Blessed are you who are poor
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/satisfied. 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.

Luke’s version of Beatitude is much shorter than Matthew’s. Many commentators say that Luke’s version is much more radical. While, Matthew said, “Blessed are you who are poor in spirit. Luke does not. When Luke says poor, he really means poor. My professor at the seminary, Bob Brian said that, “economic poor is the most vulnerable.” At the same time a deep look at the whole book of Luke shows a wider understanding of poverty.

Often the beginning of a book gives insight into what the author wants to convey. Luke is no different. I think reading Luke’s gospel from the beginning helps to put the beatitudes into context.

Luke starts from the story of Zachariah…the father of John the baptizer, the husband of Elizabeth. Luke described the couple as righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. And then it was one of the days, while Zechariah was performing his duty—burning incense-- inside of the temple , he heard the good news of childbearing. Instead of showing trust in the good news, he doubted, because they were in their advanced age. As a consequence the angel announced he will be dumb until the child comes. Soon, Elizabeth got pregnant and the scripture said that she hid herself for about five months.

Then Mary comes on the scene. Six months after the angel Gabriel appeared to Zachariah, the angel came to Mary, who unlike Zachariah showed a full trust in the angel’s word. The angel’s word was, nothing is impossible with God. To assure, the angel added that, “Your cousin, Elizabeth too in her later age, has a child in her womb….” So then Mary with haste went to Elizabeth, and two women stayed together and the famous song Mary’s magnificat came out during the visit…. The song of Zachariah, “Benedictus” too came out this time. As Elizabeth delivered the child and had to name the child in front of the whole crowd of the relative…after naming the new born child, John, as was given by the angel, Zachariah’s mouth got opened and started to sing, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel…..give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death….”

You may wonder why I am suddenly sharing Mary and Zachariah’s story? I am doing it because I feel as though in this beginning story, the vision of God’s kingdom according to Luke is shown. And I hope to find what the poor means from the story, while we admitting the people of economically poor is the most vulnerable.

Zachariah was a priest. Elizabeth too was from the family of Aaron, the brother of Moses…this lineage would make them a quite acceptable family…but to this honorable family, they too have poverty , which was not having child…. Infertility is a poverty even now and how it could be have been in 2000 years ago. … In addition he became dumb in his later age. I bet that was quite a time of test for the couple, like a time of drought…While they may sustain themselves for being a priest, it might have also been perceived as visible signs of the sins of the couple…I wonder whether or not that is reason why Elizabeth hid herself for five months of her pregnancy. As pregnancy came, but the father become dumb….would people think of that pregnancy as good sign or bad omen…. Zachariah and Elizabeth might be an honorable family but in another way they are poverty stricken…(yet during those drought time, they were walking in God’s way, trust in the Lord. )

On the other hand, Mary was a young peasant girl. She was lower class, and poor, but she believed in God even to the point of what might seem impossible, and became God’s mother…..God gave these two different families to each other. They might have been of different ages and different classes, but God put them in community….and helped them to go though a time of drought together, giving them strength in… Out of that the world has totally changed…..two amazing prophetic song came out –Magnificat and Benedictus; two amazing persons, John and Jesus, the one who prepared the way of God and the one who fulfilled the way of God; in whom God is abundantly revealed.. in whose life and death, we see God. In the worst poverty stricken, on the cross, the new life came out.

God does something strange in human eyes. God’s way is very different, radical…

Poverty, hunger and weeping…
If we look around we don’t see that sort of things that much…. The TV brings us smiling faces, perfect teeth, no wrinkles and confidence, thousands of waste of resources….We are getting the message that those are the blessed lifestyles… those are blessed and chosen people…

But unlike us, Jesus was giving blessings to those who are poor, to those who are hungry and to those who weep… Jesus was not saying that if you are hungry, you are blessed, you will be blessed…

But he was and is staying with the people who are poor and hungry and weep now, be next to them, and delight in them and saying, blessed are you, who are poor, blessed are you who are hungry and weep. Poverty, weeping, hunger did not make God away from them, as is the case of human being. Rather God shows more compassion to poor, hungry and weep rather than the rich, the one who laugh and full.

How comforting a message it is that God calls me fortunate when I am hungry, and cold, when I am suffering with guilt and shame, when I am excluded and reviled. How it makes me to go through the days when I remember the word of Jesus, sitting and walking next to me, not moving away from me, but telling me that you are most blessed because I am here with you. God will be with us, God will fill us…and in fact that is the story of our bible…and our job is believing in it…

Another aspect of Luke’s beatitude is woe to you who are full now, woe to you who are laughing now, woe to you when people speak well of you…..Luke’s understanding of God’s kingdom and Christian community sees the rich and poor living together…..while the poor weep and are hungry, there is a warning for anyone who is turning against the poor, and be content with where they are….how long will that fullness will last, how long will that laughing will last? Pretty soon you will be hungry, pretty soon you will weep…That is also a message of Jesus who bless the poor.

Another aspect….as we really believe in Jesus’ beatitude, there wouldn’t be no bitterness, no violence….beatitude is also a call for non-violence…to what we perceive as oppressors.. Because God is being next to us, the poor, hungry and the weeping…and calls us to be with each other as was the case of Mary and Elizabeth, Zachariah and Elizabeth…

Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven…

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. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhibited salt land….But blessed are those which trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord…they shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when hear comes, its leaves shall stay green. In the year of drought it is not anxious and it does not ceases to bear fruit…

Both Jeriamiah and Luke calls us to live in the community with the God as our boss…it’s different way of living… ( quote from the new interpreter’s bible) Typical ways of responses to our culture is either self directed: way of the self, which knows with confidence what it wants to do; it will not be controlled by corporate mentality or the mores of the community. The other is the way of the person, who goes along to get along or who does not know how to direct his or her own life and lets external forces set the direction and the pace. The culture tends to exalt and applaud those who are inner-directed and put down or disparage those who are other directed. But the way Luke sees and Jeremiah is not the way of autonomy, the direction of the self and the ego; nor is it the way of heteronomy, allowing others to control our lives … Rather it is the way of God, the principle of God’s way and the law…(The issue is not success. It is durability, freshness and the possibility of living in the world without fear and anxiety. Hanging on to the lord is a way of hanging in there.)… in the language of Jeremiah, Trust in the Lord, or language of other saints…..believe in….and language of Luke borrowing from Jesus, “Blessed are you, the poor, the hungry, the weep, the reviled one, excluded one, for yours in the kingdom of God……” Today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing…May God blesses us those who hear and believe in this word. Amen.


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