Blessed Are You Who Are Poor: A meditation on Luke 6:17-26

A couple years ago on a work trip to Spokane, Washington, during the winter, I had an experience that was challenging. A little bit eye-opening, and a lot painful. I met someone who was hungry and poor.

I was staying at a nice downtown hotel and had walked a few blocks to a restaurant where I got a wood-fired pizza loaded with tangy toppings that I like. Pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms and peppers. I ate half of it and was full, so I took the rest in a to-go box and began a leisurely walk through downtown – enjoying the sights and sounds of a city that’s a lot bigger than Bismarck-Mandan.

I could hear music playing and smell the aroma of chefs cooking up fantastic culinary experiences in other restaurants. I looked with fascination at store windows, closed for the night, but where I could stop and shop for the hottest new technology or designer clothes if only it were a little earlier in the evening.

As I was making my way back toward my hotel, I started walking past a man on the ground propped up against a signpost. I had seen him earlier; he was one of many.

There is a sizable homeless population in Spokane. Other communities in Washington and Idaho had basically taken the people there who were homeless, hungry and addicted to substances, and put them on busses for Spokane. Get rid of the unsavory people and make them someone else’s problem.

On the other end of the downtown area, there was a large encampment – a tent city – where unhoused people were living in terrible conditions. Everything they owned, they had with them in their tents (if they were fortunate enough to have a tent). Besides the poverty, hunger and brutal cold, they also had to contend with the constant threat of violence against them and the theft of what little they had.

A lot of people saw all this as a blight on their beautiful city – just as it happens in most cities, most anyplace. The enormous homeless encampment had to go. The people living on the streets simply couldn’t live there. Blessed be the poor.

I don’t know whether that city has been able to do anything since then about the homelessness so apparent in its downtown. But when I was there, the homeless were there. Society’s problems. The hungry. The poor. The drug addicted. The freezing cold. The hopeless.

It isn’t nice to see all of this. It’s distasteful. It’s a bother. And it is so easy to walk by while looking the other way. But I saw that man – as I said, one of many – leaning against the signpost on the sidewalk by a busy intersection. I saw him, and I desperately wanted to look away. To walk away. Fast.

But I saw him. I saw him, and I knew God saw him. I knew God looked at this man and saw one of God’s beloved own.

Yeah, I saw him. I saw him, and suddenly I saw myself.

I saw myself walking past saying, “Jeez, that’s too bad; how awful.” I saw myself getting back to my hotel and forgetting about the whole thing.

Hm. Woe to you who are rich? Woe to you who are full now? I’m not crazy rich, but compared to that man, my life is pretty cozy – and I was prepared to walk by, and step over him if I had to. Woe to me, for I had already received my consolation.

***

Today’s gospel is both surprising and uncomfortable. I think it must be troubling for many Christians like me, because it seems rare to hear it quoted and discussed.

There is another version of these Beatitudes, or “blessings,” in the Gospel of Matthew – also called the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew softened the language into more spiritual terms. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who thirst for righteousness.

But here in this version – sometimes called the plain Beatitudes, the Sermon on a Level Place – Luke keeps it real. Often in scripture, a “level place” refers to a place of hardship. Not lofty like a mountaintop, but down to Earth. Earthy. Grounded in the hard things people go through. Rooted in the here and now.

Blessed are you who are poor. Blessed are you who are hungry NOW. Blessed are you who weep NOW.

Woe to you who are rich. To you who are full now.

So, what’s going on here? Is Jesus basically saying, YOU’RE LUCKY. You should be thankful that you don’t have anything. Is he just totally gaslighting people who are going through hard times? I don’t think that’s it.

So, what then? This passage is often read as a heaven and hell, life after death, end of days story of comeuppance. Perhaps it is foretelling of a big flip-flop of justice when the poor will become wealthy and the rich will get what’s coming to them. Is that it?

Christians put a great deal of thought into what happens at the end of this life. Where are you going when you die? Are you saved? Have you said the right prayers? Do you believe the right thing? Have you been righteous or a greedy sinner. We want to make this about spiritual rewards in the hereafter.

But this story... This story as Luke tells it is different. It is so much deeper and goes so much farther than our understanding wants to think. Oddly enough, it does so by speaking to the issues we face daily.

This is a powerful message for anyone who is hurting. Anyone who is struggling with meeting the most basic needs for themselves and their families. And it should be a powerful message for anyone who has material wealth to spare.

Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of God – but not as some distant future we can scarcely imagine. Hm-mm. In the time when Luke wrote down this story, many believers thought Jesus was about to return and bring the end times with him at any moment. But that’s not what Jesus was referring to either. Whether soon or way down the road, Jesus was only partly talking about the Kingdom of God to come. Moreover, he was talking about the Kingdom of God here today, all around us.

Notice that when the crowd in this story came to him, reaching in to be healed by his touch, Jesus did not say, “After you die, or at the end of times, you will be healed.” No. What did he do? He HEALED them. In other stories throughout the four Gospels, when the people were hungry, he didn’t say, “Someday when you are in heaven, you won’t be hungry anymore.” He fed them. Fed their spirits, sure. But fed their hungry bellies, because there was a need and because he could.

Going back to that winter evening in Spokane, the man leaning against the signpost was cold, hungry and without a place to go. One day, when he and I are both gone from this world, perhaps he will then be hungry no more. Perhaps I will be judged.

Perhaps, though, Luke’s Gospel is calling us to a greater sense of immediacy. To the here and now. Perhaps Jesus was calling me on that downtown sidewalk to help the man because there was a need and because I could.

That night, I took a few steps past him and pressed the button to get the next pedestrian street crossing light telling me to walk. But Jesus was telling me, “Wait. Do not walk. Do not just look the other way and walk by.”

I let the street crossing light go, and I came back. I knelt beside the man and told him that I had just eaten but that I had a half of a really good pizza. I said I didn’t know if it was the kind he liked, but that he could have it if he wanted it. As he began eating, I looked at his thin blanket and bare hands. I realized that I only had a couple blocks left to get back to my hotel and would not freeze in the meantime. I knew that I would be inside buildings and comfortably heated Uber rides for the rest of my trip. So, I asked him if he could use my coat and gloves. Shivering, he nodded yes.

I’m not telling this story because I think I need a pat on the back. In fact, the experience still hurts when I think about it. That man is – I say “is” as I hope and pray that he is still alive – he is a child of God. I pray that he has food and shelter now. I pray that he is okay. I pray that he knows he is loved and that he has hope.

People of God, we are not meant to sit on our hands waiting for heaven. We are not meant to press the walk button and carelessly cross to the other side of the street. We are meant to have hope. We are called to see each other, and recognize the image of God... to notice the need and to care. We are called to share our gifts. We are called down from the mountain to the level place where we are in communion with our siblings in Christ. We are called to love and to serve, just as we are loved and served. Receive that blessing. Receive that blessing and then go and share it.

Amen.