Plain Speaking by Jesus

What we call the Sermon on the Mount found in the Gospel of Matthew, may be familiar to you. But the Sermon on the Plain found in the Gospel of Luke is also worth our attention.

He [Jesus] 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. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Then he looked up at his disciples and said: ” Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. “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. “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.” Luke 6:17-26 NRSVUE

If we take Jesus’s words seriously, many of us will be challenged and uncomfortable. We will be tempted to soften or to spiritualize Jesus’ intent. Every time I read these verses I feel uncomfortable and worried. I wonder which side, whose side am I on? And I wonder, what is Jesus calling me to do?

In the verses just before these, Jesus has been in prayer on a mountain and then, out of all his disciples, chose twelve to be apostles. Then Jesus came down the mountain, down to where the people were. In the Bible, God is encountered on mountain tops. Recall Moses going up Sinai. Recall the Transfiguration. But Moses, and Jesus, and the rest of us aren’t called to stay on the mountain top. All of us need to come down, off the peaks and onto the plains, where God’s beloved people live.

And so Jesus and the apostles come down and stand with “a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people…” who have come to hear what Jesus has to say and to be healed. And what do they hear?

They hear a reversal of the status quo. They hear a reversal of the accepted wisdom. They hear a reversal of the way things are. In Jesus’ time, as in ours, the poor and the hungry and the marginalized were blamed for their condition. People are poor and hungry because they don’t try hard enough or because that’s how God wants things to be. The rich and the well fed and the acclaimed and well regarded were and are considered to be God’s favored, the blessed.

Jesus says, no. This may be the way the world is, but this is not the way the world is supposed to be. The poor, the hungry the despised and excluded have God’s blessing. Jesus is not saying that being poor or hungry or excluded is somehow spiritually superior. Nor is he saying they should be patient and wait for their reward in heaven. Calling people blessed means they are particularly favored. This blessing declares God’s preferential commitment to the poor.

Gustavo Guterrez writes, ” God has a preferential love for the poor not because they are necessarily better than others, morally or religiously, but simply because they are poor and living in an inhumane situation that is contrary to God’s will. The ultimate basis for the privileged position of the poor is not in the poor themselves but in God, in the gratuitousness and universality of God’s agapeic love.¹

We are only six chapters into Luke and this is not the only time, and it will not be the last time, we hear about the reversal of social order and status, and concern for the poor.

Mary sings, “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 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.²

Zechariah and John the Baptist make similar statements.³ And of course, Jesus teaching in the synagogue in Nazareth. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has appointed 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, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing.” ⁴

The language of blessing and woe is familiar to you, if you have read the Old Testament, particularly the prophets. Statements of blessing and woe explain in clear, binary terms what God expects and what the consequences of disobedience will be. It does us no good to try to wriggle our way out of it. “Well, I’m not a rich as Bezos or Musk.” “I can’t buy every single thing I want, so I’m not rich.” “Someone didn’t like a post I made on social media, so people “revile” me.”

It seems to me figuring out if I am rich or poor, misses at least part of the point. If I can justify myself as not rich and therefore in this binary view- poor- then I’m okay with God.

Jesus and the prophets used binary language, they speak about the rich and poor, the full and hungry, the powerful and lowly. We might be tempted to try to situate ourselves on one side of the binary. But for Jesus, the world doesn’t divide into spiritual and physical. There is one world, beloved by God, where there is justice, peace and all may flourish. The binary language presents starkly and clearly what is before us, the social, political, and religious structures that divide, and oppress people.

This binary language does prompt us to consider our own social and economic status. But if we stop there we have missed Jesus’ point. This binary language reminds that there are poor, hungry, excluded people. This binary language reminds us, in no uncertain terms, that God cares about them. God’s desire is for all people to flourish, to have enough to eat, to have a safe place to live, to live life with joy. This binary language asks us to place ourselves, not with the rich but with God and God’s hope and desire for all people. Are we living and working for blessing or woe?

1. Gustavo Gutierrez “Song and Deliverance” in Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World, Ed. R.S. Sugirtharajah (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991) 131. quoted in “The Gospel of Luke” R Alan Culpepper in The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX, Ed. Leander E. Keck (Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1995) 145 ↩︎
2. Luke 2:46-56 ↩︎
3. Luke 2:67-79; Luke 3:1-20; ↩︎
4. Luke 4:18-21 ↩︎