One of the first things we’ve noticed about Christchurch is that it is flat!
I’ve spent much of my life around hills and even in the shadow of mountains. Whether it’s the rolling hills of Southland, the bush-clad flanks of Mount Cargill, or the limestone and bluestone pimpled downs of Oamaru and Timaru.
Hills and mountains present challenges, whether you’re going for a walk or building a house, hills are something we have to work around.
In the imagination of scripture, God’s space was up there in the heavens and our space down here on the ground. Hills, and mountains were often seen as being closer to God’s presence ‘up there’. Something of this still lingers in our reality, many trampers and mountaineers speak of a sense of majesty and awe in the mountains and the perspective being in them brings to life.
Scripture uses this theme of hills and mountains as difficult places to inhabit to illustrate our difficulty as humans in maintaining our true calling as images of God.
We seem to have this inbuilt compass that points us up, but we also have this tendency to have misplaced ideas about what lies at the top.
We talk about climbing ladders, the corporate ladder, the social ladder, the economic ladder. We talk of moving up in the world. These metaphors imply upward mobility at someone else’s expense. Climbing over others, or maybe knocking others down a rung, or even… preventing others from climbing higher.
We’re not entirely sure where the top is but when we get there it’s got to be better than being down there.
This all speaks to the fact that the communities our societies create are not level playing fields, are they? The way we build, the way we organise ourselves, and the things we value, raise some up and bring others down.
Christ comes down to us
All of which doesn’t fit with the intention God has for the world. Following on from Jesus’ sermon at Nazareth, Jesus takes some time to expand on his idea of the Good Life.
In the verses just before our gospel reading, we find Jesus has gone up a mountain to pray. He spends the whole night praying in the darkness. In the morning, he chooses from his group of disciples the twelve apostles, symbolically one for each of the tribes of Israel. Twelve who will commune around God in Christ and witness to God in the world.
Then, picking up our reading in chapter 6:17, he went down with them and stood on a level place.
He stood on a level place.
What follows in our reading, and the verses beyond, is Luke’s take on Matthew’s famous sermon on the Mount.
Because Luke’s version of the sermon is at a ‘level place’ it is often called the sermon on the plain, we’re not completely sure whether they are two different sermons with much the same teaching, occurring in different places or if the level place is a plateau on the mountain where Jesus is.
But the overall direction of travel seems important to Luke. Jesus is coming down the mountain to meet the people
The people who are coming aren’t mountain climbers or seasoned trampers.
They’ve come from far and wide, but they are not likely people who could climb a big hill.
So, Jesus comes to them.
The image of Jesus Luke is trying to sketch for us here has echoes in the life of someone like Princess Diana. In a time when the Monarchy seemed distant and detached, she came down from the palace balcony and walked among the people in a way many hadn’t experienced before.
Her advocacy work looked to give dignity to people society preferred to keep to the margins. She challenged society’s fear and stigma of AIDS at the height of the its epidemic.
People got to see her as a person they could talk to, and get to know. Someone who shared their weakness.
In Jesus, the God of all time, who was never distant or detached, came even closer to humanity. Immersing Godself in our world of weakness and struggle. Becoming as we are so he could carry us into the presence of the God of Love.
On the up…
It is not just that in Jesus, God comes down to us. There is another side to the direction of travel in the image of the level place that Luke is sketching for us. Those who meet Jesus in the Level place can’t help being brought to level themselves.
In a very real way, people who were incapacitated by illness, people who were hounded by dark spiritual forces, were people kept down by their communities. They aren’t on the bottom rungs of the ladder, they’re not even on the ladder. They could not participate or draw close. Jesus here is healing them, liberating them from that which is keeping them as outsiders.
Just in case his disciples have the wrong end of the stick he then turns to them and announces:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. If there is any doubt, Jesus says, all these people belong in the Kingdom of God. They may not make it to your housewarming party guest list, You won’t find them on the podium at the opening of the new stadium when that happens. But Jesus says, they belong in God’s Kingdom and you can see the Kingdom at work because God is levelling them up. Putting their feet on a firm foundation. This is happening now in front of the Disciple’s eyes.
