Luke 6:17-19
Jesus came down with them 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. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.
We are still in Epiphany season and after today we will have two more Sundays until we enter Lent. The past two weekends we got sidetracked into the Prologue to John’s Gospel (well, I got sidetracked and you had to come with me,) but we’ll spend these last three weeks on actual Epiphany readings.
The specified reading for today comes from Matthew’s gospel and it’s the reading on the beatitudes. Most of us here, I suspect, are familiar with Matthew’s version of the beatitudes. It begins like this:
It then continues, “Blessed are those who mourn,..blessed are the peacemakers, the merciful,” on and on through eight blessings (or nine, depending on if you count the last as a separate command or as a general statement that simply sums up the rest. It’s not a huge issue either way).
But are you aware that the beatitudes also appear in Luke’s gospel? You probably have heard them occasionally, but we are so familiar with Matthew’s version that it’s easy to overlook that found in Luke and think that it’s just more of the same.
They are, however, not the same in at least two ways. The first is relatively minor, but interesting. Matthew’s version begins, as I read a moment ago: When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he began to speak. It doesn’t tell us why Jesus went up the mountain – maybe he went up to pray as he often did, maybe it was so the people gathered below him could hear him better, but because of the one line this version is known as the Sermon on the Mount.
Luke’s story begins: Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place or plain with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people ..... and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. Matthew’s Jesus went up; Luke’s Jesus came down onto level ground and spoke among the people. And this version is known as the Sermon on the Plain. There could be theological points to be made here, but the difference is still relatively minor.
The second difference is more substantive. Matthew gives us eight (or nine) blessing statements. Luke gives us only four blessings:
There is no demand for change on our part in the woe statements – nothing that says, “woe to you...unless you change your ways.” These are simple psychological truths: If you have it all now, it’s not going to get any better. You can’t get happier than happy, or richer than rich.
If you are among the “blessed are you” crowd who already lack so much, then it is going to get better, but if you already have it all? And for many people, not getting more, feels just like losing.
Although both of these gospels have the beatitudes coming in the earliest days of Jesus’ public ministry there are still differences between these two gospels all the way through their telling. It’s assumed they both relied somewhat on the same source material (most likely the Q source) because much of the same material turns up in both stories, but often in different places and sometimes with slight changes in who and where and when.
These differences do not imply that the writings are untrue or mistaken, but simply that they reflect the memories of different communities of believers and sometimes emphasize different memory banks. I recently came across a quote from New Testament scholar and theologian Marcus Borg which reads, “The Bible is a human product: it tells us how our religious ancestors saw things, not how God sees things.”
This is why we read and study scripture together, using our group discernment to determine God’s truth held therein. We read from different sources, different translations, and we discuss and share our individual understandings until we come as close as we can to what it is God wants us to learn and to know.
So when we read scripture, we’ll keep working together to find the truth there and to understand it so that we can live it and apply it in our living.
The specified reading for today comes from Matthew’s gospel and it’s the reading on the beatitudes. Most of us here, I suspect, are familiar with Matthew’s version of the beatitudes. It begins like this:
- When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he began to speak and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven...”
It then continues, “Blessed are those who mourn,..blessed are the peacemakers, the merciful,” on and on through eight blessings (or nine, depending on if you count the last as a separate command or as a general statement that simply sums up the rest. It’s not a huge issue either way).
But are you aware that the beatitudes also appear in Luke’s gospel? You probably have heard them occasionally, but we are so familiar with Matthew’s version that it’s easy to overlook that found in Luke and think that it’s just more of the same.
They are, however, not the same in at least two ways. The first is relatively minor, but interesting. Matthew’s version begins, as I read a moment ago: When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he began to speak. It doesn’t tell us why Jesus went up the mountain – maybe he went up to pray as he often did, maybe it was so the people gathered below him could hear him better, but because of the one line this version is known as the Sermon on the Mount.
Luke’s story begins: Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place or plain with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people ..... and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. Matthew’s Jesus went up; Luke’s Jesus came down onto level ground and spoke among the people. And this version is known as the Sermon on the Plain. There could be theological points to be made here, but the difference is still relatively minor.
The second difference is more substantive. Matthew gives us eight (or nine) blessing statements. Luke gives us only four blessings:
- “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. - “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man,
- “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 how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”
There is no demand for change on our part in the woe statements – nothing that says, “woe to you...unless you change your ways.” These are simple psychological truths: If you have it all now, it’s not going to get any better. You can’t get happier than happy, or richer than rich.
If you are among the “blessed are you” crowd who already lack so much, then it is going to get better, but if you already have it all? And for many people, not getting more, feels just like losing.
Although both of these gospels have the beatitudes coming in the earliest days of Jesus’ public ministry there are still differences between these two gospels all the way through their telling. It’s assumed they both relied somewhat on the same source material (most likely the Q source) because much of the same material turns up in both stories, but often in different places and sometimes with slight changes in who and where and when.
These differences do not imply that the writings are untrue or mistaken, but simply that they reflect the memories of different communities of believers and sometimes emphasize different memory banks. I recently came across a quote from New Testament scholar and theologian Marcus Borg which reads, “The Bible is a human product: it tells us how our religious ancestors saw things, not how God sees things.”
This is why we read and study scripture together, using our group discernment to determine God’s truth held therein. We read from different sources, different translations, and we discuss and share our individual understandings until we come as close as we can to what it is God wants us to learn and to know.
So when we read scripture, we’ll keep working together to find the truth there and to understand it so that we can live it and apply it in our living.
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