A Level Place

Luke 6:17-26

February 16, 2025

 

            If you remember the 90’s, perhaps you also remember the television show, Mad About You. The two main characters of this show, Jamie and Paul Buchman, were a newly married couple and the show follows them as they navigate marriage, in-laws, friendship, money, the demands of work, losing jobs, changing jobs, infertility and childrearing. In other words, it is a show based on real life issues that couples deal with but with a lot of humor thrown into the mix.

            In one episode, Jamie and her sister Lisa must meet briefly before they head off into the rest of their day. You need to know that Jamie is the organized sister – always prepared, efficient, hard-working, and focused. Lisa is the scatter brained sister – always unprepared, unorganized, follows a whim then abandons that whim to randomly follow another. Jamie is married and working and building her life. Lisa is single, perpetually unemployed, and seems to be drifting without any real goals for the future.

            Anyway, when they meet, they accidentally switch bags. Lisa is on her way for a job interview and Jamie is on her way to meet with a new client. Because this is a sitcom, they both run into mishaps. But because they’ve accidentally switched purses, Lisa is suddenly prepared for mishaps. She gets a run in her stocking; she finds the extra pair Jamie keeps in her purse. It starts to rain; there is an umbrella ready to go in Jamie’s bag. Her hair needs to be brushed; aha there’s a brush and a hair clip in the bag. Everything Lisa could possibly need to make a good impression on a potential employer is in that bag, so she arrives at her interview neat, well-groomed, and organized.

            You can see what’s coming next – Jamie experiences the opposite. Everything she needs to make a good impression on a new client is not in Lisa’s bag. There’s no umbrella, no extra pair of stockings, no hair clip and brush, no nothing that would help her stay organized and prepared. She runs into meet her client looking bedraggled and scatterbrained and just a plain old mess. And this is all because they switched bags without knowing it.

            Of course, this is a sitcom, so the point is to make people laugh and the resolution lies in switching the bags back. But it makes me wonder if what’s hidden in this episode is a good reminder that control is more illusion than reality. Jamie thought she was prepared for everything but losing her bag, even temporarily, changed all that. Lisa getting Jamie’s bag was just random luck, but it changed the course of her day. No matter what we do or how we plan, life has a way of leveling us.

            We have reached the moment in Luke’s gospel where Jesus gives his Sermon on the Plain. To some, this is merely Luke’s version of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. But you may have already noticed that while Matthew gives his beatitudes a more spiritual tone – as in “blessed are the poor in spirit,” – Luke offers no such softening. Luke says outright, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

            And unlike Matthew, who makes the Beatitudes a list of blessings only, Luke also includes a list of woes. If those who are poor are blessed, then woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. If those who are hungry now are blessed, then woe to those who are full now, for you will be hungry. If you are blessed because now you weep, but one day you will laugh, then woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

            In Matthew’s version, Jesus is preaching from the mountaintop. But Luke writes that Jesus has come down from the mountain and is now standing on a level place telling all who would listen that life has a way of leveling us. Jesus was on the mountain choosing his twelve disciples, also naming them apostles. He has been healing and teaching and preaching his way through the countryside, ever since he stood up in his hometown synagogue and proclaimed that he was the fulfillment of the scripture.

            Now he has come down the mountain with his disciples and is standing on this level place. And before him are a great crowd of people, a multitude of folks from all over – from Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. The fact that folks are there from Tyre and Sidon also suggests that Gentiles are in the crowd as well as Jews. These people, Jew or Gentile, had come to be healed of their diseases and freed from their unclean spirits. And his healing was so powerful that it flowed from him. The people longed to touch him, because just touching him would make them well.

            Then, looking at his disciples, he begins to speak his blessings and woes. Maybe he wanted the disciples especially to understand what they had signed up for, what following Jesus really meant. While he directed his gaze at his disciples, he was speaking to the whole crowd. The blessings and the woes were for all to hear. And there is nothing prescriptive in his words. He is not telling people how to act in response to these blessings and woes. Do this. Don’t do that. It’s important to observe that these woes are not curses, they are warnings.

