Dealing with Rage

Sermon 3 in the series based on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “The Greatest Sermon Ever Preached: A Spiritual Overhaul by the Master.”

The first sermon, “A Change in Goals,” focused on the Beatitudes; we talked about knowing our need for God and about seeking God’s ways above all else. The second sermon, “A Change in Standards,” focused on the standard for Christian life, not a set of rules, but representing the perfect character of God. We all fall short, but we cannot settle for any lesser standard and claim to have arrived. We need the help of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

The next four sermons in the series deal with some of the big problems we have with our inner attitudes in the areas of rage, lust, deception, and enmity. How do we deal with such problems and come out of the battle representing the character of God. Today, rage is the problem. Listen to what Jesus says:

5:21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. 26 Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

Jesus begins “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’” “You shall not murder,” is the proper translation of the sixth of the Ten Commandments. It is the law of God. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ Then Jesus says, “But I say to you….” For a moment, it sounds as if Jesus is about to contradict the Sixth Commandment, but nothing Jesus says can be seen as undermining the importance or the substance of that commandment. “You shall not murder,” stands. Jesus is strengthening the command. He is saying that, when God made that law, he had more in mind than our simply refraining from murder. God had in mind our recognizing and valuing one another as people made in the image of God. God had in mind our building and maintaining relationships that show this value. As children of God, we have a common bond with other children of God and even with potential children of God; we are to treat them as brothers and sisters in the family of God. We are to do nothing to tear them down, to discourage their growth in godliness, to repudiate their identities as children of God. When Jesus says, “But I say to you…,” he is saying that there is a lot more involved than simply refraining from murder.

In order to understand exactly what Jesus is saying, we have to proceed carefully in our reading of this passage. The text seems to command us never to be angry with our brothers and sisters, and there are situations when that seems neither possible nor desirable. There are times when we need to be angry. There were times when Jesus himself was angry, and he was not sinning when he was. Once he called the Pharisees “Blind fools,” and he was not sinning when he did so; he was warning them of their spiritual state; they needed to be so strongly challenged if there was to be any hope for them. There are times that the apostles were angry, and at least some of those times they were not sinning by being angry, but were defending the integrity of the gospel and church for which Jesus died. Sometimes anger is right and beneficial.

The general consensus of Bible scholars today is that early Christians were quite uncomfortable with this text because of its seeming to forbid anger altogether, and so, after the phrase, “Do not be angry,” they added the phrase, “without cause.” The phrase shows up in the King James and the New King James Versions, but not in most newer translations. The phrase was not in the manuscripts that most scholars believe to reflect the earliest sources. Adding the phrase “without cause” fixed the problem by creating a bigger one. What angry person does not think that there is a cause for the anger? The added phrase lets them off the hook completely.

There are better solutions already in the original text. The Greek word for angry in this text is a very strong word, not just a minor irritation, but something more like rage. Furthermore, it is a form of that word that appears only here in the Bible and seems to mean something like “sustain a rage” or “give a home to rage.” What is being forbidden is nursing rage into a sinful breaking of relationships. The speech that is being forbidden is the kind of name-calling that demeans the worth of someone with whom we should or could have a common bond in the family of God.

Elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells us how to deal with a situation when we are angry at someone because we perceive that they have treated us wrongly. We are to go to them directly and talk about it. If that doesn’t work, there are prescribed follow-up steps. Many problems can be solved if Christians will only follow the steps.

In this passage, Jesus instructs us about what we are to do when someone has something against us. We may be in the middle of an act of worship when we remember that we have done something wrong. We are to drop everything and go to make amends and to seek reconciliation.

The value here is that we should take the risk of trying to solve problems in our relationships as they come up. The counsel in Ephesians 4:25-27 applies; I am quoting from the NET Bible which I believe catches the nuances of this: Therefore, having laid aside falsehood, each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on the cause of your anger. Do not give the devil an opportunity.

The point then is to do whatever we can to sustain healthy relationships with fellow Christians and with people whom we might bring to faith in Christ. If there is a cause for anger, don’t let it simmer; address it.

There are two main rules: (1) be pro-active, and (2) avoid name-calling.

