It’s very important to interpret the word of God properly.  Otherwise, what was meant to be God’s word to man can become man’s contorted way of explaining God and his world.  Like the very, very old joke about how cigarette smoking is blessed in scripture because, in some obscure Old Testament text, it supposedly says that Sarah “lit upon a camel.”  Laugh all you want (please!).  But, just a little over a century ago our Baptist forefathers employed a not much better method of interpretation to justify slavery.  In their way of thinking, since the Bible didn’t literally condemn slavery and the apostle Paul actually wrote a letter to Philemon urging him to treat his run-away slave, Onesimus, fairly, scripture implied that one person owning another is morally acceptable.  In 1845, fully sixteen years before the Civil War, the Southern Baptist Convention was born out of split between our northern and southern Baptist brothers and sisters over the issue of slavery fueled in no small part by a man-centered interpretation of scripture not too different than the one that has Abraham’s wife lighting up.  It’s very important that we interpret scripture carefully.

With that in mind, what we should make of Luke’s words that, as a great crowd began to gather to hear him, Jesus “came down with them and stood on a level place”?  We’re very familiar with Jesus’ sermon recorded in Matthew.  On that occasion, Jesus “went up on a mountainside (Matthew 5:1,NIV)” to preach and so we have the “Sermon on the Mount.”  In this case, again, Luke tells us that Jesus “came down with them and stood on a level place.”  Now, we also have the “Sermon on the Plain.”  What should we make of this “level place” Jesus used as a pulpit?

In carefully interpreting scripture, we probably shouldn’t make too much of it.  In some ways, this “level place” is just background.  Like the snow covered branches just outside our kitchen window yesterday.  We refilled the bird feeders because we knew the cold weather was coming and we already feel some responsibility for the red-winged black birds and cardinals that have been entertaining us.  Scarlet-red male cardinals are beautiful enough in their own right. 

With a snow-covered branch as background, like the canvass of a painting, a cardinal looks like flame on wings.  Jesus coming down and standing “on a level place” is not the substance of the sermon.  But, with that as the backdrop, what Jesus is about to say takes on an even more beautiful meaning.  It’s almost metaphorical.  It’s so very much like Jesus, like God, to come and stand on the same level with us.  Isn’t that what makes Jesus’ preaching so powerful?

Listen again to Jesus.  “‘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.  Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.  Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.’” 

In a sense, this isn’t a sermon, if by “sermon” we’re referring to the lecture people resent when they say, “Don’t preach at me!”  Like the little boy who told his mother he wanted to be a preacher when he grew up.  His mom was thrilled and asked, “What made you decide that?”  The little boy said, “Well, if I have to go to church anyway, I’d rather stand up and scream at people than just sit and get yelled at.”  This sermon of Jesus isn’t that kind of sermon. 

This is a sermon in the truly classic sense.  From its Latin roots, “sermon” can mean a conversation that makes a connection.  Jesus is about to engage in a conversation with these people and make a connection between the condition of their lives and what God intends to make of them.  Do you see it?  When Jesus preaches, it’s God making a connection with the real world we live in.  It’s not the preacher standing up high above everyone else, looking down an arrogant nose and pointing a judgmental finger and lecturing us about how far short we’ve fallen, as though he lives in a world different than ours and never stumbled himself.  When Jesus preaches, literally, it’s God in the flesh, coming to stand on our level to speak of a suffering he is personally experiencing, too.  It’s God, “standing on a level place” with us.

We’re taking a walk with Jesus between Christmas and Easter.  Do you remember the places we’ve already visited?  We’ve been with Jesus to the Jordan river for his baptism.  We’ve been to a wedding where he turned water into wine.  We’ve gone with him back to his hometown synagogue where Jesus declared his own unique faith experience to those who had raised him.  We’ve been with Jesus to the edge of a cliff where declaring what he’d discovered about God was about to get him thrown off by those who had seen him grow up.  We’ve gone with him out into the deep water, to learn something about net-working people into his kingdom.  This morning, we’re standing with him on a level place to listen to a sermon.  Better yet, he’s come to stand with us on a level place, to make a connection between what our lives are like right now and what God wants to make of them.  That’s the best kind of preaching.  It’s the kind of preaching you do as much by where you stand as by what you take a stand for.

