I am indebted to one of the Wednesday Bible study participants who pointed me to an episode from the second season of the original Star Trek show. I have to admit up front that I am not a Trekkie so if I get some of the details or language of the universe of that show mixed up, please accept my apology in advance. But I did watch the episode, “Mirror, Mirror,” after our Bible study on the blessings, warnings, and imperatives found in Luke’s Sermon from the Plain.
In this episode of Star Trek, a small group from the starship Enterprise are accidentally beamed into a version of their home ship that exists in a parallel universe. They find themselves on a ship that looks and operates identically to their own, with inhabitants that mirror their familiar crewmates. However, it’s not the same world, the same ethos, that they are used to. Characters personalities are a little off. The rules of life, the goals of their interstellar mission, the values, what it takes to get ahead or what it even means to be ahead are entirely different. Instead of maintaining a peaceful curiosity about cooperative life among the United Federation of Planets, the versions of themselves that they find are a part of a murderous society where starship officers advance by assassinating their shipmates.
In a conversation with the alternative form of Mr. Spock, “Mirror Spock,” who in both worlds is driven by logic, the real-Captain Kirk challenges him, saying “Your empire is illogical because it cannot endure.” Mirror Spock and just told him that under these conditions for advancing, the whole society will simply cease to exist in 240 years. An empire whose social structure is based on such rugged individualism that each entity must prioritize it’s own life over all others simply cannot endure.
Or, as Jesus said it, “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 how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”
Actually, like many Scriptures, these warnings don’t work really well out of context. Having a full belly, all on it’s own, doesn’t sound like something to be too worried about. Laughing, experiencing joy, doesn’t seem like something to be avoided. These warnings only really give a sense of what Jesus is trying to say about God’s realm when we read them with the beatitudes that come before and the imperatives that come after.
But even before the beatitudes, the blessings, we can take a look at the setting of the sermon in the first place. Jesus delivers this sermon fairly early in his ministry. It hasn’t been too long since he appeared in the synagogue in Nazareth where he read from the prophet Isaiah, proclaiming to the congregation that the scripture had been fulfilled in their hearing, claiming the words he read as his “mission statement” of sorts – “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Just about everything Jesus says or does in the Gospel according to Luke after this point, including the sermon we heard a selection of today, is some reflection on how he is doing just this.
Having been up on a mountain, first alone to pray and then with his disciples, Jesus came down to a level place to be among those who had come to hear and see and be healed by him. The location, as it is described, is no accident. He came down with them. The playing field, so to speak, was level. No one was above or below anyone else – not his disciples, not even Jesus himself. They were all there together, shoulder to shoulder, and he spoke directly to them.
- “Blessed are you who are poor…”
- “Blessed are you who are hungry now…”
- “Blessed are you who weep now…”
- “Blessed are you when people hate you, exclude you, revile you, and defame you.”
You. Not someone else. Not some nebulous “those people somewhere out there who might…”. Blessed are you, now.
And it’s the same with the warnings.
- “Woe to you who are rich…”
- “Woe to you who are full now…”
- “Woe to you who are laughing now…”
- “Woe to you when all speak well of you…”
Jesus is not speaking generically or delivering a lecture for them to tuck away in their notebooks until the final exam sometime in the future. He is talking to this crowd right in front of him. He is describing their reality in that moment. Some on that plain, on that level place in the presence of the Son of Man, where everyone stood shoulder to shoulder, some were poor and some were rich. Some were hungry and some were full. Some were weeping and some were laughing. Some were hated and some were spoken well of.
This gathering – this plural “you,” you all or yous or yinz or all y’all – it was a mixture of the experiences of the haves and have nots all in one place, the disadvantaged and the advantaged, the privileged and the dispossessed, all in the presence of the divine, all seeking some sort of something from Jesus – blessing, healing, comfort for their troubles. This is what the human family looks like. The community of people on the plain in Judea, with people from near and far, with its rich diversity of circumstances, was all together in front of him, and when he looked at them, he just had to say something.
