Intro to Luke 6:20-31
Today’s
reading from Luke gives us the familiar words of the Beatitudes.
“Blessed
are you who are poor, Blessed are you who hunger, Blessed are you who weep.”
We
may be more accustomed to hearing Matthew’s version of these Beatitudes –
also
known as the Sermon on the Mount - where Jesus leaves behind the crowd that has
been following him and ascends up a mountain to proclaim these blessings from
God, just as the great prophet Moses once did.
It’s
from this lofty perch that Jesus makes equally lofty pronouncements like,
“Blessed
are the poor in spirit,” and “Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness.”
But
from Luke’s vantage point, Jesus delivers a slightly different sermon.
In
Luke’s gospel, the Sermon on the Mount is known as the “Sermon on the Plain.”
Here
Jesus comes down off the mountain and stands among the people on level ground,
where he can look them in the eye and engage them face to face.
Here
Jesus doesn’t say, “Blessed are the
poor in spirit,”
instead
he says, “Blessed are you who are poor now.”
Instead
of “Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness,”
he
says “Blessed are you who are hungry now”
The
spiritual hunger becomes a physical hunger.
For
Luke, Jesus words are more personal, more immediate, more concrete.
While
Matthew and Luke give us slightly different versions of the Beatitudes,
where
they converge is in the hope that Jesus has to offer to those experiencing
suffering – be it spiritual or physical.
Those
who hunger will be filled.
Those
who are poor will experience the riches of God’s bounty.
Such
suffering is only temporary, says Jesus.
And
justice will be realized in the end.
The Rev. Maureen Frescott
Congregational Church of
Amherst
November 6, 2016 – Youth
Sunday – All Saints Sunday
Luke 6:20-31
“It Gets
Better”
In
1981, when I was 15 years old, I saw the movie Breaking Away and fell in love with the sport of cycling.
I was
drawn to the speed and freedom of movement,
the
exotic sounding French and Italian names on the bikes,
the
sleek looking clothing and shoes – it all appealed to me.
Seeing
the movie inspired me to register for a 50-mile charity bike ride that involved
riding 50 laps around a local park.
The
farthest I had ridden at that point, was the 2 mile round trip to school.
I
decided I needed some “serious” cycling gear for my 50-mile ride, so my mother
took me to the sporting goods section of the local TSS department store.
They
didn’t carry “serious” cycling gear, so I came home with a hockey helmet and a
pair of leather golf gloves.
On
the day of the ride I showed up with my new bike gear and my 1976 Columbia
10-speed, with it’s bicentennial red, white, and blue decals.
At
the start of the ride, I found myself briefly keeping pace with a “real”
cyclist, who had a real bike helmet and real bike gloves.
He
said he did 50-mile rides all the time.
I
was in awe.
Of
course he was much faster than I was.
He offered
a word of encouragement as he left me behind, but every lap, as he came around
and passed me again and again, he yelled out,
“Hang
in there! Keep going! It gets easier the longer you keep at it!”
As
the miles ticked by, I don’t remember the rising ache in my legs or my lungs.
I
don’t even remember how long it took me to finish the ride.
What
I do remember is telling myself on every single lap not to quit.
Because
every time the “real” cyclist rode past me and shouted, “Hang in there! Keep
going! It gets easier the longer you keep at it,” I knew I had to be there the
next time he came around, just so
I could hear him say it again.
In
September 2010, author and journalist Dan Savage organized an online campaign
called, “It Gets Better.”
The
campaign was directed at teenagers – specifically teenagers who were being
bullied by their peers and rejected by their families for being gay, lesbian,
bisexual, or transgender.
These
were teens who were choosing suicide at alarmingly high rates,
rather
than endure a pain that they felt they could not escape.
Savage
started the campaign after a 15-year-old Indiana boy named Billy Lucas, hung
himself in his family’s barn, after being relentlessly bullied at school. Savage said,
"I wish I could have talked to this kid for
five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I
could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone
he was, it does get better.”
The
It
Gets Better campaign started with a few heartfelt videos uploaded to
You Tube, recorded by celebrities and ordinary people, who shared their own
stories of the pain they endured as teens and young adults,
with
the hopeful encouragement that finding love, acceptance, and even happiness in
life is not as elusive as it appears.
With
the support of family, friends, mentors, and counselors who reached out to them
in their despair, these formally suicidal teens found comfort, peace, and
healing as adults.
They
came to love themselves, just as they are.
Today
the It Gets Better project website contains
over 50,000 testimonial videos that collectively have over 50 million views.
It’s
primary purpose is help at risk teens realize that they’re not alone.
GLBTQ
teens are 3 times more likely to commit suicide,
and
nearly 40% of gay youth attempt suicide near the age of 15.
On
this Youth Sunday, it’s important to note that all teens are at risk.
Suicide
rates among youths aged 15-24 have tripled in the last half century,
even
as rates for adults and the elderly have declined.
Anybody
who has contact with teens on a regular basis, or who is a teen, can testify to
the rising rates of anxiety, depression, and stress that our youth are
experiencing today.
