Blessed Are The Poor? How? (Luke 6:20-26) - Podcast Episode 15

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of the podcast.

We're grateful to have you with us and we're excited to be into

the sermon on the Plane, which I've always found just to have a

little bit less of an exciting name than Sermon on the.

Mount little less gravitas. Feels that way, but in some ways

like Luke is doing some really, really specific theological

intentional moves here with how he lays out this teaching.

And at some point, probably not today, but in one of these

podcasts or maybe an extra podcast, we will talk about

whether these two sermons are even the same like as Matthew

and Luke. Are they are they recounting for

us the exact same moment? Are these collections of Jesus

teachings that both have incorporated into one event?

Are they teachings that were common to Jesus?

Sort of catalog of teachings that he gave many different

places in similar fashion? Like how do you understand plain

flat place versus mount, all of that?

Those are all great. Questions a plane on amount

exactly. Like those are all great

questions that we're not going to get to today, so sorry to

just throw those all out there. Talk later, come back for

another episode. What?

What we are going to get to today is, is Luke's iteration of

the Beatitudes and Jesus is teaching on the good life,

Kingdom, Kingdom life, life inside the Kingdom.

And we've got questions from our community Bible study which

launched this past week on Wednesday.

We've got questions that you know, you and I have been

thinking through and some questions from Sunday.

So there's lots of questions, might be more rapid fire.

Yes, yeah, we'll try to be keep them brief so that we can touch

on a bunch of them. But yeah, I mean, this is a hard

passage. Like it, it is difficult.

And I and I actually left Sunday morning.

It was it was Mother's Day and so I had to run and just do a

bunch of stuff for for our moms between my mom and my wife's

mom. So it was like busy.

But as I, as I was leaving the church service, I, I felt like a

weightiness to this passage as it relates to how we as modern

Western generally wealthy people live.

And and that, yeah, that's been sitting with me even this

morning. Hmm.

But there's other, there's other parts of the passages as well

that I think are worth, that are not relating to necessarily

wealth possessions that are, that are worth exploring.

And we're going to get to that. But maybe the the first question

is as it relates to being very rich or very poor.

So Jesus highlights, you know, he says blessed are you who are

poor for yours is the Kingdom of God.

Blessed are you who hunger now for you'll be satisfied.

So those two are very tangible and then they kind of the turn

around for the woes. Woe to you who are rich for you

have already received your comfort.

Woe to you who are well fed now for you will go hungry.

So there's a clear, a clear kind of have and have not kind of

situation going on here. And the question, I think this

was a question relating from community Bible study from last

Wednesday nights. And it's like, OK, let's talk

about middle ground here. These are fairly extreme

positions. And at least the, the, you know,

Jesus calling a blessed, a person blessed because they are

poor and because they are hungry.

It's it's challenging to like to sit with that and grapple with

that and be like, OK, is there, is there a happy medium here?

And, and even the question feels a little silly in some ways,

because I'm like, Jesus isn't always about happy mediums,

right? So so, but just like for as

fodder for discussion. Is there a happy medium here?

Yeah, I, I mean, I think this is a great question.

I agree with you. It, it feels a little bit like,

yeah, silly maybe. Like you already almost know,

even as you're asking it, you're like, like, why are we even

here? But like, I do think there's,

there's like a functional reality, yeah.

To living in Canada in 2025 that, you know, there's a

responsibility, I think like you and I are part of families with,

with kids. And so there's a weightiness to

being a parent and wanting to put a roof over your kids head.

And you know, like there's, there are financial

responsibilities and requirements to living like I

said in Canada in 2025 that are just make it difficult to enter

into this kind of passage, right. 3 I think that I wonder.

I wonder if we wrestled that tension out right, like the the

IT less so. Like is there a happy medium or

middle ground? Because I think as soon as we,

at least I speak for myself, as soon as I want to look for the

happy medium, I know I'm gonna air in the wrong direction.

Yes. Like, you know, if financially

it's just I happy, what is happy medium for me is exceptionally

more wealthy than, you know, vast numbers of people on this

planet. And that's a hard reality to sit

with while also feeling like the price of groceries are going up

and the cost of living like of rent or mortgage is increasing

and people's ability to get into a house is, is becoming, you

know, less. It's harder to do that.

So we live in this tension of, um, life costs a certain amount

to live where we live and add to that risk the weight of

responsibility together, you know, if, if you have a family

or if you're caring for someone, if you're taking care of a

parent, Yeah, like all of that adds financial weight and

responsibility. So we're not saying sell

everything and move to the desert.