What an incredible week this has been with the Massachusetts Legislature struggling with whether to rewrite their laws so as to legalize gay marriages.  In San Francisco, the mayor led an effort to allow hundreds of gay couples to marry all the while flying in the face of current laws.  What are we to make of this?  For myself, I believe the Bible teaches that marriage was meant for one woman and one man for life.  Yet, even if you agree with me, we can’t stand as though we’re high and above gays and look down an arrogant nose at them while pointing a judgmental finger their way.  If we’re going to walk with Jesus, shouldn’t we try to stand on their level and engage the conversation about where their lives are now and what God would make of them? 

This is so fundamental.  If we miss this, not much else about the gospel ever makes sense and it will distort our interpretation of all scripture so that we’ll end up with a contorted, man-sized view of God, instead of a God-sized view of man.  Here it is.  In the person of Jesus, God has entered into our human experience with us.  As John recorded in his gospel, God “became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:14, NIV).”  Another way of saying that is that, in Christ, God came and stood on our level with us.

We’re inviting everyone interested to join us on March 6 for the viewing of Mel Gibson’s movie, Passion.  It’s Gibson’s rendition of the last twelve hours of Jesus’ life.  I’ve not seen the movie.  I’m told, however, that it is extremely graphic in its portrayal of the torturous death Jesus suffered on the cross.  The movie’s “R” rating is not for sex or profanity, but for the brutality of Jesus’ suffering and death.  The interesting thing is that some seem strangely bothered that it would be so graphic.  But, what kind of death do you think Jesus suffered?  We’ve beautified it with gold jewelry, adorable paintings and stained-glass art.  There was nothing beautiful about it.  It was a violent death on par with the worst deaths ever suffered.

I’ve just finished reading James Bradley’s Flyboys (Little, Brown and Co., 2003).  Bradley is the son of one of the two survivors of the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima in World War II.  Flyboys is the story of what nine American Navy pilots experienced fighting in the South Pacific.  Eight of them didn’t come home.  The one who did was our former President, George Bush.  In particular, I’ve been deeply touched by the descriptions of what some of those eighteen, nineteen and twenty year-old boys suffered who became prisoners of war.  You can read it for yourself.  It’s too graphic to describe from a setting like this and stretches the limits of believability.  It is truly inconceivable what one human is capable of doing to another.

No one knows that better than God himself.  He stood at a self-imposed distance and watched as his own son, his Griffin, his Cameron, stood on the same level with the worst suffering any human could ever conceive, made all the more brutal because he was innocent of any wrongdoing.  Now, no matter what we suffer, no matter how far down that suffering may ever take us, it will never take us so far down that we won’t be able to find God standing on the same level with us.  In Christ, God “came down” and “stood on a level place” with us.

From that level, from inside the human experience, he said, “‘Blessed are’” the “‘poor’” the “‘hungry,’” those “‘who weep’” and blessed are those whom others “‘hate’” and “‘exclude . . ..’”  Then, he goes on, from inside the divine experience, to make a connection between that suffering and the blessing God has reserved for them.  This is not a moralistic lecture about something these people should be or do.  This is a promise to them in the middle of what they are already living.  This isn’t condemnation; this is light.  This is a candle flickering in the darkest basement in the middle of a Category 5 hurricane when all the lights have gone out.  Look beyond what you’re experiencing now, Jesus is saying, to what God is promising.  Don’t confuse your momentary experience with God’s ultimate purposes for you. 

You can’t preach that kind of a sermon if you’re looking down on people.  You can only preach that kind of sermon when you’re standing on level ground with them.

