Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday February 13, 2022 – 6th Sunday After Epiphany
Scripture Reading: Luke 6:17-26
One of the most famous parts of the bible comes from the Gospel of Matthew – the Sermon on the Mount. Now the Sermon on the Mount goes on for almost three full chapters, but it is the first 12 verses that are the most famous – the Beatitudes – the long list of blessings.
Today, we heard the Gospel of Luke’s version of the same teaching – definitely less famous than Matthew’s version, possibly because it makes us slightly uncomfortable to have the blessings paired with an equal but opposite list of woes. We have “blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God”; but we also have “woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” We have “blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled,” paired with “woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.” We have a blessing on those who weep, for they will laugh; and woe to those who are laughing now for they will mourn and weep. And finally a blessing for those whoa re hated and excluded and reviled; and woe to everyone who is spoken well of.
And what is fascinating about Luke’s version of this sermon is that Jesus isn’t delivering it on a mountain the way he is in Matthew’s gospel – instead, Luke’s setting is on a plain, on a level place, on a wide open field. There, on that level place, Jesus proclaims a great levelling where the poor and lowly will be lifted up, and the rich and mighty will be brought down.
As I read this passage this week, I was reminded of the song that Mary sings, back in chapter 1 of the Gospel of Luke – the one that beings with “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,” but then goes on to proclaim that the powerful have been brought down from their thrones, the lowly have been lifted up, the hungry have been filled with good things, and the rich have been sent away empty.
Mary originally sang this song when she found out that she was going to carry and give birth to and raise the son of God; and I wonder if she sang this song to Jesus as she carried him inside her body. I wonder if she sang it to him as a lullaby when he was a baby. I wonder if this song was the background to his childhood. I wonder if Jesus was so surrounded by this teaching from his mother, this teaching of a great levelling, before he even had conscious thought, so that it became part of his own teaching. The poor and lowly and hungry will be lifted up, and the rich and mighty and wasteful will be brought down from their places of power.
But what really fascinated me about this week’s reading was the lead-in to the blessings and the woes. Jesus and his disciples have been up on a mountain, spending some time in prayer, and they come down the mountain onto the plain, where they are surrounded by a great multitude of people, a huge crowd. And this huge crowd hasn’t come to this place to hear Jesus’s teaching – no, they’ve come here because of his reputation as a healer. “And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.”
There was a movie that came out a couple of years ago called The Healer. I watched it because I was curious about it, since part of it was filmed on the campus of AST when I was a student there – the campus was frequently used as a movie set, and I remember that that this one involved converting one of the old buildings to a police station and there was a prop police car parked on campus for several weeks.
Anyways, in this movie, the main character discovers that he has inherited the family gift for healing, and while the plot focuses on medical healing – reviving the town priest after a heart attack, and healing a young girl from cancer. But there are also examples of less tangible forms of healing – joy and hope and faith being restored. And in the end, the main character has to embrace this gift that he has been given – the healing powers that he has to share with the world. The closing credits tell the viewer that healers do exist, leaving the door open to how we can understand healing to be more than just curing someone.
Let’s leave the movie and jump back to Jesus healing people there on the plain. Jesus is healing people, and then all of a sudden launches into his teaching about blessings and woes, his teaching about the great levelling of society. And I have to wonder if these two parts of our reading today are connected. I wonder if Jesus is teaching these blessings and woes as an example of healing on a societal level. Society can be healed when the playing field is levelled – when people who have been pushed down because of racism or poverty or their gender or their sexual orientation; when people who have been pushed down are raised up; and when people who have had privilege because of our language or education or skin colour or nationality are willing to share our privilege with others, to give some of our privilege away, when we are willing to make space for others. Then healing can happen.
We’ve been talking this winter about how we, as the church, are called to be the Body of Christ; and part of our calling is to take part in Christ’s work of healing. Sometimes this healing might look like physical healing – I know that we have nurses and lab techs and other medical professionals in our congregations. But sometimes that healing takes other forms, like correcting injustices, and bringing joy, and like we talked about earlier with St. Valentine, reminding people that they are loved.
In a couple of minutes, we are going to be gathering around the communion table – a communion table that in this time of Covid is so big that it stretches into each one of our homes this morning – and I think that this simple meal of bread and wine can be part of the healing ministry of the church. We practice an open table where everyone is invited to the feast – no matter what you think you have done, or what you think you haven’t done, you are welcome at this table. And through the bread and the wine we are reminded that we are loved. And through the bread and the wine we are strengthened for the journey we are on. And through the bread and the wine, our hope is nurtured, as we trust that a time is coming when the whole world will be well fed.
And so my prayer for all of us today is that we might find the healing that we seek, but also that we might be strengthened, as the church, to be a healing presence in the world. May we, as the church, become more and more like Jesus so that power can go out of us to heal the world. Amen.
“jesus heals”
Dan Germain
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