The Great Blessings of Spiritual Poverty
Rev. Richard A. Bolland

Luke 6:17-26)
(Feb. 15, 2004 Sermon Transcript)

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        Dear friends in Christ, poverty and hunger are not experiences that appeal to us. In fact, I think any reasonable person would conclude that they are experiences we would like to avoid at any and all cost. When we think of true poverty, I suppose, at least in my mind’s eye, it conjures images of starving children in the third world. Knowing that hunger and poverty are twin plagues for millions and millions of people throughout this globe, and then remembering, of course, how blessed we are to live in this land in which God has placed us.

        Therefore the words of this gospel lesson are strange to our ears indeed. Blessed are you who are poor... Blessed are you who hunger now... Blessed are you who weep now... Blessed are you when men hate you.. and they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy!

        And our human reason says, "You’ve got to be kidding! There’s not reason for rejoicing and leaping!" But that’s just not so.

        Our Lord is pointing to us, and pointing to us the greatest of all blessings. He is pointing us to Himself, and all the gifts of grace and forgiveness. And He is telling us that the only way we may have them is to recognize our own absolute, abject spiritual poverty, and our spiritual hunger for more of the blessings that God desires to bring us. So that, indeed, He will provide the very riches of His heavenly kingdom for those who recognize their hunger. And for those who understand their poverty.

        For a moment, if you would, just consider the spiritual alternatives to poverty and spiritual hunger. If there is no spiritual poverty, then of course, what you have is spiritual self-sufficiency. And if you have within your mind the idea that you are just fine with God, thank you very much, then of course, there are many in this world that are convinced that they are just fine with God. And indeed, they need no outside intervention to save themselves. They’ll take care of it on their own.

        You know the cliches. People have said, "I’ve done the best I could, and therefore I’m just fine with God." Others have said that "there are prisons filled with disrespectable people who deserve God’s judgment, and since I’m not as bad as they are, then, well, I’m OK with God because there are people far worse than me!" And such folk like to break the world down into two groups. Respectable folks and disrespectable folks, defining themselves, of course, in the former category rather than the latter.

        But I would remind you of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in Luke 18, when He says, To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men-- robbers, evildoers, adulterers-- or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

        People who are utterly comfortable in the knowledge that, since they have been good people, even perhaps going above and beyond the ordinary, that they must be loved of God, and be saved, are suffering from a terrible, awful illusion. Oftentimes, so pleased with their performance are they that they have no need of forgiveness, that in their eyes is not completely overshadowed by, well, their good performance. And any notion that someone must pay their debt of sin for them is utterly foreign to their thinking.

        It was precisely to this spiritual self-sufficiency to which our Lord spoke when He addressed the Pharisees in the 23rd chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew when He said, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

        The opposite of spiritual poverty, being poor in spirit, is spiritual self-sufficiency, and spiritual self-sufficiency is utterly deadly in this life, and in the next.

        But what of those who lack spiritual hunger? Indeed, many who go by the name of Christ, and claim Him as savior are falling victim to this particular spiritual malady, for they feel no spiritual hunger. And desire no further understanding of God’s gracious gifts to us. Many are baptized, and thereby called to faith, and yet later are quite satisfied with the limited spiritual knowledge that they have. People have told me, from time to time, "You know, when I was a kid, my parents made me go to church. They made me go to confirmation, they made me go to Sunday School. And now that I’m a grown-up, I’m not going!" Well, who’s the loser in that one? Obviously the loser is the one who denies himself the great riches of the means of grace.

        Others have told me, "You know, my religion is personal and private, and I really don’t want to be a fanatic, and only fanatics seem to study God’s word. I mean going to Bible class and all that." Again, some have said, "I know what I believe, and I don’t need any pastor or anybody else telling me what I need to know. I’ve already heard it, thank you very much!"

        Well, I would perhaps remind you that it is such folks who fill the ranks of false religious cults. For they have become so malnourished in the faith that they are no longer able to distinguish the truth from fallacy. Right doctrine from false doctrine. St. Paul, in his letter to Timothy, and his letter to the Ephesian congregation, says this. The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.....It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.

        Did you notice? It is only a good solid knowledge of the Word of God that prevents that. That prevents people listening to those who have other messages, other than the gospel. Or who distort the message of the gospel into something that it is not. I would remind you, perhaps, that in my very call documents to this very congregation, I am the one you called to teach you, and to preach to you. And yet there are many who will not be taught.

        Spiritual self-sufficiency, and lack of hunger for the Word of God and the sacraments of God, are a deadly, serious, malady. It is not a little thing. Not a little thing at all.

        Hear then the great blessings of spiritual poverty. And rightly done spiritual hunger. Our Lord Jesus Christ tells the people on the plain, in this sermon He gives on that level place,...

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        ...and tells us, by the way, that those who recognize their spiritual poverty are, in fact, the only ones who get to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And that recognition itself is God-given. For the law is also a gift of God.

        Now so far in this sermon I have done nothing but lay the law on you! And it’s not comfortable. It pierces us. It makes us squirm and wiggle, because we are convicted by it. And it does the same for me too. So it not as though I am standing here saying that I do not share in this temptation to be self-sufficient. But rather, I admit my guilt freely before you as well.

