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Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany – February 13, 2022

Luke 6:17-26

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Oftentimes in scripture the locations and landscapes are important. Sometimes they offer important context. Sometimes they even have a spiritual significance to them. And so when a gospel writer mentions a placename or a feature of the landscape, it is a good idea to pay attention. It could be a clue to the meaning of a given passage.

Today we hear St. Luke drop one such clue for us. He tells us that Jesus “stood on a level place.” Unlike the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, which has Jesus at a higher elevation to bring a word from God just like Moses did, here on a different occasion Luke specifically tells us Jesus stood on a level place as he healed and preached. He wasn’t any higher than anyone else. He wasn’t higher up than the disciples. He wasn’t higher up than the sick people who came from throughout the region to be healed by him. He wasn’t even higher up than the unclean Gentiles who had come to see him all the way from Tyre and Sidon. Now, of course Jesus is the Son of God, and so he has a higher authority than any of them. He is literally their higher power! But even so, Jesus met them on a level place. It is an odd detail to include, unless it means something – and it certainly does! Luke loves to tell the story of Jesus in such a way that he is meeting us in the nitty gritty of human life. Luke tells us Jesus was laid in a manger as a newborn, among livestock and shepherds. Now he tells us about how Jesus healed and preached while standing at a level place, meeting people at their level. Jesus doesn’t give them a hill to ascend or steps to climb. He meets them where they are.

Jesus standing at a level place offers us a clue by which to interpret what comes next. Jesus looks at his disciples and says, “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, exclude, revile, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice 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.”

Jesus was meeting his disciples, as well as the crowd that had come to see him, where they were. These were the poor. They were poor economically. Peter and his fellow fishermen had just walked away from the biggest catch of fish they had ever seen in order to follow Jesus! It was an enormous financial sacrifice! These crowds were full of people who were poor in just about every other way too – poor in health, poor in spirit, poor in credentials. These were common sinners and pagan Gentiles, people who had no spiritual status whatsoever. These were people who were hungry and hurting. These were people who would be hated because of their faith in Jesus. Jesus met them at their level and said to them, “Blessed are you, blessed are you, blessed are you.”

Jesus was not giving them steps to climb up in order to reach him. He wasn’t given them a to-do list. He was not saying, “You must make yourself poor and hungry in order to get a blessing from God.” Jesus wasn’t encouraging people to become miserable in order to get into the Kingdom of God. Remember, Jesus spent much of his ministry alleviating misery! (And as the Body of Christ in the world today, so should we!) No, Jesus was simply meeting people where they already were. He was meeting them at their level. If they weren’t experiencing these difficulties already, they would be soon enough.

And by saying that people in these circumstances are blessed, Jesus was not glorifying poverty or pain. He wasn’t putting lipstick on a pig. Jesus was referring to what Philip Yancey described as one of the great mysteries of human existence, which is that those who have been cracked open by life have an innate advantage when it comes to receiving blessings from God. It is when you are needy or mourning or rejected that you are primed to be open to God and his blessings.

I have experienced this quite a bit in the last three months since my mother died. (I want to add here that in those three months, four members of our church have also lost their mothers. I’m not the only one.) There have been times over these past three months when I have been powerless over my emotions. It has made me vulnerable at times and places I didn’t really want to be vulnerable. For instance, I wept in front of the nice lady at the bank who was helping me with some of my mother’s financial affairs. I wept just last week when the first two questions out of my new doctor’s mouth were, “Are both your parents still living” followed by, “How did she die?” I even did some ugly crying here during the announcements a couple times.

But do you know what happened after each time I came undone? Each time I lost control I was blessed. The bank lady took me into her office and consoled me. My doctor gave me wise and compassionate care. You have all been so kind and supportive and patient. One Sunday when I lost it up here, the next thing I knew Pastor David Lura was right beside me asking what he could do to help me. It took being broken by grief to see just how surrounded I am by blessings, even from strangers. It is in our weakness and helplessness and dependence that we are opened up to blessings.

This is how it works in our relationship with God. It is often the case that before we can receive the blessings God has for us, we need to be brought to a position of dire need. This is why Jesus is so devastating with his woes to those who are presently rich and full and laughing and popular. It isn’t that they will be forever excluded from the kingdom. It isn’t that they won’t ever receive blessings from Jesus. It is just that when you are comfortable and in control and outwardly self-sufficient, you just don’t see a need for it.  You remain closed off. There’s no way for those deeper spiritual blessings from God to come in.

If you are comfortable and full and happy and well-liked today, you can probably think back to a time when you weren’t, a time when life brought you to your knees. If you can’t, don’t go looking for trouble. That is not the point of Jesus’ sermon today. Don’t go seek out hardship in order to get these blessings. Jesus doesn’t want you to be poor or poor in spirt. He doesn’t want you to be hungry or hurting or hated.

But hardship will find you eventually. And when it does, our Lord Jesus will meet you there. He won’t be looking down at you from on high, from a distance, but will instead meet you at your level to bring you the blessings of his kingdom. He will meet you where you are to fill you up with hope and peace. He will bring you his promises right in the nitty gritty of this world of sin and death, assuring you that on day of resurrection, you will laugh at everything that currently makes you weep.

Even now our Lord Jesus meets us where we are, giving us his promises. Even today he meets us at our level, giving us his Body and Blood.

It is through the cracks in our hearts that he enters in, saying, “Blessed are you, blessed are you.”

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church