What's with the Woes?

Luke 6:20-26

Other than that Luke seems to be writing a Reader’s Digest version of Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount”, there is one stark difference with Luke’s “Sermon on the Level Place”: Luke’s version of Jesus’ blessings or Beatitudes comes as combination blessings and woes in parallel form. Jesus presents in direct contrast what it means to be both blessed and in grave danger.

There is the sense in Luke that there is no neutral stance with God, no gear between forward and reverse. There is no “blessed” state and everything else. There is only “blessed” and “in trouble.”

Whereas Jesus says in Matthew blessed are the “poor in spirit,” in Luke he says, “blessed are you who are poor.” What do we do with this? Does he mean poor “in spirit?” Could be. But then what do we do with “woe to you who are rich”? If the poor and rich are parallel, does rich now also mean “in spirit”? And if so, how can it be that it is wrong to be rich in spirit? Isn’t that the meaning of “blessed” – to be rich in spirit?

It all starts to break down. We find ourselves having to explain a lot when it comes to the meaning of Jesus’ words. And the more we explain the more we wonder what he really meant.

One thing the “woes” do for the blessings is to keep us from merely spiritualizing them. Spiritualizing can be a form of dismissal. “He means that in the spiritual sense” translates into “doesn’t relate to reality” and finally to “isn’t important.”

Go down the list with each of the blessings and woes and you start to get the feeling that you cannot so easily dismiss these blessings by spiritualizing them. So then try to take them materially and you still get messed up. If we believe that Jesus speaks with consistency throughout all of his teachings, then somehow each individual teaching, including this passage, has to fit with the rest of his teachings.

Like Karl Marx, Jesus embraces the poor. Unlike Marx, Jesus does not call for class struggle. For Jesus knows that class struggle only leads to victims and abusers switching places, not to eradicating abuse. So then do we dismiss the material application and revert to the spiritual?

If we are to do anything with what Jesus is saying in this complicated passage, we cannot take his words lightly or readily deposit them in some “easy” category. No, Jesus intends for his listeners (that is, his disciples) to wrestle and wrestle hard with what he is saying.

What he is laying out here for his disciples is a whole new world order, a totally new way of thinking and doing things. And as his listeners, we must be grapple with what he is saying even if it feels uncomfortable or offends our sensibilities. This one thing is sure: everything as we understood it is now inside out. The poor, the hungry, those in mourning, the misfits are blessed, and the rich, the well-fed, the laughing, and the well-thought-of are in trouble.

How easy it is to move on, to avoid chewing on these verses for an extended season. But we find little comfort in what comes after unless we have chewed the essential out of these blessings and woes. We cannot begin to understand what it means to love our enemies or be generous with the faults of others unless and until we learn what it means to be truly blessed of God.

So before we move on, let’s take some time to come to grips with what Jesus really means by “blessed are you who are poor” and “woe to you who are rich.”