Most of us are familiar with what are called the Beatitudes.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you

and say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven,

for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

If you were listening carefully and if you were paying attention

to the scripture reading just a few moments ago from Luke’s gospel,

you will have noticed

that the Beatitudes I just read and the text from Luke chapter 6 differ.

In fact they are quite different.

The first set of Beatitudes I read were taken from the Gospel according to Matthew,

from what we know as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

In fact in Matthew chapter 5 it says that Jesus went up on a mountainside

and sat down and began to teach his disciples.

But in our reading from the Gospel according to Luke,

our text says that Jesus went down with his disciples and stood on a level place.

Often our passage is referred to as the Sermon on the Plain.

And whereas Matthew’s account of the Beatitudes

includes 9 instances of the word blessed,

in Luke’s account the word blessed occurs only 4 times

and they are matched by the 4 woes which are found nowhere in Matthew’s version.

So what accounts for the difference?

I suppose there might be a number of answers we could consider.

Perhaps they are difference descriptions of the same event.

Possibly Matthew and Luke chose to emphasize different parts of the same event

for the sake of their different audiences.

Matthew wrote to a largely Jewish audience,

whereas Luke’s intended audience was mainly Gentile.

Or a different answer might be that these are two different events,

but that Jesus, like many teachers and speakers,

taught the same things to different people in different places.

Whatever the answer might be there is no debate about one thing,

most people are more familiar with Matthew’s account of the Beatitudes

than with Luke’s.

When we hear the Beatitudes quoted,

most often they are quoted from Matthew 5, not Luke 6.

There is good reason for this.

Luke’s account, as I have said earlier, only contains four instances of blessed are…

while Matthew has nine statements of blessed are…

And then there are those corresponding woe statements found only in Luke.

We may be able to, without too much trouble, hear Jesus say,

Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of God,

but its much harder to hear Jesus say,

Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

Furthermore, Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes

seems to already have been influenced somewhat

by the discomfort that these words would have surely brought to their listeners.

And so rather than reading,

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours in the kingdom of God,

Matthew’s account reads, Blessed are the poor in spirit.

And instead of Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled,

Matthew records, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

It seems that anyone, whether poor or rich,

can be poor in spirit, can be humble and contrite before God.

And it seems that anyone, whether hungry or full bellied,

can hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Matthew’s version seems more inclusive,

and let’s be honest, it seems less troubling for most of us,

most of us who tend to be among the rich, the well fed,

the laughing and the well spoken of.

And yet our text today is from Luke, not Matthew,

and so we are confronted by the Beatitudes in their un-watered down version,

shorter and with those nasty woes still intact.

Now before some of us might get stuck on those woe statements

and begin to feel a bit of righteous indignation rising within us,

let’s set the record straight.

Jesus does not hate rich people.

He does not condemn those who eat well,

he harbours no particular antipathy towards the laughing

and certainly many spoke well of Jesus himself,

although many also spoke ill of him.

In fact when we read the entirety of scripture in context

we understand that Jesus commended the servant

who took the 5 talents of money and made 5 more

and condemned the one who took his 1 talent and buried it in the ground.

We also know that Jesus told a parable about a vineyard owner

who was rich enough to be able to be overly generous to all the workers in his vineyard, no matter how long they had worked.

We know that Jesus often took time to eat at banquets,

was a guest in many homes

and said that he came that we might have life and have it abundantly.

We know that Jesus desires us to know joy,

inviting us to know his joy in us so that our joy might be complete.

And we know that in the very next chapter of Luke,

Jesus will speak well of the centurion who displayed amazing faith.

So the point is not to take passages out of context when we read God’s word.

The context of the woe statements in our text from Luke this morning

is to correspond to the blessed statements made earlier on.

So blessed are you who are poor, but woe to you who are rich.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, but woe to you who are full now.

Blessed are you who weep now, but woe to you who are laughing now

and blessed are you when people hate you, but woe to you when all speak well of you. These woe statements cannot be read

without the context of the blessed are you statements.

They are meant to provide a contrast between conditions.

They are used for emphasis.

But of course that’s not all they do.

We who are rich, and most of us are indeed rich by any standard of global measurement, we cannot hear these words of Jesus and not realize

that riches can be, and have always been, a profound obstacle to our faith in God.

