What we get wrong III

[As we continue to explore the ways that we misunderstand or fail to fully understand the sermon on the mount, our Pilgrims student worship service is thrown into a bit of quandary because more than half of our students are in Kyiv at the protests. We won't have any music this week, and it will just be a short sermon and prayer time before we head together to the central square to join the rally.  Today is the day that a trade agreement with the EU was to be signed - a trade agreement that would have injected hundreds of billions of dollars into our economy and infrastructure over the next few years.  This is a sad and a hard day for many - and a day of protest for many many more.]


Matthew 5:38-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.  And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.  Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Love for Enemies

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

----

It is easy to forget that Jesus was speaking to a crowd of occupied people and their occupiers.  These people were not free to do as they pleased, their tax system was filled with corruption, and the soldiers roaming the streets were free to force them to do anything they wanted.

These are people with a great big enemy.

The Old Testament was written as a law book.  An eye for an eye was a progressive law.  The earliest law had been the law of revenge.  If someone pokes out your eye - you should kill their child.

The Old Testament taught that rather than revenge, there should be justice - and that it is not yours to take, but for society to give.

Jesus takes this one step further.  We go from the law of revenge to the law of justice to the law of love.

Jesus tells us to love our enemies.

But it's interesting.  Jesus doesn't say that these people will stop being our enemies.  Jesus doesn't say that we shouldn't have enemies.  If we live out our Christian faith well, we will certainly acquire many enemies.  Everyone who wants to make more money off the backs of the poor will hate us.  Those who hate freedom and human rights will hate us.  Those who stand against progress will hate us.
 

It is our response that must be better.  We must love them.  This is easy to say, but nearly impossible to do.

We are never called to back down or retreat or cower in fear - we are not called to be pushovers so that we won't have enemies.  If you stand up for what is right, you will be surrounded by enemies.

Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek.  Could anything be more courageous to do and more humiliating for your enemy.  It's like getting punched and asking if his grandma is done punching you and if he will be punching you next.

Jesus calls us to be courageous in our response.  Jesus calls us to love them. Nothing takes more courage than to love someone who hates you.

Jesus calls us to pray for our enemies.  You can't hate someone that you lift up to God day after day.  When I realize that I hate someone, I make myself pray "Lord, bless them."  day after day.  It's a terribly painful prayer to pray - but I realize that my hate for that person goes away after only a few days.

Jesus doesn't call us to do the smallest amount that we can, Jesus calls us to step up and to do real things that really prove our love.  When Jesus calls us to "give our robe as well" he is talking about the outer robe - the most important item of clothing.  For many it was their only cover at night and their only protection from the cold. If you gave it to your enemy, you are signalling that your enemy is perhaps even taking your very life.

Dear friends, we are called to respond in love.  We are called to stand up against all that is evil.  More fire can't put out a fire.  Only water puts out a fire.  More hate doesn't put out hate.  Only love puts out hate.

Now we are going to spend some time in prayer for our enemies.  For our country.  For a just and peaceful resolution for these protests.  And after that, those who wish to can go together to the rally.  Our biggest challenge is to show what true love looks like in the face of hatred.  If we can show that, it will be contagious.

Amen.  

What we get wrong II

[This is the second part in a sermon series about the Sermon on the Mount and the ways that we misunderstand it or only partially understand it.  We begin and end in small group discussion, and last week it went very well.  It's an experiment that we will keep practicing.  Please keep us in your daily prayers as the weather gets colder and it is more tempting to go home and crawl into bed after classes.  Also, please pray for our new and young students that God would continue to draw them into relationship and community.}

Matthew 5:17-25
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.  Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder,and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’  But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.  “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you,  leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison.

---

Whenever we speak, it seems that people hear what they want to hear.  Every time I preach, I pray the quick prayer, "Lord, that thing that you do between my mouth and their ears - do it again today."  It amazes me when I hear people talk about what they learned from a sermon I preached.  Because sometimes someone will get something great out of sermon ... but it totally wasn't what I thought I was trying to say.  I love hearing the way that God uses my sermon in ways that I could never anticipate.

If someone stands in the city center and yells out "Slava Ukraina" - there are perhaps three groups of hearers.

 - perhaps some will hear who share the patriotism who will respond "Heroim Slava"
 - perhaps there will be some who are of a different political position who will hear only nationalistic propaganda
 - and perhaps there will be some foreigners who will just wonder why people are shouting.

When Jesus stood up to speak, the crowd was not all of one mind.  We all love Jesus - and so, it is easy to picture a crowd forming around Jesus of adoring disciples: gently and quietly listening, hanging on his every word.  But this probably wasn't the case.  Throughout the scripture, the crowd surrounding Jesus is painted as more of an unruly mob than a gentle flock.  The Pharisees and Sadducees were brooding with their arms crossed and the fanatics were throwing themselves at Jesus to be healed and perhaps only those who were slightly skeptical were sitting gently and listening intently.

