustained in the Christian life we have chosen to live out?

We plunge into the heart of Jesus's teaching today, the Beatitudes.

 There are two versions of the Beatitudes: Luke's, our reading for today, and Matthew's. As in the two accounts of the story of Creation in Genesis, people often remember only one. In the case of the Beatitudes, they remember Matthew's.

It is interesting to compare the two: how are they different? What about Luke's?

 The Beatitudes are part of an historical reminiscence of a sermon that Jesus probably delivered near the beginning of his

public ministry, to which other sayings were added. Matthew tends to add things to the common source he and Luke shared. Matthew's version is longer---three chapters long---chapters 5 to the end of 7. Luke's is only to the end of the same chapter, chapter six. Matthew has, altogether, 109 verses; Luke 30.

Matthew had a different audience in mind; a Jewish one, so that some of his additional material is suitable for that Jewish- Christian audience. Luke was writing for Gentile hearers.

Matthew uses language that is more traditional and Biblical; Luke's expressions are broader, for all human beings. There are other differences, but Matthew's and Luke's Beatitudes are the same in their subject.

Luke sets out here a code of conduct for the disciples---the chosen ones, the inner circle. These are radical instructions; the larger crowd would not have understood them then.

Coming very close to the beginning of his Gospel in this chapter six, after Jesus calls the disciples, Luke throws us back two chapters, to the extraordinary appearance of Jesus in his hometown of Nazareth, where he goes to the synagogue, stands up, takes the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, unrolls it, and reads it. These are the words:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.

Then Jesus sits down and then he says:

Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

His hearers marvel, but when Jesus goes on to predict that no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown, quoting the miracles Elijah and Elisha performed, not to the unbelieving Jews of Israel but to the widow in Lebanon and the leper in Syria, all in the synagogue are enraged: they rise up and try to kill him. But for Luke, this is the theme of his entire Gospel--- that this was the purpose of Jesus's life and this would be its consequence. Some would be able to hear, and to act on the words they hear, and others would not. The Beatitudes only spell out what he was asking his followers to do, and what it would cost them.

The theme is love, and the cost of radical love. Daily life in Jesus's time would sweep his disciples straight up against poverty, hunger, grief, and ostracism if they attempted to live out this radical love. But what they will model is the Father's love that Jesus came to embody in his very self: a merciful, all- embracing love that sought out those who were most at risk, those whose lives were most precarious and desperate.

Luke has not "spiritualised" the Beatitudes, as Matthew has done. For him, the wider circle of disciples that will come to be are the real poor, hungry, grief-stricken and outcasts of this world, and theirs will be a corresponding share in the Kingdom of Heaven. They will be blessed for what they undergo now.

Unlike the use of the beatitude form in the Old Testament and in Greek literature--- practical wisdom that results in the possession of inner happiness---Luke is using this form of the beatitude to proclaim a reversal of values, a reversal of values brought about by the reality of Jesus. God is showing us in Jesus what he will bring about for us all in the end-time. Live this way, and your life will be like a well-watered tree. And in the consummation of time, when all shall be revealed---all known---this kind of life will be shown to be the real life, the life that was the fullest, the deepest, the richest. You are blessed; you will be blessed.

 It is Luke that, of the three Synoptic Gospel writers, makes most abundant use of the woe-form. These woes are the opposites of each Beatitude in Luke. They emphasise the ephemeral nature of what we are taught by our surrounding culture to desire.

The reversal of values that they emphasise is the same as in the Magnificat, also from Luke's pen, set out there at the very beginning of his Gospel: God will lift up the lowly.

This is Mary's song and Luke's theme:

 My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

How then shall we act, having heard these Beatitudes of Luke?

 In the face of a culture that has set up a radically different code of conduct, of rewards and punishments?

 Here are some thoughts: let us continue to come here, to this place of worship, together, week by week, to strengthen one another in our Faith; let us continue to read the words of our sacred Scripture and meditate on their meaning for us; let us continue to pray for all those who are in such desperate need, both material and spiritual. And let us continue to act.

Give money, this week, to those who are most in need---here, in London, and far away, in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is blessed to give. Bend down to speak to those who are on the streets, begging for subsistence. Call someone who is lonely. Speak of your faith to someone you have not spoken to before. It is a critical time, a time of decision.

Mahatma Gandhi was a devoted Hindu all his life. As is well known, his commitment to nonviolent resistance led, at last, to India's independence from British rule in 1947.

But it is less well known that Gandhi saw the Beatitudes as a powerful basis for his nonviolent movement and for his own life. He considered the Beatitudes to be a profound source of inspiration, often describing them as filling him with bliss, stating that they went straight to his heart....His reverence for Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount illumined his long struggle and gave him strength for it.

The greatness of the Beatitudes is not only for Christians, but for all the world.

For us, may we hold close our reverence and awe for the great tradition we have inherited, the tradition of Jesus, who taught us that it is blessed to be poor, to be hungry, to weep for others, and even to be persecuted for this faith. As we ponder and then act on these values of the Kingdom, may we be nurtured and strengthened, like a well-watered tree.