If you thought from yesterday that Jesus was Mr Nicey, and that God was like Father Christmas, all Ho ho ho's and pouring out blessings, then you need to hear what Jesus has to say today.
The first extract Luke gave us of Jesus' actual teaching was pure good news. Blessing, happiness and joy to all who put their faith in God, especially the downtrodden.
Today he gives us the flipside.
You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs, and Jesus makes it clear that you can't bless the poor without un-blessing the rich.
Today, we have a word for the 1%. The richest 1% of the world, who now own as much wealth as the the remaining 99% of humanity. The stupidly rich, the ones swimming in cream. This is as happy and as fat, and as cheerful as you are going to get.
You will be hungry, you will mourn. You who enjoy the crowds' praise, remember how they praised the false prophets who came before you.
Jesus doesn't dwell on eternal punishments, he doesn't spell out the disasters that are coming. He just reverses all the blessings he began with, and leaves it up to people's imagination. It's a very simple message, and quite hard to misunderstand: good times are coming for people who are suffering now, bad times are coming for people who are happy now. He offers nothing in the way of proof, no evidence to convince us that he's right. The natural authority of his words is such that he didn't need to.
People listened to him. People believed him. But what did they actually do about it?
No comments:
Post a Comment