        But our Lord Jesus tells people that indeed there is only one sure, solid ground on which we can stand before a holy and righteous God. We cannot come with our offerings cupped in our hands, demonstrating our good works, demonstrating that we have done the best we could, demonstrating that indeed we have been baptized and confirmed and all these things that we sometimes ascribe to ourselves. Because God will be roundly unimpressed.

        The only thing that impresses the Father in Heaven is His son. And He is totally impressed with His son. And the good news about that is this. Let it be known that the very threshold of grace, the very threshold of heaven itself, is an understanding that we bring nothing to God, but that Christ has brought everything for us. We deserve nothing but sin, death, and hell on our own.

        But those who are baptized in Christ are redeemed by Him.

        The scriptures make it clear enough. Do you not know, St. Paul writes, that those who have been baptized into Christ and have put on Christ?

        And so our Father in heaven has "Christ-colored glasses", if you will. And when He looks at us poor miserable sinners, as we have confessed in this service that we are, He does not see our sin. He does not see our unrighteousness. He does not see our flawed efforts at self-sufficiency. He does not see our lack of knowledge. But rather, He sees Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. And again, we know we are welcome before His throne.

        Being a pillar of the community, or even of the church, may be a good and fine thing. But it is no ticket before the throne of God to get into the pearly gates. Our utter humility before God finds it’s hope only in Christ. For our every sin has been set right with His own perfect life. Our every inclination to do evil has been overcome by His righteousness. Our many, many, ongoing sins find hope, not within ourselves, but only in the suffering and death, and forgiveness that that suffering and death brings. For there is propitiation for our sin. It has been paid. And the debt is cancelled.

        If we would dare claim any righteousness as our own, dear friends, then we must abandon the cross. For the two are mutually exclusive. Our own righteousness and the cross. To begin to offer God anything other than the nothing that we bring, if you will, is to insult the cross and one who died on it. Who did pay the penalty, when we make its poor offering in its place, or at least attempt to.

        And so, we are saved. Not by our good works, not by our good intention, not by being the best we could, not by being better than other people might be, but only by the grace of God. For as it says in Ephesians chapter 2, But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-- it is by grace you have been saved.

        And, I might add, by grace alone.

        And then, our Lord Jesus tells the people on the plain, and tells us, that those who hunger spiritually will be satisfied. Hunger for what? There is only one spiritual food. It is the means of grace. Word and sacraments. I have noticed, over the years, that those who rarely come to worship or engage rarely if ever in Bible study are the ones for whom their faith seems not so central in their lives. It is not a coincidence that I have discovered also that 80 percent of church governance always comes from people who occupy the Bible class! Because they are richly fed, and the word moves people to do those things which God calls us to do. And the statistic, by the way, is not at all an exaggeration.

        I would suggest that it could be no other way! That indeed, those who regularly feed on the refreshing and nourishing word of God, and who regularly feast on the gracious and holy body and blood of Christ, in with and under the bread and the wine of the Lord’s Supper are those who are able to grow strong in the faith through those means of grace.

        And conversely those who think them of little import will not be strengthened as the others, and will not serve as the others. Such strength of faith, and such fervency of faith, can come from no other source other than the means of grace.

        Now many of you are aware that I am on a low-carb diet. I talk about it probably more than I ought to, but it is nice to kind of fit the robe, you know? What would happen if there were not a lot of meat, and eggs, and cheese available? What if I was placed in a room and the only thing to eat there, for months at a time, would be fritos and potato chips and the most delicious of cakes, and the most magnificent of ...carrots. But I would refuse to eat. "No!", I would protest, "I’m on a low-carb diet!" Well, sooner or later I would die from lack of eating, even though I was surrounded by the best of foods that I dearly crave. (Except for the carrots)

        I think a lot of people, Lutherans included, are on a low means of grace diet. They go to St. Minimum’s, instead of St. Maximum’s. They would rather have just the bare minimum, thank you very much, don’t want to get too much of that religion you know!

        And as a result, they are starving. I’ll let you decide who’s who, because I’m not qualified to judge. But I do know this. God has given us all rich and abundant spiritual nourishment through His word and His sacraments. And yet some fully satisfied with what they have, fail to be hungry.

        So what does a pastor do? As one who is charged with the feeding of the flock, what am I to do? It is a sacred obligation to feed the sheep, to nourish the lambs of God. Well, I’ll tell you what I would do. The first thing I will do is point you to the cross, and say to you clearly and forthrightly, that like all sin, this is where we take it. To our lack of interest in His word, we go to the cross, and in full repentance and abject spiritual humility we lay it there, knowing that the blood of Christ covers also this sin.

        For those who have despised the word that comes to us through body and blood, I would say, "Go to the cross, and lay there the sin of denying that God so graciously wanted us to have" and begin to receive it.

        And I would also say these words to you. Looking at his disciples, he said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.

        Come and dine, dear friends, at the table of God’s grace. Feed richly and deeply on His mercy, on His love, on His forgiveness. Be strengthened and be renewed, for yours is the kingdom of heaven! In Jesus’ name, Amen.