It’s called the Sermon on the Plain as opposed to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel. The Beatitudes; blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek. The more familiar beatitudes are in Matthew. “You are the salt of the earth.” “You are the light of the world.” “Beware of practicing your piety before others.” “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.” “Ask, and it will be given you, search, and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.” That’s all from the Mount in Matthew. The Sermon Jesus preached from the Plain has a different feel.

In Matthew, Jesus went up the mountain to teach. The reader is not to miss the symbolism there. It is like Moses who went up the mountain to receive the Law of the Ten Commandments, like Elijah who took on the prophets of Baal at Mt Carmel and witnessed the power of God unleashed at Mt Horeb, like the account of the Transfiguration later in the gospel where both Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus up on a high mountain. In Matthew’s Gospel when Jesus the Great Teacher saw the crowds he went up the mountain, sat down, and it was there that he taught them.

Here in Luke, Jesus goes out to the mountain not to teach, but to pray, to spend the night with God in prayer. There on the mountain, after the overnight, Jesus called his disciples. No dropping nets here. No urgent, miraculous sense of leaving everything behind and following immediately. The call of the disciples in Luke is the Lord’s prayerful act of discernment. After a night of prayer he chose twelve whom he also named apostles. Then, Luke writes, he came down with them and stood on a level place. He came down with them where there was a great crowd of disciples and a great multitude of people. He came down with them into the crowds where there was disease and there were unclean spirits and there were folks wanting, needing to be healed, where people were just wanting a touch. He came down where there was the press of human flesh, where the solitude of a mountaintop retreat was quickly forgotten amid a sea of humanity.

He came all the way down and power came out from Jesus there on the level place. You remember the holiness of God made the face of Moses shine up there on the mountain. And when Elijah called on God up there on the mountain the fire of the Lord fell upon the altar, a fire that even licked up the water that was all around. Matthew’s Jesus almost seemed to leave the suffering behind and head up the mountain. But up the mountain was where the timeless revelation of the law and the Word of God would be set forth. Here in Luke, even here on the level place, here where Jesus and this disciple were surrounded on all sides by the crowds, here where Jesus went elbow to elbow with the things of the flesh, the very power of God came out from him. The reader ought not miss the symbolism here. Jesus came down and stood among us.

The Sermon on the Plain has a different feel. Out of that healing melting pot where somehow human suffering meets the power of God, there on the plain, Jesus looked up at his disciples. He looked not just at the twelve, not just at those he named apostles, he looked at a great crowd of disciples, he looked up at all who called his name. He looked up and he said, “Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of God.” And together, almost as one, the crowd must have said “Amen.” “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.” “Go on now” someone said. “Preach, preach it” The disciples, the hearers in the crowd were just warming up with their response. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” And those there in the crowd who had all but forgotten how to laugh, they lifted their arms. And their hopefulness came out in a sound that was somewhere between a grunt and a sigh. “Umh, Umh, Umh”

“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.” The crowd of those who believed on his name, they just knew he was preaching right to them. “Your reward is in great in heaven.” “Yes, Lord, Yes.” That’s what the church said.

“But woe to you are rich....” The gathered congregation, they didn’t miss a beat. “Uh, huh!” Most folks looked around the crowd a bit. They nodded and found themselves repeating it. “Woe. Woe” “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.” “That’s right” the church said, allowing themselves to enjoy the threatening tone just a bit. “Woe to you who are laughing now........Woe to you when all speak well of you.” “Woe. Woe” Folks were joining right in on the refrain. “He’s preaching to the choir now!” they said with pleasure. And when you looked around at the apostles, at the disciples, at the crowds who had come crying out for some relief from their suffering. There really weren’t all that many people who had lived life knowing  what it was like to have “all speak well of you.” Jesus had, after all, come all the way down for this sermon. Many were standing now. The preacher’s pace and cadence and content had them going. The rhetoric of blessing and woe. It preaches. It really does.

“But I say to you that listen.” Jesus was calming the crowd a bit now. “I say to you” and he waited for them to catch up to his call for quiet. And as he waited, the people leaned forward a bit and cocked their heads. He waited a bit and the crowd? The great crowd of disciples now included generation after generation of those who took the name of Jesus. The great crowd of disciples. It was the church that was listening. He continued with less volume and at a slower pace.

“I say to you that listen, Love your enemies.”  What came next, the response there in the crowd, stunned silence doesn’t begin to describe it. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” Some looked around in confusion. Some just thought the preacher mis-spoke and they were waiting for a correction. Others started to shake their heads no. But Jesus kept going as the silence kept getting louder. “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” The restlessness in the congregation, you could feel it. But he didn’t stop. “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other, if anyone takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.”

Silence turned to murmuring. The joyful wave was becoming the wave-off. There was a rustling there in that sea of humanity that came as some started to walk away. “Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away from your goods, do not ask for them again.” Disgust. Disdain. Sermon listeners can be so fickle. “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” And there was this audible, collective, groan. And the message in it was clear; “Yeah, like we haven’t heard that before. Which, of course, they had. From philosophers and poets and third grade teachers. The earlier call and response of the preaching moment had more than a deteriorated. Heckling was a better description now. Heckling with sneers. “It just the golden rule’” someone shouted from the crowd.

Of course there were those who kept listening. Those who stayed with the preacher. Those who moved closer as others got up to leave. Those whose ears perked up even as most others had stopped paying much attention. Jesus kept preaching. After all, he had come all the way down. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” He went on to preach about judging and forgiveness and that part about taking the log out of your own eye before pointing out the speak in your neighbor’s eye. Yes, he kept preaching. But far too many people in that great crowd of disciples, in that great gathering of the church, far too many had long since quit paying attention, they had stopped listening before Jesus got to this part. Far too many missed it when he said, God Most High is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

The Lord is kind to saints and to sinners. God’s love pours out on the righteousness and the unrighteousness. The grace of God extends to the grateful and the ungrateful. The Lord’s mercy is sure and certain. The mercy of the Lord is forever. The mercy of the Lord is new every morning. New every morning. Forgive. Do not judge. Turn the other cheek. Do unto others. Love your enemies. Do all of it, because God in heaven is merciful to you. God is merciful to you and all the rest. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. 

Jesus came down with us and stood on a level place. He looked up at the crowd of disciples in every time and every place. He looked up at all of those who believed on his name. Church after church after church. Family after family after family. Fourth graders on a playground. Corporate folks in a meeting. High school kids who define peer pressure. College students surrounded by such diversity. Christians trying to understand Muslims and Jews. Policy makers trying to define terror and noncombatants and detainees and torture. In a time of peace and in a time of war, when relationships flourish and when they fail, when life has been so good and life has been nothing but a struggle.

Jesus came down with us and when surrounded by everything that it means to be human, he looked up and he said to you that listen.....

And so many, so many had stopped listening somewhere, sometime just beyond woe.

 

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