Air travel has a way of bringing out the worst in a person. It starts with remote check-in. Long gone are the days when you paid for your ticket, were guaranteed an assigned seat, and could check a piece of luggage for free. Now, remote check-in might require you to pay an extra fee to choose your seat before arriving at the gate.
And then all the social stratification begins. At the time of boarding, the hordes are divvied up at the gate into first class, priority boarding, or some elite club based on the airline. At the time of boarding, the hordes are divvied up at the gate into first class, priority boarding, TSA pre-check, or some elite club based on the airline. Stepping onto the plane itself brings more frustrations. Do you ever feel that those in business class are pitying you as you make your way to the very back of the plane while your shoulder bag smacks people on the aisle seats? Or are you the one in business class?
Being packed into cramped seats in the economy section doesn’t do much to enhance self-esteem. You are handed a tiny packet of nuts if you’re lucky, and anything you might purchase is over-priced. You begin to feel sorry for yourself because you are subjected to such demeaning conditions. Meanwhile, the extra leg room in the front of the plane is enjoyed with some amount of unspoken gloating.
No wonder it’s so easy to begin judging others on the flight. Do you ever find yourself doing this? The person in front of you insists on putting the seat back as far as it will go, slamming your laptop up against your legs. How inconsiderate! The person seated next to you watching that show must be very shallow. And shouldn’t the mask be worn over nose and mouth?
It seems that it all started back before you ever arrived at the airport. From the point of remote check-in, you were already assigned to a social compartment. For the limited duration of your flight, you fume at those with more leg room, and they feel sorry for you as you eat your peanuts while being elbowed by your neighbor.
The superficial social stratification that is intrinsic to modern day plane travel is nothing compared to the vast chasms of inequity and inequality within our society. But being subjected to even minor inconveniences can certainly highlight our predisposition towards knee-jerk judgments, can’t it? And these hasty judgments of others usually belie just how complicated life really is.
It would be easy to make rash judgments of that vast crowd of people addressed by Jesus in the sixth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel. This motley crowd includes locals, as well as foreigners, the diseased and those possessed by unclean spirits. Presumably there are also poor folk, and hungry ones, those in mourning, and others who are judged harshly because they have followed this itinerant Jewish preacher. Many have sought out Jesus because they truly believe that there is some mysterious, potent power in this man from Galilee that enables him to heal and to cure. I imagine there are others who scoff at the supposed displays of power and who want to jeer from the sidelines. Also present are the wealthy, the well-sated, the ones who laugh easily, and those who are well liked.
In Jesus’ blessings and curses, we are prone to see a tidy Western dichotomy. It would be so easy to pit the poor against the rich, the hungry against the full, the ebullient against the mournful, the scorned against the popular. If we’re not careful, we begin judging who should be in what category based on our own shallow assumptions.
Such judgment works both ways. Surely the poor are lacking because of something they have done. Is it their sin? And the hungry? They simply haven’t worked hard enough to earn their keep. The mournful are only lamenting the consequences of their poor choices or the brunt of God’s wrath. As for those who are reviled, what can they expect in return for following this controversial rabbi?
But if you have a soft spot for the downtrodden—the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, and the scorned—the woes are particularly delicious, aren’t they? Like the downfall of the bad guy in a movie, we delight in seeing the rich get their comeuppance. We love St. Luke’s great reversals, where those who are hungry will be sent empty away. Laughter will not last forever, right? And the popular ones are no different from those phony prophets of old.
It’s the same in our polarized society. Those on the mountain can so easily rail at those below, equating their misfortune with a failure in personal responsibility or with a deserved judgment from God. And those in the valley wait impatiently for the day of vindication when the prosperity gospel is shown to be a fraud. We live in stark categories that pit us against one another: the poor versus the rich, the powerful versus the weak, the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated, the privileged versus the destitute, Republican versus Democrat, the religious against the secular, the well-educated versus the uneducated.
It would be so easy to valorize one side. Voluntary poverty or hunger is the way to heaven. And those who suffer in this life are de facto blessed because of their low estate. Those who are living well here below are mere hedonists who will pay on judgment day. We are either on top of the mountain or in the valley. Where else can we be?
Is it any surprise, then, that for so many, Jesus can only be in one but not both of those places at the same time? It all depends on whose side he’s on. As Lord, he reigns from the mountain, the triumphant friend of those who have done well and received their reward. As Savior, he is with the downtrodden in the valley, shaking his fist at the oppressors above. Jesus becomes the judge that either group wishes him to be, inherently opposed to the other side.
And this easily morphs into pie-in-the-sky religion. Heaven is the escape from earthly suffering, and hell is the just reward of those who have had too much of a good thing.
But this is not the vision St. Luke gives us. St. Matthew’s Beatitudes may be delivered by Jesus on a mountaintop, but in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is neither on the mountain or in the valley. He is on a level place when he announces the blessings and curses. Jesus stands, not in the place of easy equalities and simplistic assumptions but on the even plain teeming with earthly complexities.
On this plain, Jesus knows that there is no simple causal relationship between misfortune and sin. People are more nuanced than they seem on the surface. Here, inexplicably, bad things do happen to good people and good things to bad people. Here, the gospel makes no easy promises of good fortune, but neither are the poor and hungry automatically placed in heaven. Here, people of all nations come for healing and are cured. Here, the extraordinary power of the gospel is made available to all, knowing no boundaries.
On this level plain, God’s justice asserts itself not with brute force but with truth. Jesus, as Savior, is released from the vicious cycle of human judgment that is only rooted in vindictiveness. Here, the haves and the have-nots find their common ground in mutual poverty, even if of different sorts. On this plain, rich and poor, hungry and full are fed at the same Table with the same Bread and Wine.
On this level plain, Jesus stands as the one who comes to save all of humanity, the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, the weak and the strong, the hungry and the full, the popular and the unloved. Here, Jesus stands not as judge looking down from the mountain condescendingly to condemn. Instead, rooted among us in all our complexity and sin, he looks up at us with love and compassion.
Our Lord is calling you and me to stand with him on that level plain, to bring all our sorrows and joys and all our complicated humanity. He is calling us, the Church, to testify that on this level plain, all can find healing. On this plain, all nations, tribes, and races meet to learn that, in some way, they are all poor. When everything else threatens to divide us, our common poverty brings us together.
Here, on this plain Jesus has come down to meet us, just as we are. He rules as Savior and Lord not from above but on the ground with us. And he looks at us, not with condemnation from on high, but up at us with a judgment that heals. And he tells us that there is only one assumption we can make: on the level plain, we are loved by him.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 13, 2022