(1) Be proactive in sustaining healthy relationships. I have already talked about two ways of being proactive. Let’s talk a little more about them.

(a) When someone has a legitimate complaint against us, we are to seek to make proper amends and to reconcile as soon as possible. That includes making sure that they know we have heard their concern and are trying to address it insofar as we conscientiously can, paying legitimate debts as soon as possible, doing all that we can to restore someone’s reputation if they feel that we have we have demeaned them, and so forth.

(b) When we have something against someone else, we are to go directly to them and speak the truth as we see it, relying on them to make amends. If that effort fails, and only if it fails, we are to try to arrange to take a spiritual leader or two with us on a second visit. If the person simply will not address the problem and make it right to the satisfaction of the church body, there are procedures for breaking the relationship on clear grounds, but that is a last resort to be reserved for extreme situations.

(c) There is a third sort of situation. In most situations when two people feel alienated, there are two sides to the story, with some legitimate complaints on both sides. If attempting to work out the problems privately is simply not working, a counselor or mediator or arbitrator might be needed. Our church connections should be able to provide someone to help. Sooner or later, most married couples need help from a counselor at resolving problems. The wise ones get the help. The point is, “Be proactive in sustaining healthy relationships.”

(2) Avoid name-calling. Today’s text warns against insulting someone. Two insults are given as examples: calling the person an empty-headed fool or calling the person a rebellious fool. We could greatly multiply the examples. Calling a child of God or a potential child of God by a derogatory name can cause great harm. If the person has low self-esteem, name-calling can wound them deeply, placing a curse upon their life, or even reinforcing a curse that has been upon their lives from early childhood. If the person you call a name sees you as a representative of Christianity, calling them a derogatory name can place a wedge between them and the gospel and may hinder their salvation or their service to Christ. Parents, calling your children derogatory names can be terribly destructive. Some children never recover. If in a moment of rage, we find ourselves blasting the worth of another person, prompt confessions, repentance, and sustained efforts to make amends are called for.

Handling our anger by being proactive in sustaining healthy relationships and avoiding name-calling are challenging tasks. We need all the help we can get to pull it off.

Chances are we won’t do it unless three things are in place:

1. We must have submitted ourselves to the will of God as that will has been revealed through Jesus Christ, surrendering our own will to his. We must be living by the highest and best goals and standards.

2. We must be immersed in the grace of God so that we do not have to defend our own righteousness. Jesus died to offer us forgiveness. When we trust his gift, he will cover us with his righteousness while we grow into it.

3. We must be in touch with the renewing power and ongoing guidance of the Holy Spirit so that we are not totally dependent on our own understandings.

Now, all that is a big challenge. We can only take one step at a time, but the first step is a big one, a leap of faith into letting Jesus really be our Savior and Lord. That is precisely where the Sermon on the Mount pushes us, toward a spiritual overhaul by the Master.

I think that I have some prayerful work to do in the ways that I have handled—and not handled--anger and rage in my life. I have not been as proactive as Jesus challenges me to be. When I have done wrong to someone else or when wrong has been done to me, I need to move toward clear thinking and productive actions much more quickly than I have done in the past.

This happens when the details of my life are brought openly before Jesus and I ask for his heart, his insight, and his wisdom. In other words, the spiritual overhaul that I need in the area of rage begins with an honest and active spending time with Jesus in prayer. I suspect that I am not alone in that need.

A Change of Standards

Sermon 2 in the Series: “The Greatest Sermon Ever Preached: A Spiritual Overhaul by the Master.”

Between five and twenty years ago, the fad in many churches was to preach sermons that were immediately relevant to the daily lives of average citizens, the secrets of a happy marriage, the secrets of raising good kids, the secrets of becoming a leader at work, and so on. That’s not what Jesus did. Listen to this all of you. This may be the most important thing you hear today. Okay, maybe not, but I got your attention, didn't I? For Jesus, the question is not whether his message is relevant to our lives, but whether our lives are relevant to his message. We said that Jesus wants us to be distinctively godly, so that we can be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. In order to be distinctive in the way Jesus has in mind, we must adopt goals to depart from worldly goals for our lives and instead to adopt the goals set forth in the Beatitudes. Last week, we said that Jesus wants us:

To become poor in spirit, knowing our need for God.

