Epiphany 6 C - Sunday, February 17, 2019

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
Epiphany 6 C - Sunday, February 17, 2019

Jeremiah 17:5-10
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Luke 6:17-26

Click here for an audio version of the sermon.

In the gospel according to Luke, the paragraph just preceding our reading of this morning tells us that Jesus spent the night in prayer on a mountain. At the end of that night, he chose twelve apostles among the troop of disciples who was with him. Then they all came down on the plain.

Luke notes that Jesus was full of power and healed many among the crowd that awaited them on the level field. Full of the Spirit, Jesus then gives what is called the Sermon on the Plain which extends beyond what we read today.

Our passage today is a parallel to the Beatitudes in the gospel according to Matthew. But besides four blessings, Luke recounts a mirroring four curses that vividly contrast the rich and the poor in regard to the Kingdom of God.

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Less than a month ago, I got to preach to you about the Magnificat which I characterized as Mary’s revolutionary song and a socioeconomic manifesto. Well, in today’s gospel, a grown-up Jesus is making his mom proud by preaching just the reversal of fortune Mary sang about in the magnificat.

Mary sang what God is really like. God is not the least impressed by any of our pride, power, or opulence. God has mercy on those who are in awe of God. God favors those who humble themselves. God cares for those who turn from the ego boosting accumulation of wealth to the lowliness of self-denial for the sake of others.

In today’s gospel, Jesus goes further than his mother did and tells us that the rich are shamed and cursed by their attachment to wealth. It is a case of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable (from humorist Finley Peter Dunne).

*****

In Jesus’ day, ostentatious wealth was seen as proof that one had helped themselves to more than their share of the economic pie. Wealth was seen as limited and the accumulation of more wealth was necessarily at the expense of the less fortunate. To be very rich smacked of dishonesty and dishonor. This did not keep the powerful from accumulating wealth in Jesus time. Power led to wealth.

The small religious and political elites were much wealthier than the masses of peasants and craftspeople. Jesus’ listeners would overwhelmingly have been poor. There was no middle class in Jesus’ time. And the rich and powerful elites would have found his sermon distasteful if not abhorrent.

*****

In our contemporary US, wealth leads to power. For a long time, we lived (maybe we still do live) with the belief that wealth-formation is accessible to all and that extra wealth for some does not preclude wealth-formation for everybody else.

In other words we believe that the economic pie could always get bigger, and that everybody’s slice kept growing accordingly. This derives from something like a capitalist creed that enterprise, creativity and hard work are always the main engines of wealth-creation. And a belief that income and wealth are distributed according to merit alone.

This ignores that there are systemic aspects that facilitate income generation and wealth accumulation for some groups rather than those outside the privileged groups.

And if you have even a small amount of privilege because of the groups you belong to, you participate in those systems. Think of racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, to name a few.

*****

In the last few decades, systemic obstacles to income generation and wealth accumulation have worsened for many. Beginning in the 1970s, economic growth in this country slowed and the income gap widened.


Income growth for households in the middle and lower parts of the national income distribution slowed sharply, while incomes at the top continued to grow strongly.

The concentration of income at the very top of the distribution rose to levels last seen 90 years ago (during the “Roaring Twenties”).

In many of today’s corporations, the average employee "needs to work more than a month to earn what the CEO earns in one hour."

And that’s about income generation. What about wealth accumulation?

Also starting in the seventies, and accelerating since the eighties, wealth which was always more concentrated than income has started concentrating even further.

Wealth can be considered as the value of a household’s property and financial assets, minus the value of its debts.

The share of the national wealth held by the top 1 percent rose from just under 30 percent in 1989 to nearly 39 percent in 2016, while the share held by the bottom 90 percent fell from just over 33 percent to less than 23 percent.

More wealth has been accruing to the already wealthy. A shrinking part of the national wealth is accruing to the others.

And in today’s world, wealth not only provides for both short- and long-term financial security. Besides, it also bestows social prestige, and contributes to political power. The combination of wealth, prestige and political power can all be used to accrue more wealth to the rich. And it is.

The standard of living of the working and middle classes is dependent upon income and wages, while the rich tend to rely on wealth. As a result of the increasing inequality of income distribution, working and middle class folk find it increasingly difficult to maintain or improve their standards of living.

So much for our little refresher in socio-economic realities of wealth production and accumulation in today’s United States. Hopefully, it makes you realize how relevant Jesus’ blessings and curses are to today’s national conversation (or lack thereof) on economic security for all.

And today, I am not even touching the disparity of resource use between the rich and poor countries in the world.

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In Jesus’ blessings and woes, the fortunes of the world are turned around. The Kingdom of God provides commonweal: welfare for all without exception.

While we trust for this Kingdom of God to be fully realized in heaven, we are also encouraged to unite heaven and earth in this Kingdom.

Where our current ministry lies is in building up the Kingdom of God here and now (close at hand) so that comfort, health and economic security are available to all in a way that sustains the planet which sustains us in turn.

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Of course, the blessings and curses of Jesus are not meant for us to usurp God’s place and judge people’s hearts and souls. We are to love poor and rich alike.

Jesus’ curses invite those of us with more resources (yes, also many of us in this church today) to share them more broadly.

Jesus’ blessings engage us to build a just society.  That is a society where wealth distribution is more equitable. It is a society where wealth disparities don’t shame the rich in their abundance and the poor in their unmet needs.

*****

Our true wealth lies in Love; love of God and love of neighbor. As God revealed to Saint Paul:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12: 9a)

As Christians we are to follow Jesus, not only worship Him. This involves loving our brothers and sisters. That love includes working towards a more just and equitable distribution of resources. How are we rich? Do we need to repent and come to share in the poor’s blessing? Pray about it. And see what actions you can undertake to bless the poor and yourself in the process.

Amen.