Year C Epiphany VI Jeremiah 17:5-10 Luke 6:17-26

Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes.

Jeremiah has a warning for the Children of Israel, and presents it in a shocking and painful image. Picture a bush, totally surrounded by sand, struggling in the heat, parched beneath the relentless sun. The bush needs life-giving moisture, but it doesn’t recognize such, even when it comes. Why is that? Because the bush doesn’t see the desert, and has no idea that it is dying, or that it lacks for anything. Instead, it shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

It’s a truly horrible image. Such is the plight of the Children of Israel. It sounds crazy, to not see death when it is staring one in the face – but such is the lot of those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. They are cursed, and dying, and they do not even know it.

Jeremiah goes on to describe those who trust in the Lord – how their leaves will always be green, and they will bear fruit even when drought affects others. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.

Jeremiah’s imagery is stunning and clear. What a shame the Children of Israel paid him no heed, refused to listen to his warning, and as a result were taken captive and lead into exile in Babylon.

The reading from Jeremiah helps to prepare us for the Gospel, Luke’s version of The Beatitudes. Luke has set the scene carefully. This is not the Sermon on the Mount, as Matthew would have us believe. In Luke, Jesus has chosen “a level place”. When Luke wrote these words, people knew what a “level place” meant. The prophets often used the word “level” to refer to places of corpses, disgrace, idolatry, suffering, misery, hunger, annihilation, and mourning. We are meant as this reading begins to know that something profound is going to be said.

We join our Lord as He sits down to teach a large crowd. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. Before anything else, before teaching them in words, Jesus’ love and compassion reaches out to help the suffering, to cleanse them of their illnesses. Jesus begins with Love.

Only after He does this does He look up at His disciples and begin to teach. Carefully He explains who are the blessed ones. He then follows this with, woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

The rich! Who are they? No one, sitting in this congregation today, is likely to see themselves among the rich to whom our Lord refers. When we think of “the rich” we tend to picture that one or two percent of the population that live in luxury. They own homes, not one, but many all around the world, and probably all paid for – unless there’s a tax break in having a mortgage. They own cars, they travel on private jets, eat at the best restaurants, wear designer clothes.

These, we think, are “the rich”, and we sometimes sigh and wish we were a bit more like them – had a bit more cash and leisure time, could afford everything from the best doctors to the most expensive vacations. Then we hear in today’s Gospel our Lord telling us that wealth is not a blessing, so perhaps we should be relieved that we are not wealthy. But is our perception of ourselves accurate?

If we look more closely, we have homes, a roof over our head, and food in our kitchens. Our living quarters are filled with the furniture and appliances we need. If we are ill, we have health insurance and well trained doctors to care for us. Most of us have extended families and some of us have pets. Oh yes, we may struggle at times, or often, to make ends meet, but we aren’t out on the street all alone with no one to care about us or about what happens to us.

Startlingly we come to the conclusion that we are “the rich” of whom Jesus speaks. We are not only surrounded by our worldly wealth, we are mentally and emotionally immersed in it, always trying to manage it and doll it out in the best and usually the smallest possible amounts when necessary. We worry about worldly things and become distracted by them. We never mean to disappoint Jesus, but as Jeremiah warns us the heart is devious above all else; it is perverse--.

And Jesus said, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.”

We do not find in Luke any of the embellishing that Matthew adds to his version of this moment in Jesus’ life. Commentators say that Luke gives us a more accurate account of what Jesus actually said on that day. Luke’s Gospel focuses on the poor, so it is no surprise that it was Mother Teresa’s favourite Gospel, as she worked tirelessly amongst the poor. The late Archbishop Tutu once said that “God is indeed biased, biased toward the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the captives, the sick, the widows, the children, the powerless.” [Atlanta, Nov. 1991]

So it is interesting that we rich, “respectable people” think of those people God favours as “those poor folks – so sad”. But they have the opportunity to invest their hearts far more wisely than do we. They have a much greater chance of obtaining the true wealth that matters to God.

Here is a story I heard many years ago.

There was a group from a congregation based in the US that was doing missionary work in a poor community in Latin America. The successful project had been to build a clinic for that community, and as a result of there being a clinic there, people and children who would have died now lived.

A very poor family in that community decided to thank the members of the congregation who had been there building the clinic. They decided to have a meal to honor the visitors. The guests at the meal found the host’s home to be three non-mortared walls of cinder blocks. The roof was corrugated metal, laying on poles, held down by rocks. The kitchen was outside and consisted of a hearth with a grate and a clay oven. There were no chairs, no table. The plates were metal.

But the food - the food was glorious. There was chicken and rice, beans, well-seasoned avocados, a fresh salsa, tropical fruits, and sugared pastries. There were fresh, hot, hand-made tortillas. To drink, there was Coca Cola and a bottle of brandy.

During the meal one of the guests realized that the cost of the food was equal to more than six weeks of income for the hosts. The first thought this person had was to give the hosts the money after the meal, but the guest decided that the gift would be patronizing and would dishonor the hosts. The next thought was to give the money to the priest who was pastor of the congregation so that the pastor could slip the money to the hosts. But again, that action would dishonor the hosts. Finally, the guest decided to simply enjoy the meal with profound appreciation and gratitude.

Later, the guest said this about the experience. “It was the greatest honor I have even received. That family spent six weeks of income to thank and honor us. No one else has ever come close to that. I realized that the host family is the richest family that I know. They are so rich that they can spend six weeks of income on a banquet to honor people that they will never see again in this world. I only spent about a month’s worth of income to celebrate our child’s wedding. And that marriage has given me grandchildren who are the dearest things in my life. I am poor and stingy. My hosts are rich and generous.”

Each of us here today can remember when we were asked to give something we were reluctant to part with. It might have been monetary. So many beggars on the streets these days, and we forget that in Matthew Jesus tells us “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you…”. Because we forget our Savior’s words we do turn away, telling ourselves that we don’t know what awful thing that beggar might do with the money, or perhaps we reach for the one dollar bill in our purse. Heaven forfend we should give more.

We may also be asked for time, but that’s sometimes even more precious. We have lists of commitments and engagements, and then if there’s a moment left over, we have things we want to do for ourselves. While it is important to set aside time for ourselves, it is equally or more important to set aside time each and every day for God and to respond when Jesus asks us to work for Him.

Jesus calls us to recognize that who we are in His eyes may not be who we think we are. We, who have worldly comfort, think of it as a blessing, but because of our attachment to it, because of our blindness, we are in danger. It is far too easy to become the bush in the desert.

Those who heard Jeremiah did not listen to him, and they were lead away into captivity in Babylon. Jesus warns us against riches, not that we must rid ourselves of them, but that we might rid ourselves of our attachment to them, and give ourselves fully to Him. We need to look at where our hearts are focused – for that is where our treasure lies.

We are called to purity of heart, which Kierkegaard defined as “The will to one thing”, and that one thing, on which we are meant to set everything, every hope, every dream, our total trust, is Jesus.

We cannot walk away from the world, from our lives, but if we believe the Faith we profess, we must live our lives differently. We must adjust our focus, so that the center of everything for us, that to which we always turn in love, that on which we depend, to which we cling, which fills and fulfills us, is not anything of this world, not the desert, but only our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, to whom our needs are known before we ask: Help us to seek only what accords with Your will; and those good things for which we dare not, or in our blindness cannot ask, grant us, for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.