To become among those who mourn, lamenting our own dependence on and participation in evil.

To become meek, that is, humble and teachable, ready to obey God’s will.

To become among those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, seeking to live out God’s holy and just character.

To become merciful, refusing to sit in judgment on sinners, but showing compassion to them.

To become pure in heart, not divided in our hearts and minds, but totally committed to God’s way.

To become peacemakers, seeking the best for enemies, and, if possible safely and justly, reconciling with them.

To become the persecuted, those who stand so strongly for God’s ways that we are at odds with all ungodly powers.

That was last week’s message. Today’s message continues from it.

In today’s message, Jesus calls us to change our standards of acceptable performance. He has only one direction in mind for our change of standards, upward, way upward. There is a vast difference between what Jesus taught and our sloppy society with its “I’m okay, you’re okay” “any philosophy of life is as valid as any other” values.

Matthew 5:17-20, 48 17 “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. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

If you had polled the Jewish people in the days of Jesus about who were the most righteous people in their society, the big majority probably would have said the scribes and Pharisees. The Pharisaic scribes were the most obviously devoted to strict legal standards of behavior touching every part of their lives. They had added countless layers of tradition around the written law of the scriptures so that only people of considerable leisure could ever hope to measure up to the standards, but still the even most people who failed at their standards thought that they had the highest standards. Jesus thought that their layers of traditions often missed the point, adding burdens without purpose. He favored an approach that looked for the underlying intent of God’s laws and sought to fulfill that intent more deeply than any legislation could ever do. The Pharisees accused him of watering down the law. He accused them of muddying it up.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus clarified that he was not watering down one jot or tittle of the law of God, but that he was actually teaching a higher standard of righteousness than the Pharisees. Note that he did not say that, unless our practices were more cumbersome and time-consuming than those of the Pharisees, we would fail to enter the kingdom. He only said that unless our standards were higher than theirs we would fail to enter the kingdom. A bit later in the sermon he gets around to saying what the higher standard is. Matthew 5:48 says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” What fulfills the law of God? Perfection and nothing less. Gulp.

Now before this sermon ends, we will talk about that word perfect and what Jesus meant by it. We will remove some misconceptions about it. We will show that Jesus was not crazy or out of touch with human reality. We will show that he meant what he said. We will show why what he said is good news and not bad news for the likes of us.

Eddie Keever recently emailed me and tagged his signature with, “Falling short of the glory for over 40 years and counting.” I responded, “I've been doing that falling short of the glory thing for over 60 years now.” Actually, I don’t know of anyone who has measured up, but I still think that what Jesus said about perfection is good news, once we understand it. Stand by.

One day while leading a Bible study at a regional training event in Ohio, I made reference to Matthew 5:48. An older minister in the study was deeply offended. He said, “I just don’t believe that Jesus expected us to be perfect.” I tried to get him to explain what he was getting at, but he could only repeat himself more adamantly. I suspect that he did not have much confidence in the inspiration and authority of the scriptures and did not believe that Jesus ever said such a thing. I also suspect that he was a student of modern therapeutic theory that we must cast off all guilt about shortcomings and affirm that everyone is special and good just as they are…unless of course they believe that Jesus said that we must be perfect, in which case they must be corrected before they are okay. Well, if I read him right, I know how he saw me.

Our society teaches that high expectations are dangerous and destructive, and wrongly applied they can be! A few years back, our daughter suffered a debilitating eating disorder due to an overdose of the wrong kind of Christian perfectionism that left her feeling that she was personally responsible for solving the problems of the world. I know all too well that this can happen.

But I would contend that the high expectations that Jesus held out for us, rightly understood, were still loving and good and beneficial. I personally know that high expectations and beneficial love can go together. I experienced it from my mother.

