Luke 6:17-36

Leader Guide

Participant Guide

Lesson Focus Jesus invites those who have material wealth to participate in his mission of restoration and renewal in the world.

Lesson Outcomes Through this lesson, students should:

1. Understand that the Sermon on the Plain is addressed to all of Jesus’ followers.

2. Understand that God desires a world that is level and equal for all of God’s children.

3. Respond to Jesus’ invitation to participate in his mission by using the power and privilege we have as those who are “rich” to help those who are not.

Catch up on the Story Now that Jesus has begun to assemble his close band of followers, he begins to move about to engage in the mission he proclaimed that he would undertake back in chapter four. Jesus’ ministry has not been confined to proclamation only but has also been about cleansing, healing, and releasing those who find themselves in bondage.

It isn’t hard for the crowds to understand Jesus as a healer, but it will be more difficult for them to realize that Jesus has come to affect the whole person, body, mind, and soul. Jesus will use his power to heal as a way to help those around him understand that he can forgive sins too.

Claiming to be able to forgive sins will get him in trouble, lots of trouble. It will draw the attention of the religious elites of Israel who will constantly seek to question, entrap, and ensnare Jesus. This won’t stop Jesus, though. It will only embolden him. In the strength that fellowship with the Father provides, through prayer, Jesus will call more followers, teach in powerful ways, and perform miraculous healings.

It is within the context of healings and controversy that Jesus begins his first major teaching section, what is often called “The Sermon on the Plain.” It’s important to understand that this is not like a sermon as you and I know it. It is more like a collection of teachings. Luke’s sermon has many similarities with Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, including the central part of our passage today. There are, however, several differences.

We can split up today’s passage into three sections. Verses 17-19 set up the sermon. Verses 20-23 comprise a set of blessings, while verses 24-26 serve as the antithesis to those blessings. We will look at each in turn.

Power Came Out: Luke 6:17-19 Jesus has been up on a mountain praying. In Luke’s gospel, anytime that Jesus is seen praying, we know that something important is coming along. This time, the time that Jesus has spent in prayer and fellowship with the Father, through the power of the Spirit, enables him to continue to fill out his inner circles of followers. At this point, we finally get the complete list of twelve disciples. When Jesus comes down off the mountain, he moves to a level place where his disciples surround him.

At this point, this is all of Jesus’ disciples, not just the twelve of the inner circle. These disciples come from all over, too, from Judea and Jerusalem. There are natives of Israel and people from Tyre and Sidon, which were on the border between Israel and Lebanon. This last group would have potentially had gentiles included in it. Jesus’ mission will not be just to Israel. This great multitude has come not just to hear what Jesus has to say but to be healed of their diseases. Even unclean spirits were no match for Jesus.

The imagery that Lukes uses leads us to believe that Jesus is not distant from this great multitude, but that he is surrounded by them, so much so that those needing healing and release were confident that if they could only touch him, they would be made whole. Jesus’ healing is nondiscriminatory; it just comes out from him because that is his nature. His nature is to heal and make whole. It is Jesus’ concern for healing, wholeness, and liberation that leads to this indiscriminate healing. As we have already seen earlier in chapter four, Jesus’ lack of preference for his people will land him in hot water. It will not help his cause when he opens his mouth to preach.

Blessed are you… Luke 6:20-23 Somehow, Jesus has calmed the masses enough for him to talk. He raises his hand and begins to address the crowd. Luke tells us that he is speaking to his disciples. This might lead us to believe that he is only talking to the twelve, but the word Luke uses here is his generic term for a follower of Jesus. He will use the term “apostle” to refer to the twelve. So, addressing all of his followers, Jesus launches into a set of blessings. A few things are essential for us to understand the nature of what Jesus is saying here.

First, there was a strain of thought within Israel’s faith that saw material abundance as a sign of God’s favor. If you were rich, it meant that you and your family had done something right. It meant that in the eyes of God, you were righteous. On the other hand, if you were poor or sick, or otherwise on the margins of society, it probably meant that you had sinned in some fashion and your condition was part of God’s punishment. This conventional wisdom is based on passages like Deuteronomy 28 and others from Israel’s wisdom literature. Jesus turns this wisdom on its head.

The second thing we need to understand is that Jesus’ words here are not prescriptive but descriptive. In other words, Jesus is not commanding us to be poor. Rather, Jesus is describing the way the world is now. There are rich and poor, but at the same time, Jesus is looking toward the future; this is not always how things will be. That’s not to say that one day, here on this earth, the poor will be rich, and the rich will be poor. Jesus is not simply interested in a big reversal.

In what, then is Jesus interested? To answer that question, we must go through blessing by blessing, woe by woe. The word translated as “blessing” is used to express the happy and untroubled state of those free from care (Marshall, 248). It can be translated as “happiness,” but doing so might miss the point. This is no sentimental happiness derived from circumstance. This is the happiness produced by the gift of God’s good salvation.

It is contingent, not on mood, but on God’s faithfulness. Blessed becomes a better translation because it necessarily points to an outside force responsible for the blessedness. It seems odd, though, that this blessedness would be coupled with the descriptors that Luke uses. “Blessed are you who are poor…”? “Blessed are you who are hungry…”? “Blessed are you who weep…”? Those do not sound like blessings at all. To understand what Jesus is seeking to communicate, we must look at these blessings in contrast to their woes. We will notice that each blessing corresponds to an opposite descriptor in its woe. The passage is parallel, with verses 20 -23 contrasting with verses 24-16.

As we said a few weeks ago, the poor for Luke are not just those who are economically poor. Instead, being poor has to do with issues of power and privilege within the context of community. Health issues, an unclean vocation, or an outside family heritage could all make you poor.

