Blessed are the Poor

BLESSED BE - SUNDAY FEBRUARY 16, 2025

Luke 6:17-26 "Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. Then he looked up at his disciples and said:

“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 on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
“Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
“Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

➖

What Martin Luther King Jr. described as the Beloved Community, and Gandhi understood to be a moral movement of non-cooperation, Jesus simply called the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you who suffer from unjust financial structures – the poor – for yours is the kingdom of heaven.”

Not one protestor marching with Gandhi in the Salt Satyagraha of 1930 so much as raised a hand to defend themselves from the blows of British soldiers. They believed. As African Americans marched from Selma to Montgomery, despite the tear gas and thrashing of State Police on Bloody Sunday March 7, 1965, their peaceful procession continued. They believed. And when Jesus himself was illegally led to his death by an occupying Roman government, he never raised a cry. He believed.

Blessed are the poor … blessed are the hungry … blessed are those who weep … but woe to you who are fat, sassy and satisfied. You have already received everything you are going to get.

When evil raises its ugly head; when public policy turns towards destruction, chaos and selfish gains; when the poor suffer and the rich laugh – when we must see and suffer what we are now seeing and suffering - it can be hard to believe. I know. But remember, while hundreds were wounded and two killed with Gandhi in the Salt March, change came. Four were killed and countless bloodied on the march from Selma to Montgomery, and Civil Rights legislation was eventually won. By any earthly standard Jesus, dead on the cross, lost. Yet here we are!

God is in our passions and our resistance. Never forget that. What you do matters! And God is always more and beyond what we ourselves can do.

Blessed be . . . Blessed be . . . Blessed be!




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