She was an amazing woman, creative and resourceful, a great motivator and encourager, gentle but firm, steel covered with velvet. I recently had a couple of very powerful memories of her. When she took me to church as a toddler, she carried a metal Band-Aid box filled with puffed rice. She held it where I could get to it. I don’t remember how she convinced me to follow the rules, but the rules were that I could open the box and put a damp finger in, get one grain of puffed rice to stick to the end of my finger, remove it, close the box, put the rice in my mouth, carefully chew and swallow it before getting another. It was amazing how long that could keep a child quietly occupied. I also remember the Sunday a couple of years later when I had gotten a bit restless. Another child, whose behavior was even worse, had been taken outside the church and paddled that day. I remember listening to the whap, whap, whap, and the squalls filtering back inside. On the way home from church, my mother said, very quietly, “You were not as quiet as I would like for you to have been today. I am afraid that you made noise that may have disturbed some people around us who were trying to worship, pray, and listen to the sermon. I know that you will try to do better next week. I can’t tell you how sad and embarrassed I would be if I ever had to take you outside the way Betty had to take Billy today.” The names have been changed to protect the guilty. As I remembered this as a sixty year old man, there flooded back over me the images that came to my mind that day in the car on the way home from church. I could not imagine that my mother would have administered more than the gentlest single swat to my hindquarters, but I could imagine that I would have bawled my head off in heartbreak, and I could also imagine that she would have done the same. That image of my mother and me standing outside the church squalling together never happened, but it was a powerful motivator and reminder to be considerate of those who were worshiping.

A few years later, when I was in about the first grade, my mother on the way to church said, “I believe you are old enough now not to need entertainment at church. I believe that you can listen to the sermon and get something useful out of it. I know that at first, you will not understand everything, but I believe that, if you listen carefully, you will get something. And, if you make a practice of listening carefully, you will get more every Sunday.” Our church was served by busy seminary students. They sometimes took seminary courses such as “Exegesis of Paul’s Letter to the Romans.” So you know what the sermon series was while they were trying to survive that course. My mother was definitely proven right by saying that I would not understand everything, but she was also right that I would gain something if I paid attention. I preached my first sermon at age 15.

I am not trying to tell you what will work in your family. Every parent is different, and so is every child. Some are not wired to sit still, and they require a different approach. What I am telling you was that I never doubted that my mother loved me just as I was and would love me no less if I fell short, but that she had high expectations for me that would make my life better. I never doubted it about her, and I do not doubt it about Jesus.

I think that I can make my point about Jesus’ high expectations very quickly now. Jesus has one standard and only one standard for us: perfection. The word that most translations render as perfect has to do with the end goal. It could be translated as complete, mature, whole, whole-hearted, fulfilled. What Jesus is telling us is that there is no law or set of laws that we can obey and then say, “Now I have done it.” We have not reached the goal until we are completely like God in our character. In the Old Testament, God had made the same point in these words, “You must be holy, for I, the Lord your God am holy.”

Does Jesus know that we are sinners and that we will fall short. Of course. That is why he came and died on the cross for us. That is why he offers to share his righteousness with us if we will entrust ourselves to him. But, when we entrust ourselves to Jesus, we commit ourselves to a journey toward the goal. The goal is that, in eternity, we will be perfect not just because of Jesus’ covering, but perfect because we have completed the journey. Yes, we will fall short of the glory in this life, but we must never settle for less than the best and highest goal. Holding the goal of perfection before us will preserve us against self-righteousness. We will never be able to put anyone else down for their failures when we are so conscious of our own. But holding the goal before us will also keep us moving forward, showing forth the transforming presence of our Lord in our lives.

Jesus loves us. He tells us that we must become perfect. He will help us to the goal. If we trust him, we will get there in eternity. In the meantime, we must never settle for less than the best. Adopting that attitude is part of the spiritual overhaul that he would give to us.

"A Change in Goals"

Sermon 1 in the Series: “The Greatest Sermon Ever Preached: A Spiritual Overhaul by the Master.”

