Plainly Blessed
Lent Devotion by Rev. Andi Woodworth
17 Jesus came down from the mountain with them and stood on a large area of level ground. A great company of his disciples and a huge crowd of people from all around Judea and Jerusalem and the area around Tyre and Sidon joined him there. 18 They came to hear him and to be healed from their diseases, and those bothered by unclean spirits were healed. 19 The whole crowd wanted to touch him, because power was going out from him and he was healing everyone.
20 Jesus raised his eyes to his disciples and said: “Happy are you who are poor, because God’s kingdom is yours. Happy are you who hunger now, because you will be satisfied. Happy are you who weep now, because you will laugh. 22 Happy are you when people hate you, reject you, insult you, and condemn your name as evil because of the Human One. 23 Rejoice when that happens! Leap for joy because you have a great reward in heaven. Their ancestors did the same things to the prophets.
24 But how terrible for you who are rich, because you have already received your comfort. 25 How terrible for you who have plenty now, because you will be hungry. How terrible for you who laugh now, because you will mourn and weep. 26 How terrible for you when all speak well of you. Their ancestors did the same things to the false prophets.
Luke 6:17-26
Every so often, I get the chance to drive to the beach, and to get to the beach from where I live in Atlanta, you go down the interstate and at some point you sort of take a left and drive through the countryside to get to the beach, and that part of the country is called the coastal plain, and it is very very flat. If there are no trees, you can see just about all the way to the horizon, and there are fields of things growing in the sandy soil, fields that stretch as far as the eye can see. I'm from a hilly place, from the Piedmont region of Georgia - so I get a strange little thrill being in different kinds of environments. A long stretch of flat terrain might seem boring - it might be, well, plain, but it just seems like something different might be possible there. I like the idea of a place where everything is just out in the open, in full view, plain for all to see.
In Luke, chapter 6, we find words of Jesus often labelled the "Sermon on the Plain." Now most of us are familiar with the Sermon on the Mount - that is found in Matthew, and is about 3 chapters of the core message of Jesus. This is a parallel set of teachings, with some significant differences. Both Matthew and Luke show us that Jesus moves from place to place offering free medical care and free mental health care (healing the sick and casting out the demons) and he also preaches - but there are only a few sections of the gospels where we hear what it is that Jesus is preaching about. While Matthew has Jesus preaching on a mountain, like a new Moses, bringing the Beatitudes to the people as a new way, or law, reinterpreting the Torah, Luke shows us something a bit different. Jesus is on a plain, engaging in some plain speech if you will. In the days of the Bible, a plain was a place out between cities, a place where battles were fought, places you were sent if you had incurable diseases, sometimes places where garbage was heaped up. Rather than teaching down to the people from a mountain, Luke shows Jesus out in the mess of the world, on the battlefields, with the sick, with the thrown out stuff. In his Sermon on the Plain, Jesus lays out in simple terms a new way of viewing economics, human relationships, and what it means to be blessed. Here in this brief section of Luke, it is like it is all just out in the open, in full view, plain for all to see, if you are willing to look and listen.
First, Jesus starts out with pronouncements of “happy are you” - and names four sets of people. Happy are you who are poor. Happy are you who hunger now, happy are you who weep now. Happy are you when people hate you, reject you, insult you, and condemn your name as evil because of the Human One.
If you are familiar with the Beatitudes, it will be important for you to note that Luke does not spiritualize what Jesus is saying. There is no: poor in spirit, there is no hunger for righteousness - here Jesus is just saying it plain: happy are you when you are poor. Happy are you when you are hungry, happy when you are weeping your eyes out. Happy are you when you are so committed to the way of Jesus that the people in charge hate you, reject you, insult you on twitter and to your face, happy are you when they remove any reference of you from the history books and condemn you as evil, pathological, and a threat. But being poor, hungry, tearful and hated do not seem like good things, Jesus - why do you call us happy?
Well, if you are invested in the way the world works - if you are benefitting from the unjust and corrupt structures of power, politics, and money - then Jesus says: watch out, because the benefit you are receiving is all that you will get. You are currently in your peak era, and from here there is nowhere to go but down - you have already received your reward.
A different way of being already exists now, and will become more present when it is time - where wealth is not the first indicator of power, or the most desirable resource. In the book of Revelation, the streets of God’s City are shown as paved with gold, not because it is that fancy, but because gold is so worthless that it is like asphalt or concrete - good for making roads out of and walking on. In the kindom of God, the state of being where all humans are treasured and everyone has what we need to thrive, where we are all seen and valued and resources are shared because we are all more valuable than money - in this way of relating to each other generosity and compassion and grace are what drives the world. Money has a purpose in this world, sure - but it is a means to share resources, to express care and concern, and to level out the old harms done by past eras.
This kindom, this way, this place, this new age - this beloved community - sounds pretty wonderful. It sounds worth working for and pushing for and planning for - but if you are rich now, what you are investing in now, what is making you happy now will end up cutting you off from participating in the new way. You may be happy now, but it will be terrible for you then. You may be full now, laughing now - but the great reversal will come and you will be left out, empty, weeping. Not because a new regime has come to power and the cruelty you showed will be shown to you - I don’t think that's it. I think it is because you won’t be able to see the good and the joy and the blessing in things being a new way. You won’t have the same billions of dollars and banquet tables and laughs at the expense of the marginalized - and that new way will feel terrible because others will be seen as important too, and you won’t like that. You thought the world was about you, and as it turns out, it isn’t.