We
might blame it on the increasing pressures that teens feel to fill their
schedules with academic and extracurricular activities to ensure they get into
the college of their choice while earning enough money to pay for it.
We
might blame it on the increasing use of technology, and the prevalence of social
media that puts teens lives in particular under a microscope and allows
bullying to reach outside the classroom and the schoolyard and into the home.
We
might even be tempted to blame it on a lack of resiliency –
the
perception that today’s youth are somehow sheltered by parents who come to
their rescue too often and never give them the space to learn how to pick
themselves up when they fall or to take responsibility when they fail.
But
as much as we’d like to blame Helicopter Parents for the rising rates of
seemingly vulnerable teens, those of us who have teens, work with teens – and
who are teens – know that even the most resilient of our youth are feeling
stressed out and overwhelmed by the growing complexities of their lives and the
world around them.
We
may envy Jesus’ followers, living in first century Palestine, who came of age
in a much simpler time with simpler expectations.
But
when we factor in things like poverty, disease, tyranny, and oppression, we
realize that every age has its challenges to endure.
The
reality is, Jesus’ message of hope contained in the Beatitudes is one that
applies and appeals to human beings of all ages in all times.
“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, when they exclude you and revile you, for you
have a place in the Kingdom of God.”
The
Beatitudes are Jesus’ way of saying,
“Things
may seem bad now, but just wait….it will get better.”
In
many ways this is the human condition -
these
ups and downs that we experience in life.
The
Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor likens it to riding a Ferris wheel.
At
times we’re arching over the top marveling at the view with our hands in the
air, and other times we’re swooping back towards the ground,
and
end up with our feet dragging through the dirt.
Like
any good preacher, Jesus made sure his Sermon on the Plain included a much
needed dose of hope while also acknowledging the painful realities of his listeners
lives.
Too
much hope and they may have tuned him out for being out of touch with reality.
Too
much reality and they may have walked away in despair, and never opened their hearts
to the healing that God longed for them to have.
The
Beatitudes in Luke’s Gospel, with its blessings balanced by woes, are in many
ways an ode to human resiliency.
Resiliency.
We
struggle with that at any age, don’t we?
Resiliency
is even harder to master as a teen.
When
we’re young, we don’t yet have the life experience to understand that situations
which seem completely hopeless or permanent are actually not.
When
I was 15, I was one of those statistics that I mentioned at the beginning of
this sermon.
I
was wrestling with social anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.
(I’ve
shared this some of the teens and parents in our youth group who are dealing
with similar challenges.)
Several
of the girls at my high school took note of my vulnerability and fear - and
took to taunting me about my overall oddness.
My
unstylish clothes, my mass of frizzy hair, my social ineptness….all the things
that make a teenager feel unworthy of inclusion, and compassion.
The
taunting I experienced was not new.
I
was born with a cleft palate that had me navigating the world with a speech
impediment from the time I learned how to talk until the age of 16 when it was
finally repaired.
Sadly,
kids can be relentless when they encounter a difference that makes another
child stand out in such a way.
But
that level of scrutiny, which sends you home in tears at age 7,
can
become unbearable when you’re 15.
Like
many teens who experience depression, anxiety, and fear, at one point I refused
to return to school.
My
parents brought me to a counselor, who prescribed medication to help with my
anxiety.
Which
I secretly stowed away in my dresser drawer,
keeping
them for the day when I would take all the pills at once and finally end the
pain I was in.
But
thankfully, I never did.
I’m
standing here today because someone once took the time to tell me repeatedly to
hang in there, to keep going, that it gets easier the longer you keep at it.
It
wasn’t just the guy who rode circles around me in the park one day while he
shouted encouragement.
It
was the friends I made who saw that I had value and worth years before I
recognized it myself.
It
was the boss who gave me my first job out of high school – a job at a bike shop
that gave me so much joy that I ended up working there for 16 years.
It
was my mother who took notice of the one thing that seemed to draw me out of
the darkness that had descended upon me. She bought me my first real racing
bike for my 16th birthday.
And
it was our loving and awesome God, who works through each one of us so that we
might serve as messengers and harbingers of love and compassion for those who
desperately need to hear that are worthy of this wonderful gift of life.
If
you are a young person – or a not-so-young person - who is struggling right now
- with depression, with feelings of low self worth, with an addiction, with the
breakup of a relationship, with the loss of your job, your independence, your
identity –
If
you’re struggling with anything that is causing you to feel like the walls are
closing in around you.
Please
believe me when I tell you, “It gets better.”
However
isolated and alone you feel right now, it will get better.
Because
one day you will realize that this great Communion of Saints -
all
of us who make up this crazy broken and beloved thing we call the church, has
been with you all along.
In
Senior High Youth Group, in Woman’s Association gatherings, in small group
meetings, in Sunday Morning worship, in the million different ways that we
reach out to one another, listen to one another, and care for one another.
You
are not alone.
You
are never alone.
You
may not see it now.
But
someday you will.
Blessed
are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
Blessed
are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
Blessed
are all of us who are poor – in spirit or otherwise –
for
the Kingdom of God is ours.
Amen.