So everyone heard the words of Jesus differently, right?

- The Pharisees heard every word and they looked to find some way to twist it to make it sound like Jesus was going to destroy their religion.
- The fanatics were hoping that Jesus was really going to destroy the old religion and the way that it worked.
- The skeptical hoped for something better, but expected new and different rules.

and Jesus has to take all of these different ideas and unite them behind the truth ... which was different than what each group heard, right?

Many people called the Old Testament The Law and the Prophets.  In this sentence Jesus comes close to saying that, but instead of "and" - he says "or".  And this seems like such a tiny difference that we might skip over it - but it's key to the story.  The Prophets sometimes seemed to say things that contradicted The Law.  You don't get very far into the book of Hosea before reading that God told Hosea to marry a prostitute ... just, to put a radical example out there.  If we just read a book of the Bible like Leviticus, it is really easy to get overwhelmed by rules and regulations - and in the Psalms David calls the law perfect, and then he talks about the Messiah who will come to save Israel ... and this is contradictory because it might seem that it was the laws that kept them clean and kept them close to God.

And the Pharisees they loved to sit for hours and argue over which of the laws were the lightest and which were the heaviest.  Which were most important and which were least important.  It was like a card game for the religious elite.    

When Jesus uses "or" instead of and - he makes a very crucial point.  Sometimes it seems that the law and the prophets contradict each other or have different ideas.  Some of the laws were more important than another.  The point that Jesus makes is that He is the one who brings it all together.

Jesus didn't come to destroy or abolish or remove the law

Jesus came to fulfill the law.  He came to fulfill the prophecies.

Jesus is what holds the law and the prophets together.  Jesus completes all of the law.  The final words of The Law were the words that Jesus spoke on the cross.  "It is finished."

All the rules, all the games, all the arguments about weightiness of laws, all the struggles about the contradiction.  All of the religious games, they stayed up on that cross after Jesus was brought down.  Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets. He gave them their full meaning.  Jesus was the "Perfect Law" that the Psalmist had been talking about.

Because the Pharisees had made it their job to dissect and pull apart the laws.  They worked to find loopholes.  They knew how to follow the law to the letter, to walk right on the line and never cross it.

And Jesus takes the line away.

This is the point of the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus takes all the arguments and changes and justifications that the Pharisees have made and he tears them apart.

---
It's easier to be told exactly what to do.  Rules are easier than freedom.  This is why Islam is growing and some cruel and heartless sects grow - because they are based on rules and regulations and the simple formula of good crossing out bad.  If you do more good than bad then you go to "paradise."

And Christianity completely rejects this idea.  Jesus calls us to live in freedom.

Jesus fulfills the law.  The Old Testament Jews were told to give 10% and Jesus taught the Christians to give generously of all that they had.  10% was mandated by a rule - 100% was the freedom that Christians found in Christ.

In the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes the commandments that the Pharisees had gotten so wrong and he shows them what was actually meant and he challenges the people to live in a better and more generous way.

And Jesus says, "For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." and this is so painfully radical, because the Pharisees were good.  Now - they were empty and they didn't understand, but they were good people.  It's easy for us - and I do this all the time - to think of the Pharisees as being bad people.  But they really tried to be good.  Just as good as they had to be.  Jesus is telling the crowd that if these are the most faithful men that you know, you better be a lot more faithful than they are if you want to EARN your way into heaven.  Its not about the rules.   It's about a relationship with Jesus Christ.  If this is confusing - come and talk with me or Volodya or the Ericas or anyone from our servant group and we will try and explain this better.  

The Pharisees were faithful to the rules.  Jesus wanted them to be faithful to God.

There is a huge difference between being faithful to the rules and being faithful to God.  God might call you to break all the rules.  God might call you to marry a prostitute.  You might end up in prison for following where God leads you.  Stranger things have happened.  This is the freedom that Christ asks us to embrace - we aren't asked to be faithful to the rules, we are asked to be faithful to God.

Amen.

Hope and Glory

Haggai 2:1-9

In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying:  Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say,

Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?  Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.

For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts.  The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts.  The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts.

----

Buying bananas is hard work.  It seems like it should be easy enough to buy bananas - but when you buy perfectly bright yellow bananas they seem to have aged by the time you bring them home.  When my friend Bob was facing cancer, he always asked his doctor if he could still buy green bananas - if he still had enough time to watch them ripen, he was still healthy enough.   My great aunt Mable was always searching for the best deal.  She was tremendously wealthy, but she still wanted to save every cent she could - so she had a deal worked out with the shop keep that she would pay a little less if she would buy the bananas after they had turned brown.