Like we're not, that's not, I don't think that's the logical

sort of implication or that's not, I don't think even what

Jesus is advocating for here. Some of the language that I've

tried to, and I didn't use this in the sermon specifically, but

in our community Bible study teaching team prep, I said like

in no uncertain terms, I want people wrestling with the

question, should I take that second vacation?

Do I need that second car? Like how much are we gonna spend

on luxury or leisure? Yep, I want people asking those

difficult questions because I think that's the place where,

you know, I, I did say this in, in, in the sermon that like if

you have two vehicles in your driveway, if you can, if you can

wake up in the morning and choose one vehicle over another,

or if you can choose to have one vehicle or two vehicles.

So like we have one vehicle, but it's a choice, but that's a

conscious. Choice that we've made.

To have one vehicle, not, not, it's not because we like, like,

how do you like that's, that's not, it's not good for us.

We have one vehicle. It's a choice.

We've made that choice. If you've made that choice like

that just puts you in a different economic bracket.

And and I want people wrestling those choices at what is

financial need, What is financial want?

What is what is what is a needed expense and what is a desired

expense because I like, I stink at this.

Yeah, right. And even in my language, I need

to be challenged by this one. What is what is an A legitimate

need and what is a desire? What would be nice but is not

necessarily needed and then what's just straight up I want

this because it's nice or cool or new Oregon, etcetera.

We are, we are wrestling with this huge.

And so I think it's, I think it's good.

It feels vulnerable a little bit to share like personal examples,

but I think it's actually what we ought to do because otherwise

we like, we can sort of tend toward, as you talked about,

kind of over spiritualizing this and, and almost like using that

as a way to sort of placate our own, like our own stuff, right.

So like, I wanna like maybe unpack the, a way that, that my

wife and I are, are working this through right now is that we

have a home. We've been there 11 years.

It's it's not a big home, but for the three of us and our cat,

it, it suits our, our needs and many, many ways and less so in

some other ways. And so we've been wrestling for

the past kind of couple years of like, OK, do we want to maybe do

a little renovation to make it, you know, to make it a bit more

what want, or do we look elsewhere?

And, and it would probably mean a little increase in our, in our

mortgage or whatever, which, you know, like we bought home at, we

bought a home at the right time before things went crazy.

And we feel very fortunate we didn't do anything like that was

just like the, the market at the time, right?

But like where we are, we are actively wrestling with these

needs and wants. And, and it's, it's hard because

they can get very confused, you know, cause it often boils down

to we need more room for our stuff, right?

Like, which which then I think for me, so it makes me feel, you

know, I end up feeling like conflicted, but also just

genuinely, our room is so small, it's hard to fit like even a

closet, you know, like an extra closet for clothing, right?

So it's it's, yeah, it's this tension and we're just wrestling

out in real time. So like I say, thank you for

sharing that because I think that's the like, you're right.

That is the real life that we ought to be living shoulder to

shoulder where you, just like you're bumping into people,

you're wrestling this stuff out together.

Or because we could use, you know, a lot of that extra money

that would go into our innovation or increasing the

mortgage, we could be exceptionally generous with that

money and do other things with it for, you know, others other

than ourselves. Right.

So I think the thing that I want people taking away from this is

exactly what you're doing. So a couple of things you said

you've been wrestling this out, thinking, praying through it for

a couple of years. So I just want to name that like

I think that in and of itself is a slowed down Kingdom.

What would, what does love require of us kind of method to

making a decision? So it's not rash.

You've been wrestling with it for a number of years.

You're not, you know, to my knowledge at this point, you've

not made a decision. So this is like, this isn't,

this isn't like you felt. You felt a perceived need and

then immediately looked for a way to to meet that need and

then made the decision in fairly rapid succession based on your

felt need without taking time to separate those things.

So you're feeling a need and wrestling through genuinely

like, is this a need? Is this a want?

Is this wise? Is this unwise?

What is the better part of wisdom if we're going to like

ABC or options praying through all of that that like that.

I think that's actually a good demonstration of what this

passage calls us to do, which is to lay that decision down and

say, all right, just like, what would you have us do?

And then to be honest and vulnerable enough to bring

others in and start saying, like, does this make sense?

Like help us make this decision and.

