LUKE, pt. 3: SEEK JUSTICE, RESCUE THE OPPRESSED

Luke 6:20-26
Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
“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.  Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
“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.

Last week we looked into Luke’s version of the birth of Jesus and discussed its many points of difference from the version found in Matthew.  One of those differences – and a major difference, at that – is its emphasis on justice for the poor and oppressed.

Today we will take some time and look into Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, specifically for their social justice content, but before we get to that I want to take just a few minutes and look at the history of justice concerns in the Old Testament.

I would guess many of us, if asked broadly what the Old Testament is about, would answer with maybe the Ten Commandments, and the Exodus story and some of the hero stories, like David and Goliath.  I know that before I began doing this Bible stuff on a full-time basis that would have been my answer.  Maybe Noah and the Flood, Jonah and the Whale – stories about people and particular events.  But if you had asked me what was the reason for all this in the first place, I would have been hard pressed to answer.

We could be excused, I think, for not having a quick and easy answer because the Old Testament is a long and complex story.  It’s the history of the formation of a people, covering over 1000 years – good times and bad – and there were plenty of both. 
​
But there was one teaching that followed them through all those years.  When they paid attention, things went pretty well for them.  When they ignored this teaching, things generally went pretty badly.  And that teaching was to care for the less fortunate among them – never to turn their backs on the poor, the powerless, the voiceless – because they were once there themselves and could very easily end up there again.  The formative narrative of the Hebrew people was the Exodus story when God stepped into their lives to rescue them from oppression.  A people thus rescued should never turn around and oppress others for any reason.
​
And yet they did … over and over … and the prophets thundered against them that unless they changed their greedy ways their lack of mercy and compassion would turn against them … and it always did.

In the first chapter of Isaiah the prophet instructs the people to

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
   remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes;
   cease to do evil, learn to do good;
Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the 
   widow.

The author of Proverbs, in number 31, warns them

Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute.
Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.

Again, God, speaking through the prophet Amos tells them

Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
    I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals, I will not look.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
    I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

I could truly – and easily -- go on all morning with justice-demanding quotes from the prophets, but I suspect you get my point, so I’ll just give you one more – one we are all entirely familiar with, from Micah, chapter six:

You have been told, O people, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

What does all this have to do with Luke’s gospel?  Well, simply this.  Social justice did not become an issue when Jesus arrived on the scene.  It was not a new idea that he brought the people.  When Jesus hammers – as he does – all throughout the gospels, on justice issues he is simply insisting on teaching from the traditions in which he had been raised all his life.  And when Luke records these instances for posterity, he isn’t introducing anything new.  These issues are the very heart and soul of Jewish teaching.
​
When Jesus taught the people, as he does in today’s reading:

“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,”

he was not teaching them something new, he was reminding them of something they should have known all along.  He was also promising the poor and overlooked that they are not forgotten and that God not only continues to love them but chooses them especially for blessing.

These are essentially the same beatitudes that Matthew recounts in his gospel, except that Luke reports some of them in language that reminds us that there will be a price to pay if we neglect to extend justice and mercy when we ourselves have been blessed:

“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.”

Jesus does not take all those centuries of calls for justice lightly – and neither should we.  Luke makes his point over and over again, with stories like the Beatitudes, or Mary’s Magnificat that we looked at last week, with its lines about lifting up the lowly and sending the rich away empty, which sounds a whole lot like the beatitude I just read.  Or parables that are found only in Luke, such as, the Widow and the unjust Judge, who started out not caring about the widow’s claim but eventually recognized that God was on the widow’s side, and gave her justice for her cause; or the Dishonest Servant, who fearing to be caught out at cheating his master decided on the unique tactic of being merciful to those who owed him, and discovered that this was actually a good choice, and he, in turn, received mercy for his actions.
​
We will wrap up some loose ends and finish up with Luke next week.  I’m thinking that the following week then we will have a general discussion of what we’ve learned from our trip through the gospels and taking them in the order in which they were written.