The Dichotomous Key

This sermon was delivered at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on February 11, 2007.

Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Luke 6:17-26

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

The Book of Lists is an almanac of sorts written by Irving Wallace, his daughter Amy Wallace, and his son David Wallechinsky.[1] Among the lists found in the book is a list of Unnatural Laws. We are all familiar with natural laws, like every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Unnatural Laws are things like Murphy’s Law, “Anything that can go wrong will,” and its corollary, “The probability a slice of buttered bread falling butter-side down is directly proportional to the price of the carpet.”[2] One of my favorites from this list is “There are two kinds of people in this world, those who separate people into two categories and those who don’t.” After reviewing today’s gospel reading, I do believe Luke got the memo.

Blessed are you who are poor, and woe to you who are rich. Blessed are you who are hungry now, and woe to you who are full now. Blessed are you who weep now, and woe to you who are laughing now. Blessed are you when people hate you, and woe to you when all speak well of you. Luke got the memo: There are two kinds of people, the ones who are blessed and those who know woe. Luke doesn’t talk about a middle ground. Luke only has the two extremes, blessings and woes. There is nothing in between.

I would love to do a little hedging right now. I would love to apply Matthew’s more nuanced writing of these lessons to Luke’s version. After all, Matthew’s version comes first in our bibles. It was written first, predating Luke’s by about ten years or so. And it gives us a much broader view of those who are blessed. Matthew writes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit… blessed are those who mourn… blessed are the meek… blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… blessed are the merciful… blessed are the pure in heart… blessed are the peacemakers… blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake… blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

Matthew’s version of the beatitudes offers a broader, more inclusive, less severe look at the blessings. Luke blesses the poor; Matthew blesses the poor in spirit. Luke blesses those who hunger, Matthew blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Matthew’s gospel even blesses people Luke doesn’t think about like the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers. Matthew even expands the “hate and revile” section with those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Matthew gives everyone something to sink their teeth into. Who isn’t poor in spirit, at least from time to time? Who doesn’t hunger and thirst for righteousness? You got to love that Matthew. Unfortunately, we aren’t reading Matthew.

Luke doesn’t add qualifiers. When Luke deals with the poor, he is talking about the economically disadvantaged, not those who need a spiritual lift. When Luke talks about the hungry and the weeping, he is talking about people who are hungry and weeping right now. Not yesterday, not in the near future, not spiritually; Luke deals with the hungry and weeping right now. When Luke’s listeners are persecuted, they are not persecuted on account of some vague righteousness, they are persecuted on account of the Son of Man.

It’s easier to love Matthew’s rendering of this passage. The people who are blessed in Matthew’s gospel seem to look more like us than the people who are blessed in Luke’s. But there is one more thorn on the rose Luke gives us which is pruned from Matthew, the woes.
Woe to those who are rich. Woe to those who are full now. Woe to those who are laughing now.

Woe to those who are spoken of well. As one writer in Homiletics Magazine writes, “It seems that Jesus is simply being un-American here.”[3] It looks like Jesus is completely indifferent to the American Dream. The Declaration of Independence calls “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” unalienable rights. This teaching of Jesus does nothing of the like. Jesus would call these unalienable rights a woeful state.

When identifying trees, arborists use something called a dichotomous key. To use a dichotomous key, you begin with a leaf in one hand and the key in the other. The key then asks a series of questions to help the user narrow down the number of possible species a sample can come from. These keys generally begin with the question, “Is the sample deciduous or coniferous?” Getting away from the five dollar words, does the tree lose its leaves or is it an evergreen? From there, it asks questions about the breadth of the leaves, and the number of lobes on the leaf. It asks if the leaf is needlelike or not. Each of these questions eliminates more and more trees until one is left to identify the sample.

The crucial element to the dichotomous key is that it asks either/or questions. It separates the specimen into two categories, does it look like this or not. And it does this until it eliminates every other tree in the book and identifies the leaf.

Jesus seems to be using a dichotomous key to describe people instead of trees. Jesus uses this sermon to talk about distinct types of people: those who are poor, and those who are rich, those who are hungry and those who are filled, those who weep and those who laugh, those who are reviled and those who are popular. When focusing on this part of the scripture, we focus on these separations. But there is one other set of separations that tends to be overlooked when we focus on these.

In the scene preceding our reading, Jesus spent the night at the top of the mountain praying. And when day came, he called his disciples (everyone who believes in him) and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles.[4] From there, “He came down to them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people.” The lesson tends to be overshadowed in Luke’s gospel is that Jesus comes down from the mountain to be with the people. He comes to be one of us.