Listener, what do we do? Yeah, less that, no less that

look at the camera. But like what I would love for

everybody to have is that sort of community based decision

making mindset so that it would be natural to go to like another

couple who are maybe 10 years down the road, be like, hey,

this, these are our options. Like input into that for us,

help us with it, help us think through it and pray through it.

And here's what we're wrestling with.

Like that's the piece. So Jesus calls us to abandon the

pursuit of wealth and money and success and applause and like

all of the things. But now we're talking about

money. So to abandon the pursuit of

money for pursuit of the Kingdom, yeah, you can use money

inside of the Kingdom, right? It's just it's a lot harder.

There's something about it. And like, I know a lot of people

say like, well, money is neutral.

It's just a tool. And I go maybe in a vacuum

theologically I would agree, but not inside of the course of

human history because it's never just about money.

It's about our it's about what it plays on our desire and want

and greed and wealth, success and fame and like all of these

things. So yes, maybe it is a neutral

tool in a vacuum, but I don't think that that's the way Jesus

actually talks about it as being in a vacuum.

He's harder. He says it's harder.

It's harder to deal with that and live life inside the

Kingdom. Yeah, it's hard to be wealthy

and also live fully inside the Kingdom because it requires

surrender and even surrendering our money.

So I just, I think it's worth naming that like, I like, take

the vacation, build that into your rhythm of rest as a family,

but wrestle it out. Yeah, where do you need to go?

How far? What are you going to spend?

What percentage, all of that? Have that honest conversation

and say, all right, does this fit with how we want to live

inside the Kingdom? And if it does, great.

But the only other thing I would say is include some other people

in there. Yeah.

Because again, like I, I mean, I can start to convince myself if

I buy this, I could use it this way, like inside, but use it for

ministry. Do this.

And like you can, you can start to justify things pretty quickly

when you play that game just with yourself in your own mind.

So that's where accountability is really, really short story.

My first church, long before we got there, they were building a

building, new building. They were falling out of their

old building. And maybe I've told this story

on here before. I think I've told it to you, but

if I have, sorry. It's a good story to hear twice.

They're falling out of the old building and there was a family

who came and they had sold their cottage to help fund the build

on the new building. Dang, Yep.

Like, and I mean, that is a that is a big, that is a big.

I don't want to say the word sacrifice because if they're

selling a cottage, that means they have a home.

Yeah, they're not selling their home, right.

It is, that is, I mean, very generous.

And also it it came out of it came out of their wealth and

it's significant. And and yeah, I know it's one of

the things you don't want to undermine it, but man, like

those are the decisions we should be asking.

That's a that's a sacrifice that I think people can feel, be

like, Oh yeah, yeah. It comes from asking this

question, what is enough? Yeah, what is enough?

And genuinely being able to wrestle that out in terms of

your life and lifestyle and the lifestyle Jesus calls us to

live, what is enough? What is enough for me and for my

family? And what am I going to do beyond

that? How am I going to be generous

and abundantly so. Yeah.

So I think too few of us have that honest conversation to

really wrestle out what is enough.

And gets uncomfortable. That's an uncomfortable thing to

ask of yourself. Yeah.

But I think that's the question, right?

So is there a middle ground? I I think maybe if I could sum

up, I, I almost feel like it's a interesting question to ask, but

it's the wrong question. It's the wrong approach.

Yeah, because it's not, it's there's not, it's not a middle

ground between my pursuit of wealth and my pursuit of the

Kingdom. Those are Those are mutually.

They're mutually exclusive, so there can't be a middle ground.

Is there a middle ground between rich and poor?

Uh, again, I think Jesus says it's harder to be rich and enter

the Kingdom. And so, you know, for many of

us, and, and I won't say for everybody because I don't know

the financial realities of everybody, if I say for many of

us, uh, in Canada in 2025, we tip more toward wealthy.

Yeah. So I think.

We need to be despite of the some of the economical

challenges that are, yes. So I just think it's it's

important to start knowing globally where we tip.

And then it has everything to do with surrender.

Jesus says leave everything, follow me, abandon all, forsake

all and follow me. And so you gotta be willing to

leave like the the fisherman left there catch of a lifetime

of fish. Hopefully it went to good use,

right? We talked about that on the

week. Like, hopefully it wasn't

wasted. Yeah.

But they left what was perceived to be abundance for life inside

the Kingdom. Yes.

