Blessings and Woes

Gospel: Luke 6: 20-26

In our ordinary understanding of blessings and woes, we regard people who are wealthy, happy, well-liked, and well-fed as a blessed lot indeed.  By contrast, we think that people who are poor, weeping, despised, and hungry as a group full of woe and dismay.  We need only to look at the people who are esteemed by society - celebrities and the wealthy who are successful in their trades, unaware that those who are wealthy are often so at the direct expense of many who are destitute.  

Jesus, however, turns the tables on our worldly expectations.  He states that it is those who are poor, hungry, sorrowful, and despised who are blessed while their opposite are those who should woe and fret.  He looks at the authentic prophets of Israel's tradition, and he sees that they are poor, hungry, mourning, and despised.  By contrast, he sees the rich and haughty in that same history as those who are unjust and despicable in moral conduct.   The kingdom of God reverses the fortunes of these groups in the world.

Whose company do we keep in our lives, in the lives of our faith communities? How often do we seek out the company of the rich and powerful whose support we so desire to maintain our buildings and trappings of empire chaplaincy.  How often do we avoid the company of the poor and sorrowful, the hungry and despised.  How far we are from the standards and values of Jesus in our attitudes and behaviors.