Here is contemporary artist Rick Ahlvers' Rembrandt-inspired painting of Christ Preaching. Both he and Rembrandt may have had Luke 6:17-19 in mind when setting out ~
17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all. Luke 6:17-19
Verse 17: Maybe you'll remember the previous scene where Jesus is up on the mountain and from there he chooses his twelve apostles. Now, he has come down from there to a level place. He "levels the playing field" we might say. Everyone is on the same level. There is no above and below. No dais. No podium or pulpit. No one-step-above anyone else. This is ultimately a heart place, isn't it? There's a lot of looking down in our world, and our country is not free of this flaw.
Furthermore, we're told that a large crowd of disciples was there. We usually think disciple means follower. But that's too passive. A disciple is one who wants to learn. And this learning isn't a mind-affair, as if I have more teaching to stuff into my mind or another must-read book to get through. "You need to read this book; it'll set you straight." But rather, what does my heart need to learn from Christ? That's the question a disciple-wannabe asks.
Then Luke tells us where these folks are from: "all over Judea, from Jerusalem and the coast of Tyre and Sidon." In other words, there were all kinds of people from seemingly everywhere. Not just Jews. The gospel writer, Luke, isn't a AAA member or an ancient GPS — Jesus welcomes people from every inner geography.
Verse 18: All that's needed is the desire to hear and to be healed. Jesus doesn't ask qualifying questions, but he knows human hearts where they are weak, or broken. "I'm heart sick," a grieved person might say. Not a few people (especially young ones) have given up even stepping inside a Christian church because they dread being assessed, mentally hassled or queried. There is an epidemic of loneliness in our country — people feeling rejected, dismissed and judged. Maybe we should expand the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick to explicitly include the heart-sick.
Verse 18 by extension: "Those troubled by evil spirits were cured." Why do we jump to the words evil spirits? And how limited our understanding of evil spirits is. How about putting the emphasis on the word troubled. "Those who were troubled were cured." Isn't that all of us? What troubled times we're living in — all the death, violence, anger, hate, exhaustive stress, addiction and compulsion? This is humankind in its deepest need of a cure.
Verse 19: The word "all" appears twice in this verse alone. Add "all over" from verse 17 and that makes three times. ALL. I saw a lawn sign the other day that read: "Wherever you are from, we want you to feel at home in this neighborhood." There's a Mass hymn titled "All Are Welcome." Are they? Really? Do we have to agree about everything before we realize this ALL? God has a human heart, voice, face and touch in Jesus Christ. How is it that we have come to such a shrinking of this Christ — making his spiritual way into a battlefield of sniffing out sin and heresy? These three verses should shock us.
Oh Jesus,
step down
into the level place of my heart-mind
that you shock me
into some new awareness,
some change that alters me —
grows me up utterly.
This sounds like a dare, Jesus,
but I need to ask it of you,
if I am to be counted
among the ones who call themselves
disciple.
