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You might remember that a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Jesus’ first sermon in the Temple. First, he read from the scroll of the Book of Isaiah: 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
because he has anointed me 
to bring good news to the poor. 
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives 
and recovery of sight to the blind, 
to let the oppressed go free, 
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  

Then, he sat down and declared: “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 

Scholar Luke Timothy Johnson referred to this brief, but powerful teaching as a “programmatic prophecy,” an announcement of Jesus’ gameplan for ministry. 

Three weeks later (for us, not Jesus), now assisted by the twelve apostles, we are seeing Jesus put that “programmatic prophecy” into action. In today’s Gospel reading, which is often referred to as the “Blessings and Woes,” Jesus acts on the call of his life to “bring good news to the poor.” 

(It’s helpful to know that the word used for “poor” in Luke doesn’t just refer to financial lack. As Johnson explains, it refers to anyone without power in society, those without respect, and those who get deprioritized and ignored, because they are seen as embarrassing, burdensome, or even dangerous. 

And maybe most importantly, when Jesus refers to “the poor” in the Gospel of Luke, he means it literally – he is referring to the flesh-and-blood marginalized people of this world.) 

Jesus comes with very good news for these lowly ones: “Blessed are you.” 

Unlike saying “Bless you!” after a sneeze or “Bless your heart” to soften criticism, this blessing is not just a social nicety. The grammatical form of “blessed” suggests that these words, when spoken by God in Christ, actually bring about that reality at the very moment in which they are spoken. 

So, when Jesus declares that the poor, hungry, grieved, and hated ones – the ones without power and respect – are the blessed ones of God, he changes their station in life. Once rejected, they are now the earth’s blessed ones. 

At the same time, those who have always lived secure and respectable lives are now the ones asked to take a hard look at themselves and see whether or not they’re really following God. 

The divine words of Jesus turn the world upside down. Recalling his mom, Mary’s, Magnificat, “He has put down the mighty from their seat: and has exalted the humble and meek.” 

Of course, Jesus isn’t saying something entirely new. But, he is now making real the oldest promise of God to His people: that blessedness is determined solely by our identification with the image of God that is found in all people, not by popularity, status, confidence, or control. 

If this is really true, then it forces everyone gathered there to reconsider what, and who, they follow. Because it forces them to reconsider who is worthy of respect. 

So, let’s look at the people gathered there… Who is Jesus’ audience? Who makes up the crowd? And what do these blessings, and their opposites, mean for how they order their lives? 

“Jesus came down with the twelve apostles and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon…And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them….” 

He’s not in the Temple or the town square, and he’s not talking to a particular group of people who share his views, his status, or his ethnicity. Instead, he is standing on level ground on an open plain, eye-to-eye with the great multitude who have joined him there, jostling, chaotic, and pushing in on one another in hopes of touching him. 

Jesus literally and figuratively levels the playing field as he declares blessedness, as he prophesies and heals in and among a diverse crowd. 

In his book, “After Whiteness,” on the theology of seminary communities, Dr. Willie Jennings talks about “the crowd” that surround Jesus as the centering image that should inform our ethic and our lives as Christians. He says: 

“The crowd is everything. The crowd is us. People shouting, screaming, crying, pushing, shoving, calling out to Jesus: “Jesus, help me;” “Jesus, over here.” People being forced to press up against each other to get to Jesus, to hear him and to get what they need from him. People who hate each other, who would prefer not to be next to each other. Pharisees, Sadducees, zealots, rebels, insurrectionists, terrorists, murderers, tax collectors, sinners, all widows, the orphans, the poor, the rich, sex workers. Wanderers, magicians, musicians, thieves, gangsters, centurions. Addicts and magistrates, city leaders, people from all over the Roman Empire, all pressing to hear Jesus…The crowd is not a temporary condition on the way to something else. The crowd is the beginning of a joining that was intended to do deep pedagogical work” (After Whiteness, 18-19). 

I think Jennings is really getting at this: Though we are all different, the work of Jesus Christ is to gather us into the “great multitude of people” gathered around him. As we fix our eyes on Jesus, himself poor and marginalized, we push closer, seeking healing and wholeness. And, as we do, we find ourselves drawing ever closer to each other. 

Among the crowd, on level ground with Jesus and his apostles, we are on equal footing with rich and poor, friend and enemy, and we become something other than our worldly titles and status would suggest. We become a ragtag, misfit, diverse, and dynamic single entity: the crowd. 

And all of us are here because we are looking toward Jesus, as he centers us on words that turn the world upside down. This poor man Jesus, who will be rejected, ridiculed, and crucified by those he came to save, is the blessed one. And those like him are blessed, too. 

But there’s more. Like Jesus and the apostles, we who are here in the crowd become prophets compelled to proclaim that the poor and hungry have been the closest to God’s righteousness all along. And blessedly for us, we don’t have far to go to get close and learn from these righteous ones. They are here: they’re among us and with us in the crowd that follows Jesus. Perhaps they are us. 

But, if the poor and oppressed are not in the crowd that surrounds us – in our lives, in our churches, or in our communities – it is time to ask ourselves why not. And, if we are not living with and among those forsaken ones Jesus calls blessed, it is time to ask ourselves if we are actually following Jesus, or if we accidentally ended up in a different crowd, following someone else. 

Because Jesus always makes his home among the gathered people who yearn for healing, among the crowds, churches, and communities that are messy, diverse, and rough around the edges, where people disagree and figure out how to be together anyway, with people who have all they need, and people who don’t know what that feels like. 

Jesus longs for us to join him in finding that level ground, in finding that equal footing that leads all of us into the blessedness of God. Eye-to-eye with one another, pushing ever closer to Jesus and, therefore, ever closer to each other. 

Friends, I am thankful to be smushed into the crowd that contains such blessed ones as you. May we seek God’s blessedness together. 

Amen.