“Yikes!”

Scripture – Luke 6:17-26

Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Randall T. Clayton

Sunday, February 16, 2025

On the wall of Rodney Chapel that backs up to the sanctuary, there’s a very special piece of sculpture – the Mathias Cross.  It is a memorial to Fred and Cleta Mathias. Fred was one of the pastors here for nearly 20 years, and about 10 years after he left, he and his wife were murdered in their home a few days before Christmas by a very disturbed young man who was part of the church in Indiana Fred was serving at the time. On the Mathias cross[1], at the base, there are three crowns of thorns and woven through the crowns is a serpent or a dragon. The artist who created the sculpture says that the crowns and the serpent are a metaphor for evil. Above these crowns of thorns and the dragon which is interwoven is a tall cross, containing butterflies and lilies which are symbols of faith. Taken as a whole, the sculpture is meant to remind us that through God’s love and forgiveness even evil can be transformed.

But when we are in the midst of evil, pain, loss, it’s awfully hard to find hope for transformation or blessing, for that matter. And yet, in Jesus’ sermon, he says blessed are those who are hungry, weeping, reviled for living faithfully. “How so?” one experiencing such things might rightfully ask. “How so?” we too might ask.

And then, after “Blessed are you” to those the world would not see as being blessed at all, Jesus said “Woe” to those who are rich, comfortable, safe, seemingly happy. Yikes.

As I’ve pondered this portion of Jesus sermon this week, I have found myself wincing, because I think the truth is that most of us are living pretty much on the “woe” side of the equation. I mean most of us here have a larder stocked with food; and when it gets empty or we have a hankering for some particular food item not in the pantry, we can pull out a credit card or some cash can get what we want. But Jesus said “Woe” to those who are full. Yikes. And he said, “Blessed” are those who are hungry.

Most of us here have clothes – honestly, more than we really and truly need. What’s in our closets may not be the style we like, and expanding waistlines might make what we have not fit as well or look as nice on us we’d like, but most of us here are not in danger of having nothing to wear. And Jesus said “Blessed” are the poor. Not “Blessed” are those with closets full. Yikes. Yikes!

Most of us here have one, or two, or three vehicles in our driveway to carry us where we want to go, whenever we want to go. Our homes have heat and air conditioning. We can afford at least an occasional overnight away (if not extensive vacations) and an occasional meal out if not regular meals out. And Jesus said? Jesus said, “Blessed” are the poor, and “Woe” to those who are rich. Yikes.

As I was thinking about woes and blessings this week, and feeling not just a little bit uncomfortable as a white well-educated male serving a congregation that is by and large pretty comfortable, I began to try to envision what it would look like and feel like to be reading this passage while standing in the bombed out rubble of Gaza, surrounded by Palestinians returning to what was once their homes, loving their homeland as we love ours. Standing in the midst of broken rock, twisted pipes, cratered streets, demolished infrastructure as well as medical facilities, with little-to-no food and clean water, I suspect both the blessings and woes would sound differently to those Palestinians than perhaps I hear them today here in this lovely historic sanctuary. Although I can’t imagine that those standing around us in Gaza would say they were blessed, I also can’t imagine that they would feel the sting of the woes as perhaps we here might.

And then I imagined reading this passage while standing on a street in a burned-out subdivision in California, the smell of fire still in the air, ashes covering everything, mud on the hills threatening to slide down and bury everything. There with us among the ruins of homes, businesses, were people who had lost everything, tears streaming down their cheeks, hearts breaking. I don’t think they would say the fire that destroyed everything was a blessing, but when your life, livelihood, home, and hope has been reduced to ashes and mud, perhaps Jesus’ sermon does sound a little different than it does to those whose lives are going along with only a few bumps and potholes along our way.

And then I thought about how Jesus’ sermon might sound by those who received an email overnight that their job had been eliminated. Doubtful that they would say they were blessed. And, neither would migrants having come here wanting a better life for themselves, or fleeing persecution, now no longer certain that it’s even safe to come to a sanctuary to worship. A parent suddenly unable to get the medical services needed for their trans child is not going to feel very blessed these days; and neither do those of us who fear a potential loss of long-sought rights to marry feel especially blessed either.

