Sermon Luke 6:17-26

This morning Jesus, along with the twelve men who made up Jesus inner circle ...climb down from the mountain to the plain below ... they come down to the awaiting crowd of disciples. A sea of women and children ... and other men. They come for various reasons. Mainly the text says they come to touch him and be freed of troubling unclean spirits. They know that he has a power that can not be found elsewhere. They come seeking life through listening to and following Jesus. And today we hear him say;

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,. 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. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets."

It's short as sermons go, but a lot is said ... and I've only read just the first half.

As we begin to explore Jesus message, and I look around at where we find ourselves worshipping God this morning, I want to say, "Blessed are those who don't have a church building ..."

I see some of you wondering, "What the heck is Rev. Love saying? If we had a church building we'd be more comfortable. No setting up chairs. No having to borrow someone else's kitchen. People would know where we are ... the building would attract people and build the congregation. Wouldn't having a building help us being the church? Maybe ... maybe not. Either way, the question that my blessing has stimulated is this ... how are we to be the church.

A church with buildings or not the statement invites us to ask what kind of disciples Jesus call us to be. That's the issue for us who are disciples. How might we find a life of blessing through following Jesus. That is the central question in Jesus sermon, "How to live lives of blessing, rather than lives of woe."

We don't talking about blessing much these days. Oh yes, we do have a hold over from days gone by; its when you sneeze "God bless you ..." Someone said once that people said that because they feared when you sneezed that your soul left your body for a second and the blessing was help so that you did not lose it. A strange idea ... for certain we don't talk much about blessings.

In the OT blessings were a big thing. The Father would pass on the special blessing to the oldest son. When someone travelled people would say a blessing. As a child passed into adulthood there would be a special blessing for the child. It was a culture that knew what blessing was about. When was the last time someone placed hands on your head or shoulders and gave you a blessing? I suspect for many it might have been when you we baptized. For many that may have been when we were a baby. My intuition says that even though we are unsure of what this blessing is about ... we want it ... blessings good ... woes bad.

The only churches I know that really have blessings are some of the evangelical churches. I remember being at a prayer meeting and I mentioned I was facing a difficult situation in my life. One of the vineyard pastors said, "We'll pray a blessing." And for the next 10 minutes they prayed and laid hands on my head and asked God to bless me. It was really weird and strange ... and wonderful. I left knowing that I had received a blessing." But more than that, I had learned that amid what life throws at us God is there blessing us.

Imagine children growing up knowing that they have the blessing of their parents and their communities. Knowing that amid their poverty and hunger and sorrow and the hate ... knowing that even their darkest night, knowing that God's favour is with them? That is what we say in baptism. That no matter what and no matter where they go ... God's blessing rests with them. Even amid the most difficult of life's situations God is there ... but more so ... especially there you will find God. When you come to the bottom of life, there you see Christ looking up at you.

Did you hear that in the text. Jesus is not on the mountain preaching down to the disciples ... he's not even preaching to them as an equal. He's preaching up to them! The Lord of the Universe ... the Son of Man ... the Son of God .... is preaching from below. Yes, its symbolic of the kind of God we worship ... but more than that ... it shows us something about what kind of disciples we are called to be. Disciples from below.

You see, when you bring your questions to Jesus, don't just listen to what he says. Look and see what he does. But don't just see what he does ... do it yourself. Discipleship happens along the way. We think that Sunday is the most important day of the week for Christians ... no. This is the mountain top to which Christ climbs up each week to us. But then he does something strange, he calls us to come and follow him ... down into the crowds and the noise and the suffering and the hunger and the hatred ... the very place where God's kingdom is unfolding.

You see, when Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor." He is saying ... if you want to look for God, look among them. He says, "Blessed are the hungry." He is saying ... if you want to find the Holy One, look for people who are hungry. If you want to be touched by the God of All compassion, go among those who are in sorrow, seek out those who are grieving. You see, Ours is a God of blessing ... and we disciples come seeking life and blessing from him.

Which Christ will freely give us, but the rub is that we have to come down to where he is. That's what the woes are about ... the higher you are in life, the more likely we are to miss what God is doing. The lower you are the more likely you are to see God lifting up the poor out of the dust ... making the valley's into plains ... lowering the mountains ... sending the rich away empty ... filling the bellies of the poor.

