The Reversal of Fortunes – Luke 6:20-26
The Reversal of Fortunes – Luke 6:20-26
Luke 6.20-26 – Study Guide
The Reversal of Fortunes:
An Orderly Account: Encountering Jesus in the Gospel of Luke
Luke 6:20-26
Introduction:
One of the great plotlines in movies and books is called the reversal of fortunes. The main character of the movie of book undergoes a dramatic shift in circumstances. A character with humble beginnings suddenly rises to greatness through sheer luck. Or a once magnificent individual falls from their prosperity due to a betrayal. New wealth appears out of nowhere. Position and status are suddenly lost.
Cinderella is oppressed by her cruel stepmother and lives in servitude. But, with the help of her fairy godmother, she transforms, attends the royal ball, wins the prince’s heart, and becomes a princess.
Ebenezer Scrooge, a wealthy miser, lives a cold, selfish life. Three ghosts allow him to see his own past, present, and future, converting him into a generous, warm, and kindhearted man.
Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire, builds his fortune to win back his love, Daisy. Despite his wealth, his pursuit ends in tragedy, losing everything, including his own life.
And each of these stories try, in their own ways, to teach us some lessons: good things come to those who wait, kindness is its own reward, or money can’t buy happiness. Each of these stories impress upon us the need to live a better life, to not succumb to our temptations. And each of those stories; each of those morality tales are good so far as they go. None of us want to be cruel like Cinderella’s stepmother or vain like Jay Gatsby.
Raise the Need, State the Destination, Give Signposts:
Today, as we study Luke 6:20-26, Jesus sets before us a reversal of fortunes called the beatitudes. Four times we’re told what a blessed and cursed life is like: blessed are the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the excluded.
But it’s critical that we not read the beatitudes the way we read Cinderella. Jesus isn’t giving us a morality tale that, if we follow it, will lead to a better life. In fact, the beatitudes don’t sound like good advice at all. Blessed are the poor, hungry, mournful, and reviled? The reason none of that sounds like good advice is because it’s not advice. Not only can we not follow this list, if we’re honest, we don’t even want to. And that’s the point.
This list of values is so upside down they shock and stun us into silence, and that’s what their meant to do. That’s what Jesus intends; for in the beatitudes, Jesus is not giving us tips for life-improvement. Rather, he reveals his kingdom which stands utterly apart from us, which our hearts run from, and yet, through Jesus Christ, we are invited inside.
Jesus says, those who enter my kingdom undergo a reversal of values. They no longer live for power, comfort, success, or recognition. Indeed they’re willing to lose them all for me. And, in the end, they receive the only power, comfort, success, and recognition that cannot be taken from them.
The Beatitudes:
- Reverse Our Values
- Reveal Our Weakness
- Reflect Our King
The Text
20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.
“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
26 “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.
First, the Beatitudes…
- Reverse Our Values
Here Jesus begins the sermon with four “Blessed” followed by four parallel “Woes,” or curses. The word “blessed” in this passage doesn’t just mean “happy,” neither does it mean someone who is fortunate. Rather, it refers to someone who is happy despite their circumstances because they have received the favor of God.
And as we look at the list of blessings and woes we quickly realize that Jesus is turning those words on their head. He’s taking what we normally associate with a blessed life and saying it’s a curse. What we would consider dreadful, Jesus says is delightful to his followers. Let’s look at each of them in turn.
First, Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
In the ancient world, wealth was associated with power. So he isn’t just saying the poor are blessed. He’s saying, the powerless are blessed. Those can do nothing to get out of their situation, those who are helpless, those who are vulnerable, defenseless, and destitute. Those are the blessed ones. Conversely, those who are self-assured and self-insured, those who think they don’t need any help, who think they don’t owe God anything… those are the people who are desolate in the end. And when you begin following Jesus, at some point you will have to choose between Jesus Christ and power. You can’t serve two masters. You will love the one and hate the other by comparison.
Second, Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
Likewise, in the ancient world, the main source of comfort, of satisfaction, was food and drink. There were no theme parks, no jet skis, no NFL Redzone. So, if you had a full belly, if you had drink, if your sat at a full table, this is where you found comfort. Jesus says, the ethic of his kingdom is sacrifice, choosing to go without. It’s not the full table, but the empty table that is blessed. It’s the sacrificial who will be satisfied in the end. It’s those who gave up comfort for the sake of the kingdom who will be full at the final accounting.
Third, Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
The word “laugh” here is not laughing at a joke. It’s the laughter of someone who is taunting another; it’s gloating over someone’s defeat. In other words, Jesus is saying, those who look like failures in this life are the real success stories. “Blessed are the failures.” Blessed are the ones who in the world’s eyes are utterly ineffective and unproductive. Those are the real success stories. And those who make success the measure of their life will, in the end, find themselves weeping at their losses. Because they made success their life, their end will be failure and ruin.
Fourth, Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!
In the final blessing, Jesus connects exclusion and ridicule to himself. Those who follow him, those who enter into his kingdom will be excluded from the world. They will be mocked and ridiculed; and this means they are truly blessed. They are following in the footsteps of all God’s prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel… they were all national rejects in their own time. Those who live for the recognition of this world will in the end be rejected. Those who live for the praise of men will receive the condemnation of God. But those who are vilified by men for the sake of Jesus will be welcome and received.
What’s Jesus doing? He’s reversing all our values. How do we normally evaluate someone’s life? How much money, power, comfort, success, and recognition do they have? But Jesus says only someone who gives up power for weakness, who forfeits comfort for suffering, success for failure; who gives up recognition for rejection for me can have a place in my kingdom.
