.jpg)
So far in Luke’s gospel we have seen Jesus emerge from the deprivations of the desert resplendent with the Holy Spirit (Lk 4:14). He begins his ministry, journeying from town to town, teaching in the synagogues (v.15) healing the sick and the crippled, liberating those who are bound by unclean spirits (vv. 40–41), and befriending the rejected and reviled (5:27–29). He challenges the status-quo: confounding those who would protect it, inspiring hope in all who are oppressed by it. As the number of his followers grows so does the controversy of his teaching. “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath,” and the religious elite, “filled with fury” strengthen their plot against him (6:5, 11). Small wonder, then, that Jesus takes himself up the mountain to replenish his heart and mind with prayer. He spends the night alone with God. Then, when day comes, he calls his disciples, names twelve among them, and leads them down the mountain into the waiting throng.
Luke paints a chaotic scene. He describes “a great crowd of Jesus’ disciples and a great multitude of people” pressing around him, striving to touch him, “for power came out from him and healed them all” (vv. 17–19; cf. 8:46). It is understandable to get swept up in the miraculous events and high drama of Jesus’ ministry. Yet, throughout his account, Luke repeatedly grounds his audience in the deeper demands of Christian discipleship: radical sharing of God’s love and the courage to follow Christ, no matter the cost. This Sunday’s gospel covers them both.
Luke’s account of the Beatitudes is generally read in light of Matthew’s wherein a distinction is noted between the two. Matthew’s emphasis is on spiritual poverty and the desire for holiness: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matt 5:3, 6). In Luke, however, Jesus speaks directly to the concrete deprivations of economic and social injustice. The poor are those who lack the material resources to meet their basic needs. He then sharpens this focus with a corresponding list of woes. Those who are rich, who live a life of unchecked privilege and revelry are facing serious eschatological strife. Such stern teaching rumbles through the Old Testament prophets (Isa 10:1–3; Jer 5:28–29 etc.), blazes from the lips of Mary (Lk 1: 51–53), and demolishes our wilful deafness in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (16:19–31).
As disciples we know enough about Jesus from all four accounts of his life to understand that he is not dismissing, not glossing over or romanticising the profound suffering of the poor. Indeed, Luke’s gospel in particular is widely credited by biblical scholars and theologians alike as concerning itself with the central tenet of Catholic social doctrine: preferential option for the poor. Rather, Jesus is destabilising our ingrained assumptions: contrary to worldy logic, those considered at best completely insignificant to society and at worst utterly beyond the reach of God’s grace in fact provide the very conditions in which God’s Kingdom most powerfully manifests.
All four evangelists treat of the Kingdom of God (in Matthew the Kingdom of Heaven), as an eschatological reality discernible within the lives of all who humbly entrust themselves to faith in the risen Christ. Repeatedly, Jesus enlists women, the poor, the crippled, blind and lame –in short the trampled and discarded –to reveal the unquenchable aliveness that penetrates into even the most anguished experiences of humankind. The Kingdom of God is governed under the law of chesed: God’s overwhelming, compassionate and steadfast love. And the culminant expression of this, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the good news in which we stand and through which we are being saved (1 Cor 15:1).
As disciples of the risen Christ we are called to share this good news by tending to suffering, our neighbour’s and our own, with uncompromising openness to the demands the gospel makes against our lives. Our bigoted ideologies, the unjust structures which arise from them, and the wrongful gains they afford us: all of these are destined for destruction when Christ hands over the kingdom to God (1 Cor 15:24).
Invariably, then, there is a cost to following Christ. We might find ourselves hated, driven out, abused and denounced as criminals on account of taking seriously the teachings of the Son of Man. But this is the priestly sacrifice all the baptised are called to make. It is an offering, a prophetic handing over of the whole self, in all its squalor and glory, into the fire of God’s love. Such love “poured into our hearts through the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5), could wash through the kingdoms of this world if hands that grip too much would open and join with hands that have received too little (Lk 18: 18–30).
About the author:
Jessica Parsons is a Bachelor of Theology student. Drawn to theological studies by the desire to deepen her relationship with Christ, she has found them to be as fascinating as they are transformative. Jessica’s area of academic interest is the interaction between theology, Christian spirituality and trauma theory, particularly for its pastoral implications. She delights in raising her two feisty, courageous teenage daughters, Elizabeth and Camilla, and watching them grow in wisdom and wholeness.
