Luke 6:12-26

12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14 Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.
20Looking at his disciples, he said:
Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.
23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
24 But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

Points of Interest:

• ‘whom he also designated apostles’—apostle means ‘sent out one’ or ‘commissioned one.’ Jesus has been commissioned by God, and he is now commissioning these twelve people to share in his work. Jesus might be motivated by the growing crowds: he recognizes that he will need to have some deputies if he is to care for the huge crowds who are coming to him. It could also be that his recent conflicts with the Pharisees and teachers cause him to realize that his time is short and he needs to have someone to carry on his work.
He may be choosing the number twelve in honor of the twelve tribes of Israel. It could also be that it’s the most people he can really work closely with, or maybe these twelve are the only ones ready to take this step.

• ‘He went down with them and stood on a level place’—this sermon is sometimes called the ‘Sermon on the Plain.’ It’s similar to a sermon found in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew’s sermon is called ‘the Sermon on the Mount,’ because, well, it happens on a mountain. Luke’s and Matthew’s sermons may be similar sermons given at different times in different places, or Luke and Matthew may be writing from different memories of exactly what is said and of exactly where it is said: ‘Were we still up on the mountain when Jesus gave that sermon, or was it just after we came down?’

• ‘a great number of people from all over’—Jesus’ popularity is growing. Tyre and Sidon are outside of the bounds of Israel; so it might be that even non-Jews have begun to hear about him. If not non-Jews, Jesus is certainly starting to attract people from farther afield.

• ‘Looking at his disciples’—Jesus is speaking specifically to his followers, but he is doing so in front of the crowds. It could be that he wants the crowds to witness this commissioning of his followers. As we’ll see in tomorrow’s passage, it could also be that he’s opening up the invitation.

• ‘Blessed are you’—these are the famous beatitudes, so-called after the Latin for ‘blessed.’ It might be worth considering for a moment what exactly ‘blessed’ means. Some synonyms for blessed are favored, fortunate, or even happy. Perhaps the closest common equivalent to blessed is lucky, if you add in a sense that the luck is God-directed. So, what Jesus is saying here is, ‘When you’re poor, or hungry, or sad, or hated, that’s when you are really lucky!’ When I look at it that way, it takes the beatitudes out of my ‘Top 10 Beautiful Sentiments Expressed by Jesus’ list and moves it straight to the top of my ‘Top 10 Unsettling and Bizarre Sayings of Jesus’ list instead. It gets even stranger when you add in the second half of the teaching, where Jesus says, ‘I feel sorry for you if you are rich, or satisfied, or laughing, or well-received.’ Jesus is making the claim here that our usual measures for when things are going well and when they’re going poorly are 180 degrees off. When we think we’re doomed, we might be in exactly the right place for something great to happen. When we think things are heading in the right direction, we might actually be missing out on something.

This teaching reminds me a little of John’s call for people to repent, or to recalibrate themselves. Jesus too is calling for a recalibration; he’s saying, if you’re shooting for the best life possible, most of you are aiming in the wrong direction. His point here is not, ‘If you people were really spiritual, you’d be acting a lot more miserable. Don’t you know life’s not supposed to be fun?’ He is pointing people toward blessing, not misery, and it’s a blessing that’s felt in the present tense—even if full satisfaction only comes later. Somehow, even though the circumstances are terrible, life should feel great!

The key to understanding how this could possibly be true comes in the contrast between, ‘for you will be satisfied,’ and, ‘for you have already received your comfort.’ I think Jesus is saying here that the key to the best life is leaving enough room for God to give good things to you; if your hands are full of the things you’ve grabbed for yourself, you can’t accept the really great stuff God wants to give you. Perhaps that’s why John told the soldiers not to extort money (Luke 3:14). He’s not saying, ‘People who extort money are really awful people’ (although that may, in fact, be kind of true), but, ‘If your pockets are full of money you’ve extorted, how are you going to hold the things God wants to give you?’

Of course, it takes a lot of faith in Jesus to trust this advice. It’s helpful for me to remember that the person who said these things is the same person who healed the leper: he is both willing and able to do wonderful things for people who have faith in him.

Taking it home:
• For you and your family: Do you find that your efforts toward happiness are often disappointed? Perhaps you need some recalibration. Ask God to point you in the true direction of happiness, and ask him for the faith to keep walking that way.

• For your friends: God wants to bring satisfaction where there is hunger and laughter where there is sorrow. Ask God to fill the empty places in the lives of your friends with good things from him.

• For our city: In today’s passage, Jesus’ message starts to spread beyond the people who had heard it before. Pray the same thing for our city. Pray that people who have never met Jesus before would hear good news from him, and experience healing and freedom from him.