Woe There
February 16, 2025 Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 1 Luke 6:17-26
“Woe There!”
Melissa K. Smith
Many mornings, when my cats are awake far earlier than I and have more energy than I have ever been able to muster in the morning, I ask my cats to tell me their tale of woe. Kobe Kat especially loves to stand on top of me and meow so loudly it feels like he is yelling at me. And honestly, he is. “Kobe, tell me your tale of woe!” And if he could talk, he would go on and on about how he is starving: he hasn’t eaten for hours, and he can see the bottom of his bowl.
We don’t use the word “woe” (w-o-e) much in our 21st century lingo – it is more frequently found in Romantic poetry from Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and Lord Byron – but we do use the word “woah” (w-o-a-h) frequently. You could use it to express excitement, to express fear, or even to tell someone or something to slow down, like on the back of a horse or in the passenger seat of a brand-new driver.
Woe (w-o-e) (οὐαί) in the Greek means great sorrow or distress. It’s an exclamation uttered in grief or denunciation.
Woah (w-o-a-h) is used to express surprise, interest, or alarm, or to command attention. When Jesus says woe, οὐαί, hear it as both an exclamation of grief and denunciation and as commanding attention.
In today’s text, Jesus is teaching his disciples and the crowd about how to live as his disciples. The passage that comes just before Jesus’s Sermon on the Plain is his call to the twelve disciples. Jesus was praying through the night on a mountain, and when it became morning, he called his twelve disciples and named them as apostles, as ones being sent out to share the Gospel. He then came down the mountain to stand on a “level” place – he quite literally met eye to eye with a multitude of people from all over – and he spent his morning healing people of their diseases and curing them of unclean spirits.
He was in the midst of them, serving, helping, and healing. He was living out his name, Emmanuel, and was God with us as he met people in the depths of their sorrows and healed them. He looked up at his disciples and began to teach.
Luke is a precise writer. He has intentionally told us the audience of Jesus’s teaching: both the disciples and the large crowd. Jesus’s teaching to his disciples is not an aside where only the disciples could hear him, but it is also distinctly not told to the crowd. The audience is the disciples – the people Jesus just called to follow him into ministry and share the Gospel – and the crowd hears the message, too.
What this tells us is that Jesus’s Sermon on the Plain is distinctly a Christian message – it is a message meant for disciples of Christ to hear and embody – and yes, the crowds, will hear and hold the Christians accountable. Does that make it easier to live out? No – but we do not live our faith in a bubble, isolated from worldly consequences.
We live out our faith within our context – and for many of us that means within a context that is made up of people who don’t think like us, believe like us, or agree with us.
With all that in mind, Jesus begins by sharing shocking blessings:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.”
Some people would say that this sounds like the Beatitudes from Matthew’s Gospel – and they do, but they are decidedly different. Matthew’s gospel spiritualizes the stark blessings – “blessed are you who are poor in spirit, blessed are you who hunger for righteousness…” Luke’s gospel does not spiritualize these blessings and we should not either.
This sermon is not the Lukan version of Matthew’s text – they are different sermons, told in different places, and used in different Gospels for different hermeneutical, different interpretive, goals. Luke is deeply concerned about social justice – throughout his Gospel he shows immense concern for marginalized groups of people including: women, the poor, foreigners, and all those in need of God’s mercy and salvation. His concern for the marginalized is not new – in the Hebrew Bible we consistently see concern for the marginalized triad: the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. Central to the heart of the Word of God is the concern for those who are powerless and at the mercy of broken systems.
Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor, who are hungry, who weep, and who are hated.” Blessed are you who have nothing to fall back on but God himself.
He then immediately goes into the woes – and it is not a simple “tale of woe” or something we can write into a poem. It is a stark indignation that is meant to be jarring, snapping us into the reality of what it means to be a disciple of Christ.
Jesus says, “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”
Jesus’s woes are antithetical to his blessings.
Jesus is telling us, Woe there! Slow down. Woe to those who are fooled into thinking they have it all, to those who are not dependent on God, to those who fall into idolatry traps because they are already “full” – full calendars, full bellies, full pockets…so there is no more room for God. Woe to you who are laughing now, who are scoffing and deriding your neighbors. Woe to you who are focused on your own reputation and glory, who warp the message of Christ to swindle new followers under false pretenses – the plague of false prophets is not only a concern in Jesus’s time – it persists today. People who distort the gospel for their own societal gain and interests rather than letting the Gospel be their guide and support are stepping into the role of false prophet. Woe to those who do such things.
This teaching is costly, it's jarring, and it’s uncomfortable. Let it be.