            Does this mean it is better to be poor than rich? No. Jesus was in no way glamorizing poverty. Jesus came to heal, to bless, and to offer abundance. And there is nothing glamorous about poverty or hunger or destitution. It isn’t romantic. It isn’t just a simpler way of life. Extreme poverty, which we see in this country and all over the world, is just that, extreme. It is extreme in its misery, and it is extreme in its consequences. No, Jesus wasn’t saying that it’s better to be poor. Jesus was telling those who were suffering that God was with them, and that they were not forgotten. The kingdom of God turns everything upside down, and what they don’t have now, they will have one day.

            So that must mean that Jesus is saying that to be well off is wrong, to be happy is bad, to be filled with laughter is a curse and an evil? No. Again, Jesus was not cursing those who had more. Jesus was warning them. Life has a way of leveling us. And when we are full, when we can pay the bills and enjoy life, when we have much to laugh about, when we are comfortable, when we are the opposite of suffering, we also can become complacent. That’s when it is far too easy to believe that we have life under control, that we have control. And when we think we are in control, it is far too easy to believe that we don’t need God. Or even if we believe that we do need God, we may not live as though we do. But when we’re struggling, when we must face suffering, our need for God becomes readily apparent.

            Woe to those who have enough now, who laugh now, who seem to have it all together now, because it is far too easy to push God out. It is far too easy to think that we have done it all.

            Are you uncomfortable yet? I know I am. It is hard not to read these words without nervously gulping in response. Because I know right now which side of this I fall on. As I said, ever since Jesus stood up in the synagogue in his hometown, he has been preaching and teaching and healing his way to this moment, as well as revealing his power over nature itself and calling the unlikely and unexpected to follow him. And from the beginning, indeed from Mary’s song that the poor are lifted up and the rich brought low, Luke has made it clear that those who are poor, those who are reviled, those who mourn, those who are condemned as sinners, those who are marginalized, those who are the least of these are the ones that Jesus, and through him God, favors.

            Does that mean that I am not favored by God or loved by God or granted grace and mercy by God? No, but it does mean that I cannot take for granted all that I have, and I cannot believe that what I have comes through my hard work alone. Life can turn on a dime, and life has a way of leveling us. So whether I am on the woe side or the blessed, I cannot take anything for granted. I need God all the time. I have control over so little, even though I like to believe otherwise. The only sure thing, the only steadfast thing is God. Life has a way of leveling us, and Jesus stood on that level place and reminded all who would hear that nothing we create is sure, but God is.

            Many years ago in Oklahoma, I got to know an unhoused man named Mark. I didn’t know his story or his background. I just knew that he was sad most of the time, probably clinically depressed, and I also knew that he was intelligent and kind. He asked to pray with him sometimes, and one time I remember bowing my head and getting a glimpse of his hands folded in prayer. My hands were clean and relatively soft, but his hands were scarred and stiff. There was dirt under his nails, and although I think we were about the same age, his hands looked years older than mine did at the time. I couldn’t get his hands out of my mind. I knew that when he was born, he had tiny soft little hands like I did, like all babies do. I wondered when he was born, did someone hold him lovingly in their arms like I was held? Did someone sing lullabies and read to him, like I was sung to and read to? Why did his life go one way and mine another? Was it because I was loved more or worked harder or just because? If life had gone differently for both of us, would he be praying for me and not the other way around?

            There was nothing glamorous about Mark’s hands. There was nothing romantic or special about the way he lived. But I saw God in his hands. I felt God with us in that prayer. And I knew, for at least a moment, that life has a way of leveling us, and that thinking we can count on ourselves alone is folly. Woe to those who think they don’t need God. Woe to those who think they are in control. Woe to those who forget that life has a way of leveling us. But blessed are those who remember. Jesus wasn’t cursing, he was warning, he was reminding. At every moment we need God, in every circumstance, we need God, in the good and the bad, in the joy and in the sorrow, we need God. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.