1. Differentiation between two records

Today’s our reading passage has similar contents to Matthew6:9-13, which is often called ‘Sermon on the Mount .’ Luke’s record is called ‘ Sermon on the field ‘ in contrast because Luke located the scene on a field.(see Luke 6:10) Though Matthew’s description was better known, comparison between two should reveal us important points.

To begin with, we see Luke 6:20 “Blessed are you who are poor” and Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” As you remarked Matthew added ‘ in spirit ‘ to the poor. And Matthew wrote, ” Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness ” whereas Luke 6:21 wrote simply, ” you who hunger now.” Furthermore ” you who weep now” in Luke is written by Matthew “those who mourn” .

We understand now that two Gospel writers interpreted the common source in slightly different ways. Besides Luke added 4 distressing cases which cannot found in Matthew. Those different versions make us naturally curious about the genuine words of Jesus.

Majority of Bible scholars think that both of records of Matthew and Luke are based on ‘ Q document *’ which is a theoretical collection of Jesus’ sayings, compiled in Koine Greek. According to the codex we can guess that the original phrases might be like this ** ;

–Blessed are you poor, for God’s reign is for you. Blessed are ‚ who hunger, for you will eat •your‚ fill. Blessed are you who mourn‚ for you will be consoled. Blessed are you when they insult and persecute you and when every kind of evil say against you because of the son of humanity. –

Though the phrases are apparently closer to Luke’s writing, distressing cases are not found.

As a result of comparison, many scholars concluded that Luke added words about woes to emphasize blessing part and Matthew interpreted Jesus’ teaching in a spiritual way. ‘ Poor (’¦Õ¦Ó¦Ø¦Öός ‘ {ftokhós} in Greek)’ coresponds to ‘ עני {ani} m., עניה {aniah}’ in Hebrew, which means ‘ With little or no possessions or money’ or ‘ begger. ‘

In short, Jesus blesses those who were extremely poor in materially meaning. And Jesus also blessed ‘ those who lack of food and weep.’ From our point of view Jesus words do not seem convincing.

Here, the point is that the poor is blessed because they will be rich. Jesus meant that the poor are blessed because they will seek God due to their harsh living conditions. Unhappy persons look for God because they cannot live without God’s love. Sorrowful ones ask God why he gave them such miseries. In that way they start to try communicating with God. For that reason they must be blessed, Jesus said.

Obviously Luke added the part of woes to underline the point above. Wealth, abundance of food and comfort might be considered as sufficient criteria of happy life. But Luke’s writing tells that those earthy advantages might cause rather distresses than happiness. (see Luke 6:24)

The rich, relying on their money, might think that they don’t need God. They have already comfortable life out of faith. Therefore they won’t be blessed. But without looking for, we will never meet God. That is the very misery. Luke also reported in another chapter Jesus’ teachings about the rich ; - Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Luke18:25)

And the last verse of today’s lecturing portion seems to have been inserted by Luke himself to the original source.
L. Schottroff, a German protestant scholar, said ;

–Jesus’ teaching words belonged to Jesus’ direct disciples as believers of the first generation. Then, as time goes by, descendent christians added their own interpretations to the original source in order to adjust generation lag. We should take those believer put under oppression afterwards as “the poor” who were blessed by Jesus.

* Q document http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_document
** Online text http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/%7Ekloppen/iqpqet.htm
*** Luise Schottroff (auto-translated from German)
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http:// de.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Luise_Schottroff&ei=XeB4S4vFFsyIkAXr5eH6Cg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CCEQ7gEwCA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DLuise%2BSchottroff%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den

2. Intentions of Luke and Matthew

Jesus blessed literally the poor and the dispossessed. Then Matthew interpreted it in accordance with his own theology through spiritual vision. Luke put up harsh reality of poor people’s life. But when we try to listen to Jesus’ teaching without interpretation, what will we find there ? The Gospels tells us that those who reacted positively to Jesus’ teachings were segregated persons in the society, more exactly tax-collectors, prostitutes and gentiles. In contrast, socially powerful persons, or Pharisees and Sadducees, rejected him.(see matthew 23:29¡Ë
The fact shows that those who are literally poor, hungry and weeping acknowledged Jesus as the Savior whereas rich and happily satisfied persons denied it. It is always the same in today’s societies. Those who are satisfied won’t seek God. In contrast, miserable persons aspire to God. And it should be the latter who will be blessed because they look for God, Jesus says.

