The Sermon on the Plain

Luke 6:17-49 records what is known as the “Sermon on the Plain” and contains similar, but much more condensed, teachings as the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7.  We read that Christ “went out into a mountain to pray” and it was then that He called His twelve apostles.  After this, “he came down with them, and stood in the plain” and there taught the people (Luke 6:12,17).  Elder Talmage gave the suggestion that what is recorded in Matthew 5-7, given when “he went into a mountain,” was given mainly to the Twelve, and then He afterwards came down and gave an abbreviated version of His teachings to the multitude (as recorded in Luke 6).  He wrote, “Matthew tells us that Jesus had gone up the mountain and that He sat while speaking; Luke’s account suggests the inference that Jesus and the Twelve first descended from the mountain heights to a plain, where they were met by the multitude, and that Jesus preached unto them, standing….  Is it not probable that Jesus spoke at length on the mountain-side to the disciples then present, and from whom He had chosen the Twelve, and that after finishing His discourse to them He descended with them to the plain where a multitude had assembled, and that to these He repeated parts of what He had before spoken? The relative fulness of Matthew’s report may be due to the fact that he, as one of the Twelve, was present at the first and more extended delivery.”  While much is indeed similar between the two accounts, I think there are important truths to learn from Luke’s slightly different and less read account. 

               Luke’s account records some beatitude type statements like Matthew, but he also gave us parallel woes pronounced upon the wicked.  He pronounced blessings on four groups, those who are poor, those who hunger, those who weep, and those who are hated by men (v20-23). He then recorded four condemnations of the Savior aimed at the groups opposite those who were pronounced blessed: against the rich, those who are full, those who laugh, and those who are well spoken of (v24-27).  The message seems to be that if everything is comfortable and happy for us, if our life is easy and without difficulty, if we are always well fed and have money and mirth, and a high station among men, then we may not be on the path to a great reward in heaven.  If we want to be true disciples of the Savior, then we will need to suffer and sacrifice, we will need to be humble and giving.  If we don’t give more of ourselves here, if we don’t forgo comforts in order to follow the Savior, then we may hear in the next life what the rich man heard in another parable Luke recorded: “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things” (Luke 16:25).  We will have reversed the Savior’s injunction to Emma and instead laid aside the things of a better world in order to have the things of this world (Doctrine and Covenants 25:10).    

The next verses of the account in Luke helps us see how we can indeed focus on what’s most important and not our own comforts in this life: we love our enemies and do good to them that hate us (v27), we pray for others who hurt us (v28), we offer our other cheek to him that smiteth us and our coat to him that taketh our cloak (v29), and in general we simply do to others as we would have do to us.  Only with that outward focus on serving others can we hope for an eternal reward: “But love ye your enemies, and do good, and blend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great” (v35).  One of the most beautiful passages in my mind in all of the New Testament comes shortly thereafter as a description of this outward looking life that we should live: “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (v38).  In all that we do, when we “measure” in our interactions with others, we should always give such that it is “running over” out of our cup that we are offering.  With a life focused not on our own possessions and riches and happiness but rather turned to serve and do to others what we would want done to us, then do we have a house “digged deep” with a “foundation on a rock” such that even the storm that comes to “beat vehemently upon that house” cannot shake it (v48).  The message of the Sermon on the Plain is an invitation to focus on living a selfless life filled with love and service towards others, exactly as the Savior showed us how to do.