Buttons and Bows and Blessings and Woes

February 16, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

It’s impossible to drive around the metropolitan area without being enticed by billboard signs for the New York Lotto or the MegaMillions lotteries. Last week the Lotto was dangling $2.9 mill before our eyes and there was $110 mill in the Mega pot. 

These figures are mind boggling, way beyond our ability to imagine them in our bank accounts. But there’s no harm in dreaming about it, and most of us do. There is an old story about a man who prayed daily that God would let him win the lottery. But with every drawing of the lottery God was silent, until the man pleaded with God, “Please, please, let me win the lottery.” And after a few seconds of silence, a voice came down from above: “Can't you at least buy a ticket?”

Many of us do buy tickets, especially when the lotteries reach astronomical heights. Martha and I have been known to purchase lotto tickets to buy ourselves a few hours of fantasizing what it would be like to be rich. We invoke Dorothy Parker, the acerbic writer for the New Yorker, who said, “I don’t know much about being a millionaire, but I’ll bet I’d be darling at it.”

Yes, buying lottery tickets is fun, especially knowing the chances of winning are infinitely slim. And when we don’t win, we can shrug it off and resume our normal lives.

Our Gospel reading for this morning reminds us what we already knew: that we should place our hope in God and not the New York Lottery.

Luke 6:17-26 is known as the Sermon on the Plain, because we are told Jesus came down “and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people.” (Lk 6:17)

The first thing we notice about the Sermon on the Plain are beatitudes very like the ones in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. (Mt 5)

This is not surprising because Matthew was written before Luke wrote his Gospel, and it’s possible Luke was aware of Matthew before he put pen to parchment.

It’s also possible that Jesus preached similar sermons on the mount and the plain and in many other places. Many rabbis teach by repeating lessons many times until their listeners know them by heart. This would explain why the words of Jesus are remembered so clearly by Gospel writers decades after his ascension.

But the Sermon on the Plain adds something new. In addition to blessings, Jesus invokes woes on his disciples.

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

“Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

“Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.” (Lk 6:24-26)

Woe, woe, woe. Who is Jesus addressing?

I very much fear it could be me. And us. Dwellers of the richest nation in the history of the world.  

Are we rich? Certainly not in comparison to the one percent. But compared to the homeless, compared to starving babies in Gaza or Rwanda, “we have received our consolation.”

Are we full, as Jesus put it? Beyond doubt.

Do all speak well of us? Perhaps.

These are worrisome questions. It’s more comforting to seek solace in the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Plain.

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” (Lk 6:20-21)

But Mary Hinkle Shore of Brevard, North Carolina, wonders if these beatitudes are all that comforting.

“The difficulty in preaching this text in a 21st-century American, mainline Christian context is that most of us who will hear this word are not inclined to trust it,” she writes. “When are the poor and hungry anything but a cause for sadness (except when they inspire an odd sort of gratitude, as in, ‘There but for the grace of God go I’)? And who can endure character assassination, which we know as canceling or bullying, even for the sake of our faith? We aim to be rich, full, laughing, and respected. Hearing the beatitudes from Jesus, we may be tempted to think, ‘I’ll take my chances with the status quo.’”

Be that as it may, there are times when we desperately need Jesus’ reassurances. 

Life is a roller coaster of ups and downs, laughter and weeping, joys and depressions, toils and snares. Even in the richest country on earth, for many, the status quo sucks.

Many live from paycheck to paycheck, or on Social Security, or on food stamps. Many are crushed by credit card debt. Many are sorting out their bills to decide which must be paid now and which can wait. Many are facing eviction and homelessness. Many are facing health issues and wondering how to pay for insulin, cardiac medicine, and other drugs. 

And many are cynical about the power of God and Jesus to lift them out of their poverty.

And many overlook the fact that when Jesus promises food and laughter, he’s not talking about miraculous manna from heaven of a mass replication of bread and fish. He’s reminding us, as John Kennedy said in his inaugural address, “Here on earth, God’s work must truly be our own.” God’s hands are our hands. The poor, the suffering, the oppressed, are everyone’s responsibility. We are called to have each other’s backs.

Martin Luther forgive me, I think this is clearly set down in the Epistle of James.

Luther, who systematically excised biblical books he didn’t like (declaring then “Apocrypha”), didn’t care for James’ smug missive, which he called “an epistle of straw.” 

Luther objected to the church’s habit of extorting “good works” from its beleaguered congregations for its own profit, and he declared a gospel of works was a tool of the devil.

Given the corruption of the church in Luther’s day, it’s hard to disagree with him.

In our day, however, James seems to be raising urgently legitimate questions:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. James 2:14-17.

That’s another way of saying that if one truly has faith, good works must follow automatically. There can be no good works in the absence of faith. And if faith is present, good works cannot be stifled.

That’s a sobering thought for any faithful Christian who has stepped over a sleeping homeless person or brushed off a hungry panhandler.

But we tend ignore human needs far greater than that and assuage our guilt in precisely the fashion James warns us about: by praying for the desperate, as if to invite them to “keep warm and eat your fill.”

We Lutherans address these needs through Lutheran Family Services and Lutheran World Service. Most mainline denominations have similar programs to support the poor at home and around the world. Our work through USAID has been crucial. Many church leaders warn that millions of people will die as a result of the U.S. decision to stop USAID funding, and hundreds of millions more will be condemned to “dehumanizing poverty.”

“Life consists in the provision of God, a provision evident in Jesus’ presence, healing, and teaching among the people,” writes Mary Hinkle Shore. “With the beatitudes, Jesus announces that the provision of God is trustworthy when the world is offering poverty, hunger, grief, and rejection.”

God’s provision is trustworthy when it is carried our through our hands, when he poor, the suffering, the oppressed, are everyone’s responsibility, when we respond to the call to have each other’s backs.

May God open all our eyes to hunger, suffering, and oppression in every facet of our lives.

Amen.