February 17, 2019 – Luke 6:17-26
Luke 6:17-26
Bless You
6th Sunday after Epiphany – February 17, 2019
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Jesus has been busy since we last saw him a week ago calling some disciples to help him!
He’s been healing and teaching and getting into trouble –
hey, that’s his M.O. – that’s how he rolls.
But it’s tiring!
And so, in one of his periodic retreats, he goes up a mountain with his disciples to pray.
On the mountain, he chooses from among his disciples 12 apostles, or “sent ones,”
who will be particularly significant in leading his ministry after he dies and is raised.
Then they all come down the mountain the next day to keep on working.
They come down, Luke says, to a “level place,” a “pedinos” in Greek.
Now this is an unusual word for Luke to use.
It occurs only here in all of the New Testament.
But – and here’s the thing – it is a very important word in the Old Testament.
Translated either “level place” or “plain” or “valley” the level place in the Old Testament
is often a place of death and desolation and chaos and destruction.
From many examples I could pick there is one that is very well known to all of you:
Ezekiel’s “valley of the dry bones.”
It is, literally, the “level place” of the dry bones.
The level places, or plains, were often where military battles were fought.
And this is what Ezekiel has a vision of – a battle field strewn with corpses.
The level place is a place of defeat and death in the biblical imagination.
It a place often filled with corpses, a ravaged countryside, and survivors who are
battle-scarred and weary of struggle.
It is a place of hopelessness.
So you have to believe, that when Luke sends Jesus down the mountain to the level place
to preach his most famous sermon, he is sending him there for a purpose:
he’s sending him there to bring the good news, the gospel,
to a place and a people that really need it.
Unlike Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mountain,” Luke has Jesus come down the mountain and
communicate the good news in the level place: the place of death, and misery,
and hopelessness.
Just as Ezekiel speaks spirit-filled words to the dry bones and causes them to live,
just so Jesus speaks spirit-filled words to those in the level place and brings them life.
The people Jesus finds in the level place he comes to are from all over:
good Jewish folks from Judea and Jerusalem to be sure – but also
lots of non-Jewish Gentile folks from Tyre and Sidon.
Apparently, in Luke’s reckoning, the good news Jesus brings is for everyone.
And all of them are in the same boat: they are sick and they are troubled,
which is after all just as we would expect:
they are people of the pedinos, the level place, the place of death.
But they are the ones to whom Jesus comes.
And so he and the disciples and the newly-minted apostles get to work,
and through them every single person is healed and brought to life again.
Every. Single. One.
Power came out of him, writes Luke, and healed all of them.
And then he tells them what’s going on in some very famous words:
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.
Remember: these are words for the people who live in the level places,
the places of death and defeat.
And we wonder: how can they possibly be called blessed?
Is Jesus saying to them: don’t worry?
Put up with your misery and one day you’ll have your reward in heaven?
I don’t think so: because he and his disciples have just done everything in their power to
alleviate all of their suffering – it was a miracle but it was a lot of work.
To be “blessed,” rather, means to be valuable, to be esteemed.
So probably a more accurate translation of this would read:
You who are poor in the level places of life are valued by God,
for you are a priority in God’s reign of mercy and justice
which is beginning through the work of me and my disciples.
You who are hungry in the level places of life are esteemed by God
for God will fill you with good food.
You who weep are loved by God deeply and one day you will laugh again.
In this sermon, Jesus is simply stating a fact:
the poor, the hungry, the weeping are a priority for God.
The people who live in the level places of life, the people in the places of death,
are particularly precious to God.
And God is going to do something about it.
God is going to bring life to the valley of dry, dead bones.
Because that is the way God rolls.
And God is going to do it through Jesus and his followers.
Yes: perhaps the wealthy and the full hear this as a “woe” or bad news.
Yes: we know Jesus has come to ensure fairness and equity in the distribution of God’s gifts.
But Jesus hopes for the rich to empty themselves for the sake of the poor,
as Luke depicts Zacchaeus a little later on.
Well, let’s face it: you know what the level place is like.
Some of you literally know what battle-fields are like.
And all of you know what metaphorical battle-fields are like.
You know what the place of no hope looks like and feels like.
You know what the place of death, and illness, and chaos is like.
It is you whom Jesus addresses this morning: blessed are you, he says.
You are valued. You are esteemed. Your situation has not gone unnoticed by God.
And God will do something about it.
You will live again.
You will hope again.
Your dry old dead bones will be filled with life.
And the plain will once again become a place of life.
Once you have had that experience, you can never be the same.
After that day, Jesus’ disciples were never the same.
They wanted more than anything to be part of the movement that brought life to dry dead bones.
They would go in Jesus’ stead to the level places and bring life on his behalf.
They would heal, they would feed, they would console.
They would bring comfort, they would bring food, they would bring laughter.
They would all become “sent ones,” or apostles.
Just. Like. You.
Just like you they would sometimes doubt what they had heard.
Just like you they would sometimes doubt what they had experienced.
Just like you it seemed like the final word was the word of the authorities,
the word of death, the word of crucifixion.
Because it does seem sometimes that the tomb is the place that has the final word.
But in God’s scheme the level place of the tomb – the place of failure and
Chaos and humiliation and death – is also precisely the place of resurrection.
That’s the place where God comes.
That’s the place that is beloved and blessed by God.
That is the place where dry bones live again.
Yes: your life is sometimes the level place.
But that place is considered a blessed place by God.
It is a place valued by God and esteemed by God.
Your life has a place in God’s realm, in God’s reign of mercy-giving and manna-sharing.
Just so: Sargent and Victor is a place that is often the level place.
Yes: of course it is.
And that is why we at First Lutheran Church love being here.
Because it is a place beloved by God and blessed to God.
We know this.
It is place in which God wants to be present.
It is a place God wants to bring to life.
So bless you for being here – bless you for being here this morning.
Thank you for being here this morning, and for blessing this place with your presence.
Thank you for bringing the blessing of God to this level place with your hospitality, your work,
your kindness, your graciousness, your food, your acceptance, your money.
Thank you.
It is a privilege to be a disciple of Jesus here, in this level place, with you.
It is a privilege to be a person of hope here, in this level place, with you.
For with Jesus, the place of hopelessness becomes the place of hope.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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