Finding Blessing In A Persecuting World

The Sixth Sunday After Epiphany

February 13, 2022

M. Anthony Seel, Jr.

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church

Luke 6: 17-26

Finding Blessing in a Persecuting World

In our gospel lesson, Jesus says to us today,

Vv. 22-23 “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! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”

It was a week ago Friday, when the Winter Olympics began in Beijing, China. They’ve been called “the genocide games” because of China’s “brutal genocide against ethnic Muslims known as Uyghurs” [CNN, “China says claims…”]

In a submission to the U.N., the World Uyghur Congress, based in Germany, estimated that there are “at least one million Uyghurs… being held in political indoctrination camps as of July 2018” [ibid.] Today, that number is estimated to be over one million [patriot.post.us/thegenocidegames]

Can you conceive of over one million people imprisoned in concentration camps? That’s more than the population of Jacksonville, Florida, or Austin, Texas, Indianapolis, or Washington, D.C.

“Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs have been forced [into] slave labor” [ibid.]. Last year, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute listed 83 “popular, household-name brands that “potentially directly or indirectly” benefit from this slave labor.

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act passed our House of Representatives last September by a vote of 403-6. Last November, the New York Times reported that Coca-Cola, Nike, Apple, and other corporations tried to weaken the bill, because, they argued, it “would harm the supply chains they rely on in China.”

China’s bad behavior isn’t limited to Muslims. According to Christianity Daily, there are 100 million church members in China, and they are “systematically being discriminated against, controlled, and subjected to religious persecution by the CCP” (that’s the Chinese Communist Party).

As bad as China is, they rank only 17th worst according to Open Doors, an organization that advocates for persecuted Christians worldwide.

Yet, Jesus says,

Vv. 22-23 “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! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”

These verses are stuck in the middle of the four beatitudes and four woes of the Sermon on the Plain in the Gospel of Luke.

Beatitudes are blessings or reasons for happiness. Our English word beatitude comes from the Latin for happy and blessed. The Greek word in the original language of the New Testament means blessed, happy, or prosperous.

The beatitudes in Matthew and Luke are similar, but Matthew has nine beatitudes while Luke has only four. Plus, Luke follows the four beatitudes with four woes, which Matthew doesn’t do. The wording and order are different, and the settings are different. Matthew has the famous Sermon on the Mount. Luke has the less famous Sermon on the Plain.

On Thursday, I was visiting with a bishop of the Mormon Church and his wife. I told them that I would be preaching on the Sermon on the Plain on Sunday. The wife asked, “Do you mean the Sermon on the Mount.” I replied, “no, the Sermon on the Plain from Luke, chapter 6. I encouraged them to look it up.

Not only does Matthew have nine beatitudes to Luke’s four, overall, the Sermon on the Mount is significantly longer than the Sermon on the Plain. So, is the Sermon on the Plain a summary of the Sermon on the Mount? Or is the Sermon on the Mount an expansion or elaboration of the Sermon on the Plain? Were two sermons given on different occasions, with Jesus reusing, but subtly changing the thrust from one to the other?

Comparing the two, Matthew is more spiritual, while Luke is more down to earth.

Let’s start with the context of the Sermon on the Plain. I invite you to open your Bible, or a church Bible found in the rack below or in front of your seat.

Beginning at verse 12, we see Jesus went up a mountain where he prayed all night. The next day, He chose twelve disciples to be His closest followers. Those twelve and Jesus came down from the mountain and stood “on a level place.”

In verse 17, Luke distinguishes between a great crowd of Jesus’ disciples, and a great multitude of other people from Jerusalem, all Judea, which surrounds Jerusalem, and the seaside towns of Tyre and Sidon. The great multitude same to hear Jesus speak and to be healed by Him.

Jesus healed many of diseases - the gospels attest to this. Jesus also healed those “who were troubled by demonic spirits.” The gospels give ample proof of this also. Verse 19 tell us,