“Logical Consequences”

Luke 6:17-26

Pastor Melanie Hammond Clark

July 11, 2010

            When Kyle was little I struggled with how to best discipline him.  Both Chip and I remembered being the kind of kids for whom our parents’ booming voices were enough to get us in line, and we were frustrated that our personal parental authority didn’t seem to be enough to get the behavioral results we desired from our own child.

            But then gradually with the help of a mothers’ group and a book gently suggested to me by my mother (gently, mind you!), I began to understand the power of logical consequences.  Slowly I began to learn that instead of spending my energy getting all worked up over my child’s behavior, I needed to spend my energy helping my child get worked up over his behavior.  I needed to do the hard work of letting him experience the fall-out of his actions and attitudes.  I needed to lower my voice and raise my expectations.  I was a slow learner, but gradually I realized the only way to help him take responsibility for his life was to make sure he experienced the logical consequences of his behavior.  (This is not to say that I did not still rant and rave, lecture and lose it sometimes…it’s just to say that it didn’t usually prove to be very effective!).

            This also meant educating him ahead of time as to what the natural fall-out was for certain actions and attitudes.  It meant helping him grasp the long-term over the short-term.  It meant consistently placing before him what certain choices would mean, not just for next week or next year, but how they would add up to shape his life and the life of those around him for the long haul.  We are all immersed in a culture of immediate gratification, adults and youth and children alike.  It is no small task to keep the long view before us.  But it is a task well worth taking on.

            Jesus brings that reality to bear in his discussion with the people in what is known as the Sermon on the Plain, Luke’s version of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount.  While John the Baptist, it seems to me, took on the role of the ranting parent, getting pretty worked up in a tone of angry authority, Jesus seemed to wear his authority differently.  Not that Jesus never got angry or short with his followers.  But as a rule, Jesus said hard things, spoke of painful realities, almost as a matter of course; not so much like “God is going to get you if you don’t watch out”, but more like “In the eternity of life and the world that God has created, this is the way things are.”

            Like a good, non-controlling parent, God offers us choices.  But like most children, we don’t want to choose; we want it all, whether it’s really good for us and for all in the long run or not.

            As William Barclay writes, “We are here face to face with an eternal choice which begins in childhood and never ends till life ends.  Will you take the easy way which yields immediate pleasure and profit? or, Will you take the hard way which yields immediate toil and sometimes suffering?  Will you seize on the pleasure and profit of the moment? or, Are you willing to look ahead and sacrifice them for the greater good?  Will you concentrate on the world’s values and rewards? or, Will you concentrate on Christ’s?

            Man, we hate it when it’s laid out like that.  In fact, you may well be sitting there waiting for me to share some way we can smooth it all over and not hear the challenging commentary on our life choices.

            But I can’t.  Like you, I stand here accountable to this text, like it or not.

            Will Willimon put it well when he wrote, “I tend to begin sermons with anthropology: descriptions of what we are doing or should do, who we are or who we wish we were.  I do this because I assume that most people are more interested in themselves than in God.  As Luke says, ‘the huge crowds from all over Judea came not only to hear him’ but also ‘to be healed’, to plug into the therapeutic ‘power’ that ‘came forth from him.’  We tend to ask not ‘What is God really like?’ but rather, ‘Jesus, what have you done for me lately?’  Narcissism is a hard habit to break.”

            “Jesus,” says Willimon, “is more theocentric (God-centered) in his preaching.  A sermon is a sermon when it’s about God.  We learn implications for human behavior only after we learn who God is and what God is up to.”

            So rather than try to make this passage work for us, let’s allow the passage to work on us.  Let’s try to reflect on this passage with God’ purposes in mind, instead of our own.

            In Luke’s beatitudes, Jesus makes clear that God’s agenda is not our agenda.  And Jesus caught the people off guard with his statements then as much as he does now.

            Barbara Brown Taylor notes, “The form of speech (Jesus) used was a common one.  Beatitudes are short, two part affirmations that sum up common knowledge about the good life.  ‘Blessed are they who have good 401 (k) plans, for their old age shall be comfortable.’  Blessed are they who floss, for they shall keep their teeth.’ That sort of thing.

            “So the form of what Jesus said was familiar to his hearers.  He said, ‘Blessed are…’ and they all got ready for some nuggets of wisdom.  But the content of what he said rocked them back on their heels.  ‘Blessed are … you who are poor?...who are hungry?... who weep now?’”

            Taylor says, “Hearing this was like drinking from a glass of what looked like lemonade and finding out that it was bug spray instead.  It was a shocking substitution of bad things for good things, in which blessedness was equated with the very things people did their best to avoid” –poverty, hunger, grief, rejection.

            Now, if I could say this better than Barbara Brown Taylor, I would, but I can’t.  So let me share her down-to-earth take on this directly with you.  She writes:

            Since we are so used to hearing (these beatitudes) by now, it is hard for us to get a sense of their original shock value.  Perhaps if I said, ‘Blessed are you who suffer from cancer, for you shall be made whole,’ or ‘Blessed are you whose prayers are not answered, for you shall see God face to face.’  Perhaps if I said, ‘Woe to you who drive new cars, for you shall walk on foot,’ or ‘Woe to you with college degrees, for you have received your reward.’

            As you may be able to tell from your reactions to these statements, the impact of the beatitudes has everything to do with who you are.  If you happen to be one of the hungry people, then what Jesus is saying sounds like pretty good news.  If you happen to be one of the well-fed people, then it sounds like pretty bad news.  The words themselves do not change, mind you.  They simply sound different depending on who happens to be hearing them.  It all depends on where you’re sitting whether you view it as positive or negative.

            But isn’t that the challenge for us all in the text?  Isn’t the real challenge to view the world from God’s perspective rather than from our own?  Isn’t that how we begin to see children maturing?  When they begin to realize the world does not always revolve around them?  And that there are other people, other realities to consider when making life choices?

            Yet, as adults we are slow to practice what we preach.  Like children, we don’t’ want to hear the hard parts.  We don’t want to be asked to consider other people, to obey limits, to share our stuff.  We don’t want someone telling us what to do.  Obviously, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!  For us, as well as for our children, just because we don’t like something doesn’t make it any less real.  Just because something doesn’t suit our desires doesn’t make it any less true.

            There are logical consequences to our behavior.  There is fall-out, not only in our lives, but in the lives of others for the choices we make. God loves us all, and ultimately, this text says, God will bring the justice and mercy we fail to bring.  Not because God is mean, but precisely because God is loving.  God doesn’t answer just to us but to all the children of the earth.

            Unlike many of us parents, our God (the only perfect parent) is not afraid to do the hard work entailed in loving us and raising us well:  Setting boundaries, teaching us to sacrifice and share, not rescuing us every time from our poor choices, letting us rant and rave and taking our anger but remaining firm in the resolve to love us wisely and well, no matter what the cost… this is God’s heart.

            It has been said, “We don’t see things as they are, but as we are” (Anais Nin).  This is our human condition. But Jesus came that we might live into all of life with the comfort, courage, and compassion that come from God’s heart, that we might seek and live into God’s wisdom, not just for our own sakes, but for all. Increasingly, may we grow up into Christ to see things as they really are, as God is, and as the people, God’s children, we are called to be.  Amen.