The Rev. Canon Ansley Tucker

St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School

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

This isn't just your impromptu crowd, you know. There are people here from the whole province of Judea. Lots of them — people who have schlepped their way up from Jerusalem, and folks as far from home as the coast of Syria, from Tyre and Sidon. Some of these folks have been traveling days to get here. They had to close up the shop, pack provisions, and leave the kids with Gramma. For some, there is almost a sense of pilgrimage about it — going to Ground Zero, if you like, in order to see, to feel, to hear, this Jesus, for themselves.

And what do you imagine brings them? Why do people come?

Well, Luke actually tells us. They come, he says, to hear Jesus. Now, that could mean anything, of course. Some, I am sure, came hoping upon hope that this rabbi would have something to say that at last made sense of the non-sense that was their life _ something that would help them, or challenge them, or for that matter, interest them. Some came because Jesus of Nazareth was a first-century media darling, and anybody who was anybody had been to hear him in person. And by now in Jesus' ministry, we also know that there were some who came to listen in malice — no longer for what they might learn from him, but to lie in wait for the first slip, the theological blunder, the unintended pastoral insensitivity: something, anything, they can use to clobber him with later. They come, Luke says, to hear him.

They also come to be healed — and specifically, of their diseases. Now, we are inclined — at least out loud — to cramp our expectations of the Church's healing ministry. If we pray for healing at all, we imagine that we are asking for psychological well-being (let us say, for the ability to cope with ravaging disease or physical pain). Healing is the restoration of peaceable relations, or the ministry of compassionate listening, or the laudable work of hospice care: anything, that is, other than actual physical healing. But not so in the first century. People had startling expectations of their spiritual leaders. Those who came to be healed came for the kind of "now you're blind and now you're not" objective reversal of symptoms for which Jesus was evidently renowned. While we may not think it medically or scientifically sophisticated to hope for divine intervention in our embodied existence, I promise you that there are more people (and different people) than you might suspect who come to Church on Sunday looking for a miracle — who come, that is, to place their profound physical need in the presence of a "really and truly" healing God.

And thirdly, says Luke, they come to liberated from whatever troubled their spirits — in other words for the kind of healing we generally do imagine belonging to the church: the grace of anointing, of absolution, the eucharist, or the ministry of pastoral care. The hope that something in this hour will disable the anxiety roiling at the pit of our stomach, or send away the black dogs of depression, or transform the rage that inflames our sense of injury, or animate the lassitude that defeats our souls. They come to lose their troubles.

That's what brings them. That's what brings us.

And I want to ask, Is that it? Was it just a matter of coming to the rally so they could bleed the poor preacher dry? All were trying to touch him, Luke says, for power came out of him. How do you think that left Jesus?

So I ask again? Is it enough? Is it enough that we come to Church to hear a word of the Lord, and to have our troubles tended to? I can get on quite a soapbox about this, because I think it is a quite widespread failing of the Church — and particularly of liturgical churches with lots of resources — to imagine that the role of the liturgy is somehow to feed or please us! With the result that we too easily lapse into evaluation: the sopranos were flat, we say; the sermon too long; the celebrant too fussy; the hymns unsingable. But wait a minute! This is worship, not a sing-along, or some kind of public performance. The only proper evaluative question to be asked of the Sunday liturgy is, Was God worshipped? Did I sing when it was my turn to sing? Was the Great Thanksgiving thankful (that is, did I make it so?) Could I tell you what the gospel was about? Was I criticizing the motet, or joining my heart to its sentiment? The liturgy isn't for us: it is for God!

And yet… here we have a story where people have clearly come to Church for themselves: to hear him, to be healed of their diseases, to be freed from what troubled them. And Jesus basically says, I'm glad you're here. Friends, come up higher, for the kingdom belongs to those in need.

Blessed are you who never have enough, he says, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry: there will be food for you; blessed are you who weep, your mouths shall be filled with laughter; and blessed are you who do not belong to the in-crowd, because God has a special place for you.

And just in case they don't quite get his point, he turns the whole thing on its head, and begins pronouncing woes: woe to the rich (imagine!), woe to the replete, woe to gigglers, woe to the inner circle.

Now you understand it is not that there is anything inherently wrong with wealth, good cheer, or popularity. How can there be, when these are the very prizes Jesus promises to the people who lack them?! The point, rather, is that those who are already full-up have no room left for what Jesus is offering. They are like people who stop off at a drive-through, gorging themselves on fries and double bacon cheeseburgers, on their way to the heavenly banquet. And the truth is there is just no way "in" to the very real needs of people who are full (whether it be full of food, full of plenty, full of ideas, or full of themselves. The door to their heart is like a subway train at rush hour: it opens, but there's no room to get in.

I want to suggest, on the basis of these Beatitudes, that worship — our relationship with God — is principally about openness. Open hands, open minds, open hearts. I suggest that it is openness Jesus welcomes in the Crowd.

Here is what I mean: What do you imagine that I have in this fist? Money? A piece of bread? Anger?

Well, it doesn't really matter does it? Because a clenched fist isn't about to share. Get away: it's mine! It's my anger, and I don't want you messing around with it, looking at it, judging it, forgiving it. Get away: this is my last piece of bread, and I'm saving it. Or, it's my money, I might need it one day.

Well, as it happens, I have nothing in this hand. It's empty. But it was still closed. This is a defiant posture: This hand is not sure it likes what's on offer. So, you just try and get to me. You just try to melt my heart, or change my mind. A closed fist, or heart, or mind, represents a posture of resistance. It isn't just matter of not wanting to give up our little hoard, our puny emotions, our pitiful opinions. Many of us have come to worship every bit as empty or needy as the people Jesus blesses in his Beatitudes: but it doesn't make one whit of difference if our emptiness is not open to receive.

And by the same token, all the openness in the world will avail us nothing if our hands are in fact full. Where are you going to put the gifts God has to offer if there is no room for them in your life? George Caird once said, the kingdom has more to offer to those who approach with emptiness, with open hands, and capacity for its riches. The requirement for discipleship, he says, is a fundamental discontent with the world, a recognition that there really is something missing in our lives, something broken in the world order.

So does this mean that Church really is about us? That we are justified in our expectation that we ought to "get something out of worship", or "enjoy it"? Not quite! In a way, the dynamics of our Sunday liturgy are full of the same mind-bending reversals we find in the Beatitudes themselves. We are to make our worship about God, opening our thoughts, our minds, our hearts to him; letting our tightly held convictions and even our treasure slip through our fingers: and God, just because God is like this, will answer our emptiness with a blessing. What begins as offering is returned to us as gift. Emptiness is made full.

The kingdom of God, says Jesus, belongs to those in need.