It’s true that it is pretty much impossible to see blessing in those things, but perhaps Jesus’ woes don’t loom as large when you are frightened for what tomorrow may bring than when you aren’t. Perhaps the woes don’t loom as large when you are reeling from the news of a devastating medical diagnosis, or when your world has come crashing down, and been turned inside out and upside down by something you have no control over at all. Blessings and woes. Perhaps how we hear Jesus words has everything to do with which side of Jesus’ woe-blessing equation we are on at any given time.

Jesus had been on a mountain – a place that biblically is associated with being close to God. Then he came down to stand on level ground with people from all over the world. And although walking on level ground is usually easier than traversing the side of a mountain, biblically the word “level” is associated with corpses, disgrace, and idolatry, with suffering, misery, hunger, annihilation, and mourning. If you are on level ground, you are someone that the community has thrown out, someone who knows how it feels and what it means to be discriminated against, someone whose world has come apart at the seams, someone who is desperate and destitute, and there is nothing, nothing, they can do to change that fact. When Jesus came off the mountain to level ground, there waiting for him were hordes of people from all over the world whose lives and hopes had been leveled out by circumstances far beyond their control. And Jesus said to them, “Blessed are you.”

“Blessed?” they surely wondered. “How so?” we wonder too.

Well, to know that we aren’t alone in the darkness of our days, there’s a blessing in that. To know that the way the world is, is not the way God intends, that too is blessing. When the world tells us we are worth less than others, that we are somehow defective, or lazy because we have given our lives in public service, when the world says that we can be thrown away or driven out, or when it says it’s OK for children to starve and virus’ to run rampant through poverty stricken parts of the world, in those times, coming to know that God thinks very, very, differently than the world thinks is the stuff of blessing too.

But of course, that sort of blessing doesn’t put food on the table, a roof over your head, clothes on your back, the dignity you deserve, the medicine that you need, or education for your children. And so maybe that’s why Jesus continued after blessing those without, by uttering “Woe” to those who were comfortable, to those focused on their own wants, to those climbing the right social ladders, and having relative safety and a place in the world. “Woe,” Jesus said.

I don’t actually think Jesus was uttering a curse when he said, “Woe,” nor was he suggesting that we should aspire to become homeless or hope to face starvation. Indeed, he’s not speaking in the imperative here, as if it’s a command, but in the indicative; he’s actually describing the way God’s world is. Furthermore, while the call “Woe” sounds pretty ominous to our ears, the word in Greek actually means something like, “Yikes” or “Whoa,” or “Hold on.” Jesus is issuing a wake-up call to those who would follow; a wake-up call to jolt us out of our complacency, reminding us of who God is, what God desires, and where we can find the hope and joy and life we desperately desire too. “Yikes,” Jesus says. We are in big trouble if we think our value has anything to do with what we have, what we can hold onto, and whether we are welcomed in the halls of power (or for that matter in our own neighborhood associations and clubs) because we’ve kept quiet about the atrocities all around us. If we hope to find meaning, value, and self-worth by what we have, by what we can hold onto, or by our position in the community of the comfortable, “Yikes.”

Jesus says, “Wake up.” Jesus calls, because those are fleeting things, and they will never give us the life and joy that we so desperately desire; they won’t lead us to the life and joy which God so desperately desires for us and for all God’s children.

When our energy is focused on getting more, securing our own future or our place in the social order of things, we may have some money, an illusion of happiness, a mirage of contentment, but that’s all we get. Nothing more. And at the end of a day, or the end of a life, that’s not really very much. But when we join Jesus on level ground, among people whose lives have been leveled out, and seek their welfare, we may stumble into a fullness and joy of life that we can barely even imagine now.

Jesus came down from the mountain, disciples in tow. He healed and taught and blessed. But as he said “Blessing” and “Woe,” the text says he looked up at his disciples. It makes me imagine that perhaps as he was speaking, he was kneeling there on the level ground, kneeling, looking up to make eye contact with his followers – his gaze meeting theirs, their eyes meeting his, his eyes pleading with them to be a blessing to those whose lives had been leveled out, urging them to stand up for those who were pushed down, begging them to welcome as he welcomed, to serve as he served, to love as he loved; welcoming, serving, loving those who knew few, or maybe no, blessings in their daily lives.

Standing on level ground, among those the world had forgotten or was willing to throw away, Jesus reached his hands out. With his healing power he restored bodies and hopes. He then looked up at his followers, meeting our eyes too, pleading, asking, “Won’t you join me? Won’t you stand with me among those whose lives and hopes have been dashed? Won’t you stand with me among those whose world has come apart at the seams? Won’t you be a blessing to them?”

