February 11, 2007
Luke 6:17-26
“No Place For Complacency”

What place do you have in your life for complacency? How much room have you made for comfort? How attached are you to being established? What place does complacency have in your life?

To look at it from another angle, how set are you on being unsettled? How interested are you in living in chaos? How thrilled would you be to know a life of change, unpredictability, and uncertainty? How set are you on being unsettled.

My questions might seem silly and rhetorical, and the answers obvious. Rich? Full? Laughing? Spoken well of? These are signs of comfort and complacency. Of course we want these, right?

Poor? Hungry? Weeping? Hated? Excluded? Reviled? Defamed? These are signs of being unsettled and out of sorts. We work our entire lives to avoid these, right?

But we’re not talking about our instincts, nor the wisdom of the world, nor even common sense handed down from parents and grandparents. We are talking here about Jesus, and he’s known to be a topsy-turvey fellow. Comfort and complacency, in Jesus’ world, are out! Unsettled and out-of-sorts are in! “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy gospel!”

Luke’s gospel offers us one of two versions of the famous “Beatitudes,” only these are somehow different than those in Matthew, and not just because they are preached “on the plain” and not “from the mount.” Luke’s beatitudes are less poetic, more to the point, directed at “YOU,” and harsher. Matthew broadens and softens the teachings: “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” rather than Luke’s “you who hunger.” Matthew includes the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers, warm and cozy qualities which are absent from Luke. And, most notably, Luke offers ominous woes to his be-happy-attitudes.

The beatitudes Jesus preached as recorded in Matthew are powerful teachings, don’t get me wrong. They are as hard to live now as they were then. But Luke’s take on the instructions Jesus gives us seem to do something a little bit more than just educate. They take the wind out of us, pull the rug out from under us, question the place of complacency in our lives, and set us on being unsettled.

First of all, we shouldn’t get too comfortable with the words we use. The first word is makarios {mak-ar'-ee-os}, which the NRSV translates as “blessed,” which doesn’t quite convey the real sense of the word. Some translations say, “happy,” which is even worse. This isn’t about an internal emotional state, and it’s not nearly as abstract or religious as the word “blessed” sounds. Makarios is more like “honored”; as a statement of community values, it’s like saying “we salute.” Likewise, ouai {oo-ah'-ee}, which the NRSV translates here as “woe,” is more like “shameless,” or “we scorn.” (1)

Next, we shouldn’t get too comfortable with our understanding of the central image of these beatitudes: the poor. Three things that matter about being poor and any conversation about poverty…

1. It matters on which side of the table you are as to how you understand poverty.
2. It matters how you define the concept of “enough.”
3. It matters as to the nature and condition of your community

→ It matters on which side of the table you are as to how you understand poverty. There are the poor, and there are those in abject poverty. In Roman society to be “poor” meant that you were not part of the nobility, the upper class, which primarily meant you had to work for a living. Sounds kinda odd to us, but to many throughout history to be poor meant you had a job, meaning you were of the lower class and were forced to work for a living. Then, there were those even below the poor, those who not only didn’t have work, but for some reason or another could not and probably would never work. The ghastly catchphrase today is “permanent underclass.”(2)
This distinction between levels of oppression and poverty was brought home to me this past week listening to a podcast of “Now Is The Time,” an Air America Radio program with the Rev. Jim Forbes. He was highlighting a new collection of speeches titled Say It Plain: A Century Of Great African American Speeches. One such address is by Dr. Johnetta Cole, President of Bennet College, Greensboro, North Carolina. In it, she reminds us that there is often more than one side of any story. As she talks about Black Women in Academics, she helps us to recognize that sometimes we become complacent fighting only for those who are poor “like me,” she says,
“Each and everyone of us ain’t the same black woman
, found in exactly the same place
 doing exactly the same thing. 
And so I must ask when we speak of black women in the academy
 “Who you talking about?”(3)
She reminded her listeners that she would never advocate for her sisters who were struggling to become university professors and presidents without also advocating for her sisters who were the cleaning ladies and the cafeteria workers.

When we talk about the poor, we need to remember it matters which side of the table you are on and we must advocate for all who are struggling.

→ It matters how you define the concept of “enough.” As I have preached to you many times before, our societal concept of “enoughness” is completely out of kilter. Biblical theologian Walter Brueggeman comments, “We live in a world where the gap between scarcity and abundance grows wider every day. Whether at the level of nations or neighborhoods, this widening gap is polarizing people, making each camp more and more suspicious and antagonistic toward the other.” (4)

When we have any kind of a conversation about the poor, we need to acknowledge the distorted nature of the conversation in the industrialized nations today, and seek to be more honest about who among us are really and truly poor. Not having a car is not living in poverty, but not having clean drinking water is. Not having new clothes is not poverty, but not having clothes at all is.

