When I was a little kid, I was taught that one of the best places that you could give your money was to the church. "The church is where your money should go so that those who need help might be helped," I was told.
This teaching was supported by some cultural cues to the same effect. In Disney’s “Robin Hood” the church has a “poor box.” The money from that “poor box,” indeed, went to the poor, and the monk, Little John, praised the mice for caring enough to put in a coin.
It was not just Disney cartoons that led me to trust this assumption though. During a stretch of my own family’s financial struggle, the door on our apartment produced a loud knock. We opened the door to reveal a member of our church giving us a box with an entire turkey feast stuffed inside. This unexpected meal lasted us a week. Quite frankly, we needed a meal that could last us a week, and the church of Jesus Christ provided it.
So, you have to understand my shock when, as a late teen, I started to understand how to read church budgets. I was shocked to see that the new church that I attended had no line item that contained money for those where were down on their luck. I had been taught that one of the primary reasons for giving to the church was that it would help the poor, the hungry, those struck by grief, and those who are, otherwise, excluded.
I was further shocked when, around the same time, I heard the ruminations of a TV pastor who regularly asked for large sums of money from the television audience, but preached that the best help you can give a poor person is to preach belief in Jesus Christ. In no way was I doubting that the poor need Jesus, but I certainly doubted that this pastor needed another mansion while the poor in the midst of his ministry were only getting cheap, paperback bibles.
This television pastor was happy to sit on the mountain of success and look down with gospel proclamations on those below his feet. The church without a line in their budget for helping those down on their luck was happy to build a high seat upon which they could sit and hear the word of God, but not have to suffer or share a struggle with those below their seats who had very little.
One could claim that the image of a church that helps the poor so directly, as seen in the Robin Hood movie, is just an ideal. The argument goes: "There are financial realities that have to be considered when you grow up enough to understand such things."
Maybe. But, I’m pretty certain that there is more to the faith than meeting monthly expenses.
Today’s gospel story tells us that Jesus came down from praying on the mountain in order to stand on a level place “with” a great crowd of people in need.
“With.”
It is a very short word, yet it is so powerful: “with.” This word carries the possibility that those who suffer might not be excluded. “With.”
This word holds the potential that those who find themselves alone will not be left in dark with no one. “With.”
Jesus came down to a level place to be “with” those who needed him.
The church of my childhood ideals was one of level places. It was a place where believers found themselves “with” those who struggled in life. It was living on the same plain with them, ministering to them, and they, in return, ministering back in their own way.
On the plain, there is no place for grandstanding or acting righteous. There is just compassion. There is just healing. There is just blessedness.
The level place is the only place in the world where we clearly see that God cares about the poor. “Blessed are the poor.”
Only on the level place, with others, can you find out that God cares about those who are starving. “Blessed are the hungry.”
Only when you live on the level place can you know for certain that God cares about the tear inducing struggles of life. “Blessed are you who weep now.”
Only on the level place will you find Jesus, who cares whenever you are excluded, or reviled, or defamed, or called a “snowflake” on social media for caring and following in the ways of Jesus’ love.
Now, I might have added in that snowflake bit. That probably is not in the Bible, but I am tired of that term being used to describe people who love others. I am tired of people being looked down upon for caring about other people's struggle.
We are not a people who are called to live on the lofty heights of judgment, but rather on the plains of equity and love, alongside our God who calls us to gather there.
Now Jesus does say, “blessed are you when you are reviled on account of the Son of Man.” So, I guess it is going to happen; I guess we will be called names for actually caring about others. But, that does not mean that we abandon the level places. It is on the level places where the healing and the blessing coming from Jesus happens.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are a people of level places. We are a people of healing and blessing. Just as Jesus heals and blesses, so we also heal and we bless.
We heal and we bless.
Remember a couple of years ago that pastor who was sent to jail because he violated a city code by feeding the poor in the city park?
You do not think that people will persecute you for doing the right thing? You do not think that you will be persecuted for hanging out with the needy?
But, it did not matter to him. As soon as he was released from jail, he went back and did the exact same thing in that same park because we are the people of Jesus Christ. We are a people who heal and bless. So, he went right back and blessed the poor with his presence. He went right back and healed the hungry with food. And, I guarantee that Jesus was already in that park doing the same thing. That pastor was just following whatever Jesus was doing; healing and blessing, healing and blessing, healing and blessing over and over again.
We are a people who heal and bless, because we are a people who live on the level places. We live on Jesus’ flat plain of equality for all God’s children. We live on Jesus’ flat plain of equity (or equal opportunity) for all God’s children. We live on Jesus’ plain where those who suffer and those who love are in the same spot. We live on Jesus plain where we gather “with” others. We do not gather over them. We do not gather apart from them. We are right where Jesus is, “with” the poor and the broken.
Quite frankly, we are there "with" them because we are one of them. We too are poor and broken. We too need Jesus’ forgiveness and healing. We have already lived on the plain for a long time. Any notions we might have had of mountain living were facades in the first place. We too require the love, care, and forgiveness of Jesus’ cross, where Jesus died for a world in need.
We live on Jesus’ level plain, and as followers of Jesus, as disciples of Christ on that level plain, we heal and we bless.
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