Every airplane has an instrument called an attitude indicator. It’s a circular dial with a blue upper half and a brown lower half. It looks like the sky and the ground with a horizon line in the center. And as the plane pitches from side to side the indicator shows the pilot which way is up and which way is down. It says, “Hey! The sky is that way! The ground is that way!”
Well, the beatitudes take our normal indicators of blessedness and turn them upside down. The beatitudes tell us that suffering doesn’t mean God’s angry. Comfort doesn’t mean God’s pleased. Failure doesn’t mean God is cursing you and human recognition doesn’t mean he approves of you.
In fact, it’s the reverse. In the kingdom, the poor receive the kingdom, the hungry are fed, the weeping laugh, and the rejected rejoice.
The beatitudes reverse our values. Second…
- Reveal Our Weakness
Now, let me just tell you up-front: this sermon is meant to drive you to despair. Jesus’ words in the beatitudes are meant to wound your pride because if we’re honest, none of these beatitudes appeal to us. Who wants to be poor, hungry, weeping, and rejected? None of us, and therefore, if you search out sermons on this passage you find that no two equally wrong ways to treat the beatitudes:
The first is to hear Jesus reversing our values and say, “Well, clearly Jesus can’t mean what he said, because if he did mean it then we’d all need to give up all our power, comfort, success, and recognition.” Let’s face it, taking Jesus at face-value here sounds like really bad advice and some interpreters argue that Jesus can’t possibly mean what he actually said.
The problem is that Jesus constantly said outrageous things. These beatitudes are not outliers in his teaching. In fact, they don’t even crack the top ten list of most outrageous things Jesus said. For instance:
- Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44)
- If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)
- Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. (John 6:53)
- And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. (Mark 9:43)
If your first instinct is to soften the words of Christ to make them more palatable, you’ve misunderstood him. If you dial back the obedience he demands to level you believe you can keep, you’re not getting the message.
But there’s another way to misread this passage. As bad as it is to soften the words of Jesus, the worst mistake you can make is to take his words at face value and believe you have a chance at obeying them. Remember, the beatitudes aren’t a morality tale. If you walk away from the beatitudes thinking you even have a chance at living like this, you’re in for a rude awakening. So, what is Jesus up to in this sermon?
First, you have to hear the words of Jesus as outrageously as he intends. He’s trying to shock you. Don’t try to explain Jesus away. Don’t try to find ways to argue that he didn’t mean what he said. He’s trying to be provocative, so let him provoke.
Second, you have to be wounded by the words of Jesus. He’s revealing your weakness. And it’s perfectly natural to listen to the beatitudes and feel bad about yourself; to even feel hopeless. If Jesus is telling the truth, that I should give away my money, my comfort, my success, my recognition, then not only am I far from him… I’m not even sure if I want to be close to him. You see, if we take him at his word, we realize that we spend most of our time proving that we don’t belong in his kingdom. And we don’t.
You see, our problem is not just that we can’t live out the beatitudes… it’s that we wouldn’t want to even if we could. Jesus’ kingdom isn’t just utterly foreign to the values of this world… its utterly foreign to us. The only way you’ll ever make sense of Jesus’ sermon on the plain is to realize that his kingdom is so far out of our reach that we can’t possibly be citizens in it.
Who could pray for their enemies, even while they’re being persecuted? Who could give up all their riches in order to become poor? Who would willingly lay aside comfort for weeping? If you painted a portrait of the blessed man from this passage: he’s emaciated, covered in rags, sobbing as others gloat around him, hated and rejected by God and man.
And it’s at this point we see that the beatitudes don’t just reverse our values, or reveal our weakness, they reflect our King.
- Reflect Our King
Why did Jesus preach the way he did? Why did he preach a sermon he knew we didn’t have a hope at obeying? Why do the beatitudes outrage and exasperate us? Because, until you’re truly miserable and despairing of your own efforts, you will never fall upon him for mercy.
Friend, the beatitudes aren’t a pep-talk. They aren’t a motivational speech. And the only hope you have to begin living out this sermon is by first admitting you’re hopeless to do it. You actually need Jesus Christ to obey this sermon in your place.
Jesus Christ didn’t come just to tell you to reverse your values, he came to reverse fortunes with you. Why can he say, “Though you are poor now, you will be rich?” Because though he was rich, for your sake he became poor. Why can he say, “Though you are weeping now, you will laugh?” Because though he enjoyed the boundless joy of his Father, he came to earth and acquainted himself with grief. He endured cosmic weeping… he died in the dark, crowned with thorns, spat upon and speared, rejected by the Father. How can he say, “You will be comforted?” Because he was utterly disconsolate. He was thrown away; not only as an example, but as your substitute. He reversed his fortunes with you. He put himself where you deserved to be, so that he could put you where only he deserved to be.
And this is where you get the power to live out the beatitudes. There are basically two ways to respond to this sermon. Either you say, “God owes me absolutely nothing. I’m poor, I’m spiritually destitute, I have nothing to offer him except my sin, and yet I see that Jesus Christ reversed fortunes with me, and therefore, because its all of grace, there’s nothing he cannot ask of me. There’s nothing he cannot ask me to give away. There’s no sacrifice I may refuse. There’s no suffering he can’t lead me through. Or you say, “Listen, I’m not perfect, but I’ve done some good things, I’ve avoided some bad things, and therefore God owes me. I’ve earned something. I’ve done my duty. He shouldn’t let bad things happen to me.
And if that’s in your heart, then you’re still seeing Jesus as a mere example. You aren’t seeing him as your substitute. But, to the degree that his sacrifice is real for you, you’ll be sacrificial. To the degree that you see him taking your poverty, you can divest yourself. If you know that because of him, the endless joy of the Father is yours, you can endure weeping for a night here and now. If you know that the King has reversed his fortunes for you, you’ll be able to reverse your fortunes with others.
