Where are you’all? Jesus is with You’all
Where are you in this story? It’s a question that theologian Mark Allen Powell used to ask. Where are you in this story?
But before you answer that, I’d like to give you a little more context to the story. This year we have been working our way through the Gospel of Luke but today, for All Saints Day, we go back to chapter 6. Jesus is in the beginning of his ministry. He has been baptized, and preached at his hometown to his neighbors’ delight, and then was almost thrown over the cliff by those same people. Since that time, Jesus has been busy preaching, teaching, healing and calling his disciples. He’s been doing what he told the townspeople he would do: bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to captives, heal the blind, let the oppressed go free and proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God.
And then, he climbs a mountain and spends the night in prayer. We don’t know what happened in that prayer, but the next morning, Jesus is energized. He gathers the apostles and disciples and goes down the mountain to preach the Sermon on the Plains.
This sermon is similar to the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus, preaching from the mountain, pronounces spiritual blessings on the poor, the meek, and those who are “least likely to receive the “most likely to succeed” award. I love those blessings - but Luke tells the story a little differently. In Luke, Jesus goes down the mountain – and before he even begins to preach – he is met by a great crowd of people from all over the known world.
On this All Saints Day, as we remember those who have died over the past year, we give thanks for them. And, we give thanks that they are with Jesus now. For as Lutherans, we don’t set apart certain “super Christians” as saints. Rather, we are ALL Saints by virtue of our baptism. Jesus claimed us as brothers and sisters, siblings and fellow heirs to the kingdom of God. And yet, we still sin, we still fall short of acting, and thinking and living as the saints that Jesus has called us to be. We are all sinners who need Jesus as our Lord and savior. This is why we proclaim that we are simultaneously Saints and Sinners.
The other thing that we claim is that when we come to the table – the Lord’s table – we are joined by Jesus and ALL the Saints – living and dead – from all over the world whether from Minnesota, Texas, Washington, China, Russia, the Ukraine, Gaza or Israel. Jesus comes down to be “God WITH Us.”
On that morning, when Jesus comes DOWN the mountain, he finds a huge crowd of people waiting for him. They came because they had heard about a mighty preacher who could heal their diseases. And so of course they came. I understand that completely - when my mother was ill and the doctors in the hospital that she was at would not even give her a diagnosis, my sister and I did not stop until we found a doctor who would care for her. And I know many of you have done the same thing – when a loved one is ill and there is someone who might be able to help, you want to do whatever it takes to find healing. And so, since word had gotten out that Jesus was a healer, there were people from Judea and Jerusalem and Tyre and Sidon – which is to say – from everywhere.
Jesus saw the people … and he healed them all. ALL of them regardless of who they are, where they were from, or why they were hurting. Jesus heals their wounds, their diseases and their hearts and spirits. And then… he preaches, addressing the real-life challenges of the people who are standing before him. Using words that are reminiscent of the language of reversal that his mother Mary proclaims in the Magnificat, Jesus proclaims a reversal of fortunes from their status NOW to the future, a future with hope and blessings.
I like to imagine Jesus preaching with a southern drawl because he addresses all of us, saying,
· “you’all” –who are poor NOW - will receive the kingdom of God.
· You’all who hunger NOW, you’all will be filled.
· You’all who mourn NOW, you’all will laugh.
· You’all who are being marginalized NOW – you all will have cause to “Rejoice … and leap for joy.
Jesus is proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God. But he is not just talking to the people on the plains that day. Jesus is talking to You’all too. For we can all find ourselves in this group of people. You may at times have been hungry, or marginalized. But we all have mourned. And so, especially on days like today when we remember those people we have loved and who have died, we hear Jesus proclaiming a blessing to us.
We can also – yikes - find ourselves in the group of people to whom Jesus pronounces “woes.” But the good news is that the “woes” aren’t a word of condemnation. Instead, they are a wake-up call. As Eugene Peterson, in the Message Bible, translates this passage:
· “it’s trouble ahead if you think you have it made. What you have is all you’ll ever get.
· And it’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself.
Your self will not satisfy you for long.
· And it’s trouble ahead if you think life’s all fun and games.
There’s suffering to be met, and you’re going to meet it.
· “There’s trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests—Your task is to be true, not popular.”
These are important words for us in the United States to hear, we who have grown up hearing that we can “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” and that our only responsibility is to take care of “our own.” But Jesus reminds the crowd, of which we’re all are a part, that if one person is hungry, you’all, we’all cannot ignore the need. If one hurts then we are all called to respond. Because Jesus has made the table bigger. “Our own” is not just those who are related to us, come from the same place, speak the same language, think the same way. “Our own” are God’s people everywhere.
For Jesus reminds us that when he talks about “God’s people” – he is not talking about just the people of Faith-Lilac Way, this community, the Lutheran church, the United States, those who look like us, or talk like us or think like us, but instead, ALL the saints – living and dead – all over the world.
The ”woes,” Jesus’ warnings, are countercultural. And, Jesus has more to say. Perhaps he knows just how challenging it is for us because Jesus says, “to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; 2bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you…..Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
This is the hardest thing that Jesus calls us to do. And yet, just because it is hard, and we will fail sometimes, Jesus still calls us to do it.
And, there are some surprising blessings in doing so. Martin Luther King Jr. found this out. He was thrown into jail and beaten more than once for preaching and protesting for those who were considered “the least of these.” Reflecting on his experiences Martin Luther King Jr. said, " As my sufferings mounted, I soon realized that there were two ways that I could respond to my situation: either to react with bitterness or to transform the suffering into a creative force." He chose to be a creative force in the world.
Friends in Christ, in this time in our world, in which people are increasingly divided, and isolated from one another, it would be good for us to remember Jesus’ call to love our enemies and to pray for
those who cause us or others to suffer. For we are a part of the community in Christ and Jesus calls us to transform the world with love and not with hatred, with compassion and not with disdain, with Jesus’ way and not “our way.” For Jesus is with us – All of Us Saints & Sinners-- and for Jesus’ sake, we give thanks. Amen.
Faith-Lilac Way Lutheran Church + All Saints Day + Pastor Pam Stalheim Lane