Edward Perronet, who wrote the first two verses of “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name,” was a co-worker of John and Charles Wesley. According to NetHymnal.com, “John Wesley was always trying to get him to preach, but Perronet, though capable, was somewhat in awe of Wesley, and always deferred to him. Any time John Wesley was pr¬sent, Perronet felt Wesley should do the preaching. But John Wesley was not one to take “no” for an answer. So, one day, in the middle of a meeting, he simply announced, “Brother Perronet will now speak.” Thinking quickly, Perronet stood before the large crowd and declared, “I will now deliver the greatest sermon ever preached on earth.” He then read the Sermon on the Mount, and sat down.”

That story, plus Judy’s nudging me to do something supplementing our new Apprentice series book, The Good and Beautiful Life, inspired me to the sermon series we begin today, a series that like the Apprentice book is based on the Sermon on the Mount. Series Title: “The Greatest Sermon Ever Preached: A Spiritual Overhaul by the Master.”

When I was a child, there seemed to be two sorts of people in my community. The first sort, those who wished to appear prosperous, traded their car in for a new model every year. The second sort, those who wished to be thrifty, if they ever bought a new car at all, planned to keep it for a long time. At a certain point, the thrifty ones would invest in a complete overhaul of the car which could not have been justified in its resale value, but only in terms of the mileage it would wrack up at minimal cost. I remember one man who put his car through two major overhauls, plus some minor ones, and got it to 350,000 miles, still looking pretty good, a mark of great distinction in those days, especially on the kinds of roads on which we had to drive in rural southeastern Kansas with pot holes that gradually jarred cars to pieces. I suggest that we examine the Sermon on the Mount carefully so that we will receive a spiritual overhaul by the Master Mechanic Jesus and so that our lives will be marked with great distinction and durability.

Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, begins with the Beatitudes which means Blessings. Most of us think of the Beatitudes as familiar, safe, relaxing. I have known of people who claim to read them in place of sleeping pills. The Beatitudes are too powerful to let slide by like that. There are two versions of Jesus’ Beatitudes, one reported in Luke as part of the Sermon on the Plain, and the other in Matthew as part of the Sermon on the Mount. I believe that both Luke’s and Matthew’s versions are divinely inspired and authentic accounts, perhaps delivered on separate occasions. We need to understand both versions as part and parcel of Jesus’ message and mission and of our identity as his disciples.

Luke presents Jesus’ mission as one of redeeming love turning the social world as we know it upside down and inside out. Luke introduces Jesus as one who will carry out God’s plans for scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry, sending the rich empty away, for bringing about the falling and rising of many. Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit to do just that, and the Spirit came upon his followers to help them carry that mission to all places and times. In Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, the poor, the hungry, those who mourn under oppression, and the persecuted will be blessed, while curses fall on the rich, the full, the arrogant, and the reputable. In the fullness of time they will find themselves in a great reversal of circumstances. What Jesus describes in Luke’s account isn’t exactly the way most people assume that life operates. Yet Luke sees Jesus’ mission continuing through the church, empowering the weak and forgotten through the working of the Holy Spirit in the community of faith. That should get our attention. What would our church life look like if we were grasped more fully by Jesus’ mission as reported in Luke’s Beatitudes?

Is Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes easier to swallow? Not if we really understand it. Matthew’s account focuses less on our material and social circumstances and more on our spiritual goals in life. Matthew’s Jesus is God with us for judgment and for grace. Jesus announced the theme of his ministry, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The kingdom of heaven is God’s reigning power that will be brought to fullness at the end of time, but that has already invaded this world, calling us to transformation, calling us to live by kingdom goals and values. Matthew’s presentation of the Beatitudes is key to that purpose.

James Bryan Smith, in The Good and Beautiful Life, correctly says that the Beatitudes are not a new set of virtues that further divide the religious haves and have-nots, but are words of hope and healing to those who have been marginalized. Are you broken, down-and-out, desperate? Then you are just the sort of person for whom Jesus brought the kingdom of God. When the Beatitudes are addressed to the down and out, Smith is right. No one is excluded. Jesus will start with us where we are, and he will be the presence of God for us, enabling us to live as kingdom people.

But what about when the Beatitudes are addressed to the socially comfortable and the religiously complacent? The Beatitudes may comfort the afflicted, but they also afflict the comfortable. To the comfortable and complacent, the Beatitudes speak a strong challenge to change attitudes, to find new goals in life.