Jesus has come from the heavenly host and become human. He has joined us on a level place; he does not stand above us. What a scandal, Jesus has come to earth to be with those who are blessed, and those who are filled with woe. He is with people who will be blessed, and those who will be filled with woe. Jesus is with us, and there is nothing we can ever do that will end that.

Even the crucifixion won’t end Jesus being with us. The resurrection confirms this.

The people come from all around. He is surrounded by those who will become his closest pupils and confidants. He is surrounded by other believers. He is surrounded by other folks. But Jesus does not make his divisions between these categories. His dichotomous key doesn’t use these characteristics to separate the blessed from those who know woe.

The people come from all around, “a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.” The people who come to be with Jesus are Jews, the people of the covenant, the people of Judea and Jerusalem. And he is also surrounded by the gentiles, the hated gentiles, the people from the coast of Tyre and Sidon. But Jesus does not make his divisions between these categories. His dichotomous key doesn’t use these characteristics to separate the blessed from those who know woe.

Jesus’ ministry extends to both those who have been in covenant with God and those who were alienated by God.[5] Jesus is with us all, regardless of our life situations. Jesus does not desert us because of what makes us different from one another.

Jesus shares the word and the power of God with everyone on the plain. And Jesus continues to share the word and the power of God with us all. God’s blessing is not restricted by our earthly status, after all, status changes. Those who are filled now can be hungry later, and this was an important truth of first century life. But the word and the power of God are not dependent on these things; the word and the power of God are gifts for us all now through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

You have probably heard of Warren Buffett, an investor known as the Oracle of Omaha. According to Forbes Magazine, he is the second richest person in the world behind Microsoft's Bill Gates.[6] Buffett had always intended to donate his fortune to charity, but his original plan was to wait until the time of his death to make the donation. In a stunning reversal, Buffett has set in motion a plan to donate $30.7 billion, or 85% of his personal wealth, to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to accelerate and deepen the amount of work the foundation can do. Buffett effectively, doubled the size of the foundation’s endowment.

This is what Buffett had to say about the foundation in a letter he wrote to Bill and Melinda Gates announcing the donation:

I hope that the expansion of [the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s] giving is one of depth, rather than breadth. You have committed yourselves to a few extraordinarily important but underfunded issues, a policy that I believe offers the highest probability of your achieving goals of great consequence. The doubling of [the foundation’s] present spending can increase [it’s] already impressive effectiveness in addressing the societal problems upon which it now focuses.[7]

Daniel Borochoff, the president of the American Institute of Philanthropy said this about Buffett’s gift: “They are playing God with that kind of wealth. They’re going to be responsible for whether a lot of people live or die.”[8] It’s melodramatic, but I think he’s right. But there is a problem with this statement; people with this kind of money have always had the power of life and death over others. And just maybe, this is what Jesus is getting at. Wealth itself is neutral, it is how people acquire and use wealth that makes the difference between blessings and woes.

Jesus makes no difference between the Jew and the Gentile, the rich and the poor, but people make these distinctions. And usually when people make these distinctions it injures people who are the most vulnerable.

In the end, Jesus teaches us that whoever dies with the most toys surely does not win. In fact, only by sharing our earthly blessings will we ever truly know the heavenly blessings. I am not suggesting you write a check for $30.7 billion and put it in the plate. But I am suggesting we do as Buffett did. See where good work is being done—and join in. It may not be in our original plans, but the new plan given us in the Good News is too good to pass up.

[9]In the past, you have heard of my affinity for the School House Rock series from ABC television. One of the most popular, and one of my favorites, is “Conjunction Junction.” In the words of the song, this little ditty teaches, “and, but, and or can get you pretty far.” There are distinctions between people in this world, but Jesus doesn’t make them. In the Christ, God became a part of the creation. And it is very good. In a world that is filled with “but” and “or”, Jesus teaches us that “and” is more important. And he came and joined us in our situation. And now we must come and join him in his situation just as he joined us.

[1] Wallace, Irving, Wallace, Amy and Wallechinsky, David, “People’s almanac presents the book of lists, The.” New York: Morrow, 1977.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_law, accessed February 10, 2007.
[3] http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/printer_friendly_installment.asp?installment_id=93000312, accessed February 5, 2007.
[4] Luke 6:13, parenthesis added for clarity.
[5] Ibid homeliticsonline.com.
[6] http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/25/magazines/fortune/charity1.fortune/index.htm?section=money_topstories, accessed February 10, 2007.
[7] Buffett’s Letter to Bill and Melinda Gates, http://berkshirehathaway.com/donate/bmgfltr.pdf, accessed February 9, 2007.
[8] Ibid homeliticsonline.com.
[9] This paragraph is difficult to read silently because of the run-on of conjunctions. Sorry about that.