A Solidarity that Afflicts Us
Against the Three Hounds of Hell
February 16, 2025
Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C
St. Stephen’s UMC, Burke, VA
Luke 6:17–26 (NRSVUE)
Luke’s Beatitudes
What we read today is called the Beatitudes, but we are more familiar with the other version. So, when we hear the lesser-known version like today’s, our brain instinctively corrects the passages, completing the sentences to sound more like what we are used to:
Blessed are you who are poor… in spirit!
Blessed are you who are hungry… for righteousness!
This version we know best comes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. What we read today from Luke’s Gospel is part of what we call Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain.
We call Matthew’s version the Sermon on the Mount because Jesus preaches while sitting on a mountainside. We call Luke’s version the Sermon on the Plain because Jesus preaches while standing on a level place. These two are based on the same source, yet different in their delivery.
The Sermon on the Mount kind of speaks over people’s heads. Much of Jesus’s teaching there is spiritualized, focusing on the Law and its interpretation — which makes sense, given that Matthew’s gospel is written for a Jewish Christian community.
On the other hand, the Sermon on the Plain speaks directly to people’s lived realities. Jesus’ teaching here is more materialized, with no mention of the Law. Again, this makes sense as Luke’s gospel is written for a Gentile Christian community.
So, why are we more familiar with the Sermon on the Mount than the Sermon on the Plain? The obvious answer might be that Matthew’s version is more comprehensive, being four times longer than Luke’s. There’s more meat to it.
But perhaps it is also because Luke’s version hits too close to home. Again, Matthew’s version focuses on spiritual conditions, e.g. blessed are the poor in spirit, while Luke’s version addresses socioeconomic realities, e.g. blessed are you who are poor. Not only that, but Luke’s blessings are paired with woes, which are not included in Matthew’s, e.g. woe to you who are rich.
How can we utter such words when the pursuit of wealth is deeply engraved in the psyche of our society? How can we preach such words when they might offend the rich? How can we teach such words when they could jeopardize church finances?
In other words, Luke’s Sermon on the Plain puts us in an uncomfortable place. And we don’t like that. We would rather focus on the spiritual conditions described in Matthew. And before long, we deceive ourselves into believing that Luke, too, is speaking about spiritual matters rather than socioeconomic realities. And, eventually, we fully convince ourselves that Jesus’ teaching must only be about spiritual things.
But those who have been reading Luke from the beginning know that Jesus meant exactly what he said. From Mary’s Magnificat, Luke declares:
“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty” (1:52–53).
We then hear Jesus unroll the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue, proclaiming perhaps his mission statement,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed” (4:18).
And as Jesus gathers his disciples, he blesses those deemed impure outsiders — people with skin disease, paralysis, and a withered hand — all while enraging the so-called pure religious insiders. And once Jesus finishes gathering his twelve disciples, he delivers today’s Sermon on the Plain.
So, the blessings and woes from today’s scripture are consistent with the theme of Luke’s Gospel. And this theme carries through the rest of Luke and Acts, as both are written by the same author. The great reversal of Jesus’ Beatitudes is lived out through the early church in Acts, where the bystanders shout, “These people are turning the world upside down” (17:6).
So, my point is this: Jesus meant exactly what he said in Luke. Blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who weep, and those who are reviled and defamed. And woe on the rich, the full, those who laugh, and those of whom all speak well.
Am I Rich or Poor?
Now, once we try to confront Jesus’ sermon at face value, which is a big first step, then what we tend to do next is to position ourselves. Am I rich or poor? Surely, I’m not rich — after all, there are billionaires out there whose wealth grows by the second through corporate greed. Woe is to them. Heck, I might as well be considered poor compared to those oligarchs.
Or maybe, just maybe, we would rather simply ignore Jesus’ teaching altogether since it does not apply to our middle-class identity. This is about the poor and the ultra-rich. It’s about them, not me. So, I’m just going to focus on touching the hem of Jesus’ garment for my own benefit.
Would anyone dare to take Jesus’ teaching as a call to voluntary poverty? I mean, Jesus says later in chapter 12 that you should “sell your possessions and give to the poor” (v. 33). However, something still feels off if your sole motive for becoming poor is just to claim Jesus’ blessings.
What about using Jesus’ teaching to justify people’s poverty in the face of growing wealth disparity? It’s no secret that Christianity has continually been co-opted by the powerful to oppress the weak. What? You can’t afford the basic necessities of life? Aww, bless your heart. But don’t worry. Be happy! Your reward is in heaven.
We love to make everything about ourselves, don’t we? All these possible responses reflect our self-centeredness. But Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain is not about whether I go to heaven or hell. The sermon is about who God is. It’s about where the kingdom of God is made visible. And so, for those who pray, “Your kingdom come” (11:2), this sermon calls forth a way of life shaped by this new reality of great reversal.¹
God and Wealth
I’m sure Jesus knew that wealth is a relative term. He doesn’t define income brackets for who qualifies as rich or poor. Instead, he presents a stark contrast between those who are exposed in their dependence and those who are secure in their abundance. And within this duality, Jesus proclaims:
“Blessed are the poor,
for theirs is the kingdom of God.
But woe to the rich,
for they have already received their consolation.”
Regardless of our circumstances, we find ourselves somewhere within this duality — with the rich above us and the poor below. And this duality has political implications. The world tends to adore the rich and dehumanize the poor. We like to draw closer to wealth and distance ourselves from poverty. Even if we claim impartiality, we still hope for the rich’s wealth to trickle down to us rather than for the poor’s struggles to drag us down. We are conditioned to see proximity to wealth as opportunity and proximity to poverty as risk.
It is our affinity towards the rich that makes them so powerful. And our apathy towards the poor keeps them oppressed. Our accommodation to the powerful reveals one thing — we fear losing our own wealth in all its forms: money, security, status, influence, and acceptance.² We believe that our wealth depends on the blessings offered by the powerful. And what the powerful demand in return is our continued allegiance — an agreement to turn a blind eye, to play along, to keep pretending the emperor is clothed.
This system that preserves wealth at the top and poverty at the bottom is as old as history itself. And through his sermon, Jesus makes it clear that the kingdom of God belongs to those at the bottom. The implication for his disciples, then, is that following Jesus means moving against the current and standing with those whom Jesus declares as the blessed. In this duality, the way of the cross is to move in the opposite direction of the world’s pursuit of wealth. Later, in chapter 16, Jesus makes it clear once again that no servant can serve two masters — that you cannot pledge allegiance to both God and wealth (v. 13).
The Three Hounds of Hell
As is expected from the way of the cross, standing in solidarity with the oppressed comes with affliction. It is painful because it goes against the grain, making you feel as if you are not only falling behind but also forfeiting opportunities, not just for yourself, but for your family and children as well. In other words, it requires sacrifice. And this sacrifice is afflicting because there are forces that actively resist and prevent such solidarity, pulling us toward complicity instead of courage.
These forces are described as “the three hounds of hell” according to Howard Thurman, whose work has profoundly shaped Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance. In his book Jesus and the Disinherited, in which he writes to and on behalf of African Americans during the Jim Crow era, Thurman describes the three hounds of hell — fear, deception, and hatred — as forces that hold the oppressed in a state of subjugation. These forces work actively in the lives of the oppressed to keep them afraid, misled, and divided. Fear keeps them in submission, deception blinds them to the truth, and hatred poisons them from within.
However, these forces are not limited to the lives of the oppressed. The three hounds of hell are active everywhere, working in countless ways. Fear, deception, and hatred affect all of us, often in ways that keep us from standing in solidarity with the oppressed.
Let me give you an example. Last year, when our church hosted a hyperthermia shelter for a week, we the pastors were made aware of a social media post floating around. In that post, the author expressed fear, claiming that our church was inviting dangerous individuals into the community without proper supervision.
Then came the deception. As the post gained traction, misinformation spread. Some claimed that our church had become a permanent homeless shelter without notifying the community. Others insisted that crime in this area would surely rise, citing vague comparisons to other neighborhoods.
Finally, hatred took root. Some in their comments moved beyond concern, attacking the character of those we were serving and even questioning the legitimacy of our church’s identity.
Fortunately, members from both within and outside our church responded with grace and truth, gently correcting the disinformation before it could spiral further. But imagine if it had. Imagine if we were pushed to the corner, forced to choose between the safety of our community and our hospitality towards the vulnerable. This is how the three hounds of hell work in our lives, in our communities, and in our nation, discouraging and obstructing our solidarity with the blessed, making our discipleship indeed costly.
The True Antidote
In my previous church, I had the opportunity to welcome a family experiencing poverty as part of our staff. With the church’s approval, my wife and I decided to open our basement to them every weekend, hoping to support them as they navigated housing instability, praying that our partnership would become fruitful.
After a few months, however, we reached a point where I had to terminate their contract. Understandably, the family did not take the news well; then, unfortunately, they proceeded to respond with hostility, including defamation, larceny, and attempted extortion. As their reactions became increasingly erratic, my wife and I were advised to vacate our home and file a police report. This all unfolded while my wife was in her third trimester with our first child. And in that moment, I felt as if I were paralyzed by the sharp fangs of the hounds. Didn’t they say once bitten, twice shy? I wondered if I would ever have the same courage again.
When you are in the midst of darkness, even the faintest light can become a beacon of hope. What lifted me was all the small lights that popped up in my life — through prayers, scripture readings, stories of faith in books, conversations, and the life of the church — all of which guided me nearer to the cross of Jesus Christ, the light of all people, who announced the good news that fear, deception, and hatred have no dominion over the blessed: the poor, the hungry, those who weep, and those who are reviled and defamed.³
To stand in solidarity with the blessed is to share in their blessedness, just as their blessedness is found in sharing the life of the God of compassion and transformation. This shared life is God’s kingdom, and we are called to live into that hope — here and now — despite the affliction that awaits. This hope is at the heart of discipleship. And no one said following Christ would be easy. It is a daily act of self-denial, taking up our cross, and walking in Jesus’ footsteps (Luke 9:23). As Christians, we are called to a solidarity that afflicts us.
The paralyzing forces of fear, deception, and hatred that rampage our world today are nothing new. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. lamented that these paralyzed churches had lost the spirit of the early church — one that turned the world upside down and served as “the thermostat that transformed the mores of society.”
While his words remain a stark challenge for today’s church at large, I am still grateful to be part of a church that, despite all its imperfections, dares to move against the grain in the hope of transforming the world. And I am thankful to serve a church that remains steadfast in serving our underprivileged neighbors, even in the face of growing challenges.
I pray that our ongoing and newfound solidarity with the blessed will continue to shine the light of Christ within us and through us, that we may serve as beacons of hope for our world, embodying the love of Christ, our only true antidote.
In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
¹ Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006), 63.
² Ibid., 64.
³ Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996), 19.
Rev. Minoo Kim is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, currently serving in the Virginia Annual Conference. Follow his Medium publication to receive his latest sermons or check out his website minoowkim.com for his latest content. Peace!
