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May 30, 2010
The Infinite Reach of Jesus’ Love This gospel passage I just read is from Luke’s version of what is often referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. Most of us are familiar with, at least, parts of the Sermon on the Mount. However, we are most familiar with Matthew’s version, and we seldom refer to Luke’s version. In fact, we know these verses as the Sermon on the Mount because in Matthew we read that Jesus went up on a mountain to preach and teach. Matthew says, “When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain… then he began to teach them…” (what follows are his teachings known as the Sermon on the Mount).
But in Luke’s gospel it is
different! Where in
Matthew’s gospel Jesus is situated on a
“mountain”; in Luke Jesus is
situated on a “level place.”
Luke introduces Jesus’ sermon/teachings with these words,
“He came down (the mountain) and stood on a
level place and taught them…”
In Luke it is not the
Sermon on the Mount, but the
Sermon from the Level Place.
I admit it doesn’t have the same “ring” to it, but nevertheless that’s what
it is.
Why the difference?
Why even care that
it is different? I’ll tell you
why! It shows that the gospel
authors, writing decades after Jesus each shaped and crafted their
portrait of Jesus in a specific way.
What we have in the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are
four portraits of Jesus, each one unique; each one distinct;
each portrait bearing the marks of
what Jesus had come to mean for their individual faith communities.
Matthew has Jesus going up on a
mountain because Matthew and his faith community experienced Jesus as a
kind of new Moses.
For Matthew’s faith community, being primarily Jewish, it would have
conjured up a powerful image of Moses going up on the mountain of Sinai to
receive from God the Ten Commandments. In
Matthew, Jesus is portrayed as a new Moses bringing a powerful message to
the people.
But
not so in Luke. Luke has
Jesus teaching from a
“level place.”
Luke’s Jesus is not a new Moses, but rather the announcer and the
bringer of Jubilee.
What is Jubilee? In
Luke 4, two chapters before this, Jesus comes to his home town of Nazareth.
He worshipped in the synagogue.
He stood up to read from the prophets (as was the custom in synagogue
worship), and he read a passage from Isaiah that described the
“year
of the Lord’s favor” or
Jubilee Year as it was called.
At the conclusion of his reading he rolled up the scroll, and then he
shocked the daylights out of them when he said,
“Today this scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing.”
Much of the history of the Israelites in the centuries before and leading up
to Jesus was characterized by systemic economic exploitation of the wealthy
over the poor. The system was
stacked in favor of the wealthy elites so that 2/3 of the wealth ended up in
the hands of wealthiest 1% or 2% of the population.
A common strategy employed by the wealthy elites was to extend
loans to the poor, and look for an opportunity to foreclose.
They would take the property and lease it back to the same
people – in effect creating a form of indentured servitude that deepened the
cycle of poverty.
The JUBILEE YEAR was intended to be a God-sanctioned leveling
of the playing field every 5th decade.
It was intended to erase and level all the injustices that had
crept into their society over a five decade period.
Luke’s Jesus clearly announced, from a level place,
that his life and ministry was about
the values of Jubilee.
Luke’s Jesus embodies Jubilee and Luke’s gospel is a call and an invitation
for the persons and communities that name themselves after him and follow
him to be Jubilee people.
This is the crucial
backdrop to everything Jesus says and does in Luke’s gospel.
If we don’t understand that we
miss much of the meaning and power of Luke’s gospel message.
The words of Jesus’
Sermon from a Level Place and everything else he says and does in Luke’s
gospel are his proclamation, description and embodiment of
Jubilee.
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?
If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to
you? If you lend to those from
whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you?
Love your enemies… lend and expect nothing in return… do not
judge… do not condemn…
forgive and you will be forgiven… give and it will be given to you…” Our culture talks much about love, and we speak of love as the
ultimate human value – that which makes us distinctly human.
But we also live by a code of acceptable love; that is
we define what kind of love is personally, socially, culturally, politically
and economically acceptable and permissible.
In other word’s we put limits on love. We say love only goes
so far and then it permissible for it to stop.