So that maybe rather than a middle ground between very rich

and very poor, we need to be looking at like the no, we need,

we need this is 1/3 path. The the and the third path is

that we bring everything at the feet of Jesus and and say it's

all it's all yours. What?

What does that require of us? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And to recognize that the more we have, the harder it is to

open our hands and say, yeah, here's the more, yeah.

But I think that's that's the call.

It's surrender and it's open handedness, not being willing to

move slowly. So you got a question in our

questions at courtrightchurch.org?

Yep, this is a good one. OK so later on in I think is

verse 22, it says blessed are you and people hate you when

they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil

because of the Son of man. And the person asks, what do we

do when people use that particular passage as a way to

defend themselves when people call them out on behaving

poorly? Persecuting me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and we've seen, we've,

we've seen a lot of that over the years.

I would, I would say especially in kind of the, the Western

North American Church, which has historically had very little, if

any persecution of any kind. But also, I think it goes deeper

than that because I think that there are some genuinely

concerning things that we could and should talk about.

But, but I think more on an individual level, on an

individual level, someone in a, you know, in a church or a

pastor or a, you know, a leader of some kind behaves poorly.

And then when they're getting Flack for it, they receive it as

well. I'm blessed because people are

are hating me which. Yeah, Yeah, it, yeah, I, I like

another way to put it, I think, is to say that we can, we can

play the hating, reviling, persecuting, whatever language

you want to use, like the card to avoid accountability.

Yes, that is uncomfortable. Yeah.

So you don't want to deal with your stuff or you don't like how

this is going. You don't want to be confronted.

And so you say no, you're persecuting me.

And instead of honestly saying what do I need to learn in this

moment, we say no. Blanket statement.

That is persecution, that is hatred.

I don't need to listen to it and I'm gonna continue on my merry

way. So, yeah, I think we are not

good at be it, you know, confronting our own stuff or

being honest or being held accountable feels particularly

uncomfortable. Yeah.

And so we can do that. Now here's here's my, I think we

all, we all have this tendency to do it a little bit.

So I think, you know, I'd be careful in yeah.

I just think we need to see this tendency in ourselves as well as

in others. And it's, it's just another

instance where we can see somebody else doing it and not,

you know, yeah. Not be willing to confront our

own. Like, why does this bother me so

much that you're. Anyways.

Yeah, you can. There's an endless cycle there

that you can kind of go into. But for me, it's blessed.

Are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile

you and defame you? There's no period there.

It's on account of the Son of Man and and.

Yeah, the sentence isn't. Finished.

The sentence isn't finished. It's not just it's not just, you

know, blessed are you when people hate you and when they

exclude you in a volume, defame you because you are a Christian.

It's like on account of the Son of man.

It's on account of who Jesus is and what Jesus does and how

Jesus lives and the message. So what, what?

Sorry, sorry to cut you off. What Jesus has just said to the

disciples is you are now he's named them apostles.

So you will be sent out as my messengers on my behalf with my

authority to proclaim this gospel, right?

And as you go proclaiming that gospel, living it out, like in

real, tangible, practical ways, people are going to hate you

because of it. Yeah, it's not because of you.

It's because of me. So blessed are you?

This isn't like, you know, blessed are you?

Because you're a Christian and you made a bad decision or you

made it. You know, you're a Christian,

but actually like you, like you're really judgmental and

you're like, well, I'm just speaking the truth in love.

No, you're speaking the truth rudely.

Like, you know, like. Is this seen this so much?

This isn't, this isn't, it's not a catch all that we can just,

well, I'm a Christian and it must be because I'm a Christian

that you don't like me. No, like there's a chance

actually that there's something that needs to change in my life,

like I did something wrong and need to own that.

So say, you know, I am hesitant. I'm really hesitant when

Christians play the persecuted card, and I'll just keep it to

our own context, OK? Our city, our province, our

country, um, I, I, I see a lot of division based on religion

and certainly, yeah, you know, hatred and like vile things

being thrown all over the place. So between Christian and non

Christian going both ways, yes, Christian and Christian,

different denominations, different flavors of whatever.

Like, you know, yes, there's a lot of that, but the, you know,

the persecution, persecution piece, I think if your default

is to jump to that place when you're confronted by something,

then that's saying more about you than it is about them, and

you need to listen to that. There, there's a little bit of A

and I'm OK. I'm going to say this gently but

firmly. I think some of it is like a

little bit of thin skin like like and I and I say that as

someone who has is thin skinned in other ways.