God is lifting up the poor, but for many of us our difficulty is in coming down, especially for us men ... someone once said, "Why is it that so few men are part of the church anymore?" It is a good question ... why is that. Some people ask me this when they hear that I lead men's groups. They figure I must know ... and I do have my theories about social forces and gender identities. But I keep coming back to something simple. We men have difficulty coming down.

You see over the last century church has become seen as a women thing. To be practicing Christian; out about it mean's that we are not so manly ... at least among mainline churches. Am I wrong? Just look at the amount of men to women here. Just ask some of the women who struggle to get their men to come and worship. It is like pulling teeth. Something reacts in them and their either come to avoid a fight or out of guilt or they don't come at all. Or you men who do come know what happens when someone asks you at work, "What did you do this weekend." When you get to Sunday and say ... "I went to church." You get the pause ... or the look ... or the 'oh'" You women get this too but for men it is like you've just said that you went to a 'quilting bee' or a 'flower arranging class."

You get that ... 'oh' which says, "What kind of man is this?" You see to be the church has come to be seen as being womanly ... and most men are taught that this is something to avoid since it will make you vulnerable and weak and less of a person. That is at the core of it.

You see we men get socialized quite early to avoid being seen as weak. There are penalties if your not strong ... baby ... wimp ... or other names tell us me that we had better be strong and in charge lest we become a whipping boy. Its gotten a little better over the years but those of you with boys know what happens. But it is more than this ... not only do we men get socialized into avoiding being at the bottom of the pecking order. Let's be honest ... we get taught to think that we should be the most important. Just look at the movies ... who is hero often ... the man. And the women are there to cheerlead or to save or to tell him he is wonderful. We live in a culture that still says men are central and women secondary.

You see this in troubled relationships ... it is most clear where there is violence in relationship. Someone once asked me about men who beat up their wives, "Jim, these men do this because they are insecure, right?" No, they do it because they think they are central and superior ... they should get their way because they are more important ... not only that they deserve to be important. Remember these words, central, superior and deserving ... they spell harm for those around men who think this way ... Yes I know, not only men are caught up in this kind of thinking ... but it does seem to be a woe we men struggle with ... and we pay for it in so many ways; much more mental health problems, shorter lives, poorer relationships with kids, and almost no friends. Did you know that most men don't have friends? We have buddies ... if most of us are asked to name a close friend we name someone from long past. Others pay, but we way with this "being at the top thinking".

I wonder if this is why Jesus gathered men around him. The twelve were all men ... Peter, James, John, Andrew, etc... All of them gathered around him as he spoke up to women, and children and the disabled. Maybe he knew that too often it is the men who are furthest from the blessing of God and who are most vulnerable to missing the Kingdom of God. Maybe in his love for men he chosen them for is inner circle so that they might model what Jesus was up to. Or should I say, "Down to."

You see, all throughout Jesus life, this continual movement in the wrong direction. Instead of seeking out the so called good people, he goes to the rotten people. The sinners. Instead of seeking out the healthy people, he looks for the sick people. Instead of looking for those who supposedly know all about God, he goes to those who appear to know the least. Instead of destroying his enemies, he dies on a cross for them. The God we see reflected in Jesus is all upside down.

Maybe that is what Jesus is trying to tell us. Maybe the God of life that we look for is not mostly found among the places that make sense to us. Not in the places of power. Not away on a mountain ... or in some fancy church building or among the theologians or with the clergy and their special clothes proper prayers. These may not be the best places to see where God is at work in the world but rather look amid those who are suffering ... amid those who are struggling to find life ... the poor, the hungry, the grieving, the outcast, the stranger, the sinner.

Maybe Jesus message this morning is telling us how we are to really be the church together. That we should ask ourselves, "Who among our communities is poor?" "Who is hungry?" "Who is grieving?" "Who are the outcasts?" "Who are the sinners?" And then share our lives with them in a real way ... no give money to them or just charity, but to get to know them. Not that this will be easy or romantic or without cost. There is always a cost to discipleship ... but the rewards are new life.

So, I ask you Jubilee United Church ... who are the people at the bottom of life in Walnut Grove? Yes, we live among middle class suburbs and we paint our houses and put up facades, but look for them ... they are there! And if they are not there, perhaps God is calling us to make a place for them. Imagine if we do that? What would happen?

Jesus tell us today, as he told us in his first sermon when he unrolled the scroll from the prophet Isaiah, " 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed got free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.' The year of the Lord's favour ... we've been exploring that theme at Cloverdale. What is the year of the Lord's favour? {Jubilee} Share in God's Jubilee. Be God's Blessing as a Jubilee people!