My heart and mind are so full of things these days. I am a history person, and I am not unaware of historically what happens next when 330 million people wake up and realize that about 300 people are driving the country straight off a cliff, on purpose. I am full of anger, and I am full of rage. Maybe you are too. I am full of ideas of what might happen next, some of these things involve tears, and hunger, and poverty for many of us, and for sure it involves being insulted and hated and condemned. I mean, that last one is already true, and is just called a regular Tuesday. And y’all, Im tired of weeping, and being hungry, and being poor. Maybe you are too. If I am, and you are, I know that the millions of people in this country and on this earth who have even less than I do, and than we do, are certainly fed up and weary of all of this.
And then I remember these strange and plain words of Jesus: Rejoice when that happens. Re-joice! Have joy two times - because your lack of investment in the current corrupt way means it is possible for you to be a part of the new way, the beloved way, the new kindom that is emerging. Rejoice because you have not yet received the reward you are focused on - the reward of a world where everyone is seen and has what they need, the reward of a world where laughter flows freely along with compassion and care, a world where we honor and value the planet and all living things alongside human beings.
Y’all - if a new kindom is coming, and the old way is crumbling - if you are willing to hear, I ask, why not just go ahead and move on into the new way? Why not just live in the way that Jesus is laying out - a way of loving those who seek to hurt you, of having compassion and care for even your enemies - not because they will be compassionate back, but because it is what God is like, and we are God’s children, and we want to imitate God. And maybe if enough of us refuse to participate in the unjust structures of the old way, and build our lives around caring for each other, and sharing generously with the folks around us, and our neighbors in need wherever they are - some of those who are rich now and full now and laughing now will change and join in with us. Or maybe there just won’t be anyone left who wants to have anything to do with them, and they can have their reward somewhere, breathing the rarified air somewhere until life leaves them, because it will for all of us. We can build a world where everyone is valued - and we don’t need those in power to give us permission, or for them to recognize our identities, or to praise us. We can live like the new world is here, full of compassion and generosity and love - until it is here, and the old way is so insignificant that it just doesn’t matter any more.
Y’all - I will say this plainly. I am so full of anger these days. And Jesus is reminding me that it doesn’t have to be this way, and that it won’t always be this way. But rather than being comforted into accepting the present, my anger paired with my deep faith in the way of Jesus compels me to show up and act. And I invite you to join me. We are the Body of Christ, alongside so many others, and we are the ones we are waiting for - to move with compassion and generosity and grace in the world. We are the ones who will need to overcome evil not with more evil, but with good. We are the ones, alongside so many others, who will need to show up with generosity and care for folks when we don’t have jobs anymore, or places to live anymore, or we are threatened with imprisonment or deportation just for speaking out. We can live in a different way, and build a new way, brick by brick.
In the United Kingdom in the late 1700s and early 1800s, some folks got very very wealthy, and poor folks got even poorer due to a period of rapid industrialization and there were periods of great economic unrest in the UK. Some folks thought maybe the UK was headed for another civil war, one like the bloody violence that had racked France in the late 1700s. But it didn’t end up being like that - and some scholars point to the emergence of Methodism as a temporing factor. You see, Methodists preached in churches, sure, but also out in the fields, and in the mines and factories, and people began to engage in faith by the tens of thousands. And the Methodist way was to group people into small groups, and these groups cared for each other spiritually with prayer and support, but also economically - with people contributing to the needs of the group as they were able. Poor people became Methodist, but so did wealthy people - and the relationships built, and the redistribution of wealth that happened on a small scale, in these small groups - some scholars think that this way of communal living, of shared generosity, prevented a class-focused civil war in the UK. Y’all - if you claim the name Methodist, perhaps a Methodist way of spiritual community is one way to show up with compassion and care for our neighbors. How might you form or reinvigorate small groups made up of people in your community that help bridge differences and share resources - in ways that help, day by day, to build the beloved community amongst your neighbors?
So as Jesus says, rejoice - because things are becoming plain, we can see things as they are here in 2025. Plains are places outside of cities - places where in prior days could become battlefields, or places where you might dump your garbage. But plains are also great places to grow things, acres and acres of open land for food. Friends, change is coming, it is bad now, but it will not always be this way. My hope and my trust is that we can see plainly how the time ahead will help us all grow and become more fully human together, even as the old ways fade away. We are the ones we are looking for, and we can grow our networks and our community so that no one is left behind.
Rev. Andromeda Woodworth (she/they)
Pastor of Neighborhood Church (a Justice-Seeking Congregation), is originally from Atlanta proper and graduated from Grady High School (now Midtown High) and Oxford College, Emory College, and Candler School of Theology (all of Emory University). Andi is an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church and has served churches in various roles in Atlanta, Aragon, and Rome. In March of 2024, Andi was the first openly trans pastor to deliver the daily devotional to the Georgia State House of Representatives. Andi loves all kinds of music and gardening, a good savory scone, and helping people and communities grow through creativity, courage, and cooperating with God.