Let God be your God, not your work, not your family, not your money, not your status, not your dinner table, not your vacations, not your education, not your political party, not your bank account; God. Let God reign and rule your life. Lean on God – let God be your everything.
Woe there – take the time to pause, to reflect, and to ponder what we are putting ahead of God, knowing that it serves as an obstacle to our discipleship.
Let the Word of God and the justice of God reign supreme in your life, in your actions, and in your discipleship.
This is a tough word, and it is important to remember that this is a message from Jesus for his followers. Being a disciple is not easy – nowhere in the Gospels were we led to believe that being a Christian is glamorous, worldly, attractive, or a guarantee for earthly blessings.
Jesus asks us to carry our cross – an ask for us to deny ourselves and our selfish desires, an allusion to what he would endure, and a reminder that we are called into difficult terrain to bring his light and good news with us: Jesus says, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27).
Jesus’s blessings and woes are addressed to disciples who “encounter hardships precisely because they follow the Son of Man.” Discipleship is hard. It is costly. But it is worth it – because of his love for us, Christ came into this world to die for us so that we might live. He has saved us. We are called to follow him. Jesus is talking to his friends, to his disciples, to us. Blessed are you who give up everything for him – yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry – you will be filled. Jesus is the bread of life, and you are invited to his table to break bread and share in fellowship. Blessed are you who weep now.
Blessed are you who grieve the promise of liberty, who grieve the reality of sin and death in this world, who grieve the consequences of selfishness. Blessed are you who grieve with tears that streak across your exhausted face.
In the book of Revelation we are told that one day God will “wipe every tear from [our] eyes, death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more…” Blessed are you who put your reputation on the line, who know that God’s words over you mean more than the slander of your neighbors. Blessed are you who walk the path of the prophets and disciples who were rejected by the people – that is a sign of discipleship.
Woe there…let’s take this passage to step back, to analyze what it means to follow Christ, and to boldly step forward in faith.
Woe there…do not be discouraged, rather, be encouraged by the ways our lives are meant to be surrounded by God himself.
Woe there…discipleship is serious business. Do not become lax in your ministry.
Take these blessings and woes as encouragement, as guidance, and as motivation as you persist in carrying your cross, sharing the Gospel, and spreading the love of Christ with the world.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 1 Luke 6:17-26
“Woe There!”
Melissa K. Smith
Many mornings, when my cats are awake far earlier than I and have more energy than I have ever been able to muster in the morning, I ask my cats to tell me their tale of woe. Kobe Kat especially loves to stand on top of me and meow so loudly it feels like he is yelling at me. And honestly, he is. “Kobe, tell me your tale of woe!” And if he could talk, he would go on and on about how he is starving: he hasn’t eaten for hours, and he can see the bottom of his bowl.
We don’t use the word “woe” (w-o-e) much in our 21st century lingo – it is more frequently found in Romantic poetry from Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and Lord Byron – but we do use the word “woah” (w-o-a-h) frequently. You could use it to express excitement, to express fear, or even to tell someone or something to slow down, like on the back of a horse or in the passenger seat of a brand-new driver.
Woe (w-o-e) (οὐαί) in the Greek means great sorrow or distress. It’s an exclamation uttered in grief or denunciation.
Woah (w-o-a-h) is used to express surprise, interest, or alarm, or to command attention. When Jesus says woe, οὐαί, hear it as both an exclamation of grief and denunciation and as commanding attention.
In today’s text, Jesus is teaching his disciples and the crowd about how to live as his disciples. The passage that comes just before Jesus’s Sermon on the Plain is his call to the twelve disciples. Jesus was praying through the night on a mountain, and when it became morning, he called his twelve disciples and named them as apostles, as ones being sent out to share the Gospel. He then came down the mountain to stand on a “level” place – he quite literally met eye to eye with a multitude of people from all over – and he spent his morning healing people of their diseases and curing them of unclean spirits.
He was in the midst of them, serving, helping, and healing. He was living out his name, Emmanuel, and was God with us as he met people in the depths of their sorrows and healed them. He looked up at his disciples and began to teach.
Luke is a precise writer. He has intentionally told us the audience of Jesus’s teaching: both the disciples and the large crowd. Jesus’s teaching to his disciples is not an aside where only the disciples could hear him, but it is also distinctly not told to the crowd. The audience is the disciples – the people Jesus just called to follow him into ministry and share the Gospel – and the crowd hears the message, too.
