6th Sunday after Ephiphany

 

Jeremiah 17:5-10 Luke 6:17-26

So we are getting close to the end of the Epiphany Season, and it is particularly long season this year so this week and next we are getting into a rare part of the lectionary.  We have read these lessons from Luke’s Sermon on the Plain exactly once in my career and by my calculations they won’t be back until 2049.  And sometimes I suspect this was intentional.  You see the lectionary was written by pastors and so sometimes I secretly think they did this on purpose because they didn’t want to have to preach on these texts very often.  It’s is much easier to just tuck them away in a deep dark corner, because while this sermon that Jesus gives in Luke is full of some of the Gospel’s most quotable bits, it also delivers a very difficult message.  One that perhaps we would rather not have to think too hard about.

We tend to like Matthew’s recollection of this sermon a lot better.  It is longer, much less abrasive and has some key differences from Luke’s retelling.  But Luke’s version should not be ignored as much as we might want to because it is central to his message and to our understanding of who Jesus is and what we need to know about his mission.  Because remember Luke’s Gospel is all about equality, bringing people together and leveling the playing field.

And today Luke literally levels the field.  He actually changes the topography of the story.  Right before this Jesus goes up on a mountain to pray and to be near to God.  He names the apostles up on that mountain, and then unlike in Matthew he specifically comes back down to a level place with the crowd.  He immediately gets down on their level.  He erases divisions and stratifications and joins them where they are.

And Luke intentionally highlights how diverse the crowd is.  He tells us there are people from Jerusalem and Judea, clearly Jewish areas but also from Tyre and Sidon, Greek cities that have never had sizable Jewish populations.  Jews and Gentiles are coming together.   And the power that Jesus has received from God up on that mountain goes forth from him and Luke tells us that Jesus heals them all.  All sorts of people from all sorts of places with all sorts of maladies.  Before he starts teaching.  And then in one of the most beautiful lines in scripture “Jesus looked up at his disciples” and started preaching.  He has to look up at them.  Jesus elevates his disciples and humbles himself.  He finds the lowest point among sick, poor and outcast and starts teaching from there.

And he begins with the beatitudes.  And we know these well.  We hear them often on All Saints Day.  But we probably know Matthew’s version.  Where there are 9 blesseds and no woes.  But Luke’s memory is different.  It tells a different story.  Of blesseds and woes, of blessings and curses.  Because Luke knows a truth that maybe Matthew would rather forget.  That equality always comes with a cost.  That good news for the poor will always sound like bad news for the rich.  Because equality especially the equality that Jesus envisions means that some people will have to lose privileges, and some will have to give up the sorts of advantages and supremacy that those that have them often hold dear.

And this is really is Luke’s main point for his whole Gospel and he is just going to keep hammering away at it all year until we get it.  Already, it’s been here this whole season, in the Magnificat, in the Christmas story, in Jesus’s first sermon in Nazareth, in this big sermon, and then he is going to keep going with a whole bunch more stories and parables we are going to get to later in the year.  Jesus is here to level the playing field, which means both bringing up the disadvantaged, but also bringing down the rich and the privileged.

And this is really hard news for a lot of us.  Everyone wants to be on the blessed side of the equation, and no one wants to admit they might be on the woe side.  But the reality is that in the grand scheme of things most of us hear in this building are much further on the rich, full, laughing, well-respected side of the spectrum than the poor, hungry, weeping, reviled side.  This is a passage that can and probably should make whiter, wealthier Christian congregations squirm a bit.  See why we like to hide it in a dark corner of the lectionary?  But this passage can still be good news even for the richest and most well respected among us because it reminds us to be mindful of what these privileges are really costing us.

Our reading from Jeremiah today can help us out a bit: He says “Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals, and make mere flesh their strength…Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.  It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.”

These passages may make is uncomfortable but they also shows us who we can become.  It is very easy when our lives are relatively rich and comfortable and easy-going to think that we can do it all ourselves, to forget how reliant we are on those around us, on our community and on God.  It is easy to take for granted our safety and stability and to cut ourselves off from systems of support thinking we can go it alone.  And that is a dangerous place to be in.  Because when struggles come, which they will, then we have nothing to draw on, and laughing quickly turns to wailing.  But when we learn to trust God a bit more and to open our hand a bit, when we are willing to hold what we have a little less tightly, we learn that we can have so much more than this false sense of material security.  It teaches us what it means to live in authentic community with those around us.

And we have Jesus himself as our guide.  When Jesus calls the 12 to become apostles, he literally calls them up, he elevates them up the mountain above the crowd and closer to God.  And then he immediately turns around and leads them right back down into the midst of the people. He takes all that power, all that he has received from God and he puts it to use immediately in the community. Literally people touch him and the power he has received from God flows from him into those in need.

And that’s the whole point of him, of all this.  Woe to those who hold back what God has given them.  Not because God is some vengeful tyrant who is going to seek punishment or revenge upon them, but because when we hold back and horde our resources, we miss out on seeing what God can do with it.  Those who hold back miss out on being part of the amazing authentic community God creates. 

So instead this is a time when we are all called to listen closely to what the Holy Spirit saying and keep our eyes open to what God is doing in the world.  Where we look for opportunities in our congregation and in our everyday lives to make a difference to those who are vulnerable.  To take a stand on issues that matter to us, to find ways to reach out in our community, to make connections across difficult boundaries.  And perhaps most importantly to be willing to follow Jesus down off our own mountains to a level place where we can look up to those who others revile and see what they have to teach us as well.  Amen.