When I was growing up, I was taught that referring to someone as “you” was rude and patronising. It created, I was taught, an air of exclusivity, a sense that “I” somehow knew more or was greater than “you”. When used in speech, I was told, it sounded patronising or condescending, a ‘speaking down to…’,

When, in school, a (probably) well-meaning teacher with far too many students’ names to remember, directed a question at “You there….”, I was left with a feeling that she/he couldn’t even be bothered to learn my name.

Much better, I was taught to use the more inclusive “I” and “we”, which put us all in the same boat, all paddling our way together through whatever we face.

Reading our Gospel this week I had to conclude that Luke either didn’t have the advantage of a Christian Brother’s education, or that Greek (the language he spoke and wrote) used a different grammar or had a different understanding of what was ‘correct’ speech. In this short Gospel I counted the word “you” no less that 21 times, only missing in the opening, introductory sentence!

However, since Luke wrote two books of the New Testament (Gospel of Luke & The Acts of the Apostles), and in both we find a man who is an accomplished writer and historian, we must discount any notion that his education in grammar or oratory was lacking. We also must note that in his letter to the Colossians, the great St. Paul refers to him as, “Luke, my dearly loved physician.”, so he was also a doctor.

Overall, then, there is but one conclusion: That Luke wrote in this harsh, strident, almost angry way, purposely, fully aware of what he was doing and the effect it would have on his readers.

To get a proper understanding of what Luke intended to say in this passage, it would be useful to take a quick look at Matthew, chapter five – the Sermon of the Mount. Both Matthew and Luke, Bible experts tell us, had in their possession some short, written document of the “Sayings of Jesus”¹ and used this in when composing the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew) and the Sermon on the Plain (Luke).

Placing the two versions of the same list of ‘sayings of Jesus’ together it is immediately obvious that they are utterly different in tone, language and intention. Matthew’s list of beatitudes (“Blessed are….) have a gentleness and peace about them. They focus on the qualities necessary to enter the Kingdom of God (poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, peacemakers … etc.), while his ‘warnings’ are also framed in a positive way, “You have heard it said …… but I say ……)

In Luke’s version (today’s Gospel) there is no gentleness or peace. “Blessed are YOU who are poor…” comes across almost as a shout, and while Luke is saying the same as Matthew, you might forgive “the poor” if they cowered in fear of him.  

The contrast in the ‘warnings’ is even more marked. Matthew’s “You have heard it said … but I say …”  sounds reasonable and comes across as an invitation to change.

Luke’s version, “Woe to YOU who are rich….” comes with a judgement attached, a kind of inevitability that if you are rich, you are not getting into the Kingdom of God.

Matthew’s focus seems to be on the positive qualities necessary to enter the Kingdom of God, while Luke’s focus is most definitely on the type of people who will not enter the Kingdom.

So what is Luke saying to his readers – to us – by taking this negative and judgemental approach to what Jesus said. Luke’s approach sounds a bit like that of John the Baptist when he preached: John preached an angry and punishing God – The Kingdom of God is coming … very soon … Either repent NOW, while you have time, or you will be punished in eternal fire when God comes.

Luke is writing very like this: The Kingdom of God is coming, and if God finds you rich or successful, or joyful, then “woe to you…”, because calamity and distress await you. Luke is presenting us with a hard, angry, punishing God in this Gospel.

However, this is not at all the overall tone of Luke’s Gospel or of the Acts of the Apostles. Luke’s God is a God who offers peace and happiness to all people – Jews, Samaritans, sinners, outcasts and poor. The overall theme or message in Luke’s Gospel is that the Kingdom of God is for everyone who chooses it. The Love of God extends to all people equally. His Gospel is highly inclusive: Nobody need be excluded from God’s Kingdom.

So why do we find such a violent change of tone in this short section of his Gospel? It cannot be accidental since Luke is an excellent author, in full control of all he says.

I don’t think anybody can read this Gospel and not feel somewhat uncomfortable, and this, I think, is the key to understanding it. Luke does not want us (any of us) to feel comfortable reading or hearing this Gospel, so he uses a language  which is aggressive and which grates on us. Nobody likes to be shouted at as “You there, yes YOU…” and this is exactly what he does, leaving us – rich and poor alike – uncomfortable and uncertain to which group we belong!  Am I part of the “YOU there, yes YOU poor…?” or part of “You there, yes YOU rich…?”

What this Gospel is saying to me is this: As long as there are people who are poor and excluded and persecuted and unhappy in our world, we, as Christians, cannot, and must not, ever allow ourselves to feel fully comfortable.

When we are wealthy, carefree, successful and well-liked we are far more likely to feel comfortable and complacent, so he overstates – exaggerates – the fate of the rich, and successful in order to call attention to the dangers of wealth, etc.

The message for me today is this: When I pass a homeless person begging at the side of the street…..I should feel uncomfortable as a Christian.

When I see images on TV or social media of entire populations of people displaced and treated as little more than animals, to be herded and corralled in prisons and detention centres …… I should feel uncomfortable as a Christian.

When I see people to are ‘different’ in any way being taunted, bullied, beaten, murdered, excluded, treated as an outcast, then I should feel uncomfortable as a Christian.

The message of Jesus turns the message of the world upside down! The Kingdom of God IS for the poor, outcast, persecuted, peacemakers, sinners, unwanted…… and ……so long as they exist we have no right, as Christians, to feel comfortable.

“Don’t make excuses…,” Luke warns, “…don’t blame others, don’t rationalise situations, don’t feel that there is nothing I can do or that I have done enough…. So long as poverty, persecution, discrimination, injustice, prejudice are visible in our world we simply cannot allow ourselves to feel comfortable, or complacent.

All of these things run directly counter to the Kingdom of God and like it or not, if I call myself Christian, I cannot feel comfortable so long as they exist.

I think the genius of Luke in this Gospel is that he sets all of us on edge….

“Blessed are YOU who are poor….”  but who are the “YOU” he is talking to? Am I part of this YOU who are poor? In relation to Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg I am utterly poor, but in relation to the homeless on the streets, or the people of Gaza or Ukraine, etc. I am super rich.

“Woe to YOU who are rich…..” but who are the YOU he is talking to? Is it ME? In relation to some I am rich; in relation to others I am poor. 

Put simply, as far as Luke is concerned, no Christian can afford to be comfortable until the Kingdom of God has fully come into our world. Until then we, all of us, have work to do, and challenges to face.

I finish with a word of warning myself: Feeling uncomfortable does not mean feeling miserable. We must remember that we are human and that means that we are weak and that we are sinners. In this we fit into the ‘YOU’ who are poor!

Our response to the challenges of the Gospel will always be as weak, vulnerable sinners, and therefore will always be inadequate. Our God of love understands this and demands nothing other than I be the best version of human that I can be – always weak, always a sinner, always poor in that sense.

Luke says to us today: While there is poverty, misery, hatred, violence in our world then as Christians we most feel uncomfortable. We must reject everything that runs counter to the Gospel. We must act, in so far as we can, to alleviate all that runs counter to the Gospel.

But we do so as fully human – weak, imperfect and sinful.

In this context we are, and always will be, part of the “YOU” who are poor. In the eyes of God that makes us blessed! We must never allow ourselves to forget this. We do not have to be perfect to be loved by God.

Many thanks,

Brian.

[1] We have many modern equivalents of this: ‘little red book of Mao Tse Tung’ or many books of the ‘Inspirational sayings of…’ people like JFK, Albert Einstein, Confucius, William Shakespeare, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill or thousands of others through the centuries.

If you have any thoughts or comments that you would like to share with me on this reflection, please send me an email: b.maher@oblates.co.uk 

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