What this tells us is that Jesus’s Sermon on the Plain is distinctly a Christian message – it is a message meant for disciples of Christ to hear and embody – and yes, the crowds, will hear and hold the Christians accountable. Does that make it easier to live out? No – but we do not live our faith in a bubble, isolated from worldly consequences.
We live out our faith within our context – and for many of us that means within a context that is made up of people who don’t think like us, believe like us, or agree with us.
With all that in mind, Jesus begins by sharing shocking blessings:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.”
Some people would say that this sounds like the Beatitudes from Matthew’s Gospel – and they do, but they are decidedly different. Matthew’s gospel spiritualizes the stark blessings – “blessed are you who are poor in spirit, blessed are you who hunger for righteousness…” Luke’s gospel does not spiritualize these blessings and we should not either.
This sermon is not the Lukan version of Matthew’s text – they are different sermons, told in different places, and used in different Gospels for different hermeneutical, different interpretive, goals. Luke is deeply concerned about social justice – throughout his Gospel he shows immense concern for marginalized groups of people including: women, the poor, foreigners, and all those in need of God’s mercy and salvation. His concern for the marginalized is not new – in the Hebrew Bible we consistently see concern for the marginalized triad: the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. Central to the heart of the Word of God is the concern for those who are powerless and at the mercy of broken systems.
Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor, who are hungry, who weep, and who are hated.” Blessed are you who have nothing to fall back on but God himself.
He then immediately goes into the woes – and it is not a simple “tale of woe” or something we can write into a poem. It is a stark indignation that is meant to be jarring, snapping us into the reality of what it means to be a disciple of Christ.
Jesus says, “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”
Jesus’s woes are antithetical to his blessings.
Jesus is telling us, Woe there! Slow down. Woe to those who are fooled into thinking they have it all, to those who are not dependent on God, to those who fall into idolatry traps because they are already “full” – full calendars, full bellies, full pockets…so there is no more room for God. Woe to you who are laughing now, who are scoffing and deriding your neighbors. Woe to you who are focused on your own reputation and glory, who warp the message of Christ to swindle new followers under false pretenses – the plague of false prophets is not only a concern in Jesus’s time – it persists today. People who distort the gospel for their own societal gain and interests rather than letting the Gospel be their guide and support are stepping into the role of false prophet. Woe to those who do such things.
This teaching is costly, it's jarring, and it’s uncomfortable. Let it be.
Let God be your God, not your work, not your family, not your money, not your status, not your dinner table, not your vacations, not your education, not your political party, not your bank account; God. Let God reign and rule your life. Lean on God – let God be your everything.
Woe there – take the time to pause, to reflect, and to ponder what we are putting ahead of God, knowing that it serves as an obstacle to our discipleship.
Let the Word of God and the justice of God reign supreme in your life, in your actions, and in your discipleship.
This is a tough word, and it is important to remember that this is a message from Jesus for his followers. Being a disciple is not easy – nowhere in the Gospels were we led to believe that being a Christian is glamorous, worldly, attractive, or a guarantee for earthly blessings.
Jesus asks us to carry our cross – an ask for us to deny ourselves and our selfish desires, an allusion to what he would endure, and a reminder that we are called into difficult terrain to bring his light and good news with us: Jesus says, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27).
Jesus’s blessings and woes are addressed to disciples who “encounter hardships precisely because they follow the Son of Man.” Discipleship is hard. It is costly. But it is worth it – because of his love for us, Christ came into this world to die for us so that we might live. He has saved us. We are called to follow him. Jesus is talking to his friends, to his disciples, to us. Blessed are you who give up everything for him – yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry – you will be filled. Jesus is the bread of life, and you are invited to his table to break bread and share in fellowship. Blessed are you who weep now.
Blessed are you who grieve the promise of liberty, who grieve the reality of sin and death in this world, who grieve the consequences of selfishness. Blessed are you who grieve with tears that streak across your exhausted face.
In the book of Revelation we are told that one day God will “wipe every tear from [our] eyes, death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more…” Blessed are you who put your reputation on the line, who know that God’s words over you mean more than the slander of your neighbors. Blessed are you who walk the path of the prophets and disciples who were rejected by the people – that is a sign of discipleship.
Woe there…let’s take this passage to step back, to analyze what it means to follow Christ, and to boldly step forward in faith.
Woe there…do not be discouraged, rather, be encouraged by the ways our lives are meant to be surrounded by God himself.
Woe there…discipleship is serious business. Do not become lax in your ministry.
Take these blessings and woes as encouragement, as guidance, and as motivation as you persist in carrying your cross, sharing the Gospel, and spreading the love of Christ with the world.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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