Sermon 12th January 2014

Between now and Lent, adults will hear what Jesus actually said.  The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus' most extensive block of teaching; it covers unexpected ground, in unexpected ways.

Our Vicar, Cameron Barker, begins our study and the reading is from Matthew 5, verses 1-16.

12th January: already! Well, I wonder just how many New Year resolutions are still in place with the month almost half-gone? Don’t worry; this isn’t going to turn into a straw poll! It’s meant instead to offer some encouragement; especially if your resolution included anything exercise-based. Even if it didn’t, here’s a late suggestion that you might even want to adopt yourself – of exercises that we’d be better off without!

In no particular order, then how about not:

~ Running around in circles;

~ Leaping on bandwagons;

~ Pushing our luck;

~ Beating our heads against brick walls;

~ Jumping to any conclusions;

~ Dragging our heels;

~ Throwing our weight around; or

~ Passing the buck;

throughout the rest of 2014?!

Now it might be that you think you know what’s coming next. Again, this is rhetorical; but do you think I’m going to suggest that our positive exercise plan for the year should instead be drawn from those verses that I’ve just read? If so, nothing can be further from where we will actually go with To think of these words in that way is to fall into a classic trap, of not grasping what Jesus was doing here. Yes, it is true to say that Jesus went on to teach some key ethical do’s and don’ts in the rest of this Sermon on the Mount. But the way that it begins is from a very different perspective. It’s vital that we understand that, in order for the whole to make proper sense.

To be clear about it, we are going to cover the whole of the Sermon on the Mount in this series. That’s our preaching plan here for this period up until the start of Lent. In the Church of England we are now into a Year of Matthew. So we’re picking up the story of Jesus post-Christmas, in this place, right near the start of it in Matthew. I say we’re picking up the story, but there isn’t too much story involved, of course! It’s solid teaching; as it will be right through to the end of this series. To some   extent that’s by our own design; but it’s mostly determined by the way that Matthew uniquely wrote his Gospel.

It’s always helpful, I think, to start any new series like this with a little background information. We do need to know some things about the Bible book that we’re studying, so we can better understand what it is, and isn’t about, and what it is, and isn’t saying, and doing. This background won’t be very in-depth: mostly because it doesn’t need to be this time. But there is some important stuff about Matthew’s Gospel that it would help us to know. And we should all at least know that the big two questions about it are: who wrote it; and when. As ever, there are no definitive answers, to either question but some people do get quite vexed over it. I’d suggest that we needn’t do, though, because to us it doesn’t matter if this book was written by Jesus’ disciple, Matthew – who used to be the tax-collector called Levi; or if this gospel comes first in the New Testament because it was written first!

What does matter is that we know this: whoever ‘Matthew’ was, and whenever he wrote, using whatever sources, he had a definite agenda. Like the other 3 Gospel-writers, his main agenda was for people to come to know who Jesus was, and what he’d done. Matthew wanted them, like him, then to become disciples of Jesus. Disciples are people living in, and for, God’s kingdom; in all the ways that Jesus had taught them to. That’s what Matthew also laid out very clearly in his book – what Jesus had taught – in a very systematic fashion; and for a very particular audience. Not for nothing has Matthew been called ‘the Gospel for the Jews’: his specific focus in writing was to prove how Jesus was God’s Messiah, the one promised in the Old Testament – in ways that were designed to convert Jews in his day.

For this reason we can’t rely on Matthew for accuracy, in terms of what happened when, or where, even – but then we were never meant to. That’s not the kind of book that he wrote. Instead Matthew is thematic; it’s written to a pattern that alternates narrative, story-telling, with blocks of teaching on particular subjects. What we know as the Sermon on the Mount is the first of those 5 major teaching blocks. It comes after the opening narrative on the birth of Jesus and the launch of his public ministry, aged 30. As I said, it does overall have an ethical thrust to it, this teaching-block that takes up the next 3 chapters of Matthew. But that’s not where, or how, it starts – and again that’s very likely down to Matthew.