How do you know whether you are one of the afflicted to be comforted or the comfortable to be afflicted? We all have our problems and would like to be comforted, so having problems does not tell us that we are one of the afflicted to be comforted. I suggest that we are among the comfortable to be afflicted if too much of our energy goes into maintaining our status, our influence, our reputations, our prosperity, our perks, our privileges, our goodness, our ideas, our traditions, and so forth. If too much of our energy is going into maintaining our place in life, we are probably among the comfortable and complacent whom the Beatitudes are designed to disturb.

Jesus begins his kingdom ministry and then addresses his disciples and potential disciples: Matthew 5:1 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. 7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

In Matthew’s account, Jesus announces eight characteristics of people who will be blessed by God with the kingdom’s benefits.

1. The poor in spirit know their need for God. Rather than defending their position in life, they toss their pride aside and transparently seek help from Jesus to reorient their lives. They don’t worry about who knows. To such does the kingdom belong.

2. Those who mourn lament the cruelty and corruption of this world and especially their own dependence on and participation in that evil. They repent, turn from their wrong, and turn toward the empowerment for new life that is offered by Jesus. Jesus’ brother and Matthew’s spiritual twin James put it this way: “7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” Jesus says that those who mourn in that way will be comforted.

3. The meek are not namby-pamby doormats, but are the humble and teachable, ready to obey God’s will. They are humble enough to change their lives in accord with Jesus’ instructions. Because, in the end, the new heaven and new earth will perfectly fulfill Jesus’ will, the humble and obedient will inherit the earth.

4. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness seek God’s justice. They know that God is holy and that God’s people are called to be holy. The burning desire to live out godly character is the driving force of their lives. Their desire will be satisfied.

5. The merciful refuse to sit in judgment on sinners, but show compassion to them. As they forgive, so they will be forgiven. They will receive the measure of the mercy they give out.

6. The pure in heart are single-hearted in their pursuit of God and godly values. They do not divide their hearts and minds by keeping one foot in the world’s camp, by thinking constantly of what they could have if they just took a few moral or spiritual shortcuts. They focus intently on living God’s way. They shall see God.

7. The peacemakers are committed without limit to forgiving enemies, seeking the best for them and, if possible on a safe and just basis, reconciling with them. By loving their enemies, they show that they are children of God, living in God’s image.

8. The persecuted stand so strongly and clearly for God’s word and God’s ways that they find themselves at odds with the values of the world and hence, under hostility from the world. They know that they are not better than their Master Jesus, and so may suffer for a time, but they also know that they will share his eternal reign over the perfected new creation.

As I have said, the Beatitudes are comforting to the discouraged, but disturbing to the complacent. The way you hear them will depend on where you are in life. If you are down and out, the Beatitudes invite you into the kingdom of God where your deepest aspirations can be satisfied, but, if you are complacent, they really stir the pot and call you to a kind of distinctive living you have not previously imagined; they demand that you set new and less comfortable goals. Jesus follows up the Beatitudes with these words about distinctive living.

13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

No matter who we are and what we have done, God loves us and wants to provide good things for us, but we must put ourselves in position to receive his blessings. The best blessings are not money, sex, and power—or even having the reputation of being religious. The best blessings are the results of Jesus working in and through our lives. Being part of the living in the kingdom of God here and now so that others may see the reality of the loving and sovereign God is the highest honor and richest fulfillment that can come to us in this life. There is no greater blessing. Jesus’ Beatitudes point the way for us. They express the goals that are the first step in our spiritual overhaul.

For What Are You Hoping?

A Meditation for a New Year

At our Christmas Eve service we said that Jesus came to bring us hope for our lifetimes:

Hope that God exists, that God reigns in holiness and love, that God is worthy of our trust, love, and obedience

Hope that there is a great purpose for human life, that we are meant to be renewed as children and servants of God, living for the praise of God’s glory, showing forth God’s character through our lives.

Hope that we can be restored from the dilemma caused by our sin, that Jesus has paid the cost of our sin and that, when we trust in him, he will cover us with his righteousness and give us the Holy Spirit to renew us by degrees in that righteousness.

