woe to you

The Beattitudes are some of my favorite scripture, but I never really caught on, as many times as I've read through the Bible, that in Luke there's a set of anti-Beattitudes that stand as warnings. I've seen them before but haven't consciously juxtaposed them against those other, positive verses. And frankly, now that I look at them more closely, I'm not reassured.

Luke 6:24-26 says, 

"But woe to you who are rich,

for you have already received your comfort.

Woe to you who are well fed now,

for you will go hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now,

for you will mourn and weep.

Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,

for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets."

These are four words that could be used to describe me. Oh, in the American sense I'm not rich, but I'm way beyond the point where I worried about money. In every rational sense I have to consider myself wealthy. But I'm certainly well fed. In fact, my struggle with food is not over-consuming. And I laugh a lot, and make other people laugh too. And finally, although it doesn't sound modest to say so, there are plenty of people in my life who speak well of me. 

So it would be a fair reading of these verses to say that I've already received my comfort, that I'm going to be hungry and weeping in the future, that in fact I may be a false prophet. But why? I'm trying to be obedient, and I think much of the time I succeed. What am I doing that deserves this?

It's likely that, in this as in all Scripture, context is important. I want to think that maybe Jesus meant these things not so much as a counterpoint to the Beattitudes, but as a clarification to them, a corollary of sorts. 

Maybe it's rich people who cling to their wealth in the face of needy poor people who are warned. Maybe it's the well fed who give no thought to the starving, or the ones who laugh when others mourn. And probably the saying about others speaking well of me is meant to make me ask, "Who said that?" Maybe I want to make sure that it isn't the world praising me, but the church.

Read that way, there would be blessings for ones who share their wealth and food, the happy people who still cry when a brother or sister is crying, and the man or woman who legitimately earns the appreciation of God's people.

I hope I'm seeing this right, because it changes for me the way I read the Beattitudes themselves. They've always made me feel guilty because they describe a group of have-nots I don't feel part of. I always think that I have to work harder at being less happy.

Now I wonder if Jesus' words aren't really a call to see the people less fortunate than me, and then to join them where appropriate and minister to them where needed. Maybe the point isn't just that God has special blessings for the have-nots; maybe part of the point is that in God's kingdom the resources aren't held so tightly by individuals but flow freely to where there is need.