Without glossing over the diversity that does exist in our local communion of saints, or minimizing the struggles of those who have very real worries about their resources, we might need to look beyond the gathering of First Presbyterian Church to imagine ourselves as part of the “you all” receiving Jesus’ sermon. We might need to look at our townships, boroughs, and cities – our county or the Lehigh Valley or the state. We might even consider what it means to us as participants in one of the world’s wealthiest economies, a minority of the human family, in relationship to God’s children in developing country, the Global majority. We might need to listen while imagining Jesus speaking to all of us standing shoulder to shoulder on a level plain where everyone’s experience matters the same amount.
We could read these words and think Jesus gave a two part address – in the style of the king in the parable of Matthew 25, we might imagine. Saying to one side, “Blessed, blessed, blessed, and to the other “Woe, woe, woe.” But I don’t think that’s what he’s doing. Instead I think the whole sermon (which actually continues beyond the portion we read today), the whole sermon is for the whole community. It’s not good news for these, and bad news for those; instead all of them together (all of us together!) are being asked to consider – What does it mean to be full while others are hungry? What does it mean to have wealth while others lack resources?
It’s proposing a provocative question – You, all of you, rich and poor, hungry and full, weeping and laughing, reviled and beloved… all of you, how are you going to live in community when some have plenty and some not enough?
Wednesday night last week, as she won the Music Innovator award at the Wall Street Journal Magazine Innovator Awards in New York City, it was announced that 23 year old musician, Billie Eilish, had given away $11.5 million from the profits of her recent tour to organizations, projects, and voices dedicated to food equity, client justice, reducing carbon pollution, and combating the climate crisis. When she got to the podium to accept her award, she also addressed the audience of wealthy peers, “We’re in a time right now where the world is really, really bad and really dark and people need empathy and help more than kind of ever, especially in our country. I’d say if you have money, it would be great to use it for good things, maybe give it to some people that need it. Love you all, but there’s a few people in here that have a lot more money than me. If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties.”
“How are we going to live with plenty, when there are many who have not enough?” Eilish, in so many words, challenged her audience.
How are you going to be my disciples, the communion of saints, when in this community there are some who are empty and some who are full, some who are grieving and some without a care in the world, some who are cast out and some who never lack for an invitation to all the places that matter? How are you going to go to the grocery store where some swipe a debit card without a second thought and some are holding their breath because the SNAP benefits didn’t come on Saturday and they don’t know if or when they will?
To find at least part of Jesus’ answer to this very question, it helps to look at the verbs he says to we who are listening:
- Love – your enemies;
- Do good – to those who hate you;
- Bless;
- Pray;
- Offer;
- Do not withhold;
- Give to everyone who asks of you;
- Do to others as you would have them do to you.
In the communion of saints, on a level place, with a great crowd of humanity, with you who are poor and you who are rich, this is how we make it work. Love, do good, bless, pray, offer, don’t hold back, give!
When groceries are hard to buy because of urgent food insecurity or when the structure of our economy makes the same a daily reality – Love, do good, bless, pray, offer, don’t hold back, give!
This is the way we care for one another – not just the rich for the poor, but the poor for the rich, and everyone in between – Love, do good, bless, pray, offer, don’t hold back, give!
New Testament scholar, Rev. Matthew Skinner, pointed out about Jesus’ sermon that “one of the leveling aspects of this is that we are all responsible for one other to some degree. My liberation is bound up in your liberation. My well-being is bound up in your well. My health is bound up in your health. My future, my security is bound up in yours.” This society has no mirror universe to which we escape if it’s not going well. If we do not care for one another – each one’s basic needs and spiritual needs – our illogical empire, where some hoard wealth while some come up lacking, simply cannot endure.
Instead, what we are called to do, rich and poor standing side by side, what will define us as disciples of Jesus who came “to bring good news to the poor… to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” especially for those who cannot imagine it, what defines the community of saints, is when we love, do good, bless, pray, offer, don’t hold back, give, in the face of great need and always. Amen.
Who are the holy ones who have gone before you?
Scripture:
Ephesians 1:15-19 & Luke 6:17-31
Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown on November 2, 2025 by Pastor Stephanie Anthony