And she would bring these bananas home from the store and they would just be brown and black and oozing out of the peel - and she would eat them with a spoon.  And I remember asking her why she would buy something after it wasn't good anymore.  And my great-aunt Mable,  all 80 years of wisdom looked at me and said, "It might not look good anymore - but the riper it is, the sweeter it is.  You'll never find a sweeter fruit than this banana."  And she scooped out another spoonful for herself.

---

Around the world, our economies work on the backs of stock exchanges.  Many of the world's billionaires made almost all of their money just by playing around with these markets.  And the idea is simple, really - if you buy low and sell high, you'll make a lot of money.  But, if it was simple - we would all be doing it and we would all be rich.

Because our human nature is to do the opposite.  People who manage their own stocks tend to buy high and sell low.  When everyone is excited and talking about a company - people pay huge sums of money to own part of it, but as soon as something goes wrong - those same people sell it for whatever they can get.  The people who make money, they see struggling - bad companies and they see some small spark in them - some small piece of good news - and they invest in the fact that the future can't be as bad as the past.

---

We often quote the verse "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you." But we forget the  context of this verse.

This is a prophecy to God's people as they are led into exile.  For hundreds of years.

And yet, God has a plan for them.

---

The Old Testament is a history of exile.  If we were to sit down and list out all the stories of the Bible together, we could put them into two groups.  One group would have all the stories and poems and songs and prophecies that were written during the times when God's chosen people were on top - when they were in control of their own destiny and ruling themselves and worshiping in their own temple.  And the other group would have all the stories and songs and poems and prophecies written about and by and for God's chosen people when it seemed like everything was lost.

And which of these two groups would be bigger?

God's people were in exile and in the wilderness and in slavery a lot more than we think.  Even when they were in their homeland - it's a fifty-fifty split between good and terrible times.

If we split the Old Testament between the words for a lost and hurting people in exile and the words for ruling Israel - we would find that this is a book written for the lost and the hurting.  This is a book written for the displaced.  This is a book written for the disappointed.  

In today's scripture God's people are in exile.  Their lives are under the control of Babylon, but they have planned well and have been political enough to earn the right to rebuild some of their previous life.

They are rebuilding the temple in this passage  - and the oldest among them still remember what the old temple looked like and they are heartbroken.  This new temple could never compare with the old temple.  Solomon had built the old temple and adorned it with gold and with silver - and it had been the center of who they were as a people.

The people mourned because it didn't look the same and it didn't feel the same and what's more - they were sure they it wouldn't ever be the same.

And God reminds the people that soon enough he will shake the earth - to shake the earth was understood as what God would do before the Messiah arrived. They were building this simple, humble temple to prepare for the Messiah.

And the Messiah was born in a barn.  The new temple wasn't good enough for the people because it lacked silver and gold and God had the Messiah show up in a barn.

God has a sense of humor when we try and show off.

Because God reminds the people that all the gold and all the silver belong to God - and if this was the plan, certainly God could pack the temple with such riches - but God has something far greater in store.

Glory.

God intends to fill the temple with God's Glory.

Because this is the central issue - the people feel that the glory of the temple was theirs.  They made it.  They built it.  They created it.  It was gold that they gave.  It belonged to their city.  It was their temple and it's glory was theirs.  Something they did made it a great place.

It was a temple that God never asked them to build, but they built it anyway.

And now God is asking the people to trust that God's Glory will be with them again in a bigger and grander way than they could ever imagine. And it's not about the temple they are building - its about the God that they are worshiping.

As Christians, we are a people of hope.  We see hope in places where no one else does.  We see hope for reconciliation in the darkest days of apartheid.  We see hope for redemption in the hooker working the street.  We see hope for a new and glorious temple among the ashes and rubble of what used to be.

We are a people of hope.  We see the world in a different way than others.

We understand that the ripest, sweetest banana happens to look ugly from the outside.  We understand that the right time to invest it all is when all seems lost.  We understand that God has a plan for us even when all we can see our are chains and shackles as we are led away in captivity.    

Dear friends, as we experience our time of exile and uncertainty - remember that God has promised us a way forward greater than we can envision.  God has promised to show us God's glory.

Amen.  

What we get wrong.

[I will be doing a short sermon series looking at the sermon on the mount and the ways that we misunderstand or only partially understand these words.  Sometimes our culture is so removed from Jesus' culture that it is easy to miss the point.  I hope that through these sermons, the students and young people will be challenged to live their faith more publicly.]

