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In the Name of God: Father, Son & Holy Spirit. Amen.In the late 19thC, in Germany, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche declared ‘God is dead’ – for him the Christian understanding of God was deemed insufficient for life and understanding the issues of pain, evil, death, etc. Nietzsche was not ‘anti-religious’ - rather – he believed the beliefs concerning the Greek gods spoke more to the human condition and reality. In shorthand, his view of Christianity was that it resulted in weakness rather than strength, that Christianity was ‘life denying.’Nietzsche would not have appreciated this morning’s Gospel where Jesus posits a reversal of human priorities where life is concerned: ‘Blessed are the poor’ ‘Blessed are the hungry’ ‘Blessed are those who weep.’ – As well as this - ‘Blessed are you when people hate you’! - These words sound familiar – they are the Beatitudes which, in Matthew’s Gospel, are part of the ‘Sermon on the Mount.’ Matthew has 8 ‘blesséds’ - Luke on the other hand presents only four of them to us, and then proceeds to pair them up with ‘woes.’ – ‘Woe to the rich’ ‘Woe to the full’ ‘Woe to those who are laughing’ and finally ‘Woe to those spoken well of.’Our friend Nietzsche would have:Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but efficiency. The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our humanity. And they ought even to be helped to perish. What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy with all the botched and the weak—Christianity. (The Antichrist, 2)He is probably more on the side of those Jesus associates with the ‘woes’ - for him Christianity is not ‘natural’ in its emphases! Life is about power and strength, he would say. – So by way of contrast, what is going on here with Jesus and as well as our Old Testament reading today?Within the Biblical tradition there is a strand call ‘wisdom literature’ - these are usually the Old Testament writings known as Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus, the Wisdom of Solomon, etc. Their concerns were to do with ‘Wisdom’ – not wisdom as some sort of abstract acquiring of knowledge, but Wisdom in terms of what is the ‘good life’ in relation to God and others. This concern also pops up elsewhere, as it does this morning with the prophet Jeremiah as he presents his ‘two ways’ to his audience. There are those who rely totally on self, and have no sense of anything other than themselves and their achievements, and certainly no sense of the Divine at work. Like a shrub in the wastelands, they have no source of life to maintain them. The others, the wise, are like a tree beside the river – when the ‘heat’ comes, they are able to rely upon the refreshing and life sustaining waters. They are not self-dependent – they have outside resources they rely upon in life. (These images must surely be understood by folk in the Riverland, dependent as people are on water to produce the bounties enjoyed here!)What we have are metaphors for how life is lived – life lived without God, without any spiritual content and trust; and life lived relying upon God and observing the ways of God –trusting in God – effectively being guided by the Torah, the Law of God.These themes are picked up in the Responsorial Psalm – where we again have the image of the Blesséd or ‘Happy’ person analogous with trees alongside the stream continually refreshed by the waters.When we hear Jesus this morning, we have already been prepared with ‘Beatitudes’ and now we hear some more Beatitudes/Blesséds.Luke presents us with Jesus ‘coming down to the plain’ and speaking to his disciples, with the crowd ‘overhearing’ what Jesus is saying. – What Jesus says is familiar – yet different. We are more familiar with Matthew’s presentation where Jesus delivers 8 Beatitudes from the mountain – i.e. the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew, Jesus says ‘Blessed are ‘they’’ not ‘Blessed are ‘you’’ Matthew presents Jesus as ‘The Teacher’ – as a new Moses, so the style is different. On the other hand, today, Jesus comes down with his disciples – he is ‘with them’ and he is actually speaking ‘to them.’ The words Jesus proceeds to say are revolutionary in terms of his culture – and dare we say for our culture. How can someone be termed ‘Blessed’ who is poor, hungry, weeping or hated? – Part of the answer is in the word ‘Blesséd’ – from the Greek ‘makarios’ (makarios). This word in ancient Greek described the condition of the gods – their state of bliss or ‘happiness’ (we need to be careful of using happiness as this as a feeling is something which comes and goes, and is often reliant upon chance!). In Jesus’ world – the poor, the hungry, the mournful, the despised – sat at the bottom of the heap – socially, economically and religiously. They were of low regard. In the ancient world the ‘successful’ life was the life described by the ‘woes’ this morning – riches, plenty to eat, no worries, etc. But Jesus’ warning is that the self-reliant life, the life which often ends up ignoring the true content of spiritual realities and ignores the ways of God has no eternal meaning. Jesus is saying that those who are thought of as having ‘no worth’ ARE valued in the eyes of God. Indeed, those with the sense of no other reliance except upon God are truly favoured –‘Blessed’ - by God, even in the midst of what seems to be chaos and despair!In all of this, Jesus is seeking to highlight for his followers – for us – ‘If you set your heart and bend your whole energies to obtain the things which the world values, you will get them – but that is all you will ever get.’This choice expressed in our Baptism and reaffirmed in our Confirmation and annually at Easter – will we go the way of ‘the world, the flesh and the devil’ – or will be go the way of Christ? – A way which is very challenging in terms of the values he seeks to have us live day by day? - Will we people who seek the ‘wisdom of God’ or the ‘wisdom of the world?’Jesus presents us with a question:What are your goals and aspirations for life? – do they include being on the continual path of conversion and transformation, of turning back to God and seeking God’s priorities in life?We all have aspirations – no matter what stage in life we are at. Will they include being like the tree beside the refreshing stream drawing upon the wisdom of God, or will we be like the shrub in the desert – fine until the scorching wind comes and we shrivel up and die – both spiritually and eternally? In the face of Nietzsche’s view of modern man, we are people who seek to live an alternative view of reality and of life, grounded in the hope we find in Jesus Christ. Lives not of the ‘super man’ triumphing over others, but lives in which the least and the discarded in our world are seen as favoured and ‘blessed’ by God.Amen. ................
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