Certainly, some are poor because of their erroneous choices. While Jesus is concerned with poor people, he is setting up a contrast between the underprivileged and marginalized poor and the over-privileged wealthy. We might add that in this context, Jesus is not speaking to the world at large but directly to his followers. S, speaking directly to those who are poor, Jesus assures them that though they are poor now, theirs is the kingdom of God.

Even though they are hungry, they will be filled with food, and even though they weep because of their poverty, oppression, and sadness, they will soon laugh the laugh of joy.

Finally, when they are cast out because everyone thinks they are evil and no good to anyone, they should rejoice, literally jump for joy, because this is what happened to God’s prophets.

Jesus uses three words here in Greek to describe this casting out: ekbalosin (ἐκβάλωσιν) – to drive out or expel, throw out, exorcise a demon. The second word is poneron (πονηρὸν) – immoral, evil, wicked, worthless—finally, onoma (ὄνομα) – name, or call.

The literal translation could be something like, ‘drive you out and exorcise you (like a demon) because they believe your name (and by consequence, you) are evil.’ In these blessings, Jesus is pointing to the day in God’s future where the world will be made level again, where there is wholeness, justice, and restoration. God is actively doing something to rectify the suffering people experience today.

But Woe to you… Luke 6:24-26 What about the rich, though? Unquestionably some of those who are wealthy have been blessed by God? There’s nothing inherently wrong with being rich, born into privilege, is there? No, there is not, and that is not what Jesus is saying. But as we look at these woes, which are statements of warning towards those addressed, we realize that the rich and privileged will experience the opposite of the comfort they have in this life, in the next. What we have to understand, and this is difficult for us to hear, is that more often than not, the privilege and riches that you and I have come at the expense of those who are poor. No, you have not actively oppressed anyone, but you participate in a system that does. We are all so entangled in it that we cannot generally see it, and exiting this system would be difficult.

While Jesus is pointing to the reality that those who have had comfort and privilege in this world won’t have it in the next doesn’t mean that is the future God wants for the rich. No, Jesus is saying that his preferred future would be that those who are rich and who have privilege now would use their power, prestige, and their social and economic capital, to care for the poor here and now. In other words, Jesus wants to move the rich into the Kingdom of God not just here and now but in the future, too. See, the Kingdom of God is the way things are supposed to be, the way God intended the world to be at creation, good and whole, pure and right. God did not intend for there to be poor and rich.

God did not intend for there to be insiders and outsiders.

God did not intend for there to be privileged and non-privileged.

God intended for things to be level, equitable, and equal.

If Jesus came to bring the Kingdom of God to earth here and now, and if he intended to do that through bringing good news to the poor, and if, by our baptism, we are called to participate in what God is doing in bringing the kingdom here, and now, then, you and I are called to use our power and our privilege, our wealth and influence to help the hungry have food now, to bring laughter and joy to those who weep, and to care for those who get cast out from society because they are deemed too evil, or unwanted to be of any use to anyone.

What Grace is that to You? Luke 6:27-3 At the very least, we are called to quit our participation in a system that continues to create inequalities. How do we do this? We do this by embodying the kingdom ethic but living in radically counter-cultural kinds of ways. And by this, I do not mean all the things we usually associate with Christian moral behavior. But we don’t have to guess what Jesus wants, he tells us…

Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you.

Do good to those who hate you.

Pray for your abusers.

If someone strikes you, let them hit you again.

If someone steals your coat, give them your shirt too.

By doing this, you will truly bear witness to God’s kingdom and will live into the blessing that Jesus pronounces at the beginning of the passage. If you only ever love those who love you, what good is that? Where’s God’s grace in that? It does not benefit you. It brings you no credit because everyone else in the world works that way.

But, if you love your enemies, if you do good, lending without expectation of return, well then you’ll be blessed because you will be called children of the Most High.

Why? Because God is kind and loving to the ungrateful and the wicked alike.

Why? Because God is merciful and steadfast in love.

So What? My intention today is not to guilt you into anything. I don’t think that was Jesus’ intention, either. I do want our eyes to be open to the possibility that our privilege and power might be used for the sake of those who do not have.

This isn’t so that we can feel good about ourselves. It isn’t even so that we can earn love or forgiveness from God. Jesus wants us to participate in what he’s already doing in our world because we have caught his vision for a restored and renewed world.

Specifically, how do we do this?

I think it starts recognizing our position as wealthy and privileged. We can’t move toward helping those who are poor, the hungry, those who weep, and those who are cast out because we perceive them as too evil to associate with unless we come to grips with the fact that we’re the ones who are comfortable now. We are the ones who laugh now.

Specific Discussion Questions Read the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself quietly. Read it slowly, as if you were very unfamiliar with the story.

1. Why does Jesus spend time in prayer and fellowship with the Father?

2. If you had to guess, what were some of the common characteristics of those Jesus called to be his disciples?

3. Why do you think that Jesus let power go out from himself to heal those who touched him? Do you think he had control over who he healed in that way? What makes you think that?

4. We’re more familiar with Matthew’s version of verses 20-26. One of the differences between the two versions is that Matthew’s gospel adds a spiritual component (Blessed are those who are poor in spirit.). Why do you think Luke’s account is different? Does it change the meaning of what Jesus is saying? If so, why?

5. The blessings and woes are a mirror image of each other. There is a blessing for the poor and woe for the rich. If all good things come from God, why would God pronounce this warning to those who have material wealth?

6. Is God interested in reversing who is rich and poor? If so, what would that help? If not, what makes you think that way?

7. In America, we’re blessed beyond measure. How do these woes make you feel?

8. Since we have been so richly blessed, how do think Jesus wants us to use those blessings?

9. Take some time and outline a few ways that you and your church can use what God has given you to help those who are poor, hungry, and sad.

Works Cited Marshall, I. Howard. The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1978.