Matthew 5:11-16

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

-------

When we think of salt - what's the first thing that we think of?  It's probably the taste.  It’s the way that salt makes food tasty.  It's easy to read this verse, and to think that this is the point that Jesus is making - that we as Christians make life more flavorful.  And this is partly correct.

But when Jesus spoke to the crowd, their ideas about salt were a little bit different than ours.  Salt was used to preserve foods.  The people knew that fish would rot after a day or two - but when they were packed in salt they would last for a very long time.

Salt did something to the food, to make the bad go away.

Our lives are filled with light.  When the electricity goes off, we still have hours of power on our phones or other gadgets.  There is a flashlight on my phone that is always available.  I'm never in the dark.

Did you know that scholars believe that 100 years ago people used to sleep differently than we do now?  Many scholars believe that people went to bed when it got dark, slept for a few hours, woke up for a few hours, and then went back to bed for a few hours.  We have more hours of dark than our bodies need sleep and this is what our bodies naturally do without the distraction of lights and Facebook.

Being afraid of the dark is common enough for children - but even most adults can be frightened if they are found in absolute darkness.  [turn off all the lights]  The Old Testament talks about hospitality and welcoming strangers so often, because the alternative was horrifying.  If you were caught outside outside of the city at night, it was a world of absolute darkness.  It was the light that would save you. 

  In days when walking between cities could take a full day - the only option was to leave early in the morning and hope to make it there by nightfall.  Imagine that you have walked the whole day, and night has come.  You are still on the roads - the places where thieves and robbers thrive and where wild beasts own the streets – how do you know that the city is close? If it is a city on a hill - you are entirely dependent on the lights in the city to guide your way.   If you are traveling in the dark, the light of the city is your only hope and your only salvation.

The light is the only thing that could make the bad go away.

When Jesus calls us to be salt and light, He is calling us to be more than a tasty treat or a modern convenience.

He is calling us to help make the bad go away.  He is calling us to live out our faith in such a way, that we make the world better by pushing out what is evil.  When we are called to be salt and light we are called to save people.

Because what’s the point of unsalty salt – it’s just a rock at that point.  It can’t keep food from spoiling and it can’t make food taste better.  A city on a hill hidden is a death sentence to those searching for the city. 

Christianity sucks when it is self centered.  When the whole point of a Christian's life focuses on making himself better or getting rid of all the sin in her life or figuring out what his personal theology is on the subject of how many angels can fit on the point of pin - when Christians focus on themselves instead of others, Christians get really ugly.

When we focus on ourselves and our main goal is to save what we had and what we were instead of focusing on the people around us - we cave in on ourselves.  We want to grow as a ministry not because we like having a full room, but because we honestly believe in the Jesus that we talk about.  We honestly believe that Jesus saves people from all the ugliness and sin that the world has to offer.  And we honestly believe that Jesus uses us to help make that a reality.

No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a bowl.  [Put candle under glass bowl] I have read this for years and thought – “well, of course, no one can see the lit lamp under the bowl.  What a shame that everyone misses out on that light. 

But this week I’ve been thinking about this more and more. 

What happens when the candle is put under a bowl?  Well – for a while it is hidden -  but we chose a clear glass bowl to show what everyone listening to Jesus would have understood. 

After a little bit of time, the lamp will go out.  Once the oxygen is gone, the candle will go out.  If we hid the light of Jesus Christ under a bowl – it keeps that light from those around us --- but it also destroys the light that we have.  We can only keep this to ourselves for so long. 

But when it’s on a lamp stand, it can provide a great light to everyone around and it doesn’t burn out. 

Jesus calls us to be salt and light.  And that means that we must go out of this place and live out what we honestly believe.  We have friends who are hurting and in pain.  People that we love are struggling and failing.  And God wants us to make their bad go away.  It’s for them – that they might find the light of Christ – but it’s for us as well.  If we don’t live out our faith it slowly fades away. 

God wants us to be salt and light and to challenge what is wrong and to make it good.

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, had three general rules that he asked the people to follow.

Do no harm.

Do good.

Stay in love with God.

These simple rules are a powerful force against the darkness of this world, don't you think?

I want us to read these verses again.  I started with this verse for a reason.  When we step up and work to make the bad go away ... there will be a lot more bad first.  When we stand up for what we believe in, it is not always popular.  If it was popular and easy, everyone would be doing it.  But Jesus reminds us that our reward is in heaven.  There is tremendous joy in seeing someone's life changed from sadness and darkness to great light.  There is joy in being salt and preserving the good and casting out the bad.  But, it is often painful and difficult.

Jesus wants us to do it anyway.

Dear friends, go forth this day - and be salt and light.  Find the real places where you can do good, and do it.