An old friend of mine, Rev. Amy Jayne Johnson, e-mailed me this week and gave me the perfect illustration of our different ways of seeing what is “enough.” She and her husband, the Rev. Dennis Johnson, of Lodi, California have two children, both older boys adopted a couple of years ago from the Ukraine. She writes:
I have a million stories about the boys. For example: when dad took them on their first shopping trip, he bought all the essentials. They came home and were instructed to wash and put their new clothes away. The boys dutifully washed all their clothes, took a pair of socks (each) and returned the pack to dad. We explained that we bought the pack so they would have LOTS of socks and clean pairs for EVERY day... they whooped and high-fived. They couldn't believe we could be so generous. It's not the average American kid who could be so grateful for being given, not JUST a new pair of socks, but a WHOLE PACK!

When we are talking about the poor, we need to be honest with ourselves, each other, and our culture about what is our definition of “enough.”

→It matters as to the nature and condition of your community. The Greek word for “poor” in this scripture is ptôchos, contrasted with a penês. A ptôchos, is a person reduced to begging, that is, someone who is destitute of all resources. One gives alms to a ptôchos. A penês, or what we might call “working poor,” who has little wealth yet has "sufficiency," is not called "poor" in the Bible. In contrast, the ptôchos, who lacks sufficiency and most other things, such as social standing, is "poor." Key here is that the ptôchos was someone who had lost many or all of his family and social ties. He often was a wanderer, therefore a foreigner for others, unable to burden for any length of time the resources of a group to which he could contribute very little or nothing at all. (5)

When we talk of the poor, we must take into account how they are connected to the community, and community begins with family, then extends to longtime friends and associates, and finally to the broader community. One of the defining characteristics of modern life in America is the disruption of family ties and the higher frequency of moves and relocation. It is much harder to count “community” as one of the resources from which one can draw support, both emotional and physical. We are all poorer for this, but the ptôchos, the destitute, are hit especially hard.

So, having had a fuller discussion of the central image of this text, the poor, we turn back to looking at the place of complacency in our lives and whether or not we can set ourselves on unsettledness as a life of faith.

I appreciate the fact that this text does not actually use the word for “cursed” when Jesus addresses the rich. While it may feel that way, it is not so much that God actually curses those who are comfortable, complacent, satisfied… as much as it is God recognizes the enormous difficulty it is in living faithfully when you are full. “‘Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’” “Woe” is not too far from the word “Whoa!” which probably catches the meaning just as well. Watch out! Be aware! Look out! Whoa!

And if we are honest, complacency can come to persons of all walks of life in all economic circumstances. It’s just a lot harder when you are poor to be comfortable.

So if Jesus then isn’t really condemning the rich, the full, those who laugh and are spoken well of, then what is his cautionary message to the complacent? Is he implying that those of us who live comfortably should make life difficult for ourselves, stir up the waters, live unsafe lives, jump off the deep end just to get things moving, just to be “blessed?”


Probably not. Jesus was a risk taker, but usually spiritually, politically, and socially and certainly not carelessly. Rather, I think Jesus recognized the fundamental principle of inertia that we know as Newton’s first law of physics: “An object at rest remains at rest until acted upon by an outside force.” Spiritually, when we find ourselves complacent and comfortable, we are much more likely to remain there and become stagnant and self-satisfied. And while God and Jesus both have wonderful things to say about Sabbath rest and renewal, we are constantly warned about the place of complacency and told to, time and time again, “Go!”

Jesus bold teachings on the plain take us to a different place. In these simple and provoking words he recognizes that setting ourselves on being unsettled is the best and surest way to always be aware of God’s presence and to actively live out the commandments to “love God,” “love neighbor,” and “love self.” To avoid the complacent places and to hang out with the unsettled set means we are primed to see God.

And we know this because when we have been poor, and hungry, when we weep and are hated – and every one of us has been there at one time or another in our lives – we have known God in new and amazing ways. We know that in our brokenness, God has been present like neverbefore. Paul reminds us that “we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7-8). Even he, in his own unsettled life, knew when God could use him the most: “For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:8-9) Paul had no room for contentment, and every reason to be unpredictable -- the mission of God demanded it!

There is no place for complacency in our lives. It’s too dangerous a place for our souls to rest for very long. We must set our hearts on unsettled lives, knowing that as difficult as it may be, it is where God works best. The poor and the hungry know it and invite us to join them in witnessing God’s mighty acts. Those who mourn and are hated also know it and invite us to join them in receiving the amazing gifts of God. And in those unsettled and broken places, God will work wonders for us, too. I believe it.

Amen.

(1) http://www.sarahlaughed.net/sermons/2004/02/good_news_for_a.html
(2) I am indebted to a very scholarly article by Jerome H. Neyrey, S.J. of the University of Notre Dame for much of this information: http://www.nd.edu/~jneyrey1/loss.html
(3) http://www.airamerica.com/thetimeisnow/node/103
(4) “Enough Is Enough” by Walter Brueggemann in The Other Side, November-December 2001, Vol 37, #5.
(5) Neyrey.




Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org


 

Copyright 2007 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096