Hope that, in our social life, we can get beyond the distractions of striving for the wrong goals and fighting the wrong battles so that we can build a human-scale community of hope in Jesus Christ

Hope that that we will be among those who at last enter the eternal and perfect new heaven and new earth that God has planned from the beginning of creation.

We also said that this hope comes as we allow ourselves to be immersed in Jesus Christ, his life, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, his exaltation, living our lives in him. In so doing, we will learn more and more, day by day, to see life through his eyes, and everything will be transformed. That retraining of our vision is the topic for the rest of today’s sermon.

When we celebrate Christmas, we need to be aware that one of the important things Jesus did in his coming was to give us a new basis for seeing life through God’s eyes. This retraining of our vision was already at work in the circumstances of his birth: conceived by a virgin, which would have been as hard to explain then as now, in a poor family, tossed about by a foreign occupying empire, at the crucial time of the pregnancy traveling to a distant rural village where the only available lodging for birthing was an animal stable, with a feed trough as a baby’s bed, with disreputable shepherds as the first visitors, with warnings from later visiting pagan astrologers that the holy family must flee from an attempt by the evil puppet king on the baby’s life. We have heard it so often that we forget how disorienting this is to our normal worldly assumptions about what qualities make one influential, powerful, effective, able to bring hope to the whole world. If we were left to write the story based on our own daily assumptions, it is probably not how we would write it.

But Jesus came to challenge our assumptions. He came to be the Messiah, but he would not let anyone talk about his being the Messiah, because he had a most surprising style of being the Messiah. His story had to unfold in its own way and on its own timetable, and it had to develop the amazing possibilities of the supernatural working of God and then pass through what appeared to be a colossal defeat before it could be understood exactly how he intended to deliver us from our bondage. He came to proclaim the kingdom of God, but he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom with shocking outreach to the most disreputable people, in defiance of the most respected religious authorities, by steering clear of the hot political issues of the day, with his good news communicated in parables, both spoken and enacted, parables that no one fully understood at the time.

Why? Because Jesus’ message and mission call for us to step outside the ways we normally think, to begin to see things not with human eyes, but with the eyes of God.

So strange was Jesus’ approach that John the Baptist, who of all who had preceded Jesus was in the best position to understand, began to think that he had somehow picked the wrong guy. John had expected to see Jesus calling down fires of destruction on wicked men like Herod Antipas, but instead Antipas had him in prison on what would prove to be his death row.

According to Matthew 11, John sent disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” Jesus answered John’s disciples, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk; lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

The point is that Jesus’ approach was not focused on the big social institutions, or on the major events recorded by historians, but on sowing the seeds of God’s reign in the lives of less than ordinary people who nonetheless knew that they needed God.

In Matthew 12, Jesus’ redemptive ministry drew together an odd alliance of opponents, from the most religious to the least religious, who were ready to conspire together to kill him. Jesus withdrew from attempting to explain himself to these opponents, but focused instead on ministering to the crowds that followed him and on instructing his closest disciples. He ordered them not to make known who he was. Matthew reports, “This was to fulfill what was spoken by Isaiah.” He then quotes in free translation, the words of the first Servant Song from Isaiah 42: 18 “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. 19 He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; 20 a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; 21 and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

In other words, Jesus came not only as the Royal Son of God, but also as the Suffering Servant of God. He came not in the spirit of this world, but as one anointed by the Spirit of God. He came not to fight worldly battles, or to build worldly institutions, but to form a community of hope. He came not to gain influential followers, not to discard the broken and the weak, but to heal the bruised reed and to trim the smoldering wick. He came to repair the lives of the broken and the discouraged. But in the end, the text Matthew quotes from Isaiah says, it is he and his type of ministry that will bring justice to victory and it is in his name and no other that the peoples of the world will at last find hope.

Isaiah had foreseen it, Jesus had embodied it, Matthew had reported it—this strange new way of seeing life and all its possibilities when we look with eyes trained to the reign of God. When Matthew reported Jesus’ words, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…” he was referring to a way of seeing life, by looking for the mostly hidden signs of God’s redeeming presence and power.

