The gospel for this coming Sunday, the 6th Sunday, Year C is St. Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain.” We are familiar with the beatitudes: “Blessed are…” There is an evolution of the meanings of “blessed” (makarios). In ancient Greek times, makarios referred to the gods. The blessed ones were the gods. They had achieved a state of happiness and contentment in life that was beyond all cares, labors, and even death. The blessed ones were beings who lived way up there in some other world. To be blessed, you had to be a god. That word took on a second meaning. It referred to the “dead”. The blessed ones were humans, who, through death, had reached the other world of the gods. They were now beyond the cares of earthly life. To be blessed, you had to be dead. Finally, in Greek usage, the word came to refer to the elite, the upper crust of society, the wealthy people. It referred to people whose riches and power put them above the normal cares and worries of the lesser folk — the peons, who constantly struggle and worry and labor in life. To be blessed, you had to be very rich and powerful.

When this word, makarios was used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it took on another meaning. It referred to the results of right living or righteousness. If you lived right, you were blessed. Being blessed meant you received earthly, material things: a good wife, many children, abundant crops, riches, honor, wisdom, beauty, good health, etc. A blessed person had more things and better things than an ordinary person. To be blessed, you had to have big and beautiful things.

In all of these meanings, the “blessed” ones existed on a higher plane than the rest of the people. They were gods. They were humans who had gone to that other world of the gods. They were the wealthy, upper crust. They were those with many possessions.

The Hungry and the Filled

“Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied…But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry.  This theme has already been presented in Mary’s Magnificat: “The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty” (Luke 1:53). But it is not in a vacuum that Luke uses this second pair of beatitude and contrasting woe – and closely aligned them with the first pair, inasmuch as the hungry and the poor stand in parallel in the OT and noted in these examples: 

“For the fool speaks foolishly, planning evil in his heart: How to do wickedness, to speak perversely against the LORD, To let the hungry go empty and the thirsty be without drink. And the trickster uses wicked trickery, planning crimes: How to ruin the poor with lies, and the needy when they plead their case.” (Isaiah 32:6-7)

“Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own…If you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; Then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday.” (Isaiah 58:7, 10)

The eschatological promise of food (cf. Isa 49:10; 65:13) is often related to the messianic banquet (e.g., Isa 25:6–8; 49:10–13), a motif Luke will develop elsewhere (12:37; 13:29; 14:14–24). In both beatitude and woe, the antithesis is between present condition (“now”) and eschatological reversal (“you will …”).

Weeping and Laughing

“Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh…Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. 

As in the second pair, so in this one the reversal is exact, the only addition coming in v 25b with the supplementary term “mourn.” “Laughing” appears nowhere else in the NT, and in the LXX it is usually ironic or flippant, even haughty or foolish (as it is unveiled to be in v 25b). Perhaps drawing on Psalm 126,38 Luke overturns this negative image, portraying instead laughter and joy appropriate to divine restoration. Weeping and mourning are stock responses to rejection, ridicule, and loss.

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Image credit: Sermon on the Mount | Carl Block, 1887 | Museum of Natural History at Frederlksborg Castle – Hillerod, Denmark | PD-US