I will let things get to me. But yeah, when it comes when it

comes to persecution and when it comes to that being our our

default mode when when someone is expressing hatred toward us,

it's because, you know, it's just because I'm a Christian,

right. Rather than reflecting

internally that that may be, that there is some inner work to

do in your soul to to know that that I am, I am secure in who I

am in Jesus, and I don't need to let that rattle me and I don't

need to let that get to me. However, there is, I could

imagine a situation where someone is actually genuinely

reflecting and they're looking at like, you know, a situation

where they're experiencing hatred or experiencing A

challenging situation and they're genuinely being like, I,

I don't know if I've done anything wrong here.

I don't know if, if you know, is this just because they, they

dislike me as a Christian for what I believe?

I've never been in that situation.

I, I've always tried to, you know, I interact with the folks,

you know, at my, my child's school and people that from very

different walks of life know my pastor, Norma Christian, They,

they would deeply disagree with me on a number of things.

I've never experienced hatred from them because I try not to

be a jerk. And I and I try to be loving and

I try to be, you know, as as gracious as I can that they are

not Christians. But there could be someone who

is really wrestling with it. They're wrestling it out.

They're trying to figure out, OK, am I?

Am I being, you know, targeted in some way maybe.

And is there something going on in inside me that I need to

wrestle with? And I think the danger is

allowing yourself to do that in a silo, in isolation.

And, and, and so bringing, as we've said for for the the first

piece, bringing community into this and saying like, and don't

just like go to your people that are going to, you know, tell you

everything you want to hear. Like go to, go to people that

you know are going to be truthful with you and say like,

hey, I'm encountering this. Am I being the jerk?

Or like, do is there something else going on here?

Am I being targeted? Yeah, yeah.

I I think even just to to learn to have a curious spirit is and

will be one of the greatest gifts of your life.

About about ourselves and looking inwardly and.

Yeah, I, I mean, I like, I think in general, right.

Like, you know where when I'm at my worst is when I'm defensive.

Yeah, right. Like if I'm if I'm defend, if,

if I take, if I choose to take or and finding myself taking a

defensive posture in relationship, that is when I

know like I that's when I'm at my worst and that's me.

Like that's not necessarily everybody, but you know, I, I

think in those moments when, when my, my brain and my body is

saying like batten down the hatches and like, right, like

put the walls up. The the task for me in in

relationship is to learn to ask more questions and to remain

curious. Tell me more.

Help like help me understand where you're coming from.

Help me see me through your eyes.

Help me to to, Yeah, to understand more Now, you know,

obviously there are situations where, you know, I don't need to

be curious. Like if somebody walks up, you

know, the street and, and takes a swing at me with a hockey

stick for some reason, I probably don't need to be

curious. That's never happened, by the

way. Panthers fan, Yeah.

I just was trying to pick a obvious, but also weird enough,

you know, situation that you know, and I'm not making anybody

have have, Yeah. Yeah, as they're swinging,

you're not going to be like. Tell me more about.

What's what's brought you to? This moment I should probably be

defensive. Yeah, like arms up here we go.

Like I'm gonna actually try to like block the the like there's

a little bit of defensiveness. That is good, right?

Yes, yes. But I think in relationship, I

know that for me, the the antidote to the defensiveness is

curiosity. And I think curiosity is an

antidote to so many cynicism and bitterness and these things that

I think we naturally just wall ourselves with.

And so curious if you can be curious, it's great because

it'll help you see yourself differently when when you don't

need to. And then you got confirmation

and when you do need to. But that only happens inside of

good community. You gotta have your people like

you said you can walk to and say help help me see this in the way

I need to. That would in my estimation, and

I'm speaking very much to myself because I can be very quick to

jump to judgment and accusation in my heart.

I don't always verbalize that, but in my heart So but I I think

that would this that would solve if we could approach life that

way and even see Jesus. You know, Jesus asks a lot of

questions, right? Masterful in that way, but you

could, you know, I think some of our, our political divide, our

religious divide, it's, it's not all going to be solved by being,

you know, by asking questions and, and, but, but it's, I think

a lot of the, the intensity and the, and the, the extreme

tensions that we're facing these days.

I think a lot of that would dissipate if we all sought to

understand one another. Again, does not work in every

circumstance. There are sometimes where

someone is just doing a bad thing and we just need to call

it out. That is not what I'm talking

about here. I'm talking about your average

Joe who leans one way or the other on a political spectrum or

theological perspective perspective or whatever, right?