Jesus came off the mountain, that place associated with the holy. He came down to level ground, which was the place of pain, and hurt and disappointment, and fear, and abject poverty. Standing around him were the hurting, the dispossessed, the frightened, the poor, those who were at the very bottom of the world, people whose lives had literally been leveled out by things beyond their control. That’s where Jesus went, and I don’t think Jesus ever left there. So, if we want to see Jesus, that’s where we must go to.

There, on level ground, his eyes meet ours, our gaze meets his, and he still pleads with those who love him to find blessing in our own lives, by being blessings to those who know none in this world. He pleads with us to do all we can do to transform the evil that creates poverty and hopelessness and pain, into joy and hope and life for God’s most desperate children near and far.

And when we join Jesus on that level ground, among people whose lives have been leveled out, and we join him in transforming the evil and pain and struggles faced by so many of God’s children, when we join him among the people world’s powerful forget, or among those who are targets of hate and discrimination, we may see Jesus. And when we do, as we join Jesus in transforming evil and pain, I think we may also see a look of contentment on Jesus’ face, and a joyous twinkle in his eye and know with absolute certainty that he says to us, “Blessed are you too. Blessed are you.”

[1] The Mathias Cross was created by artist Gregory Leavitt in 1999.

SOURCES

Some ideas for this sermon were derived from a set of handwritten notes made by the preacher several years ago. Unfortunately, the sources from which those notes came are missing. The preacher apologizes for any missing attributions to particular authors, books, articles, sermons or blogs.

• Gonazalez, Justo. Luke. In Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible. Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.
• Henrich Sarah, “Commentary on Luke 6:17-26”. Feb. 13, 2022, workingpreacher.org.
• Levine, Amy-Jill and Witherington, Ben. The Gospel of Luke. In New Cambridge Bible Commentary. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• Lewis, Karoline. “Woes and Whoas.” Feb. 6, 2022. workingpreacher.org.
• Shelton, Sarah Jackson. “Blessing or Curse.” Day1.org, Feb. 11, 2007.
• Stoffregen, Brian. “6^th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C”. crossmarks.com
• Taylor, Barbara Brown. “God’s Ferris Wheel.” In Home by Another Way. Cowley, 1999.
• Thomas, Debie. “Leveled.” Feb. 26, 2022, journeywithJesus.net.
• Wegner, Lauren Dow. “Leveled Out (Luke 6:17-26)”. Feb. 15, 2019, christiancentury.org.
• Willimon, William, H., “Damn Preacher,” Christian Century, Feb. 10, 2004.

Prayers of the People

Gregory Knox Jones

Composer of creation, you are both the robust energy of the universe and the soft whisper within us. As we come to you in prayer, we do not invoke your presence, but rather acknowledge that you are always present. Your Spirit surrounds us and penetrates us, yet we are often blind to your activity in our midst and deaf to your urgings in our soul. We pray that we may clear the sleep from our eyes, disperse the meaningless chatter from our brains, and become fully awake to your divine word.

Loving God, when we turn on the news or go online, we encounter story after story of the victories being won by the prince of darkness. Wars create millions of homeless children, women, and men, and decimate the environment. Poverty robs people of their health. A young woman experiments with opioids and overdoses. Her loved ones are now drowning in their grief. Men in positions of power abuse women. Some are exposed and pay a price, others get away with no penalty; but the scars cry out for healing. Words of discrimination and disrespect that should be repudiated, instead rally people to fear anyone unlike themselves. Lord, the drumbeat of human misery seems never to cease, and these days it only grows louder.

Mighty God, we know that evil will not surrender without a fight. We pray that we may not grow weak in the knees. Bolster our determination to strive for truth and justice, generosity, and equality.

God of fire and freedom, you call us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. When we are bland, restore our zest; when our light dims, ignite a spirit of courage within us. One of our greatest blunders is to imagine that we are alone in the work you have called us to do. You summon us to lock arms with people of goodwill to combat the forces that breed ill will.

Grant us the courage to counter cruelty with compassion, and to repel deceit with principle. We know that you want us to create a world very different than the one that is unfolding. Guide us to a future where all people – not just those of European descent – have an opportunity to flourish.

Lord, if we fall exhausted, infuse us with energy; and if we feel defeated, boost our resolve. Give us strength to keep marching forward and an intrepid spirit to stand firm for your holy ways.

Jesus taught his followers how to pray; we join our voices now, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.