Standing on the Level Place

Sermon for SMHP, Year C, Epiphany + 6, Feb. 24, 2019

Luke 6:17-26                          

               ¹⁷Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. ¹⁸They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. ¹⁹And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

²⁰Then he looked up at his disciples and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

²¹“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

²²“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.

²³Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

²⁴“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

²⁵“Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

“Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

²⁶“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

          [Put up “Post No Bills” slide (2)] 

          So the person who put that sign on the fence—the one that says “Post No Bills”—what were they trying to make happen?

          They didn’t want any handbills on the fence.

          But instead, some smart aleck put up…pictures of guys named Bill.

          [Next slide]  Don’t BE HAPPY Worry.

          What did the manufacturer of this button have in mind? [“Don’t worry.  Be happy.]

          What does the button actually say?

          These things are funny—at least I think they’re funny—because they turn things on their head.

          It gets your attention, right?  People notice when they expect something to look or sound one way…and it actually goes another way.  Then they make a meme.

          Or…if you’re Jesus…you preach a sermon…in which you use words people understand:  “blessing,” “rejoice,” “woe”…but you flip them around.  You bless what people think of as a curse…and you curse what they think of as a blessing.

          In order to point out that they have done the same thing to the commandments.

          The Sermon on the Plain—Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount—is a long series of statements that call into question most of the assumptions the people had been living with for a long time.

          This is even more clear in Luke’s telling, because in addition to the blessings—the beatitudes—Luke’s version includes a table of “woes,” to make it even more clear what is blessed, and what is woeful, in God’s kingdom.

          I think it becomes clear in the story even before Jesus speaks. Where he places his body provides an important message about the sort of movement he will be leading.

          How does it begin?  “He came down with them and stood on a level place.”  No speaking from above, the place of honor and better acoustics.  Nope, Jesus will stand among the people, in a place fraught with meaning for people raised on the words of the prophets.  The “level place,” according to prophets like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Joel, was often a place littered with suffering and death.  The open field is where the slaughtered were left to die; [slide] Jeremiah 14:18:  “If I go out into the field, look—those killed by the sword!” 

          [slide] Or this from the prophet Joel:  “The fields are devastated, the ground mourns; for the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil fails.” 

          But the level places were also the places that God promised to restore, when the kingdom of God was realized on earth. [slide] In the famous words of Isaiah, “every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain.” (Isaiah 40:4)

          Hat tip to Professor Ronald Allen over on the Working Preacher website for those insights on fields and level places.

          So in Luke’s telling, Jesus comes down “to a level place” and then he begins the transformation promised by the prophets:  “all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.” 

          Then, Luke tells us, “he looked up at his disciples and said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

          We have heard this enough times that it’s truly radical nature might not be obvious.  But even today, these words are surprising.  Or perhaps they are especially surprising today, when the Prosperity Gospel and its promise that God wants you to have wealth beyond your dreams has proven to be a pretty sticky heresy.

          Think about Jesus’ day, though.  Do you think poor people were considered to be especially blessed by God?  In the famous words of Tevye, “I realize that it’s no shame to be poor.  But it’s no great honor either.  (Tradition!  Tradition!)

          Who else does Jesus bless from that level place? 

          Hungry people.  Weeping people.  People who are “hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed on account of the Son of Man.”

          Doesn’t that sound like a fun group to join?!  Shall I pass the sign-up sheet?

          Do you think it sounded fun to the people Jesus was standing among, on that level place?

          Do you think it subverted their expectations when Jesus demanded that those who had been hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed should rejoice?!

          Of course it did!

          What sort of a life did those folks want to live?  The sort of life the empire had taught them to want.  Riches, abundant food, servants.

          Definitely not hatred, exclusion, revulsion, and defamation. 

          They wanted the good life.  And their culture had taught them that if they had it, it meant that God had blessed them. 

          Doing well in business?  God must like you!

          Eating well?  Clearly you have pleased God!

          Happy?  Well, aren’t you blessed?!

          And just for good measure, Jesus pronounces woe upon the rich, the full, the laughing and those who enjoy the good graces of others.

          He goes on to turn even more cultural assumptions on their heads, calling for love of enemies, lending without hope of reward, and free forgiveness.  Basically the values which God has always instructed God’s people to live by, and the values that God has shown us by example.  The values that Jesus exhibited throughout his life, especially at its end.

          Jesus needs them—and us—to understand that the values of the kingdom of God will often oppose the values of the kingdoms of humans.  As people on the Jesus Way, we are often called to stand over against the values which pit one person against another—values which posit a mentality of scarcity, competition, selfishness.

          The church is called to stand over against those values, and GOOD NEWS!  We find ourselves in a time which is actually making space for just such opportunities.

          My friend and coach Dave Daubert wrote a great little book called Living Lutheran.  I asked him if I could share a couple of his diagrams with you and he graciously gave permission.

          [Slide 6]  This is where the church existed for a millennium and a half—the era of Christendom.  Prime real estate--right in the center of society.  For a long time, church authority was barely distinguishable from the secular authority.  As Dave notes, there was a symbiotic relationship between the church and the culture—they blessed each other.  And “normal” people went to church.  Everybody went to church. 

          Here we are today.  Christendom is over.  The church, according to Dave, is moved to “The Fringe.”  He is right, though I think I might say we live at “The Margin.”

          And that right there is why this is GOOD NEWS. 

          Since the day that Jesus came down to a level place, lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said “blessed are you who are poor,” we have been called to stand at the margins.  We have never been supposed to be in the center.  The church at the center, blessing the culture of empire, their values intertwined—that is a heresy! 

          We’re supposed to be over here—point at the margin.  Blessing the poor, the hungry, the weeping.  Opening our bodies to hatred and revulsion and defamation because we are following after the one who bore all of that and more in his body, for our sake.

          This (indicate margin) is a Witnessing Place.  This is the place from which we can bless the culture of rabid exploitation into re-examining its priorities.

          This is where the fields of suffering are transformed into plains of healing.  And it is where we Christians live, mostly because the culture has chucked us over there.  It can be, however, a place where we choose to live. 

          A place where we choose to bless.

          A place where we choose to witness to a still more excellent way of being, in which the poor and the hungry and the weeping find shelter and food and comfort.  Because the church itself has been transformed into a healing plain.

          To us has been granted the healing power of our Lord Jesus Christ.  With it we can bless the whole world—one person at a time, one community at a time, one state, one nation, one world.  By simply choosing this place of liberation, this place of witness.  Choosing to stand with the one who came down to that level place, to stand with them, and to stand with us.