SAUCIER — In plain sight

In Matthew, Jesus preaches the Beatitudes on the side of a mountain. In Luke, they’re preached on a plain.

“He went down with them and stood on a level place.”

In Matthew, there are eight Beatitudes. In Luke there are only half that, but then again, in Luke, Jesus was speaking “plainly.”

A poor play on words, but the evangelists were writers, and they played around with words.

 In Luke, the Greek word we translate as plain is pedinos. This term referred to level ground: flat, fertile fields and easy, unencumbered walking.

But the prophets didn’t always see pedinos that way.

In Jeremiah, it is an open field strewn with corpses.

 In Zechariah, it’s a field filled with sadness and weeping, and in Habakkuk, the pedinos produces no food.

Jesus was speaking on the level, not just a geographical space, but a message of honesty and truth, of “this is the way it is.”

Jesus began his Sermon on the Plain by “raising his eyes to his disciples.”

It’s Luke saying, “You guys need to pay attention.”

Then Jesus talks about what it means to live in a broken world that is filled with both suffering and blessing.

“Blessed are you who are poor ... who are now hungry ... who are now weeping ... blessed are you when people hate you.”

In this broken world, Jesus promises healing and deliverance.

The Kingdom of God will belong to the poor. The hungry will be satisfied, and the weeping will laugh. The hated will “rejoice and leap for joy.”

It all sounds a bit “tough it out in this life and you will be rewarded in the next.”

But the Woes that follow Luke’s Beatitudes suggest that this is not how the Kingdom of God is meant to work.

In the corresponding Woes, Jesus warns those who are rich, well-fed, happy, and enjoy the praise and esteem of others.

Another wordplay. Maybe instead of Woe, we use its homonym Whoa, as in “Hold up a minute, let’s think about this!”

Jesus is not condemning the wealthy and well-respected. He is just warning that this may not last and won’t ever be enough.

So whoa, think about it. Most lives have moments of both beatitudes and woes, hunger and fullness, weeping and laughter.

We all need to take the time to know where we are. In good times, we need to share our blessings and in the bad, reach out for help.

That’s not me. That’s a plain-speaking Jesus.