As I traveled to Santa Fe this weekend, my plane took us over Arizona and most of New Mexico.  There is a lot of desert in Arizona and New Mexico.  From the plane we could see endless miles of brown, parched land.  It is beautiful, certainly – there are spectacular mountains, and deep veins in the earth where flash floods must happen – but nothing grows out there.  But then, we flew over a small river.  Clinging to both sides of the river were brilliant green farm fields.  For miles around nothing would grow, but here there was a narrow, meandering strip of abundant life.  Here were the well-watered gardens, and they were all the more flagrant and explosive and brilliant in color, for how rare they are in the desert.

 

In our Scripture we heard Jeremiah talk about being parched and being well-watered.  We heard Jesus saying “Blessed are you” and “Woe to you”.  These blessings and woes are strong stuff.  They can make us shake in our boots.  They’re threatening.  I’d like for us to reflect a little on Jesus’s blessings and woes, not as some sort of divine threat, but as what they really are: an invitation into the most abundant kind of life there is, which is a life nourished by our God.

 

So Jesus goes out onto this plain, and a crowd immediately condenses around him.  This happens all the time in Luke.  It’s the flash mob of the New Testament.  Or, more to the point, it’s like the hundreds of drops that condense on the side of a glass of cool water.  These people are there because of need.  Some may be curious about Jesus, some may even be there out of lofty spiritual aspiration, but mostly they are needy.  Jesus fulfills their need by healing them.  Over and over he lets the irrepressible Life of God flow through him and into their lives, where it becomes newfound health and movement and trust.

 

Then he looks up at them, at his disciples – and since this is Luke, the whole crowd is his disciples – and he says, “You are blessed.  In your need, in your pain, in these open hands desperately reaching out for help, you are blessed.  Those of you who are least in the world’s eyes because of illness or poverty or hunger: you are blessed.”  And this crowd knows what he’s talking about.  Right in front of them, they have the fount of every blessing, the source of living water.  They bubble over with gratitude, this crowd who in the presence of Jesus have become well-watered gardens.

 

Then Jesus moves from the good news to the bad news.  He says “Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your consolation.  Woe to you who are full now, for you will go hungry… Woe to you when all speak well of you…” and so on.  Partly this is the kind of stuff we expect Jesus to say.  It’s the “last shall be first” theology.  It’s paradoxical, it’s a little weird, but we do sort of expect it.

 

It goes deeper than that, though.  Here’s the truth about things like riches and fame and reputation: they are not the living water.  It’s “Woe to the rich, for you have already received your consolation.”  The riches, that is.  Some consolation.  Our roots can cling to those parched, barren rocks – to the rocks of riches, fame, reputation – and we can get a pretty good solid grip on those rocks.  And then what have we got?  A good solid grip on a bunch of rocks.  Or, we can reach our roots down, much much deeper down, into the water, the living water of God’s love.

 

This is about us in this movement.  We’ve won a lot of victories this year (an end to sodomy laws, the promise of civil marriage).  And we also have a lot of work to do.  We could cling to our rocks, be so very proud of what we’ve accomplished, and start clutching for more money and more recognition and all the rest.  Or we could look to where our true nourishment comes from.  Because this whole time God has been blessing us beyond our wildest dreams.  God is blessing us with countless changed hearts and minds on van trips and retreats.  God is blessing us with freedoms this year in our country that we’ve never had before.  God is blessing us young people through your work, because you are forming us as ministers, as activists, and as Christians.  God is blessing people who have been alone, alienated from the church, by leading them to new More Light Church homes.  In and through our whole life together, God is blessing us richly, abundantly, especially at the times when we hurt the most.  As we reach our roots down, deep deep down into the water of faith, God will take our need for control and turn it into gratitude.  God will take our fear and turn it into trust.

 

So today, remember these blessings:

            When we are poor, we are blessed.

            When we don’t look good on paper, we are blessed.

            When we fail to get everyone to speak well of us, we are blessed.

            When we lack prestige, we are blessed.

            When we grieve for the people we have lost, we are blessed.

            When we wait and hope for ordination year after year after year, we are blessed.

            When we must depend for our very survival on the God who is the source of every good and perfect gift, we are blessed.

 

Blessed be.

 

Amen.