Third Sunday before Lent
February 16th 2025
Sermon on the Plain
Corrine de Klerk
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
I will be concentrating on our Gospel reading from Luke today. Jesus had already been doing Kingdom work: some healing, casting out of demons, he had told the Pharisees that the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath and he had chosen the 12. Now he was surrounded by people and power was coming out from him.
Most of us are more familiar with the similar account in the gospel of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount. Luke’s telling is known as the Sermon on the Plain. Scholars love to debate whether these two accounts in different gospels were takes on the same event. I do not think so, I believe Jesus had some themes in his teaching and as he travelled around, he spoke on these themes. There are differences between the Sermon on the mount and the Sermon on the plain.
This sermon in Luke is shorter. Four blessings and four woes, as opposed to 9 blessings. Jesus in Luke is also talking very factually – the poor, the hungry, where Matthew seems to be inclined to make a more spiritual point – the poor in spirit, hunger and thirst for righteousness. Both have people coming from all over, to be healed and to hear Jesus speak. Luke seems to want to put Jesus more in the middle of us all, where Matthew probably drew on Moses imagery for his audience. Matthew portrays Jesus as holy; Luke portrays Jesus as the Son of man, emphasizing the fact that Jesus was fully one of us.
Luke tells us that Jesus looked up at his disciples as he started teaching the blessings and the woes. This is the groundwork he is laying down for his ministry.
This teaching probably should be the groundwork for our walk with Christ too.
*Blessed are the poor, for the kingdom of heaven is yours
The poor are those without money. The poor are those without power in society. When you have no power, it is hard to rescue yourself and maintain a dignified life. One often needs money to make money If you do not have money to pay the rent, you end up on the street and perhaps having to beg to survive. . If you do not have enough money to buy food, you may not have the strength to work.
In Jesus’ teaching the kingdom of heaven starts here and now. There is no empty promise of only being ok in the afterlife, there is a promise of restoration for now that will continue on. Not because you will win the lottery today, but because you will experience yourself as a beloved child of God. Your dignity and your ability to enter into healthy relationships are found in that identity.
The next blessing also focuses on the essentials for a dignified life. When working as an immigration lawyer, most of my clients did not have money, housing, health insurance, they were not allowed to work, and they lived in fear. Applying for a stay permit with them meant that not only did they regain some hope, they were also recognised as a person, worthy of rights, having dignity. When I closed my practice, one of my older Surinamese clients, this beautiful, dignified lady whose procedure was still running, came and thanked me for seeing her as a person and not treating her as just another undocumented, unwanted individual.
I cried.
The preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’.
Recognition of the inherent dignity of all members of the human family is the basis.
* Blessed are the hungry, they will be filled.
The social makeup of the audience that Jesus had on this plain meant people there probably were actually hungry. In Jesus’ day, being unwell meant you may be unclean and that may have consequences for when and where you could eat. Jesus by healing, restored people to a life of dignity, where they could be who God has made them to be and to have healthy relationships with those around them.
When Jesus said blessed are the hungry, I struggle. When I am hungry, I get hangry. I do not want to hear I am blessed; I want a sandwich. And whereas we know Jesus was able to feed 5000 with a bit of bread and a few fish, here he continues to teach and does not distribute food. However, he assures the crowd: The hungry will be filled. I think it is because people had already been healed, that they understood what being filled without being given food meant. Their dignity was restored. Maybe Jesus is also talking about people who are longing for, are hungry for a society where no one goes hungry. God cares both for our basic needs and that we can enter relationships that allow us to flourish in the here and now of the Kingdom as well as in what is to come.
*Blessed are those who weep now, they will laugh
Weeping here is the opposite of flourishing; we are hurting and neither the pain nor our expression of our suffering is dignified. Klaiontes from Klaio in Greek means cry, wail, lament, any loud expression of pain or sorrow. This is from the heart, the kind of crying that happens when we lose someone who matters to us, when our hopes are stamped out, when relationships seem to have come to an end. Jesus is offering hope and the restoration of relationships when we weep.
*Blessed are those who are hated for Jesus’ sake, equally if you are reviled, excluded, defamed, their reward is great in heaven. After all, this is what happened to the prophets.
Jesus does not promise us an easy walk with him, but one that is rewarded richly. It is easy to see how first century Christians hung on to this promise. The early church received more than its fair share of persecution, with Christians being tortured to death in all the ways the Romans could think of. We often do not understand the why of deep suffering and maybe we just can’t.
Jesus spoke of poverty and hunger, tears and suffering. And he promised that there was hope of restoration. Life without hope is mere survival. And Jesus’ message to this audience of people from far and wide, was that there was hope. And healing. And restoration. And thriving. And dignity. Both in the here and now and in the to come. This hope can make the difference when faced with deep suffering.
This teaching probably should be the groundwork for our walk with Christ too.
Luke continues with the other side of the coin, the woes:
· Woe to the rich, they have all they will get
· Woe to the full, they will be hungry
· Woe to those who laugh now, they will mourn and weep
· Woe to who is spoken well off, because that is what happened to false prophets
The woes speak to the injustice that Jesus’ audience was living. The woes remind us that there is accountability in the Kingdom. In first century Palestine, justice and thriving was for the privileged, who often got to or maintained their privileged position at the expense of others. Consider the context: Roman oppression. Religious legalism. Triple taxation – for the Romans, for the Herodians and for the priests. Health care and social security were not public goods. Spiritual, mental, and physical wellbeing were a privilege and not a given.
I dare say our walk as Christians in this country now is less fraught with insecurity. However. We may weep, or be reviled or defamed. Believing in God is not trendy. Being a Christian may mean you make choices that others think are Victorian. Your language may be less colourful, your life choices less exciting. Your church going may get in the way of playing sports with your team. I think of the bishop of Washington who spoke truth – quite gently – to power and was reviled by the president of the United States. She has since received death threats.
Both Psalm 1 and the reading from Jeremiah give indications of where God’s favours rest. He watches over the righteous, he blesses those who trust in Him. In the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus lays out a vision of life that is radically different from the world’s expectations. The blessings and woes teach us that God’s kingdom is not about wealth, power, or popularity—it’s about humility, dependence on God, restoration of dignity, and faithfulness in the face of adversity. Righteousness is a lifestyle. This is our groundwork for our walk with Christ.
Our priorities must align with the priorities of the Kingdom. And as these Kingdom priorities are countercultural and therefore counter intuitive, the only way we can get it right is walking as a disciple with Jesus. As he looked up at the disciples as he started teaching, we must look up to him to continue learning how to live a Kingdom life. I do not know about you, but I have days (weeks?) when I am just not sure what living a Kingdom life means for my choices. And what I find helpful is to consider Luke 6:36 as a possible conclusion to the Sermon on the Plain. Luke 6:36 says “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”.
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”.
Maybe we can start there. Mercy means compassion, kindness. What if for living a Kingdom life it is enough to be merciful, to be kind when we can. To treat everyone we come across regardless of status or ability with dignity and kindness. I think of Henry Nouwen, who asked:
“Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will be many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.”
After all, we may know that each one of us already is so very blessed, as a beloved child of God who Jesus lived and died for. And that when we choose to act with kindness, the Kingdom of God breaks through in the here and now with dignity and love for all.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen