Read Luke 6:17-26 with your family.

Luke’s gospel is the Social Justice gospel. About a hundred years ago Christians focused on asking “what would Jesus do”? when seeing all the problems in their communities, the churches looked to Luke’s gospel and read about these promises. They read how people needed to be fed, so the churches started feeding people. They read how the prisoners needed better care, so they started working for prison reform. They read how children needed to be loved, so they encouraged education for all children and supports for families. They read how the rich had to give up their wealth, so the church joined campaigns to have the rich pay for more social programs.

All of this is found in Luke’s gospel. And the great thing about the promise of food, comfort, happiness and respect for the poor is that the promise was to start immediately, not some imagined time in the future. The promise of equality in God’s world where everyone had enough and no one had too much or too little, was a promise that the church wanted to see happen today.

We are still that church and we still work to make things better for the poor, struggling, ignored and insulted people in our community. Jesus made the promise, and as disciples we are called to help make it reality.