The Meaning You Make? Out of the blue, Ed, the local bag-boy at Ruthanne s General Store and aspiring movie script-writer is struck by lightning. He s just crossing the street in a rainstorm and pow he s hit by this unseen bolt and he finds himself sprawled out on the ground. Not knowing what exactly happened, he gets to his feet, checks himself over asks himself how he s feeling and realizes gradually that he s unharmed, hit by lightning and he s okay! And he goes on his way. As you might imagine this incident puts him into an inquiry like no inquiry he s ever been on in his short life. What does this mean To have been struck by lightning and survive? He goes from person to person getting feedback from this person and that person. Not finding anything very helpful....until... This scene from the 5 th season of the quirky CBS series Northern Exposure first ran 25 years ago. I was a devoted watcher of this series for the way it tackled big questions about life and how we respond to our circumstances both mundane and bizarre. How about YOU? How do you make meaning out of your life? Or, how do you take what life gives you and learn something valuable from it or even more, get transformed into the image of
Christ? Where do YOU go for another viewpoint on your circumstances a viewpoint that might take you to another plain of existence? Who do you ask? I believe that today s reading from Luke s Gospel gives us something we can fiercely handle and find ourselves, not only surprisingly enlightened, but also actively transformed. Does it give us an answer or does it help clarify the question? The Gospel readings, since the beginning of the new church year just this past December, have mainly come from Luke. Now, with the exception of one Sunday in Lent and a handful of Sundays during the great 50 days of Easter, you ll be hearing from a whole lot of Luke all the way until December! Now, we don t know a lot about Luke, the man, from reading the Gospel that bears his name. Luke, as is typical of our Gospel evangelists, doesn t talk about himself. Anything we know about Luke is what we re told in the writings of Paul, and Luke s writings about Paul. Paul refers to Luke as his physician and, lest we get carried away and call him Dr. Luke please keep in mind we re dealing with the 1 st Century ancient Near East a far cry from modern medicine. Paul s letters reveal that he, Paul, was a man suffering from some kind of on-going affliction for which Luke was his caregiver. It
appears that Luke joined Paul on his 2 nd missionary journey when Paul was in western Asia Minor modern day Turkey. Luke, undoubtedly was a Gentile who converted to Christianity but was convinced that this Jesus was sent from the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and a descendent of the house of David We get ALL that from the Christmas narratives about Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the angels; as well as his unique genealogy which traces Jesus roots all the way back to the first man in the Garden of Eden, Adam, who Luke calls the Son of God. You ve heard me say from this pulpit many times that each gospel writer has his own distinctive emphases. And when we properly pick up on these emphases, our experience of the Bible is transformed. We find ourselves moving from a parochial fundamentalist mindset toward Scripture to a mature transformational experience of what the Gospels were meant to provide. You may have heard the gospel reading this morning and recognized something familiar. Blessed are you who are poor. Blessed are you who are hungry. Blessed are you who weep. Blessed are you when people hate you. You can t help but have the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount ring in your head, right? But THIS isn t that. This isn t the Sermon on the Mount.