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think like anything

on this question, like the the quicker we are to rule something

out and dismiss it, the worse off will be, hmm, there's

certain things. Just absolutely, somebody might

level and accusation that is completely unfounded and needs

to be dismissed. Yeah.

But even to do that rashly and just with a kind of almost like

the wave of a hand, like that's persecution, like if it feels

like dismissing things, it at the end of the day does more

harm to ourselves and then by virtue of that to others long

term than it would to at least consider.

Yeah. So, no, I think yeah, there's a,

there's a right way to approach that.

Obviously in community is going to be one of the continuous

curiosity. Community, we need another C

That could be a Baptist sermon. Contemplation.

Contemplation. Yes, that's perfect.

I mean, like, I think that's a good, I think that's a good

approach to it. Yeah, yeah.

That's great. So one other one other thought

that came out as we look at this passage when you go to the the

latter. So I guess we verse 21 and then

the corresponding verse verse. Where is it in the woes?

Maybe, maybe he's not mentioned in the woes.

The the part about laughter. So blessed are you who weep now,

for you will laugh. Oh yeah, sorry, that is an end

of 25. Woe to you who laugh now, for

you will mourn and weep so laughter.

I like to laugh. Laughter's good.

Yeah. Generally speaking, yeah.

What's going on here? Why?

Why is laughter seen as bad? Hmm, there are a number of

different ways to answer this. Let me, let me just take two,

hopefully briefly #1 I think that there is, there's some

truth to what we experience inside of life, which is, um,

all of life. The fullness of life does

include grief and mourning, and learning to do that really does

change your approach to to life. Learning to mourn well, learning

to grieve well, learning to do that as an individual and inside

of community. That matters.

And there is a wisdom and even just gravitas to someone who has

sat in the depths of sadness and sorrow and moved through it to

experience joy on the other side.

So there there is. There's nothing worse than, I

think than than a funeral that doesn't name death and doesn't

name sadness and grief and mourning.

There, there are, you know, the Samus writes like the shadow of

the valley of death, like deepest darkest valleys, moments

of life. So I think there's just to some

degree truth to this statement that that there is there is a

blessedness to moving through seasons of mourning and sadness

and sorrow toward what I would call joy on the other side.

And, and to be very clear, not just happiness.

I I had a, I had a quote and I think I cut it from the sermon.

But Agustin said crying is a requirement.

Laughter the reward of wisdom. That feels like it's like right

lined up with this passage. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So crying is a requirement. Laughter is the reward of

wisdom. And then he continues.

Luke wrote Laughter to mean joy, so that's his take on it.

Yeah, that that makes sense. It is is that those who mourn

will receive and know and experience joy and you will move

through that. There's there's a gift of God to

do that and you won't feel it. You certainly won't feel in the

moment. It's going to take time.

It's not going to be easy. It's not going to look like what

you want it to look like. It's not going to feel great,

certainly immediately like, hmm, but there is there's just a

movement here that that that God walks us through.

So that's one way to answer this question.

The other way, and I think more so in on the woe side where he

says woe to you who laugh now for you're gonna mourn.

You're like, well, that sounds a little vindictive.

I think there's another approach to this that says the type of

laughter matters also. Yeah.

And so those who grieve now are going to be moved toward joy.

The laughing now is almost, if we consider it the inverse of

that. It's like those who laugh when

others mourn, those who laugh in seasons where it is right to

mourn, those who don't grieve but instead laugh.

And I would even maybe extend it to say poke fun at or even

celebrate or laugh at other peoples misfortune.

You are going to grieve in the long run that's going to lead

away from life. So the type of laughter matters.

The reward laughter is not the same as the woe laughter, the

blessing laughter. I don't it's not the same

qualitatively as the the woe laughter is.

The woe laughter is like vengeful and it is mean and evil

and driven against the other. I'm going to laugh at your

misfortune. I'm going to enjoy it.

I'm going to sit here and watch this all unfold.

I got to watch like the whole thing burn.

And I'm going to, you know, sip my coffee or eat my popcorn and

just watch it right you. Get those like sort of.

Crimes and. There's a pride element.

Yeah. The, the thing that I think I

compared it with you last week is it makes me think about this

is so for those who use Facebook, which is often the bad

place, you see on like lots of posts that are not meant to be

funny. Um, people using like the laugh

react and, and on posts that are maybe, you know, from, you know,

a particular theological or political persuasion or even

just someone talking about some misfortune they face in their

life. And you see someone laugh

reacting and it's like, man, why are you doing that?

