The gospel for this coming Sunday, the 6th Sunday, Year C is St. Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain.”

“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven…Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.

The theme of the last blessing is clearly rejection “on account of the Son of Man” (v. 22); that is, rejection because of following Jesus, because of becoming a disciple. One cannot read this without thinking of Jesus’ own experience of rejection by the hometown folks at Nazareth that has set the tone for his ministry. The very ones who should have most readily accepted him, drove him away. For Luke, as well as for the other Gospel writers in different ways, following Jesus, following the path of discipleship, is costly and will often result in personal loss and suffering.

Green [268] comments:

“Jesus has already begun the process of redefining how God’s redemptive purpose is coming to fruition, and, in his unique role of wielding divine agency as Son of Man, he has attracted opposition. Those who recognize his authority and orient themselves around God’s purpose as manifest in his ministry can also expect opposition. This is not because God has rejected them, but because their persecutors have rejected God’s purpose. The day of one’s opposition, then, is a time of joy, not because rejection entitles one to a reward, as though Jesus had introduced a moral contract, but because persecution “on account of the Son of Man” authenticates one’s identification with God’s purpose. As testimony of the truth of his claim, Jesus draws on the record of the prophets—not because Jesus’ followers will necessarily be prophets too, but because Israel’s history had been one of opposition to those who represented God’s will.”

It should be remembered that all of this is not “theological” alone. There is a substrate that is concerned with social acceptance and honor. Prior to this gospel reading, the behavior of Jesus’ disciples has been challenged on two accounts (eating and drinking, 5:33; plucking grain on the Sabbath, 6:1–2). Even more, Jesus’ authority as Son of Man has been called into question (debate about the Sabbath, 6:1–11;  healing of the paralytic and forgiveness of sins, 5:17–26). The new people of God should expect nothing less than hate and rejection, just as, according to widely held social norms, sinners, the diseased, and others are excluded from full social discourse. Because those social norms are not only pervasive but are also presumed to be rooted in God’s will. This is a view that Jesus clearly rejects when he has first rejected the view of the world on which it is based.

Luke draws the contrast sharply between the present condition of rejection, that also encompasses being poor and hungry and weeping, and the fact of the present possession of the kingdom and the future reversal to joy. It is a statement of faith that external criteria or appearances are no measure of possession of the Kingdom. While poverty, hunger, weeping, and hatred are not something to seek. One must “count the costs” of following Jesus.

The Prophets

This final point is underscored in the references to the prophets in both parts of this last pair of sayings. Faithful prophets of God, especially Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, were ridiculed for their message, especially by other prophets like Hananiah (Jer. 28:1-17). Yet history confirmed that their message was God’s message. And Micah gave a strong warning against prophets who feared to speak the truth and became too comfortable with kind words and the approval of the people (Mic. 2:6-11).

Again, the background of Jesus’ visit to Nazareth becomes more clear. Jesus introduced a prophetic theme there (4:24) that caused an immediate reaction from the people. While the disciples are not called “prophets” here, and are assigned no prophetic role, Luke seems to be drawing an analogy between the OT prophets who spoke the truth, and the disciples who will live the truth (as outlined in vv. 26-49). The point is that truth, in whatever form it is presented, is not welcome in a world that is governed by self-interest, and whose values are decided by the rich and satisfied who have need of nothing. There is a subversive element to the truth, and the only recourse people have is to silence it by hatred, exclusion, vilification, and defamation. And yet those “poor” who are rejected are the heart of the kingdom of God, because they join the poor of the world who have no other future except God’s future.

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