For brevity’s sake, I will describe the ways of loving into three
general categories or spheres. First, there is love
for equals. This kind of
loving constitutes the majority of our experience of loving.
This includes love for family
members; love of a spouse; the love between lovers; the love of parents and
grandparents for their children and grandchildren; sibling love; the love of
friendship; the love of co-workers.
This is to love those who are appealing, familiar and acceptable –
love of equals. We live within
this sphere of love almost all the time.
My love for my spouse and son is this kind of love; my love for our
grandson is this kind of love; my love for this congregation is this kind of
love; my love for my friends is this kind of love.
It is a warm and wonderful love. Second, there is love for the
less fortunate.
This is love for those in need: the poor, the sick, the lonely, the
suffering, the unlovely, the excluded, the rejected, the ignored, the
outcast, the forgotten. We have a
name for this kind of love – it is called
compassion.
Much of Jesus’ ministry was devoted to compassion.
Jubilee people are called to compassion – Jesus leads us on the road
of compassion. Another part
of compassion is to work for social justice.
The love of social justice is to address systemic causes for
suffering and oppression, even to the point of personally acknowledging and
changing when may discover that we are a part of the systemic causes – or to
become advocates for others. Great diversity exists as to how far to push
out the boundaries in this sphere of loving.
Third, there is love for the
more fortunate. This
is to love those who succeed where we fail; the defeated’s love for the
victor; to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice; to love those who
have what we do not have but wish we had.
Some would say this kind of love is rare.
I don’t know, but I do know it almost always takes us by surprise and
amazes us when we see it or experience it. But there is one more kind of love; one more sphere of love
that overlaps all the
others. I call it Jubilee love.
This is a kind of love that Jesus, as the bringer of Jubilee mentors
us in. Jubilee love is to love past
our boundaries; to love past the limits we set on all the forms of love. It
is to love at a level of loving that perhaps we have never loved before.
For example: When we are wounded or hurt by another, the
Jubilee love of Jesus leads us
past our pain, fear and resentment to forgive the offender.
Forgiveness is a unique and powerful kind of love.
It is more for the victim than the offender.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean staying in an abusive relationship or
minimizing the offense committed against you.
But forgiveness empowers a letting go of the pain, resentment and
fear that came as a result of the offense that can control your life and
shape your attitudes towards others. Forgiveness
is a releasing of the toxic powers that came as a result of the wound.
Jubilee love
leads us past the boundary of an unwillingness to forgive ourselves for long
standing regrets, shame or guilt that
can still shape, control and haunt us in the present.
Jubilee love
leads us past the formidable boundary of our labeling
– those times when we don’t see a real face/person but only a
label: of race, ethnicity,
political affiliation, gender, sexual orientation, religion, country of
origin, economic class – our list of
labels is almost endless and always dehumanizes others.
Jubilee love
leads us past the boundary of our own indifference and apathy.
This boundary is like rubber in that it bounces us away from needs of
others and back toward self-indulgence.
Jubilee love
can lead us past the boundary of an unwillingness to become informed and
educated about a whole host and range of systemic issues that lead to
various injustices, the suffering of millions and the degradation of the
environment. Becoming educated
and informed can lead to new understandings, a change of attitude and even
into advocacy.
Jubilee love
can give us the courage and resolve to abandon popular myths that we often
live by: that violence can overcome violence;
that deceit can overcome deceit; that
coercion can overcome coercion; that
fear can overcome fear.
Jubilee love
can even take us past what is perhaps the ultimate boundary – love
for the enemy; love for the one who does not love you but mocks and
threatens you. If nothing else, Jubilee love can still empower you to see
the humanity in your enemy and adversary.
This is the Jubilee love of Jesus.
Jesus was a human being who lived a Spirit-filled life in which a new
human consciousness appeared – a new consciousness that we are invited into;
a consciousness that was so whole, so
free and so loving that he transcended the limits of love that we
insist on setting that reduces our humanity.
Every human boundary and limit faded in front of Jesus – even that
of loving the enemy and the threat of death.
The path he walked and invites us into is a doorway to God and a
path to fuller humanity. Amen. |
josephholubsermons