In light of the glorious stories in the previous chapters, stories that reflect the power associated with this new gospel, chapter 6 may at first seem a little flat – it did for me. In a way it is, but seeing what I finally saw in it, I no longer regard it as flat.
I have always had at least a little trouble with some of the things Jesus said during His ‘Sermon on the Mount’, which this is Luke’s account of. I have always read it as if it were all said to the same group of ordinary people which contained, as any ordinary group would, some who were poor and some who were rich. To simply read as, ‘blessed are the poor’ and ‘woe to the rich’, does not totally add up on its own.
But if you add the element of the ‘poor’ in one group and the ‘Pharisees’ in the other, it makes sense; it adds up. The Pharisees were looking for a reason to accuse Him. In a group this large, they would have been there. So with these two groups in mind, Jesus says what He says.
To the poor, He has compassion and tries to comfort and encourage them. To the rich, and not just the rich, but the Pharisees who see themselves as rich, He has warning and woe. To the poor, He encourages to love their enemies. Again to the poor, with undertones of reference to the Pharisees, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them”.
Either to the poor for the Pharisees to hear, or directly to the Pharisees Jesus says, ‘Do not judge’, ‘Do not condemn’, ‘forgive’; all things that the Pharisees were guilty of and needed to hear. And by now, if not already, Jesus turns His attention completely to the Pharisees; “Why do you look at the spec of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay not attention to the plank in your own eye”?
Though it is not good to make a habit out of saying, ‘so and so really needed to hear that’ missing what might have been for you, but sometimes I believe it is good to realize that something might not be as much for you as someone else. You can grind yourself to a pulp by trying to fine tune yourself to perfection.
Jesus did some pretty cool stuff prior to this day. The physical healings were at least somewhat responsible for the crowds that had gathered. But at least for a while on this day, He shifts gears and tried to heal people’s minds, which I would bet the harder of the two.
Hunger and Thirst 
One of my seminary profs once said that Christ saving somebody from sin was a greater miracle than him physically healing someone – and considering how spiritually messed up we are, I think he (and you) are right.
The healing of the mind and heart is by far the greater miracle in my opinion – for those affect everything else. God cares about our heart above all else.
Interesting note on the physical healings – they were almost always tied to a sin as Jesus linked the two in healing them then saying sin no more.
Sin corrupts our phsyical body – we can’t separate the body and spirit though many try to. I believe one reflects the other.
Rachel
Mike,
Oh…I like how you put it. The poor on one side and the Pharisees on the other. The poor you can easily detect in a crowd…but the mind of one who sees himself as perfect according to the Law is more difficult to speak to let alone reach out to minister to. At times, we think the Gospel is meant for those who are in physical need more than the ones who are spiritually empty.
A thought provoking post and deeply challenging for me.
Thank you and God bless.
Gladwell
Mike,
My experience when I asked the Lord to heal a physical problem I had (yes, it’s healed now) is that He began to work on my heart and my attitudes first. So really He does not separate the two kinds of healing. He often does both at once.