Above us and before us

So many of us know about the Sermon on the Mount.

There are pictures of it hanging in bible school.

Jesus is teaching in that picture, surrounded by so many and he is standing upon a hill so that everyone can hear and see him.

The Sermon on the Mount is even famous enough to where Monty Python parodied the event in their movie, “The Life of Brian”.

The scene opens with Jesus preaching and he says an approximation of the sermon as follows,

How blest are those who know their need of God. How blest are the sorrowful. They shall find consolation. How blest are those of gentle spirit. They shall have the earth for their possession. How blest are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail.

Now, the crowds are a bit unsettled in this movie.

They find it hard to hear Jesus, so they begin talking amongst themselves.

Some say they are bored, they cannot hear what he’s saying so they’d rather go to the stoning down the road.

Others try to shush the disruptors.

And they continue to argue.

Jesus says “Blest are the peacemakers,” but the confused crowd thinks he said, “Blest are the cheesemakers.”

Well, it goes on and on with insults tossed about and so forth, but the key here is the Sermon on the Mount is well enough known to be made fun of in popular culture.

Whether that is blasphemy is another argument altogether.

Yet, this morning, we hear something similar to the Sermon on the Mount found in the gospel of Matthew.

Yet, we didn’t read Matthew’s gospel, we read Luke’s.

And, there are some differences between the two.

In Matthew, we are told “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” where in Luke, we read “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

Luke cites Jesus saying, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”

And Matthew writes, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

In Matthew’s account, we are told Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Yet in Luke we read Jesus saying, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”

These difference are important.

They speak of two points of view but also differ in who Jesus is speaking to.

Now, Matthew’s gospel, it is thought was intended for a Jewish community of Jesus followers while Luke and Acts was written with Gentiles who thought of Jesus as Messiah.

Two communities, two points of view.

And while the differences might seem subtle, they are there.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, says Matthew.

Blessed are the poor, full stop, says Luke.

Poor in spirit, those looking for faith, for something more.

The poor.

Those without money.

Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness or rather, hunger for moral virtue, versus blessed are you who hunger.

Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.

Blessed are you who weep for you shall laugh.

Luke is saying, if you are poor, you, specifically in the crowd, are poor, then yours will be the kingdom of God.

If you mourn, you will find elation.

If you hunger, you will eat.

Hear the directness in Luke.

First, Jesus speaks directly to the crowd.

He uses the word you, rather than the more amorphous they or those.

And he doesn’t qualify poverty or hunger, he isn’t talking to people looking for spiritual satiation.

He is talking about physical scarcity, poverty, hunger, weeping and sating it with the riches of heaven, food, and joy.

These differences might mean different things to each of us.

We might favor one sermon over another based on how we perceive and live within our own situations.

Those more comfortable might be looking to solve their spiritual poverty but those without means might find joy in the promise of a heaven directly answering their needs.

Some might prefer the lighter touch of Matthew as compared to the directness of Jesus as portrayed in Luke.

Still, these are differences in terms of magnitude.

Poor in spirit as opposed to poor.

Hunger for righteousness compared to hunger.

Comfort following mournfulness versus laughter after weeping.

We can find which difference speaks to us; we can hew closer to that which we better understand.

Yet, there is another difference, not just in what could seemingly be reduced to semantics but placement.

Notice, the actual placement of Jesus in each gospel is different.

In Matthew, he is on the mount.

He is up there!

We can see him and in Matthew’s gospel, as opposed to the Life of Brian, we can hear him.

And think of all those who went up the mountain in scripture.

Moses received the law from God on Mt. Sinai.

The Ark landed on Mt. Ararat.

The disciples climbed a mountain with Jesus and witnessed him meet Moses and Elijiah.

And besides scripture, I climb tallish hills in part because I feel closer to God when witnessing grand vistas and throughout nature.

Mountains are metaphorically closer to God.

So, it makes sense to see Jesus on that Mount preaching the hopeful word of God.

And yet in Luke, things are different.

Jesus is on a level place.

Rather than the Sermon on the Mount, the Lukan equivalent is called the Sermon on the Plain.

And yet what is the significance of the Plain?

If God speaks to prophets on mountaintops, why the flatlands in Luke?

We read from Jeremiah this morning.

The lectionary cites chapter 17.

And it’s kind of not great.

Cursed are those who trust in mortals, says God through Jeremiah.

They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness and so on.

And even before, earlier in the book, Jeremiah writes in chapters 9 and 14,

Speak! Thus says the Lord:
‘Human corpses shall fall
   like dung upon the open field,
like sheaves behind the reaper,
   and no one shall gather them.’

If I go out into the field,
   look—those killed by the sword!
And if I enter the city,
   look—those sick with famine!
For both prophet and priest ply their trade throughout the land,
   and have no knowledge.

Note that Jeremiah talks about all of this taking place in the context of the open field, a flat place on level ground.

Or we can read from Joel:

The fields are devastated,
   the ground mourns;
for the grain is destroyed,
   the wine dries up,
   the oil fails.

Even the wild animals cry to you
   because the watercourses are dried up,
and fire has devoured
   the pastures of the wilderness.

Nothing good is happening on the Plains in these stories.

The plains are of the ground that mourns, the corpses will fall.

So, why the Plains?

Why is Jesus speaking from the flat lands in Luke?

Well, let’s take a look.

In Luke, Jesus is on level ground and he is amongst the people.

He is with them and it makes sense that he is speaking in terms of you and not they and those.

You who weep shall laugh.

You who hunger shall be fed.

You who are poor shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.

There is no us and them in Luke, there is you and Jesus.

Place yourself in that audience.

Place yourself in the crowd.

Jesus is with you and maybe you cannot see him as well as if he were on a rise, but you can hear him.

And you can hear him talking to you.

Now, you might be thinking, okay that makes sense from a placement perspective.

It makes sense that he is among the people, but throughout scripture we read that the Plains are where destruction occurs.

Where bodies lay, wine dries up, and grain is destroyed.

Why the plain?

Let’s go a bit further.

I’ll remind you 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.
To whom then will you liken God,
   or what likeness compare with him?

Or of Ezekiel:

Then the hand of the Lord was upon me there; and he said to me, Rise up, go out into the valley, and there I will speak with you. So I rose up and went out into the valley; and the glory of the Lord stood there... And the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I had seen in the valley.

The Plains in scripture are a place of deep, deep sadness.

And they are also the place where we too can meet God.

Jesus is on this Plain for the valley has been lifted up and the crowd see him there, face to face just as Ezekiel found the glory of God, the glory of the lord.

In the valleys, atop the mountains, God is with us.

And in this case, we experience the immediacy of Christ’s salvation.

Though you are poor now, at the same time, the kingdom of heaven is yours.

Not someday, you reside in the kingdom with Jesus on the Plain at this moment.

Now.

The kingdom is not yours to inherit, it is yours now.

This is not a matter of someday.

All the destruction, all the pain, we’ve experienced in our lives can be lifted for the kingdom is ours.

There is no probate process we need to tend to before we receive the kingdom, it is ours.

Now.

And we find the kingdom through faith and we see the kingdom before us.

Directly before us because the valleys have been lifted and the mountains made low.

Yes, there are differences in these two sermons, one on the mount and one on the plain.

And how we receive them is up to us.

Which one speaks to us more than the other is a matter of preference perhaps, but that we receive them.

That we chew on them and argue with them and struggle with them and praise them and let them lift us up matters.

And it matters because at the end of it all, I know only this.

Jesus is with us.

And the kingdom is ours.

All of ours.

The kingdom is ours and it stands above us or before us.

The kingdom is ours.

Here it stands.

Amen.