Photo Credit: Our cover is courtesy of Diana Van Horn who posted the picture on Medina Moms Discuss It.

I like hanging around youth. They have clever phrases. They are innovative in their use of the English Language. While I tend to spend time with theologians and their words like exegesis and hermeneutic and perichoresis, the teens say things like “yeet” and “swoll.”

One phrase teens are using that I like is “hot take.” A hot take is a very short opinion. Theologians write reams and reams of words to get to their point whereas hot takes are super short. Here are some recent ones: “HOT TAKE: Shaggy from Scooby Do can beat up Chuck Norris. CHANGE MY MIND!”

“HOT TAKE: There are too many billionaires already running for president.”

My recent favorite: “HOT TAKE: The Cavs used to be better at basketball.”

I could go on and on about all the ills social media has given us. Yet there are blessings as well. I like how the writing is crisp and clear. To tweet, one has to get right to the point with no flowery language. One has to be clear and direct.

Last winter, I was in a preaching class for my doctorate. The Rev. Mark Tyler is an African Methodist Episcopal preacher of much renown in Philadelphia. He challenged us to write a six-word sermon. Every day he gave us a Bible passage and then 5 minutes to come up with six words to explain it. The idea would then be to center your sermon around those six words so that we don’t wander about and bore our audience. It’s awful when preachers do that.

Jesus must have taken Dr. Tyler’s class. Jesus must be on Twitter. The scripture today is a hot take. It’s clear, it’s concise and my six words to sum up today’s passage are: I don’t like it at all.

Luke has Jesus give his Beatitudes in a different place than in Matthew’s gospel. In Matthew, we call it the sermon on the mount. In Luke, it’s the sermon on the level place. The mountain is a place of prayer in the bible and ancient cultures. Jesus has just called the Twelve in the story and he did so on a mountain. Now he moves to the plain below to be with the people with whom he identifies like he did at his baptism. The crowd on the level place is made up of three groups: his recently called 12, the unnamed disciples, and the crowd. Luke also includes that the people came from all over: Jerusalem, Judea, Tyre, and Sidon. This may imply a Gentile as well as a Jewish audience.[1]

Jesus looks out over the crowd and his eyes fall on his disciples and he utters these blessings and woes. Unlike Matthew’s nine blessings and no woe, Luke has Jesus say four of each. They are parallels: poor-rich, hungry-full, weeping-laughing, rejected-accepted.

I don’t like these at all. Six words to say the sermon.

There’s no way to soften this like in Matthew; blessed are the poor in spirit. I can get behind a statement like that. But blessed are the poor? I’m not poor. Poor in spirit often, but poor… no. I’m middle class. Compared to the rest of the world that often lives on less than a dollar a day, I’m filthy rich as are most of us in this room. I don’t like this at all. There is no wiggle room.

Furthermore, these aren’t like Deuteronomy where the blessing or the curse was contingent on behavior: Keep these commands and be blessed. Disobey and watch out! Those we can understand. Yet with Jesus’ sermon, there’s no contingency. Blessed are the poor, yours IS the kingdom of God. Woe to you who are rich, or you have received your consolation.

Blessed ARE you who are hungry now, you will be filled. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

I don’t like this at all. Do you?

This seems like good news only if you like bad news. We are in the richest nation on earth. Most of us in this room are food secure; we don’t have to worry about where our next meal is coming from. I remember these neighbors we had. They were very poor. Doug was around my age. We were playing and I said I had to go in for dinner. He looked up and yelled into the house, “Mom, are we having dinner?” Not “What are we having for dinner?” ARE we having it? Blessed are the hungry, you will be filled.

It’s a hard thing to be around: the poor, hungry, the grief-stricken, the excluded. It makes us uncomfortable because we don’t know how to respond. We don’t know how to be. Mostly, it reminds us that we ourselves could be in their shoes if a different decision was made, if things didn’t go the way they have.

