With Them On A Level Place
“With Them On A Level Place”
Jeremiah 17:5-10 Luke 6:17-26
Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, Year C February 13, 2022
First Presbyterian Church, Sandpoint, Idaho
Andy Kennaly, Pastor
In trials and triumphs, we learn what it means to be fully human as a spiritual being. Life involves a balance between dignity and humility, of the low lifted up and the proud brought down. Even in our own lives we see this wrestling between our rational, mental structures, our mind and ego, and the heart which opens into spaciousness and spiritual depth. Like Jeremiah shares, “Thus says the LORD: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the LORD. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes.” In other words, translate mere flesh as ego limitations. If we are a product of our own thoughts, we are limited, even diminished, like a parched bush no help in sight. It’s because the heart is turned away that desert imagery resonates and relief isn’t recognized. But if we cultivate our heart and don’t turn our heart away then it’s transformed into an organ of spiritual perception, and can receive what it is that sustains us through all things. There is balance and unity intended for a renewed mind and transformed heart, and this leads to blessing for not only “those who trust in the LORD,” but for those “whose trust is the LORD.”
Did you pick up on that quality in Jeremiah? There trust is in the LORD and their trust is the LORD. God is not an object. God is. This is similar to how love is not a noun, but Love is a verb. Not a static thing which can be measured, only an action that has no beginning or end. This love as divine Presence removes fear, anxiety, and heals us from our own devious delusions.
This is the blessing Jesus experiences as he’s moved by the Spirit in the desert; comes into his own as someone well grounded and yet not attached to a rigid identity as he teaches in Nazareth and surrounding villages; and is open to the flow of radiant life as he shares with the crowds on a level place. In Luke we see Jesus embody Christ’s unitive consciousness, even as he is surrounded by the dualistic splits and barriers of either/or separations that we settle for in our world. We see this right off in verse 17, which is more than introductory. This verse does a great job of setting the tone and context not only in terms of geography and culture, but phenomenologically, in terms of our experience of life.
Jesus “came down with them and stood on a level place.” Isn’t that amazing imagery? Jesus standing, the full stature of a human being, who earlier was described as growing in wisdom and stature, and here he is, standing with a great crowd around him. He “came down,” which is partly because he’d spent the night on a mountain in prayer and in the morning called his disciples and chose the twelve. He “came down with them” and they all stood together. “Came down” can also be symbolic, a visual image of humility, reminding us of John’s gospel about the Cosmic Christ, the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among them. This is Jesus, the Christ, and this Jesus, along with his disciples have humbled themselves, responding to God’s call to be “with them.”
“On a level place.” Verse 17 starts with an amazing promise, a heavenly vision: the twelve recently handpicked disciples and Jesus, along with a great crowd of other disciples and a great multitude of people…so far, still rather heavenly. “He came down with them” because Jesus is with them, not in a compassionate way, like he has pity for the little people, but in a solidarity way. Jesus is “with them” because Jesus is part of the poor multitude. These are his people. Jesus is not a wealthy class, a political elite, a priestly power with prestige in the Temple. Jesus is working class, a peasant, someone who is considered in that society as a nobody, and he’s surrounded by the nobodies. Rome doesn’t care about them, for they are, as Rohr calls them, “expendable.” (https://cac.org/no-one-is-expendable-2022-01-26/, by Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, a daily online meditation). Jesus shows us that in Christ, no one is expendable. Everyone and everything belong.
Then we hit the speed bumps, the potholes; jarring realities we face in the world as distinctions come into view. The great crowd is “from all Judea (yes!), Jerusalem (yes!), and the coast of Tyre and Sidon (what? No! How could they!) But yes, in Luke we see healthy religion doing its job, like ligaments that knit bones together. The culture war of wealthy coastal people of Tyre and Sidon, who charged the inland peasant Jewish farmers high rates to get their crops out of those port cities, is overcome. The rigid religious, economic, and political distinctions of these groups fall away and they’re all together, on a level place. This is an inclusive vision, justice and healing shared by renewed minds and transformed hearts, in Christ.
Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place. “Power came out from him and healed all of them.” In Christ, humanity has capacity to rise above inequality and injustice, but not in the same mentality that creates these. The poor peasant farmers and the wealthy port city folks. They all come, and Jesus shares blessings and woes because these people, and us, need both. The elite need humility, to wake up from selfish delusions. The poor need to awaken to their inherent dignity. Like that crowd where “all in the crowd were trying to touch him,” we know there is a spiritual necessity for real transformation to occur, and this is needed in everyone’s individual lives and as a species in our shared humanity.
We hear someone like Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, thank “the workers for paying for this flight into space,” at the news conference right after his Blue Origin spacecraft flight last summer. This richest man on Earth left the planet, he left all those workers in their warehouses. Those same workers that in the early pandemic he forced to work without PPE, protection, even as he aggressively lobbies the government to not require paid sick leave. Or a few months after his spaceflight, Amazon workers told to stay in the warehouse and work, or they would lose their job, all in the midst of a PR campaign that promotes how well Amazon treats their workers. Well, six of those workers in Illinois died from a tornado that smashed part of their building, and they knew it was coming but they were coerced by those in power. They paid for his flight in more ways than one, as we all do because as stark as injustice is, it is also an indication that we are united.
Jesus mentions what “ancestors did to the prophets” and “false prophets.” He declares that a prophetic life does involve suffering, but it is transformed into joy. Those who deceive themselves and do not suffer are false prophets and they will be hungry, mourn, and weep. No one is exempt from the fullness of life’s lessons. Whatever context we’re in, like Jeremiah reminds us, “I the LORD test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.”
This is not all doom and gloom; this is not God writing off some and accepting others. Inclusiveness, equality, love’s unconditional covenant, these are all part of God helping humanity wake up, clean up, and grow up. We are all in this together, and even those who leave the planet can’t be gone for long.
May we continue to grow into a healthy Planetization. Even as Jesus and the crowds were gathered on a level place, it was the Earth that held them all. We have much to learn, wounds to heal, and divine power to trust. May God help us receive Christ’s transformative gift, now, even as forever. Amen.