So what is it? Where IS Jesus? Well, first of all: Jesus isn t on a mountain Luke is very clear that Jesus had just come down the mountain to a level place. So ostensibly, it's the sermon on the plain. Who is Jesus talking to? Luke tells us that he s talking, NOT to the crowds as in Matthew, but to his disciples and in Luke that means everyone who is actively following him not just the 12 he names as apostles his sent ones. In Matthew Jesus is talking in spiritual generalities he says, Blessed are the poor IN SPIRIT.... Blessed are THOSE WHO mourn.....blessed are those who hunger and thirst FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Did you catch that? Luke s Jesus says: Blessed are you who are poor. Blessed are you who are hungry. Blessed are you who weep. Blessed are you when people hate you, just like the prophets are hated. Jesus is addressing the people right in front of him who he calls his disciples. Luke s Jesus is speaking specifically to you His Church. Oh, and it gets better. Did you hear how he finished up? The 4 Blessed are you sayings and are followed up with 4 Woe be to you sayings and they are diametrically opposed to the 4 blessings. First he says, Blessed are you who are poor, but also
WOE to you who are rich. Blessed are you hungry, but also, WOE to you who are full. Blessed are you who weep, but also, WOE to you who laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, but then, WOE to you when people speak well of you. One of the things you ve got to soak your brain in when it comes to reading the Gospels is this, Jesus words aren t supposed to make you feel bad. That s either on you or you re letting a manipulating preacher get TO you. Jesus isn t trying to play on your guilt or your sense of whatever to manipulate you into being miserable. Jesus isn t trying to get you to locate yourself as one thing and NOT the other in his sayings. Jesus words are supposed to tease your mind into active thought. We re in the game of transformation here, folks. We are being transformed into the image of God day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. Jesus hard sayings are an invitation to look inside and get real with our motivations, our disappointments and ourselves, indeed our TRUE selves. Please don t fall into the trap of locating yourself in any one of these groups of people. The point Jesus is making, I believe, is that all of us are all of this. That I am, that you are, both poor and rich, hungry and full, crying and laughing, reviled and revered. Frequently in hearing Gospel text we try to pick and choose who we are in the narratives. We say, Oh here he s talking to me, or
here he s talking to you, but definitely not me. Oh, definitely you did you read this here about you? Here, in this text about blessings and woes, you/we are all of this. We are both blessed and cursed and I know you know this from your experience of life! We all know that life has its ups and downs. There s an ebb and flow to everything we know this. And I know that I m not telling you anything new but that the key to absorbing the gospel message is to see that we ARE all truly the same we are all both poor and rich, hungry and filled, weeping and laughing, reviled and revered. The meaning of our lives is found in how we respond to life. The invitation is to find ourselves in unity with those around us. The human experience has a common theme and it doesn t matter what your politics are or your ideologies are. Everybody is looking for the same thing in life only some of us are driven to get it in different ways. We are all driven to find love and freedom and safety from our past this is a common human experience we all share in it and when we re honest we get it. Take a break from the roller coaster ride folks. The meaning you get out of your life is a co-creation between you and God. That s why Jesus presents the dichotomies here it includes us all. We ve got to be careful NOT to go too far in our thinking things
happening in our lives are good or bad they re just things and they happen or they don t. Remember the story I told you at the beginning about Ed who got struck by lightning? Finally, in the end, he goes to Marilyn Whirlwind. Marilyn is a native Alaskan from the Tlingit tribe and is known for her sparing use of words and expressionless visage. Ed tells Marilyn, I ve been thinking about this lightning thing so much, I ve gone and given myself a headache. Maybe you shouldn t think about it. I tried that, too. When I try not thinking about it, the only thing that goes through my head is still It........Who do you think is right? Is it a nihilistic universe with no meaning, oh, other than survival, or does the enlightenment view prevail? Does the Creator have a master plan, and if so, what is it? Marilyn says: My uncle once told me about a warrior who had a fine stallion. Everybody said how LUCKY he was to have such a horse. Maybe, he said. One day the stallion ran off. The people said the warrior was UNLUCKY.
Maybe, he said. Next day, the stallion returned, leading a string of fine ponies. The people said it was very LUCKY. Maybe, the warrior said. Later, the warrior s son was thrown from one of the ponies and broke his leg. The people said it was UNLUCKY. Maybe, the warrior said. The next week, the chief led a war party against another tribe. Many young men were killed. But, because of his broken leg, the warrior s son was left behind, and so was spared. Dare to go beyond conventional platitudes and viewpoints and ideologies of the day. Jesus invites us to respond to his commissioning as his disciples. Get how you are both poor and rich, weeping and laughing, hungry and full, reviled and revered. Let us all work our way to the level place on the plain, listening sweetly and softly for the voice of the true master. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.