A preacher began his preaching on today’s gospel by asking for a show of hands from all in the congregation who would love to be poor, starving, weeping and hated by everybody. No hands went up. Then he asked of those who, on the contrary, would love to be rich, well fed, laughing and well spoken of in the community. All hands went up. A similar survey in any church would probably yield similar results. Yet Jesus in Luke declares a blessing on those who are poor, hungry, weeping and hated. To make sure we get the point, he goes on and explicitly pronounces a woe on those who are rich, well fed, laughing and well spoken of. What is going on here? Does Luke want us to understand that material poverty in itself is a sign of divine approval and material prosperity a sign of divine disapproval? Certainly, not!

Poverty in itself is not a blessing but a misfortune, a lack. In fact, all the qualifying factors mentioned in Luke's Beatitudes -- poverty, hunger, weeping, hatred, exclusion, reviling, defamation -- are all misfortunes. These are things no good parents would want for their children. Neither would God want these things for us, His children. How are we then to understand Luke’s Beatitudes? The key to Luke's Beatitudes is to be found in an important clause which he adds at the end of the last beatitude, and the clause is “on account of the Son of Man.” What Luke is saying is this, those who accept these evil conditions as the price that they have to pay for following Christ, they are the blessed ones. Some knowledge of the social background of Luke’s gospel would help us here.

Luke wrote his gospel at a time of terrible social and religious persecution of believers in Christ. It was so severe that anyone professing to be a Christian knew for sure that he or she would be disowned by family, rejected by friends and excluded from the synagogue. One immediately lost one’s right of inheritance, free association and commerce in the community. Even if one was a very rich person with lots of land and farms, the moment they declared their faith in Christ, they were automatically dispossessed and reduced to a state of stark poverty. Now you know why some smart ones among them would go and sell their lands first!

In the passage immediately preceding today’s gospel, Luke describes the call of the twelve apostles (Luke 6:12-16). From a large group of followers who were coming and going, still trying to decide one way or the other, Jesus publicly calls out these twelve as his regular associates. Given the situation we have just described, how would you feel if you were called to be one of them? You knew that as soon as you answered yes to the call of Jesus, you would lose all your possessions and entitlements in the community, instantly joining the club of the poor, the hated, the reviled, the excluded. Some of these men would literally have tears in their eyes as they went up to join Jesus as full-time associates. So Jesus looks at this tearful, stranded twelve young men before him, willing but still not so sure they are taking the right step. He looks at them and he says to them:

Blessed are you who are poor [now], 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 rewardis great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. (Luke 6:20-23).

After that you can imagine the newly recruited apostles smiling through their tears. Suffering, yes, but smiling, because they now understand they have indeed made the right choice.

The woes, on the other hand, would refer to those who declined the invitation to follow Jesus (like the Rich Young Man) because they were not ready to give up their prestige in the community, lose their circle of friends, not to talk of all the wealth they had spent all their lives accumulating. They have come to attach great importance to the good things of this life, so much so that wealth has become like a god to them. In many ways they are like the men and women of this present age of materialism and consumerism. Jesus says they have made the wrong choice because the path of putting worldly prosperity before God invariably leads not to lasting happiness but to eternal tragedy.