Luke and Matthew lived 50 years after the time of Jesus. Surrounding conditions of the world were altered. Israel had been defeated by Romans and the Temple of Jerusalem had been destroyed. The priests were scattered away. Judaism also must change. It was restructured by Pharisees into a religion which based on studies of laws, instead of on ceremonial rites. Lifestyle of christians became different from that of the first generation. They began again to live individually by fixed residence, instead of communal and nomadic lifestyle. They found regular jobs to have economical stability.

Under such circumstances Luke recognized the need to alert those who were facing the risk of becoming greed. For that purpose he inserted the part of woes. As we see, motivation of the Gospel writers are not to present Jesus’ personal biography but to record how their contemporaries must listen and understand Jesus’ words.

Now it is our turn to reflect on our own way to understand teachings of Jesus. Majority of us have rather satisfactory living conditions, materially at ease. We have enough food thanks to regular incomes. However such a comfortable life would erode faith. In other words, we might be already similar to those whom Luke called “being rich, receiving comfort and laughing.” However, in reality, our living base is very fragile. If company bankrupts or it dismisses us tomorrow, our material conditions deteriorate. Even though we are now laughing, illness or requirement of divorce might depress us suddenly. We must know that our happiness can be preserved uniquely by God. And that recognition should motivate us to help those who are poor, hungry and weeping. Now we start to reflect on the second issue, ‘ How to be rich toward God.’

3. To be rich toward God

Todays’ invocation verses are Luke 12:20-21 ; - ” But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? ‘ ” This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”

The passage is a part of Jesus’ teaching called ‘The Parable of the Rich Fool.’ The story is about a rich man whose ground produced a good crop. However he had no place to store his crops. So he made stores built bigger than previous one for all of his grain and goods. Then he felt assured of easy life with plenty of foods and wine. Here comes, ” But God said to him, You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. ”

The passage begins from 12:15 and the word ‘my (’ ¦Ì¦Ï¦Ô{ mu-} in the original Greek text)’ is repeated 4 times in such a short part. The rich man says always this way ; ‘my crops,’ ‘my burn,’ my grain and my goods.’ Nonetheless at the end of his life he will possess nothing, even life itself. Jesus taught with the parable that the foolish man did not know what is the most important thing.

The rich man thought that his life was under his won control and, with abundance of money, his future was totally secured, even against unpredicted incidents. But we, ordinary humans, can never know when we die. Our life does not belong to us. And after the death, all earthy wealth should be taken by someone else. Besides huge properties of the deceased often generate unhappy litigations among the heirs. Earthy fortunes are useless to enter into the kingdom of God. So much so Jesus tells us that the rich man of the parable was foolish. He missed the most important thing of life by taking earthy wealth. Therefore Luke added the following verse ; - “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.(Luke 6:24)

We cannot go the path the real life by gaining, storing , possessing and protecting property. It must be by giving thanks, sharing and serving. Luke reported Jesus’ words, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."(Luke 9:23)

It means we should follow in Jesus’ footsteps in daily life, more exactly we offer our precious time and money to God. If we attend Sunday worship as a task which makes us to give up happy time staying with family or friends, God must not be pleased. We must joyfully give thanks to God who protected us during the week.

The Bible requires the tithe, or one-tenth of what we gain. Offerings are expression of our gratefulness because all was given to us by God. And collected money is used to maintain church activities, pastor’s salary and utilities, for example. Some of you might doubtful of significance of tithe. Indeed, we are not ‘rich as Creosus.’ But by offering it we can be set free from greed, or desire of gaining, possessing and securing property excessively. The tithe allows the pastor to learn, pray and preach. Thus the good news can be spread to all around countries.

We can interpret in context of our daily life Jesus’ teaching. Fro example, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” to “Those who are poor will be helped by Jesus’ followers.” and “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh,” to “Those who weep now will laugh by being consolations of christians.” Thus we can be rich in God, today, here together as Jesus’ disciples.