There once was a new UCC church in the north of Toledo filled with the poor, hungry, the weeping and the excluded. It was called Nu Vizion. It was housed in an old UCC church that closed. What was once a prominent church in Toledo didn’t change with the neighborhood, and the church members moved to the suburbs and no longer wanted to drive in. So the church closed and some years later Nu Vizion came in and reflected more of the neighborhood. The neighborhood that was once a great place to live was now filled with crime, drugs, and poverty. In fact, I was more nervous going there than working in downtown Washington D.C. Sure there were more homeless, but we were in our nation’s capital and there were nonprofits, foodbanks, churches, and community services like Youth Services Outreach Project that our youth mission trip went to in summer of 2017. In north Toledo, there was Nu Vizion and that’s it. More abandoned buildings than not.

Our church in the suburbs partnered with Nu Vizion, and it was a culture shock going there. The members always seemed to be in the church. This big, cold cavernous old church with hand-me-down couches always seemed to have people in it. I asked why. One woman said, “The water’s on here and not at my house.” Simple. True. And sad.

Another woman spoke up, “At church, we share food. I have some at home, but not much. Here we have plenty. Here we can talk about our problems together and know someone will listen. At home, I would just stew or stare at the TV and that solves nothing. I have no family to take me, but here at Nu Vizion, I have family.”

Blessed are those who are poor for theirs is the kingdom of God. They have to step out in faith and hope that God will provide for them.

Blessed are the hungry, for they will be filled. Filled by offerings provided by others. A hot meal served at CUPS or in a church kitchen.

Blessed are those who weep for whatever reason. That they feel like a failure or a fraud. That they can’t seem to get it together. Blessed are those who are grieving the loss of a pet, parent, or partner. Blessed are those who weep, for one day they will remember a laugh. They will find blessing in the memory, not tears.

Blessed are those who are hated and excluded on the account of the son of man. We forget how shocking Jesus is. How he steps over boundaries and eats with the wrong people. He hangs out with the wrong folk. It really gets our goat when we find out who God loves. And look… the religious NEVER complain about who Jesus excludes. They always complain about who he INCLUDES. Someone really smart once said, “Often, we’ve become just enough of a Christian to be vaccinated against becoming the real thing.”

When I told someone that I belonged to the UCC they said, “Oh, them. That’s the church that takes anybody.” They said it in a way that sounded bad. We belong to the church that was the first to ordain a black man, a woman, a gay man and to publish a female slave’s poetry.[2] The UCC has paid the price to be out in front only to be vindicated 5 to 10 years later.

When the first church fight happened over whether or not to include the Gentiles, James said that these new folks had to learn all the Jewish customs. They had to be circumcised, follow the law, wear the clothes, the whole shebang. One the other side was Paul who argued for full inclusion with no stipulation. Peter was in the middle but ended up siding with Paul. This tension is resolved in Acts 15:28-29 which says “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols… and from fornication.”

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. I think that’s what Jesus is getting at today in Luke’s gospel. You may think you’re hated by God because you’re poor, hungry, sad, excluded but you’re closer to God when you are those things. You’re closer to your neighbor when you ask for help. Being poor, hungry, sad, excluded causes us to recognize our dependence on God and our neighbors. When we are rich, full, happy, and included we can act like we did this, we earned it and deserve it and we don’t need God or our neighbor.

Blessed are you, closer to God are you, you are in the kingdom when you notice your poverty and need. When you are hungry for food or justice or just hungry to make things right for others. Blessed are you when your heart breaks, for a broken heart is an open heart and love can leak out instead of taking one another for granted. Blessed are you who are excluded for trying to live like Jesus: to stand with the outcast, to take on those religiously certain who can no longer be surprised by God, to include those who have been excluded because it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to you.

Maybe I have my six-word sermon all wrong. Instead of “I don’t like this at all.” The more I think about it, it turns out this is good news for all people! When you find yourself in a tough spot, do not hide from your neighbor or your church, for yours is the kingdom of God. Surely great will be your reward when you bring a little heaven to earth with God’s help. You’re not going to like it. I don’t like it. But that’s not the sermon. The sermon is: “This is good news! Thanks God!” Thank God that Jesus meets us on the level places. That God blesses us in our worst. That God provides us with community to meet our needs. Woe to us for forget that or grow complacent or act like we earned this, that we’re on a mountain and not a level place with all God’s people. This is good news! Thank God! Amen.

Works Cited

Fred Craddock, Luke:, Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 1990. 86.

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