A sermon delivered by the Rev. Dr. Patrick H. Wrisley on February 23, 2025.

Growing up in North Georgia gave me ample opportunity to wander through the woods and mountains. Over the years, I developed a deep affinity for the rugged Appalachians of Georgia, Tennessee, and western North Carolina. I loved them most when they were quiet—when the tourists were gone, the skies were overcast, and winter had stripped the trees bare, revealing the raw, untamed landscape of the Blue Ridge.

The Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains became my sanctuary. They were where I went to find myself, to wrestle with life’s questions, to listen for something deeper. In my early years, I drifted away from the church and found myself drawn instead to the wilderness. God felt bigger there — larger than the walls of a sanctuary. The pastor of my childhood church was a nice enough man, but he seemed too polished, too perfect, too put together. My life, at the time, was anything but. I needed something wilder, something less refined—something real.

The southern Appalachian Mountains became a vast, untamed cathedral where I encountered a God who could not be confined to pulpits and pews. As I grew older, I learned that the Cherokee had a name for the Smoky Mountains—the Thundering Mountains. It was there, they believed, that the Great Spirit dwelled. If you wanted to be stripped of yourself, to come face to face with something holy, you wandered into the Thundering Mountains.

It was in that great cathedral, the Thundering Mountains, that God met me and, in time, led me back to the church—though with a larger vision of what the church could be and what a pastor should look like.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve always resonated with Jesus. He, too, sought the mountains. He, too, needed to get away, to be shaped by solitude, prayer, and even struggle. But Jesus also knew that, as life-giving as the wilderness could be, he couldn’t stay there. Eventually, he had to come back down. This is where we pick up the story today.

Jesus has retreated to the hill country to get away form the crowds as well as to personally choose the twelve Apostles. After retreating into the hills to pray and call the Twelve, Jesus comes down with his newly minted Apostles and wades right into the crowd, stepping into the mess and need of real life. People have traveled from Jerusalem in the south, from the west from the Mediterranean Sea, and from everywhere else in between. Here’s how Luke tells it:

Luke 6:17-26

He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Then he looked up at his disciples and said:

‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who are laughing now,  for you will mourn and weep.

Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

Our scripture this morning starts rather nondescriptly, “He came down with them and stood on a level place.” At first glance, that might seem like an insignificant detail, but it speaks volumes about who Jesus is and how he teaches.

In Matthew’s Gospel, we get The Sermon on the Mount — where Jesus ascends a mountain, sits down, and speaks as a rabbi would, his words flowing down to the crowd below. But in Luke’s Gospel, it’s different. In Luke, Jesus comes down from the mountain. He doesn’t preach from above—he stands amongthe people, moving in and out of the crowd, healing, touching, ministering. And when Jesus speaks, he isn’t offering abstract blessings for some distant future. He’s speaking directly to the people in front of him, in the present moment.

Blessed are you who are poor.

Blessed are you who are hungry now.

Blessed are you who weep now.

Luke’s Jesus doesn’t spiritualize these blessings the way Matthew does. In Matthew, Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness.” But in Luke, there’s no qualifying phrase. No softening of the message. The poor are blessed. The hungry are blessed. The grieving are blessed. Right now.

And then, just when the crowd might have been feeling encouraged, Jesus turns up the heat. Because Luke’s Jesus doesn’t just give us blessings—he also gives us woes.

Woe to you who are rich now.

Woe to you who are full now.

Woe to you who laugh now.

Woe to you when people speak well of you.

This is where Jesus stops preaching and starts meddling.

Now, let’s be clear—Jesus isn’t saying that wealth, fullness, joy, or a good reputation are bad things. What he is saying is that God’s kingdom doesn’t function the way the world does. For example, in Jesus’ time, wealth and food stability would be a sign of God’s blessing. People ran on the notion that those who have much are blessed and those who have little are cursed and forgotten by God. In our Story, Jesus flips that thinking upside down on its head.

The Sermon on the Plain is a wake-up call. I remember growing up with my brothers and sisters and our mom devised a way to get us out of bed after the alarm went off. She would walk into the bathroom, grab a washcloth and saturate it with cold water. She would stand over us and let that one cold drip hit our face and we knew we were confronted with a choice. We could ignore her or feel the full force of a wet washcloth getting rubbed all over our face. My mom’s wash cloth was a wake-up call we all remember too well. The Sermon on the plain is a gentle wake-up call for those of us trying to figure out how to live a Christ-honoring life in this dystopian world of ours today. 

Luke’s message today is a gentle reminder that the family of God includes both the rich and the poor, the hungry and the satisfied, the grieving and the joyful, the outcast and the well-liked. And those of us who find ourselves on the comfortable side of the equation have a responsibility, too. Like Jesus, we are to step down from our safe places and stand among the hurting, the hungry, and the broken just as Jesus did.

Jesus came down from the mountain and steps onto the plain.

And he calls us to do the same, and like momma, is giving us a wake-up call. Instead of bestowing woes upon us, let us reframe them as wake-up calls. Wake-up, beloved!

Wake up, those who are rich—because your comfort can make you blind to the suffering around you.

Wake up, those who are full—because your satisfaction can make you forget those who hunger.

Wake up, those who laugh—because there is mourning in the world that needs your compassion.

Wake up, those with good reputations—because following Jesus will sometimes mean losing the approval of others.

Wake up. Come down from the mountain and come stand where Jesus stands – from among the people. Why? Because that is where the kingdom of God is found. Amen.

© 2025 February 16. Patrick H. Wrisley, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls, NY 12801. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls, New York and may not be altered, re-purposed, published or preached without permission. All rights reserved.