February 16, 2024 – Sixth Sunday After the Epiphany
Jack Belsom
Were you listening to the Gospel reading and thinking, “That’s not the way I remember the Beatitudes. If we’re not going to use Matthew’s version, at least we could stop after the “Blessed are you” part. God knows we have enough woes in the world without Jesus adding to ours this morning. In the Roman Empire, you were “blessed” if you were wealthy. If you were poor, you were expendable.
This is ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia Sunday. I wonder what ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia thought the first time he heard those words. It could be that the “woes” were not so shocking to the young man. He had witnessed his parents killed in a war on Hawai‘i and swam out to a ship pleading to be taken away. Nineteenth century sailing was nothing like going on a cruise today, and serving on a ship was much more difficult—even life-threatening—than serving as part of the housekeeping staff of a luxury cruise line. He left one culture, one way of living, for another that was very different from anything he had known.
When Timothy Dwight found ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia sitting on the dock in New Haven, Connecticut, he sat down with him and heard his plea to learn the Gospel. Then he took ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia to his home where he learned the good news among a family and a community that practiced that good news. He had discovered the blessing of being poor enough to receive hospitality, of being ignorant enough to learn, and of being brave enough to suffer being different. My hunch is that was what prepared him to even consider going home where once more he would be different and sharing a different kind of good news of life with a loving God.
Both Matthew and Luke wanted to share the heart of the Gospel with the churches they loved, and each told it in a different way. Matthew delivers the blessings (no woes or curses) in the Sermon on the Mount. Luke has Jesus go down to the plain on the same level with the disciples to teach them. Perhaps getting down to the disciples’ level allowed Jesus to level about life in God’s realm. Ka Baibaila Hemolele translates what you heard as “kingdom of God” as “ke aupuni o ke Akua’–the government of ke Akua: Aupuni—government not ‘āina—land. It is not so much a place as a way of living with others in the world that reflects the way God intends life to be lived in heaven and on earth. In other words, we experience life with God from living with Jesus’ disciples. I am forever grateful that ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia learned the gospel that way.
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you[a] on account of the Son of Man.
23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
(Luke 6:22–23)
That doesn’t sound like much of a blessing. Is that really a reason for rejoicing? What was Jesus thinking? Those are not words that you broadcast in order to get more members or to fill the pews. Jesus loved his disciples enough to speak the truth to them. Luke knew the disciples he loved needed to hear those words.
David Ostendorf interprets the meaning:
Here Jesus stands “on a level place” with the disciples and the multitude, not on a mount above them. He declares to those who have left everything to follow him that theirs is the kingdom of God, regardless of how reviled and defamed they might be. And he warns those who do not follow in this way that their lives will be woeful.
God is turning the world upside down, and taking discipleship far beyond a simple “follow me” to a level of sacrifice that is nothing less than daunting. [Feasting on the Word commentary Year C, Vol. 1]
There is nothing especially holy about the poor or those who are reviled. Those who experience ridicule, hunger, sadness, and rejection because they follow Christ need to know there is more to come. The United Church of Christ Statement of Faith speaks of “the cost and joy of discipleship.” That’s what these blessings and woes are about.
There is always a tension between the woes of the faithful and the promise of life in God’s realm—ke aupuni o ke Akua. ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia knew that. He had studied and prepared to bring the Gospel to Hawai‘i. Even as he lay sick and dying far from his ke one hanau—his birth place, he was confident that his mission would not die with him. In the Nā Himeni you will find #138 Himeni o Kalaupapa—Kalaupapa Song of Exile. Those who had been forced into exile because of Hansen’s disease knew that they were not cut off from the realm of God—not by their disease or their exile from loved ones.
Those enslaved African people in the United States learned about the realm of God. In spite of the attempts to preach a slaveowner’s gospel that kept them subjugated and in their place, they knew to look beyond their current distress.
When the news of the world or the state of the church threatens to overwhelm me, I find myself turning to the soulful melody and words of “Poor Wayfarin’ Stranger:
I’m just a poor wawfarin’ stranger a travlin’ throughthis land of woe.
Yet, there’s no sickness, toil or danger in that bright land to which I roam I’m going there to see my father.
I’m going there no more to roam. I’m only going over Jordan.
I’m only going over home.
The slave owners heard “Pie in the sky by and by” while the slaves were singing that life as God intended—going home or over Jordan—was something different than the woes they experienced as enslaved people.
We may not like the woes. We could have skipped one of the blessings, too, but we must be forever grateful that Jesus got down on our level and levelled with us about the cost and joy of discipleship. When Jesus included us by saying, “Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of heaven,” he directed us to Gods future. It is no accident that we pray every Sunday “E hiki mai kou aupuni; Thy kingdom come; e mālama ‘ia kou makemake ma ka honua nei, Thy will be done on earth, e like me ia mālama ‘ia ma ka lani la. as it is in heaven.”
Jesus leveled with his disciples and levels with us. With ke Akua, there is always more to come. Amen.