Leo Buscaglia has written a great deal about love over the years.  He was once asked to judge a contest designed to find the most caring child.  The winner of that particular contest was a four year old whose next-door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.  The little boy saw the old man crying one day, went into his yard, climbed up into his lap and just sat there.  When his mother later asked the little what he had said to the old man, the little boy said, “Nothing, I just helped him cry.” 

Our walk with Jesus takes to the level ground of human suffering where, by example, he teaches this lesson.  There are times when the best sermons are preached as much by where you’re standing as by what you’re standing for.  Jesus came to live inside our poverty, our hunger, our weeping and our loneliness with us so that we would be able to hear him when he told us what God had planned for us because of it.  By where Jesus was standing when he preached, when he suffered, when he died and rose again, he was telling us whose side God is on, even when, especially when, all the lights have gone out.  If we’re going to take a serious walk with Jesus, in this instance, we’re going to have let him inside our true suffering if we’re going to experience his true redemption.  He’s already standing close by.  It won’t be a very long trip for him at all.

This past week, I was trying to pray for my sons but something was standing in the way.  I try to pray for my sons every day.  I pray in different ways at different times.  But, every day, I try to be in the presence of God with their names.  This past week, I couldn’t get the prayer out.  It was short-circuiting.  I just wanted God to take care of them for me.  I wanted him to protect them from temptation they couldn’t handle.  I wanted them to feel safe to come to me if they really needed me.  I wanted God to make himself known to them wherever they were, no matter what they were experiencing.  That’s all I wanted.  But, I couldn’t get the prayer out.  It finally registered with me.  I couldn’t pray because I couldn’t see past my own failings as a parent.  My divorce.  My impatience.  My selfishness.  My insensitivities.  It’s a pretty long list.  You ever made one of those? 

I was already thinking about this text.  “‘Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.’”  Jesus was talking about those, in part, who weep over the depth of their own spiritual poverty, their own inadequacies as parents and spouses and brothers and sisters.  Those who have come face to face with depravity only to realize it was their face staring back at them in the mirror.  Jesus’ sermon, came to life for me.  “Who are you,” it was as if Jesus asked me, “Who are you to only come to me for help with your children when you’ve gotten it all right, said it right, done it right, first?  Who do you think you are?  Who do you think I am?  I can’t help people who don’t first know how much they need my help.  I can only help those who are so aware of their own sin that it has it made them weep in places where only God can see the tears.  Don’t wait until you’ve gotten it right.  Come to me now or you’ll never get it right.  I’ve already come to you.  Why don’t you let me inside your failures with you?”  Suddenly, I was able to pray for my sons.

And, when I got Jesus’ sermon right, this one fell right in place.  These words of Jesus aren’t a lecture about getting to someplace we aren’t already.  They are light for those of us who realize how dark it already is and who want him to show us the way out.

He even said as much.  “‘But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.  Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.  Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.  Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.’” 

You see, this sermon of Jesus is both promising and disturbing at the same time.  To those who are broken and disturbed by their own humanity, and who are willing to own up to it, there is the promise of God.  If we won’t allow our temporary experience distort our faith in God’s ultimate purposes for us, we’ll inherit all the wealth of God’s kingdom.  We will be full instead of hungry.  We’ll even laugh instead of weep.  It’s a pretty full list.  All the things that American consumerism, intellectual arrogance and social prowess promises but have not and cannot deliver will be ours in spades and then some. 

On the other hand, the disturbing part of this sermon lies in the woes.  If we think we’re full because we’ve bought more than we can ever afford and define ourselves as more worthy because we’re worth more, if our bellies are full and we’re drunk with laughter when others are suffering and if we’ve lived so that, no matter what, we’ve made sure that we never made any enemies, in other words, if we’ve lived without ever owning up to how much we need God, well, Jesus says, then life is as good for us right now as it’s ever going to get. 

I have to ask.  You know I have to ask.  If life was never going to be any better for you than it is right now, could you live with that? 

Or, by any chance, would you like to take a walk with Jesus?  He’s already standing on your level.  Would you like to take a step up to his?