In our gospel reading for today, Jesus teaches the people what are known as the Beatitudes – the conditions under which we should consider ourselves blessed. And unlike gospel writer Matthew, gospel writer Luke also throws in some anti-Beatitudes – the conditions under which we can expect woe. Contrary to the teachings of his time, Jesus says it is the ones who SUFFER who are BLESSED by God, and it is the ones who are COMFORTABLE who can expect WOE. But contrary to the teachings of OUR time, it is not just ANY suffering that is blessed, it is the suffering doled out by the world as a result of our participation in the kingdom of God. And for that suffering, like the suffering of Jesus on the cross, our reward is great in heaven....
It used to be simple. Back in the days of the prophet Jeremiah, when almost everyone was involved in agriculture, suffering was a straightforward thing. If you were pleasing to the Lord, your land was given God's abundant rain, you and your family stayed healthy, and the Lord rewarded you “according to the fruit of your doings.” If you were not pleasing to the Lord, your life resembled the parched salt lands – you were punished with suffering. And this is for many of us, a kind of default setting – we experience suffering, even suffering that is not a direct result of our bad choices, and we still think to ourselves, “what did we do wrong?”
But as time went on, and God's people matured in their relationship with Him, more nuance developed around suffering. God inspired the story of Job – a blameless man who suffered greatly, just so that God could win a wager with Satan. The prophet Isaiah prophesied about a Suffering Servant, who would receive extreme punishment he himself did not deserve, in order to fulfill God's plan for salvation. And that, of course, pointed to Jesus' actions on the cross. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus teaches what seems to be a repudiation of Jeremiah – the MORE your life resembles the parched salt lands, the more BLESSED you are – the more pleasing you are to God.
And some Christian groups take this new teaching from Jesus on suffering, and ditch any and all remaining nuance. Suffering is the sure sign of discipleship, of God's favour, of the reality of your salvation – maybe the ONLY sure sign. If you are NOT currently suffering, maybe you're doing Christianity the wrong way. Maybe if you had a good breakfast this morning, you should skip lunch and give the money to the poor. Or maybe when you get home, you should flagellate yourself with one of those whips, and create enough bodily pain to meet your suffering quota for the week. How else can you be sure that you are pleasing to the Lord?
And suffering is not just measured in terms of individual people. Inspired by the Marxists, or maybe, inspiring the Marxists, we have heard since the 1990's about God's “preferential option for the poor” as described in what's known as liberation theology. Those GROUPS or CLASSES who are poor and suffering must obviously be more pleasing to God than the “oppressors” or their descendants who are not suffering. It should therefore be the Christian desire of the oppressors to willingly take on suffering, whether in high taxes or energy costs or relinquishing of political power, so that a more equal distribution of suffering is achieved. Sounds like a definition of socialism I've heard that I thought was supposed to be a joke!
Taking Jesus' teaching from our gospel reading without context and without nuance, leads to some glaring problems in logic. If weeping is a sign of blessing and God's favour, and if having an unclean spirit or a dread disease causes people to weep, then why would Jesus have HEALED all the people he did in the first part of our gospel reading? He would be stealing their source of blessedness! Why on earth would we operate a food bank, if being hungry was a sure sign of being pleasing to God? Why would we get ourselves in such a flap to RELIEVE any and all suffering of people, if suffering is a Christian ideal? Wouldn't it instead be a moral good to INFLICT suffering on others, so that they may be blessed? Taking this interpretation of Jesus' word makes no sense, and is out of character for a loving God.
Of course, Jesus is NOT saying that SUFFERING IN GENERAL brings blessedness, just the suffering that is a result of voluntarily placing the highest value on the kingdom of God. And we hear this most clearly in the blessedness for being hated. You are NOT blessed if you are hated for being an arrogant jerk. You ARE blessed if you are hated on account of the Son of Man. If, in the process of being a disciple of Jesus, as retaliation from the world that hates Jesus, you end up poor or hungry or weeping, take heart, because the situation is temporary, and you are blessed. If in the process of being a disciple of Jesus, in support of brothers and sisters who are suffering, you end up suffering too, take heart, because the situation is temporary, and you are blessed.
But if, in the process of being a disciple of Jesus, we end up wealthy and well fed and happy and popular while our local brothers and sisters are starving and miserable, maybe we need to evaluate our commitment to the kingdom of God. If we are feeling COMFORTABLE, we need to ask ourselves if we are being TRUTHFUL enough, or GENEROUS enough, or FORGIVING enough, or COMPASSIONATE enough to truly advance the kingdom of God.
We have a hard act to follow. Jesus Christ suffered the loss of everything for the kingdom of God. He surrendered his life to the Roman authorities and was crucified on a cross, undergoing physical suffering that none of the people he healed could ever imagine. And in the three days he was in the grave, he suffered spiritually such that no one could ever WANT to imagine, with the weight of the sin of all humanity on his shoulders. Jesus WAS the sacrifice to END all sacrifice – he was the final Passover lamb, the final sin offering that signalled the forgiveness of sins for all who follow him, for all time.
And on the third day, God JUSTIFIED the suffering of Jesus by raising him from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus proves his suffering was NOT in vain, but instead was transformed by God into something glorious. Resurrection is the RESULT of Jesus' suffering – and it is the resurrection of Jesus that enables us to put our trust in God's salvation, and gives us the power to place our highest value in God's kingdom.
We believe that it is not OUR suffering that earns us eternal life – only the suffering of Jesus could have accomplished that. We are not called to SEEK OUT suffering, as if it were beneficial to us at face value. But we also believe that in a life of truly following Jesus, suffering is pretty much inevitable. Responding to the needs of those around us, responding to the opportunities given to us to witness, responding to the trespasses committed against us – this is where our time, talents, and treasure go in the name of Christ. In the little, or the big, day-to-day suffering we endure, we put our discipleship on display. And I hate to disagree with Paul in our second reading, but even in THIS life, our discipleship in Christ brings us benefits, because it is through commitment to the kingdom of God that our lives become MEANINGFUL. The choices we make for our kids, our parents, our community, our church, our business, our craft, our country...our Lord – the choices that are not comfortable but are instead heroic, this is what is REMEMBERED of us, and this is what we WANT remembered of us. Following Jesus gives us a meaningful life in THIS life.
And since, “in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died,” we also receive something much greater than the comforts of this life – we receive the great reward in heaven...of the resurrected everlasting life with God.
Heavenly Father, keep us from getting comfortable in our lives, and keep us open to opportunities to expand your kingdom. Remind us always of the wonderful gift that Jesus has made possible for us through HIS suffering, in his name, amen.