Sunday, February 17, 2019

Woe To Me

Sermon of Christ Lutheran Church, Staunton VA   
February 17, 2019
Pastor Robert McCarty

Preaching Text:  Luke 6: 17-26

This passage convicts me. I have to be frank. This passage convicts me. Finding a job out of college was difficult. Those first four years out of college had there struggles, but I would work retail, Sears for a while, Kaufmann’s for a few weeks. I might have been poor but not homeless, not destitute. I had a one bedroom apartment in the old YMCA along the train tracks in East Syracuse. I had food. A month before Elizabeth and I married, I found a career type job and loved it. Elizabeth and I shortly moved to two bedroom apartment in Fayetteville, where we lived for  three years before seminary. Elizabeth worked while I was in seminary. Then I took my first call and Elizabeth stayed home with Jamison when he was a baby. For five years when the boys were infants, we lived off the gospel. She stayed home and I preached. I certainly would not call us poor then. We haven’t known hunger. We have not known true poverty.

Both my parents live. Same true for Elizabeth’s parents. I am going to want to knock on wood for every person on this list who lives. All my siblings, all my cousins. I lost my last grandparent when I was a sophomore in college. We have grieved together. I have mourned with you. I guess that is something, but the frank truth is this passage, this Lukan version of the beatitudes convicts me. Woe to me.

I use to laugh in my sleep. I have eaten more Reese’s peanut butter cups than I care to admit. I am rich enough to consider myself blessed and to that Jesus says woe, woe for me.

And there is nothing that I can do about it. This is not Matthew’s beatitudes with “Bless are those poor in Spirit.” “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Being poor and hungering in Matthew has these qualifiers which I can wiggle myself into fitting and call myself blessed. Luke makes sure that, if I am frank, I hear the conviction. “Blessed are you if you hunger now.” 

I cannot do anything about it. What? Quit my call, leave my possessions, live among the poor. To be frank, I cannot see how that makes me blessed. Frankly, the same is true about waiting for someone close to me to die. I have witnessed your grief enough to say, I do not know, I cannot see how that makes me blessed. 

And I like all of you crave the blessing of God. All I need is a whisper of God, a hushed tone against my skin, a bit of warm light, a joyful chord of music or two. I crave the blessing. Here comes Jesus with his blessings and woes.

I guess that’s why some people prefer the Law. The law is this fixed point that doesn’t move. I always know where I stand in relationship to the law and I can do something about it. And there is no law that forbids me from eating Reeses Peanut butter cups. And I don’t covet other people’s candy because I can go buy my own. The law, if I am frank about it, often makes me feel safe and protected because I know other people around me live by the law. And feeling safe feels blessed. The law is a fixed point, do this and you shall live. And so far even those times when I have transgressed against that law, my failings haven’t killed me. 

But that law cannot save. The law can protect life and honor life but it cannot save life. No one runs into a burning building because of the law. No one dives into the deep end to save some one from drowning because of the law. Interesting fact in Pennsylvania, lifeguards were not required by law to go into the water to save someone from drowning. The law cannot save. Jesus saves.

And I need Jesus.

We do not preach Revelation enough, that final book of holy awe and wonder. I need Jesus. Not so much his teachings, but I need his death and resurrection that reveals the holy wonder and holy awe and holy glory of God. Jesus pulls back the veil that shields our eyes from the true power of the kingdom. He pulls back the veil and tells us that blessings and woes will be flipped upside down. Right now Jesus just gives us a peek, but the day is coming when Jesus will pull down the curtain that reveals the very throne of the God’s kingdom and it will radiate splendor and we will fall upon our knees and say “woe.” The throne and the power of the Kingdom of God will shine glorious and we will full upon our knees and be humbled and say, “Woe. Forgive me lord for I got it all wrong.” “ And in the moment of glory and splendor our transgressions first will be obviously, painfully apparent, and then they those failings will be wiped clean by the blood of Christ our savior. Jesus saves. Jesus saves me. Jesus saves us.

Amen


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