Day 5: Sermon on the Plain, Love Your Enemies, Build on Rock

Reading: Luke 6

Listen to: Luke chapter 6

Historical Context

Luke 6 presents what scholars commonly call the “Sermon on the Plain,” a block of teaching that shares substantial overlap with Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount but also displays significant differences. Whether these represent the same sermon recorded from different perspectives, or two separate but thematically related occasions of teaching (itinerant teachers in the ancient world routinely repeated and adapted their core messages), is debated. For our purposes, reading Luke’s version after Matthew’s allows us to hear the distinctive emphases of each evangelist and gain a richer, more stereoscopic view of Jesus’ teaching.

Luke’s setting differs from Matthew’s in important ways. In Luke, Jesus has spent the entire night in prayer on a mountain before selecting the Twelve (6:12-13). He then comes down and stands on “a level place” (topos pedinos), where a great crowd from all of Judea, Jerusalem, and the coastal regions of Tyre and Sidon has gathered. Luke emphasizes the cosmopolitan, international character of the audience – people from both Jewish and Gentile regions have come. This is consistent with Luke’s broader theological interest in presenting Jesus as a savior for all peoples, not Israel alone. The detail that Jesus spent the entire night in prayer before choosing the apostles is also uniquely Lukan and reflects Luke’s sustained attention to Jesus’ prayer life (see also Luke 3:21, 5:16, 9:18, 9:28, 11:1, 22:41-44).

Luke’s Beatitudes differ from Matthew’s in several striking ways. Where Matthew has eight (or nine) Beatitudes, Luke has four, and they are paired with four corresponding “Woes.” Where Matthew spiritualizes – “Blessed are the poor in spirit” – Luke is starkly direct: “Blessed are you who are poor… you who are hungry now… you who weep now.” Luke also shifts from the third person (“blessed are those”) to the second person (“blessed are you”), making the address more immediate and confrontational. The Woes are unique to Luke and form a chilling mirror image: “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you, when all people speak well of you.”

This should not be read as a simplistic glorification of poverty or condemnation of wealth. Luke’s Gospel is deeply concerned with economics and social justice – more so than any other Gospel. But the Lukan Beatitudes and Woes must be understood within the framework of eschatological reversal that runs through Luke-Acts, beginning with Mary’s Magnificat: “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty” (Luke 1:53). The point is not that poverty is virtuous in itself, but that those who are poor and suffering now are precisely the ones upon whom God’s Kingdom will dawn with transformative power, while those who are comfortable and self-satisfied are in danger of missing it entirely because they feel no need for God.

The heart of Luke’s sermon is the extended teaching on love of enemies (6:27-36), which is among the most radical ethical instructions ever uttered. The command agapate tous echthrous hymōn (“love your enemies”) would have been especially provocative in first-century Palestine, a land under military occupation where “enemies” were not an abstract category but flesh-and-blood Roman soldiers and their local collaborators. The word agapaō does not denote warm feelings or emotional affection; it describes a deliberate, active commitment to the good of another person regardless of their behavior toward you. Jesus specifies what this looks like in concrete terms: do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. The blow on the cheek is almost certainly a backhanded slap – a gesture of contempt and social humiliation in the ancient world, not an attempt to cause physical injury. Offering the other cheek is not passive victimhood; it is a refusal to be defined by the aggressor’s contempt, an act of dignified defiance that maintains one’s humanity in the face of dehumanizing treatment.

Luke’s version of the Golden Rule (6:31) occupies a more prominent position than in Matthew, standing as the organizing principle of the entire enemies section. Jesus then drives the point home with a devastating argument from common sense: if you love those who love you, what credit is that? Even sinners (hamartōloi) do that. If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that? Even sinners lend to sinners. The standard Jesus sets is not reciprocity but generosity that mirrors God’s own character: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (6:36). Where Matthew has “Be perfect” (teleios), Luke has “Be merciful” (oiktirmōn) – a word that in the Septuagint translates the Hebrew rachum, from the root rechem (womb), suggesting a compassion as deep and visceral as a mother’s love for her child. Luke’s formulation reminds us that God’s perfection is not cold moral precision but warm, self-giving mercy.

The section on judging (6:37-42) parallels Matthew 7 but includes the memorable proverb: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?” (6:39). This pithy image, drawing on the treacherous terrain of Palestine where unmarked cisterns and ravines could swallow an unwary traveler, warns against the presumption of correcting others when one’s own vision is impaired. Luke also includes the saying about the student not being above the teacher (6:40), suggesting that the disciple’s character will come to resemble the master’s – for good or ill.

Luke’s parable of the two builders (6:47-49) contains a detail absent from Matthew’s version: the wise builder “dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock.” The emphasis on digging deep suggests the intentional effort required to move past surface-level hearing to genuine obedience. In the Lukan context, building on rock means not merely hearing Jesus’ commands to love enemies, to lend expecting nothing, and to be merciful – but actually doing these things. The foolish builder is the one who hears these radical teachings, finds them inspiring, perhaps even quotes them to others, but never allows them to reshape his actual behavior. When the inevitable storm comes – and it always comes – only the life built on practiced obedience will stand.

Key Themes

• Eschatological Reversal – Luke’s Beatitudes and Woes paint a picture of God’s coming Kingdom where the present order is overturned. The poor are blessed, the rich are warned, and the entire structure of worldly privilege is called into question.
• Radical Enemy Love – The command to love enemies goes beyond tolerance or non-violence to active, costly generosity toward those who wish you harm. This is the distinguishing mark of those who are children of the Most High.
• Mercy as the Character of God – Luke’s version of the sermon culminates not in “perfection” but in mercy, reflecting the deep compassion of God and calling disciples to embody that same compassion in every relationship.

Connections

• Old Testament Roots: Leviticus 19:18 (love your neighbor), the Jubilee tradition of Leviticus 25 (release of debts and redistribution), Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel 2:1-10 (reversal of fortunes – echoed in the Magnificat), Micah 6:8 (do justice, love mercy, walk humbly).
• New Testament Echoes: Romans 12:14-21 (bless those who persecute you, overcome evil with good), 1 Peter 3:9 (do not repay evil for evil), James 2:5 (God chose the poor to be rich in faith), 1 John 3:16-18 (love in deed and truth, not word only).
• Parallel Passages: Matthew 5:1-12 (Beatitudes without Woes), Matthew 5:38-48 (love your enemies in the Sermon on the Mount), Matthew 7:1-5, 24-27 (judging and two builders).

Reflection Questions

1. Compare Luke’s Beatitudes (6:20-23) with Matthew’s (Matthew 5:3-12). What does Luke’s more direct, concrete language (“you who are poor” vs. “poor in spirit”) add to your understanding of who Jesus calls blessed?
2. Jesus says to love your enemies and lend expecting nothing in return (6:35). Think of a specific relationship or situation where this command feels most difficult. What would obedience look like in that context?
3. Luke’s version of the Sermon concludes: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (6:46). Where is the gap between what you affirm about Jesus and what you actually practice?

Prayer

Merciful Father, your Son taught us to love as you love – without condition, without limit, without regard for what we will receive in return. We confess that our love is often calculated, reserved for those who love us first. Break the boundaries of our hearts. Teach us to bless those who curse us, to do good to those who hate us, and to lend expecting nothing back. Make us merciful as you are merciful, that the world might see in us the family resemblance of your children. Through Jesus Christ, who loved his enemies all the way to the cross. Amen.