Still on an introductory note, it’s important to add that most scholars don’t doubt Matthew’s accuracy in terms of his content. There’s little argument that Jesus did and said all that we read in this Gospel. It’s just that – with this Sermon being a classic example – Matthew tended to put things in the places that suited his particular purpose. So what we have here is very likely a collection of Jesus’ teaching that was given on a number of different occasions. Matthew brought it together in this place, to form this one solid block. Now it may not have been part of his original intention, but for centuries believers have found his structure very helpful. Before these debates started raging in modern times, Matthew was the go-to account – for instructing converts and training leaders alike; so there should be something for all of us in here too, then, no matter what stage we are at on the road of faith.

All of which brings us to the detail for today, then: the start of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. We will keep on calling it Jesus’, because these are all his words; and also using title that it’s always had, because that’s pretty handy. There’s no reason to doubt that Jesus taught some of this on a hill near his new base in Capernaum; or that he spoke to his disciples when there were big crowd around either. That is the clear implication here: that Jesus was addressing his close followers, rather than everyone generally – though at some point that changed. But in term of us understanding what this part of it means, that distinction really matters.

As usual, it’s the ex-Bishop, scholar Tom Wright who says it most clearly and helpfully. This is Jesus making an announcement – not him giving a philosophical analysis of the world. It’s about something that is starting to happen – which is good news for all people everywhere. What this very definitely is not is good advice! Matthew doesn’t have Jesus telling people what to do, or how to behave, to make the world a better place. This is not some list of timeless truths about the way that the world actually is, really. As Tom Wright points out, life so obviously isn’t like this; and we all know that it isn’t too!

I’m sure you don’t need me to spell out all the apparent holes there would be if that was the word-picture that Jesus was trying to paint here. So I’ll jump straight to the discussion around how to translate the Greek word that’s used throughout these Beatitudes, as they’re most commonly called. The Good News goes with ‘Happy’, which is likely closer to the true sense of it than the ‘Blessed’ of the NIV. The Message version gets even closer, I’m told, by using ‘You’re blessed when ... ’; but Tom Wright goes even further by making it ‘Wonderful news ...’ As I said, this is Jesus’ announcement: not of the sort of people or circumstances God blesses so much as how God is now at work in new ways in His whole new, upside down world.

Of course one of the big questions in all this is when God’s promises will come true. Again it’s Tom Wright who says that the great temptation (or cop out!) is to say that it’s after death, in heaven. That is what the bracketed opening and closing Beatitudes seem to point to; but that is to misunderstand what heaven is. As we’ve heard before, heaven isn’t the place we go when we die. Rather it’s the realm where God is fully in charge: that realm sometimes touches the here and now – as it especially did through the words and deeds of Jesus when he lived here in person. God’s promise is that one day these two realms, heaven and earth, will be fully joined; as indeed Jesus himself taught us to pray for, later on in this Sermon.

When that happens we will see in full what we only catch very occasional glimpses of now. That really is a day to look forward to, and to pray and work for, though. This life of heaven, where God is already King, is to become the life of the whole world, for all of us. God’s promise is that life as we know it will be transformed into the realm of beauty, delight, and wonder that He has always intended it to be. The point of the Sermon on the Mount in general – and of these Beatitudes in particular – is to dare to live in the present in ways that will make sense in God’s promised future. And the basis of that challenge, Tom Wright says, is that God’s future has already arrived in the present, in the person of Jesus.

I hope that gives you a real flavour of what’s to come over the next two months or so. As ever, this could be a life-transforming experience – if we’ll engage with it as God is inviting us to. There is a real challenge in taking this upside down view of the world and believing that it is actually the right way up enough to live it. If we do that, we will be not just the preservative but God’s light for whole world – with potentially amazing results. But so that we don’t under-estimate the scale of this challenge, I want to end by reading today’s passage again, from the Message version, with Tom Wright’s translating tweak:

So: “Wonderful news when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

“Wonderful news when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

“Wonderful news when you’re content with just who you are: no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

“Wonderful news when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

“Wonderful news when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.

“Wonderful news when you get your inside world – your mind and heart – put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

“Wonderful news when you can show people how to co-operate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

“Wonderful news when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.

“Not only that – count it as wonderful news every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens – give a cheer, even! – for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always got into this kind of trouble.”

“Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavours of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.

“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand – shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

And so let’s pray that we will dare to do just that, then ...