We who know no hunger, no physical need,

we know that when life is good, when we are able to laugh,

when people speak well of us,

we know that it is more difficult for us to acknowledge our need of God

in times of plenty and success than in time of need and crisis.

Certainly we who hear these teachings of Jesus

must hear the warnings and be prepared to act appropriately.

It doesn’t do any good just to try to make people feel guilty

about having been born in the first world,

for having studied hard, worked diligently and achieved a measure of success.

But we do need to be aware that according to Jesus,

things are not always going to be the way they are today.

The poor and hungry may be so today and the rich and full may also be so for today,

but change is coming, says Jesus.

Mary Hinkle Shore, in Pilgrim Preaching,

paraphrases Flannery O’Conner in saying that for those of us who have,

‘a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right,’

and want things to stay that way,

Jesus does not give us much comfort.

Things are changing.

Yet I wouldn’t be a preacher of the gospel, says Shore,

unless I believed that what the (Kingdom) of God offers,

this reversal of fortune that Jesus announces and over which he presides,

is better than anything any of us will lose

as a result of a change of administration.

(Mary Hinkle Shore, Pilgrim Preaching, Riches in the Rule of God. February 12, 2004)

So what is it about the coming kingdom

which invites us to hope in the midst of unsettling change?

I said earlier that the juxtaposition of the blessed and woe statements

help to emphasize the differences between the conditions.

But in a very real sense this combination of words which seem at first to divide, ultimately in fact do the very opposite.

Ultimately Luke’s rendition of Jesus’ Beatitudes, with the woes included,

are more inclusive than Matthew’s

because it breaks down the differences to a single common understanding.

That understanding is that all human conditions are temporary.

(Deborah Core, From Either-Or to Both-And. The Journey with Jesus, notes to myself)

One day our poverty won’t matter when we are part of God’s intended kingdom

and our riches won’t matter either.

One day, under the rule of God the hungry and the well fed

will both be satisfied by the bread of life and the living water.

One day the weeping and the laughing will live together under the peace of God.

One day the persecuted and the well spoken of

will praise God together with one united voice.

All our human conditions are temporary.

And so we hear the words of Jesus

and instead of being divided into two camps of the blessed and the woeful,

we realize that we are one in community.

Our human condition unites us in God’s eyes and in God’s eternal purposes.

And so, if we believe that,

what would possibly keep us from doing something about it,

not one day, but this day, today?

If we believe what Jesus says and promises,

and I know my friends that we do,

why wouldn’t we be doing something about it this day, today?

The text is not meant to fuel our guilt,

it is meant to tell us that change is inevitable in God’s salvation plan

and it is meant to invite us to get on board with the programme.

We who are rich have a responsibility to those who are poor,

for we are one in community.

We who are well fed have an obligation to those who are hungry,

for we are one in community.

We who laugh must stand in solidarity with those who weep,

for we are one in community.

We who are respected and well thought of

must love and advocate for those who have no voice and are persecuted,

for we are one in community.

My friends, this text couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time for us.

Today is our Annual General Meeting of the congregation.

In a few moments we will meet to set our ministry goals and pledge our commitment

to be good stewards of the resources with which God has blessed us.

Over the past number of years

it has been my privilege and honour to be your minister

and I have seen first hand how generous and compassionate this congregation has been.

I received a letter from our national offices this past week indicating that Grace Church

is the largest donor to Presbyterians Sharing across our denomination.

While that causes me concern at some level,

to think that no other Presbyterian congregation in Canada

could give any more than us to Presbyterians Sharing

and to the work it does in supporting our ministries and mission programmes,

it also makes me extremely grateful to be part of a community

which is compassionate and lives out our hope,

a congregation which not only talks about what we believe,

but has the integrity to do what it takes to live it out.

And I haven’t even touched on how generous you have been as individuals,

in your support of the needs of others,

whether it be through the church and our various programmes

or privately in your businesses, in your families,

wherever God has placed you and invited you to be good stewards of his gifts in you.

We have done well,

God invite us to do even better.

We are one in community and all of us will one day stand before God.

It is Christ’s invitation and my prayer,

that this congregation will continue in our generous and compassionate response

to the needs of the people within our fellowship and within our world

as we faithfully and joyfully proclaim our faith in Jesus Christ our Lord,

in all that we think, all that we say and all that we do.

And to God be the glory, now and forevermore, Amen.