But there is also more to come, we’re not fully there yet.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”
On some level, because of the kingdom of God, because of this community of faith, gathered around Christ, a community of sharing and care, you will not hunger, you will laugh.
But it is also on a deeper level, for Christ will feed the hungry at his table, and wipe away the tears of grief and injustice. The ground on which we stand is not yet level for all people. But there will come a day when it will be.
Illustration City
The different conditions in these blessings are not prerequisites. To receive the blessings of the Kingdom, one does not have to be poor, hungry or a victim. One does not have to take a vow of poverty, But Jesus is describing what this Kingdom is concerned with. What its Kaupapa is, what it stands for, how things will be done.
This is important because if we see them as badges of honour and pathways to holiness, we pursue the condition rather than the outcome God’s kingdom is working for.
Perhaps we can see this in the last blessing: Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
God’s people do face persecution, ridicule and rejection. Throughout history and around the world. But sometimes we’ve also said some really stupid, insensitive things in the name of our faith, caused a lot of hurt, faced a backlash and then validated our position because there has been an expectation of persecution. When really, we should reflect and ask if our message was truly aligned with God’s Kingdom’s values.
Jesus’ point is not to seek to be these things. But that the raising up of those who have been kept low is a Hallmark of the Kingdom and one day will be fully realised.
Bringing low…
The challenge is that it can be hard to look at the world around us and trust Christ’s promise that the ground is being levelled out for everyone. We see the results of the ladder-climbing world all around us. It’s tempting to try out a rung or two or three for ourselves. Just in case.
But after the four blessings, Jesus announces four corresponding woes or warnings. They are the direct opposite of the blessings seemingly singling out those who are trying and move up at the expense of others.
If those who are held down on this end of the seesaw are being brought up, those who have elevated themselves will be on the way down.
There is a strong sense here that Jesus is warning his disciples that what they trust, what they love, what they pursue, determines the shape of their life and who they are becoming.
There’s a Sci-Fi TV series on Apple TV called Dark Matter, about a physicist named Jason who is abducted into an alternate version of his life.
Jason is a nice guy with a good life. In a nutshell, the premise is that at every major decision point in his life when Jason chooses something good and loving, there exists a version of himself in a parallel universe, who made the opposite decision, a version of himself that chose the selfish, self-aggrandising thing.
The show explores how this alternative Jason is unhappy with his life, and so he forces the nice Jason to switch lives with him.
It’s a show that does really bend your mind… but I think the way it explores the idea of what we are becoming is profound.
While it is mainly about the nice Jason trying to get back to his life, we also this alternative Jason, who after switching lives, finds himself unable to enjoy the good life he sees the nice Jason had. He seems incapable of making loving, self-sacrificing choices and the Good Life becomes for him a hellish existence. He is hounded by a darkness in his existence he is powerless to heal.
Be careful, says Jesus, where you invest your life and love. Be careful if you decide the way up is to climb a ladder. For we become like what we love.
If we live resting in the security of material things, relieved that we’ve floated somehow to the top of the pile,
If we live a life of overconsumption and without considering if there is enough to go around,
If we live a life turning a blind eye to injustice with a dismissive “it’s not my problem”
If we live a life of schmoozing for favours, trading our integrity and values for position,
Then when Christ comes to put the world to right, we may find ourselves inconsolable, hungry, and in mourning because the Good Life Jesus offers doesn’t look good to us. We may find ourselves hounded by a spiritual darkness we’re powerless to escape.
Only by coming to Christ, at the level place, can we be liberated from what we have become as a result of our selfishness and sin, and become who we are truly meant to be as images of the Loving God.
Closing
When we accept we cannot ascend ourselves and we meet Jesus in the level place, we all stand in perfect acceptance in the love of God. There we find the blessing of healing, restoration, community and levelling that Jesus is bringing to the world.
Amen.