A Plain Sermon
We don’t get to hear these readings very often, which is a
great shame. We do this year because Easter
is so late we get a few extra weeks before Ash Wednesday.
Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” is a great piece of teaching,
and stands in contrast to Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount.” The setting is
important – not a mountain top but a plain. Biblically plains are both places of
corpses, disgrace, suffering, misery, hunger and mourning[1];
and places of renewal and hope as promised in Isaiah and Ezekiel. Jesus stands
on this plain in the midst of broken people; poor, sick, hungry, shamed. To these
Jesus repeats his message from his home town, the message proclaimed by his
mother. He declares these people blessed, honoured, of great importance. And he
warns those whose comfort, wealth and sense of entitlement is built on their
poverty, the ones usually seen as blessed, to change their ways.
Luke is writing to the supposedly wealthy Theophilus to tell the
story of how the reign of God is present in this Jesus who is both the means by
which this reign takes root, and the one who teaches how to live by the values
of this Reign. How did Theophilus respond to this stark teaching and warning?
How do we see ourselves and respond?
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