What’s with the Woes? – Part II

Luke 6:20-26

Far more people believe we should take the Bible literally than actually practice it as such. Take, for example, the injunction that if you have two coats, you should give one away. I have rarely met a person who believes we should take the Bible so literally that he or she has actually given away any extra coats they own for that reason.

Some Scriptures are easier to deal with in a literal sense because they are narrative. But even narrative stories have to be differentiated – some actually happened and others are just made up stories for a purpose, like Jesus’ parables.

Where our desire for literal interpretation breaks down most strongly is where the Scriptures call for action which moves us outside of our comfort zone. Jesus is notorious for such challenges. He was controversial back then and he is just as controversial today, except that we long ago found all kinds of ways to make his teachings more palatable. The Beatitudes as recorded in Matthew and the Blessings and Woes as found here in Luke are prime examples of where our willingness to take Jesus literally falters.

A critical step in working through what Jesus means is to put ourselves in the sandals of his original listeners. In this passage here, who is Jesus talking to? Luke says he is addressing his followers. To them he says, blessed are you who are poor, who hunger now, who weep now and who are hated. How are Jesus’ followers poor, hungry, weeping and hated?

Most of his followers in that time were very poor materially. In fact, throughout the ages, the poor have always responded more quickly to Jesus’ Good News than anyone else, for they have little to lose and everything to gain. Jesus says that the poor are blessed because the Kingdom of God belongs to them. What need do they have of material wealth if they have everything of God’s at their disposal?

So is Jesus talking only about those who are materially or physically poor? Obviously not, for many of the poor also reject the Good News and do not inherit the Kingdom of God. It is Matthew who mentions Jesus saying “poor in spirit.” Luke’s recording doesn’t make such a dichotomy between the spiritual and the physical and his Gospel places special emphasis on Jesus’ concern for the materially poor and the socially misfit.

To inherit the Kingdom of God, Jesus is saying, you must have no other recourse, either spiritually or materially, than God alone. Does this mean that those who are rich in resources cannot inherit the Kingdom? Jesus addresses this very question elsewhere, but the “woe” that comes in this passage says that the rich have already received their comfort, meaning they have resources of their own and so are not dependent on God, and thus have no claim on the Kingdom.

What Jesus is driving at is that to partake of God we have to let go of our dependency on all other options but God. The “Woes” here do not imply warning as much as “alas” or sadness or pity. It is too bad about those who have something other than God to lean on for they don’t need God. Wealth really is a stumbling block to getting to God, Jesus says, not an insurmountable hurdle, but a hindrance nonetheless. Blessed are those who are so poor that they have no such hurdles.

In the present world economic crisis, it is easy to forget that most Christians in the developed world are far wealthier even now than most of the Believers who have lived through the ages. The middle class of today lives better than kings and queens did in centuries past. Alas, Jesus says, when we have too much else to depend on. Better it is when our only resource is God for then the Kingdom of God is ours.

For the original audience, Jesus’ message was crystal clear. Two thousand years later, the audience may have changed, but the message hasn’t. Total dependency on God is the key to the Kingdom.