The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany-The Rev Melanie Lemburg
The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C
February 13, 2022
When is the last time you thought about
delight? To charm, to enchant, to
captivate, delight is a subtle emotion that steals over us and because of its
soft nature, it requires attention from us to even be acknowledged. If you’re anything like me, you probably
haven’t had too many occasions to think about delight lately.
This week, I stumbled upon The Book
of Delights—a book of essays by poet Ross Gay. In his preface, Gay writes, “One
day last July, feeling delighted and compelled to both wonder about and share
that delight, I decided that it might feel nice, even useful, to write a daily
essay about something delightful. I
remember laughing to myself for how obvious it was. I could call it something like The Book of
Delights.”
He continues, “ I came up with a handful
of rules: write a delight every day for
a year; begin and end on my birthday, August 1; draft them quickly; and write
them by hand. The rules made it a
discipline for me. A practice. Spend time thinking and writing about delight
every day.”
He concludes, “…It didn’t take me long
to learn that the discipline or practice of writing these essays occasioned a
kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was
more like the development of a delight muscle.
Something that implies that the more you study delight, the more delight
there is to study. A month or two into
this project delights were calling to me:
Write about me! Write about me!
Because it is rude not to acknowledge your delights, I’d tell them that
though they might not become essayettes, they were still important, and I was
grateful to them. Which is to say, I
felt my life to be more full of delight.
Not without sorrow or fear or pain or loss. But more full of delight. I also learned this year that my delight
grows-much like love and joy-when I share it.”[i]
This has all helped me this week, as
I’ve contemplated Luke’s version of the Beatitudes for today. Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes, probably
the more familiar version that is ensconced in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount,
is all about the blessings: “Blessed are
the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will
be comforted. ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth….” It goes
on like that, all blessings. But Luke’s version
of the Beatitudes which we have for today, happens in Jesus’s sermon on the
plain. Rather than preaching these
teachings from a mountain, like in Matthew, Jesus is on a level, flat place. In Luke, Jesus includes a list of woes that
are the counterpoint to his blessings: “Blessed
are you who are poor,
for
yours is the kingdom of God.” But “"But woe to you who are rich, for you
have received your consolation.”
“Blessed
are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.” But “Woe to you who are full
now, for you will be hungry.”
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you
will laugh.” But “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.”
“Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of
Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in
heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets." But “"Woe
to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the
false prophets."
And while this version in Luke has a
nice symmetry to it, if we are really listening and paying attention, it
probably makes us a little uncomfortable.
I’m an Episcopalian. I don’t like
to think of Jesus casting woe on anyone, especially his disciples, who Luke
tells he is looking up at as he is preaching, and coupled with the passage from
Jeremiah where God is easily throwing around curses on people, the whole thing
makes me squirm.
What has helped me was going back to
Luke, and looking at the words that are translated as “blessed are you” and
“woe to you.” The phrase or word for
“blessed are you” is better translated for us as “good for you if…” or even the
Australian saying, “Good on you!” Good
for you if you are poor,
for
yours is the kingdom of God. Good for
you if you are hungry now, for you will be filled.” “Good on you, mate,” says Australian Jesus,
“if you weep now, for you will laugh.”
And the woe part can better be
translated, “Watch out!” or “Pay
attention if…” or even “Trouble ahead!” but
it also has the connotations of grief surrounding it. So maybe like when you give someone a warning
but you know they aren’t really listening or aren’t going to follow it? “Pay attention if you are rich, for you have
received your consolation.” “Look out if
you are full now, for you will be hungry.”
“Trouble ahead: I’m going to warn
you and you probably aren’t going to listen so it’s going to be bad--if you are
laughing now, at your own good fortune and others’ distress, then eventually you,
too, will mourn and weep because ultimately that makes you a miserable human
being.”[ii]
And what Ross’s Book of Delights
helped me recognize in the Beatitudes this week is that most of the time, we
are not in an either/or state. We are in
a both and state. Delight, being
captivated or paying attention, shows us the beauty and wonder in our lives and
the world around us, and sometimes, it even springs up from suffering and woe, in
those times when we should have been paying better attention to our own
humanity and the humanity of every person around us.
Your invitation this week is to look for
delight in your life and in the world around you. Pay special attention to it during times of
suffering or woe, and look for it in your humanity and the shared humanity of
those around you.
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