Jesus with Us, The Reverend David R. Williams, Epiphany VI--Year C--February 11, 2007
 
May the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts always be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and redeemer.  Amen
 
We’ve heard the story before.  A group of church people packs up for a mission trip into a heartland of poverty, Appalachia.  While there, they work hard on a long-planned project to help a family or a small rural community – building a needed addition onto a school or a home. 
 
“It was the most moving experience of my life,” we hear from our volunteer friends upon their return. 
 
We’ve heard the same from our own parish mission trips to Central America.  At Holy Comforter, both youth and adults have traveled in mission to less privileged countries. Tomorrow morning, Kathy Hykes will speak to the Episcopal Church Women about a mission trip taken to El Salvador in the fall of 2005 by a large group of our adult parishioners.
 
To a person, the comment is the same: “Because of this mission trip, the way I see and understand the world has changed.”
 
In the Gospel of Luke we hear: “Jesus comes down with them and stands on a level place.”  Luke’s reference “them” is to the disciples as well as a multitude of people from all of Judea, the coast of Tyre and Sidon, and Jerusalem. 
 
What compels these people to gather around Jesus? Many are in physical pain and emotional distress and seek reassurance, hope, an end to suffering; others are just curious and following the crowd.
 
Jesus comes down and stands on their level. 
 
An intergenerational group from a large Episcopal Church in Atlanta work on a community project in the hills of Kentucky. Two or three local teenage boys join with them as they scrape, paint and build. For a week, one of the boys, Dwayne, shows up each morning, joining the missionaries in their work and meals.
 
At the end of the week, tears flow during Eucharist as the workers, including Dwayne, celebrate their life together.
 
Jesus looks at the disciples before he begins talking.  We assume he speaks loudly enough for everyone to hear.  “Blessed are you who are poor,” Jesus says, “for yours is the kingdom of God.”  Jesus does not talk about poor people who are absent.  “Blessed are you!  
 
“Blessed are you who are hunger now, for you will be filled.”
 
As the disciples, can we remember the last time we were hungry?  Really hungry with a hurting tummy, weakness from going too many days without food.
 
Blessed are you, for you will be filled.
 
The number of people literally dying of hunger around the world is in the millions – right now. 
 
I’ll bet at least one person here this morning has wrestled with deep depression. We’ve all felt been sad and downhearted.  But some of us have known a burden of overwhelming hopelessness, a sense of relentless, heavy despair.
 
“Blessed are you who weep now,” Jesus says to us – standing in front of us – standing on our level.  “You will laugh.”
 
An unexpected thing happens at the celebration of the Missionaries in Kentucky – at the closing Eucharist.
 
The Reverend Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest, is a part of the group from Atlanta. She picks up the story:  “When we got to the Prayers of the People, the prayers lasted a long time.  Everyone had a chance to say something, and quite a few of the prayers had to do with what a privilege it had been to serve the poor people of this area, upon whom we asked God’s special blessing.” 
 
“Later, I learned that our prayers were tragic,” Taylor writes, “at least for Dwayne.  When I asked him afterward what was wrong, he said, ‘You called me poor! I swear, I never thought of myself that way until you said it.  I have all these woods to run around in.  I have a grandmamma and a granddaddy who love me.  I got a whole shed full of rabbits I can play with anytime I want.  Does that sound poor to you?  It don’t sound poor to me.  You all should save your prayers for someone who needs them.’
 
Taylor goes on, “No one meant to hurt Dwayne, but our language gave us away. We thought of ‘the poor’ as people other than ourselves.  We separated ourselves from Dwayne in our prayers and our partiality stung him to the quick.  By setting him apart like that, we withheld the one thing he really wanted from us, which was simply to belong, not one up or one down, but just one of us; a member of the community, not a mission project.”
 
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation,” Jesus says to us as he stands eye to eye with the crowd.  “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.”
 
The pendulum of life seems to fall into this pattern – at least as we look at it through a narrow lens.  We sometimes are the hungry, sad, poor ones, and then, within hours or a day, we are fed, full, and laughing.
 
Jesus talks directly to you – to us.  Jesus provokes us, reaching beyond how we seem to others.  The missionaries from the affluent Atlanta church realize that, indeed, they are the ones who are poor and who hunger. Dwayne and his Kentucky friends bring the big city folks to gladness, thanksgiving and laughter.  The “poor” teach the “rich” about the Kingdom of God. 
 
The voice of the poor continually cries out – deep within us. 
 
In his sermon, Jesus announces the great social reversal accompanying God’s Kingdom: guest become hosts, hosts become guests, rich take their turn in poverty, the poor have an opportunity to prosper, those in prison are released, those who are suffering, blind or ill feel release. God’s agenda is hope and restoration.
 
Jesus comes down with us and stands on a level place.  We come to hear Jesus and we come to be healed. We are introduced to the Kingdom of God.
 
Amen.