That's kind of rude. You know, like and and that was

just a very a very like practical.

I'm like, man, people have weaponized the laugh react.

Listen, apparently the thumbs up that doesn't actually mean like

thumbs up either. Like.

Hey, good job, Sarcastic. Got like a sarcastic undertone

to it. Yeah.

So this is just what we do, it seems.

But I think that's a great. That's a great illustration of

it. It is.

It is qualitatively different. The reward laughter is joy and

the woe. Laughter is vengeful, mean, mean

spirited. I'm going to enjoy watching you

suffer. And Jesus says 1 is going to

lead to life and 1 is going to lead to death.

Yeah. And and that I think is is is

pretty clear on it. So yeah, it's certainly an area

where it's helpful to not always rely just on strict parallelism.

He's playing with the words. He is.

Yeah, totally. And and that the the initial one

about about, you know, blessed are those who weep for they will

laugh there. There are, I think, parallels

you could draw with other parts of Scripture.

I was just I just pulled this up from Psalm 30, which says you

turned my mourning into dancing. You peeled off my sack cloth and

clothed me with joy. Exactly that parallel of that in

our places of mourning and sadness and grief, God meets us

in that place and he doesn't abandon us and will we, we

believe and trust, restore us to a place of, of joy, to a place

where we can laugh again, right. Like there's, there's nothing.

You know, you've seen people go through a grief where, where

they are just in a season that is, is awful, where laughter

feels impossible. And then, you know, maybe a year

later or whatever they, you know, God has brought them back

to a place where they can be filled with joy, where they can

laugh, where they can enjoy life.

And it's like, that's an amazing thing.

It is. Yeah. 1 requires the other.

Yes. Right.

And so my very first preaching professor in seminary, at the

beginning of one of his books, tells the story of a funeral for

I think it was his niece. Like just devastating this child

who's died and he he tells the story of going to the grave side

and the minister preaching the graveside sermon didn't

reference the death of Jesus, the deep sadness at the death of

his niece and the grief and mourning the lament that was

required in that moment to enter into collectively.

It was only resurrection, joy, heaven, all that's before us for

what is waiting on the other side.

It was, it was entirely dismissive in the way my Prof

would recount it, dismissive of the lament and so.

Disembodied of the reality. Exactly.

So you can't skip. It's like why on Easter, we will

never, as long as I'm a pastor, I will never do like the whole

Easter Sunday services on Friday, Saturday, Sunday,

because Easter Sunday doesn't happen without the waiting of

Saturday and the death of Friday.

And so you have to move through those moments, those those those

movements and the reason why we do it year after year after

year. Even though we know the.

Outcome, even though we know where it's going to go, is

because we are, we are practicing the discipline of

lament. Yes.

And then we are practicing the discipline of waiting.

And then we are practicing the discipline of celebration.

And that movement is what's gonna pop back up when you're in

seasons of grief. You're like, oh, I know how to

do this. It feels more real now, maybe

like immediately pressing because this is a death that

affects like, emotionally, physically, mentally,

spiritually, all of it. You're like, you're confronted

by it. But my hope is that you know

that those disciplines, the discipline of lament, the

discipline of waiting, and then the discipline of celebration.

I've got the steps, I've got the map, I've got the path forward.

And I don't like it, but at least I have some reference for

this, so it's necessary. That's good, that's good.

There are so many questions that are, you know, community Bible

study came up with and so many questions that we had and so

many questions that didn't make its way into your sermon.

But that's kind of the beauty of this is that, you know, 10 years

from now when this passage comes up again in another in another

time for you, like there is an endless amount that of paths we

could go down. But for now, probably feels like

a good place to to close out and just to remind you that we are

doing this community Bible study on Wednesday nights if you're

watching this in real time. And so this is a fun, a fun

month where we get to have this, you know, 100 people talk about

the passage and then preach on it and then kind of do any

little cleanup on, you know, on the next day or the next week

for the podcast. So we get to really entrench

ourselves in the text, which is a lot of fun.

But if you do have more questions relating to the

upcoming passage in this upcoming week is gonna be a lot

of fun as we talk about Jesus called to love our enemies.

So I have a feeling there's gonna be some hardball

questions, which is gonna be great.

But for now, we'll leave it there and we'll see you next

time.