The Sermon on the Mount – or blessings and woes as one of my professors always called it - carries such an important lesson for us, that it’s included in three of the four gospels. One of the problems encountered with familiar passages IS the familiarity. We think we know it so well, that we skip over it or rush through a reading. We KNOW what it says – or we THINK we do:

Blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who weep, and those who are hated, reviled or defamed because of their faith. They will receive their reward in heaven.

And woe to the rich, the full, those who laugh or are well-regarded.

Is Jesus saying it’s better to be poor than to have money? That it’s better to be hungry than to have eaten? That it’s better to weep than to laugh?

Is this really what Jesus is saying?

Well, of course it isn’t!

We KNOW that Jesus was neither poor nor wealthy but must have lived reasonably comfortable life in a carpenter’s home. We know that he did not starve. We have many stories of Jesus sharing meals with his friends. A few weeks ago we read that he changed water into wine so that the wedding feast could continue.

We know that he must have had a sense of humour. If he hadn’t, he’d have given up entirely on those disciples of his who were almost always missing the point or being confounded and confused by his stories and his teachings. Nothing in Jesus’ ministry makes sense to us if we really believe that Jesus said it is a blessing to be poor.

But that isn’t the only aspect of this passage that can be troubling to us. There are the woes. These negative words of Jesus can stir up feelings of guilt and discomfort in us because they’re talking about us. Compared to a large part of the world’s population, we in Canada are rich and well-fed. We have more cause for laughter than for sorrow than most of the peoples of the world.

Still, we are faithful and beloved children of God. How can we be cursed just because we were born or live in Canada and not in some remote and impoverished village in a third world country?

To understand what Jesus meant, we must look at the context in which it was spoken. Think of the culture of early Judea. If you were poor, it was understood as a sign of God’s disfavour. Poverty meant you or your parents had sinned against God and being poor was your punishment.

So when Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor, etc." he is being quite radical for his day. He’s saying, "You don’t deserve to be hungry. Even though you are poor, you can still have the blessing of God." - the complete opposite of the understanding of poverty at that time.

The blessing isn’t BECAUSE of their poverty, but there is blessing to be found IN their poverty.

Jesus says that people who are poor and hungry and weeping can be blessed or happy if they are powerfully grounded in the God who assures the poor that the kingdom of heaven is theirs, who promises to fill the hungry, who says that the weeping will also laugh. And people whose lives are based on nothing more than human resources – wealth, food, mirth, other people’s opinions – such people are setting themselves up for pain when the challenging times of life occur.

Jesus reminds us that relying on human resources instead of God will bring woe, not blessings, into our lives.

In 1998, I spent almost two weeks in Nicaragua. You’ve heard stories from me before about that time, but I have to share one more today.

This Scripture passage was personified in the people we met during that trip. They experience God’s blessing in the midst of unbelievably poverty and hardship.

I want to introduce you to Dr. Joel Zacarias and the people of the tiny village of Bilwaskarma who live each day in the blessing and strength of God in the midst of great adversity.

Bilwaskarma is at the end of a long and narrow dirt road in the forest. Our bus went as far down that road as it could and then we got out and walked the rest of the way to the tiny village.

We had gone to Bilwaskarma to visit the Polyclinic – a small eight-bed hospital in the middle of the forest.

The story of Bilwaskarma and its people is a sad and painful one. In the 1930’s a Dr. Taylor and his wife from the United States, established a 40-bed hospital there. It was the only hospital on the Rio Coco and served all the villages up and down that river. It had a TB ward, Paediatrics ward, Outpatient clinic and operating rooms. Student nurses trained there.

Then, in the late 1970’s, civil war broke out and in 1980 the Sandinistas arrived at the hospital one day. They ordered all the patients moved to the village of Waspam (about 11 km. away), allegedly for their own safety because of the war. Two of the very sick patients died on the way to Waspam.

Then they burned down every house in the village and occupied the hospital as a military headquarters. The people of the village were forced to flee either across the border into Honduras or up into the mountains. One of the nurses was arrested and thrown into prison where she was tortured. The reason for her arrest? Her father, a minister, was suspected of being supportive of the Somoza regime and because they were unable to locate him, his daughter was seized instead.

The Sandinistas occupied the hospital until December 1981, burning it to the ground just before they left.

So, from 1980 until early 1997, there was no hospital or clinic in the whole area. People simple did without medical care or walked many, many miles through the forest to seek help in another village. That’s 17 years of no medical care.

Then in 1997, with the help of some money from the Dr. Robert McClure Estate, the Moravian Church built a clinic in Bilwaskarma. Dr. Zacarias and five nurses working in rotating shifts were recruited to work in it.

These are the things we learned from him that day:

• He lives in the clinic, sleeping in whatever bed is empty.
• His family is a four-hour drive away and he seldom sees them because he is the only doctor and therefore on call and working 24 hours a day, each and every day.
• His only transportation is a very decrepit bicycle and he must walk 11 kms. into Waspam to get supplies and then carry them 11 km. back again – a very long and exhausting walk through the hot Central American forest.
• During operations, he is both the surgeon and the anesthetist. He does C-sections, hernia repairs, vasectomies, plastic surgery for harelip, tubal ligations and appendectomies and has never lost a patient.
• Outside of the operating room instruments – and the OR is just an ordinary room with a curtain across the door, the only "medical" equipment I saw in the clinic was weigh scales and a blood pressure cuff.
• The day we visited, he had just received news of a cholera outbreak in the area. In one village, eight people had died in 12 days. We learned two days later than another seven people died. Dr. Zacarias had no medicine to treat cholera, dp jed planned to walk to the infected villages to encourage people to boil their water before using it. That was all his only way of fightinhg the outbreak.

After the Sandinistas had left Bilwaskarma, some of the villagers have returned and rebuilt their homes. There is a church in the village now. And life goes on – even though each day is one of hardship, I did not hear one word of anger or complaint from anyone. Over and over again, "God has blessed us." "God is with us in our struggle." were repeated. And there was sincerity and conviction in their voices. The focus was not on what they’d lost or how difficult their lives are. Instead there was much gratitude for what they had:

• A new, though decidedly, smaller hospital
• A new church
• A rebuilding of the community

Dr. Zacarias spoke gratefully of the help and support he has received from the church. Some of us had brought bandages and rubber gloves, etc. in our suitcases, and he accepted them graciously and with a sincere "God bless you".

"Blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who weep and those who are hated."

Blessed not because they are poor or hungry, but because they know God is with them in their poverty and hunger and Christ’s blessing upon them is stronger and more powerful than anything that mere humans could do to them.

Depend on the one - the only one - who can sustain you in whatever circumstance you find yourself.

But, blessed are those who rely on God in all things.