Where do we see and seek the reign of God? Where have we seen the hand of God at work among us this past year?

For What Are You Hoping?

A Meditation for a New Year

At our Christmas Eve service we said that Jesus came to bring us hope for our lifetimes:

· Hope that God exists, that God reigns in holiness and love, that God is worthy of our trust, love, and obedience

· Hope that there is a great purpose for human life, that we are meant to be renewed as children and servants of God, living for the praise of God’s glory, showing forth God’s character through our lives.

· Hope that we can be restored from the dilemma caused by our sin, that Jesus has paid the cost of our sin and that, when we trust in him, he will cover us with his righteousness and give us the Holy Spirit to renew us by degrees in that righteousness.

· Hope that, in our social life, we can get beyond the distractions of striving for the wrong goals and fighting the wrong battles so that we can build a human-scale community of hope in Jesus Christ

· Hope that that we will be among those who at last enter the eternal and perfect new heaven and new earth that God has planned from the beginning of creation.

We also said that this hope comes as we allow ourselves to be immersed in Jesus Christ, his life, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, his exaltation, living our lives in him. In so doing, we will learn more and more, day by day, to see life through his eyes, and everything will be transformed. That retraining of our vision is the topic for the rest of today’s sermon.

When we celebrate Christmas, we need to be aware that one of the important things Jesus did in his coming was to give us a new basis for seeing life through God’s eyes. This retraining of our vision was already at work in the circumstances of his birth: conceived by a virgin, which would have been as hard to explain then as now, in a poor family, tossed about by a foreign occupying empire, at the crucial time of the pregnancy traveling to a distant rural village where the only available lodging for birthing was an animal stable, with a feed trough as a baby’s bed, with disreputable shepherds as the first visitors, with warnings from later visiting pagan astrologers that the holy family must flee from an attempt by the evil puppet king on the baby’s life. We have heard it so often that we forget how disorienting this is to our normal worldly assumptions about what qualities make one influential, powerful, effective, able to bring hope to the whole world. If we were left to write the story based on our own daily assumptions, it is probably not how we would write it.

But Jesus came to challenge our assumptions. He came to be the Messiah, but he would not let anyone talk about his being the Messiah, because he had a most surprising style of being the Messiah. His story had to unfold in its own way and on its own timetable, and it had to develop the amazing possibilities of the supernatural working of God and then pass through what appeared to be a colossal defeat before it could be understood exactly how he intended to deliver us from our bondage. He came to proclaim the kingdom of God, but he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom with shocking outreach to the most disreputable people, in defiance of the most respected religious authorities, by steering clear of the hot political issues of the day, with his good news communicated in parables, both spoken and enacted, parables that no one fully understood at the time.

Why? Because Jesus’ message and mission call for us to step outside the ways we normally think, to begin to see things not with human eyes, but with the eyes of God.

So strange was Jesus’ approach that John the Baptist, who of all who had preceded Jesus was in the best position to understand, began to think that he had somehow picked the wrong guy. John had expected to see Jesus calling down fires of destruction on wicked men like Herod Antipas, but instead Antipas had him in prison on what would prove to be his death row. According to Matthew 11, John sent disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” Jesus answered John’s disciples, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk; lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

The point is that Jesus’ approach was not focused on the big social institutions, or on the major events recorded by historians, but on sowing the seeds of God’s reign in the lives of less than ordinary people who nonetheless knew that they needed God.

In Matthew 12, Jesus’ redemptive ministry drew together an odd alliance of opponents, from the most religious to the least religious, who were ready to conspire together to kill him. Jesus withdrew from attempting to explain himself to these opponents, but focused instead on ministering to the crowds that followed him and on instructing his closest disciples. He ordered them not to make known who he was. Matthew reports, “This was to fulfill what was spoken by Isaiah.” He then quotes in free translation, the words of the first Servant Song from Isaiah 42: 18 “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. 19 He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; 20 a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; 21 and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

In other words, Jesus came not only as the Royal Son of God, but also as the Suffering Servant of God. He came not in the spirit of this world, but as one anointed by the Spirit of God. He came not to fight worldly battles, or to build worldly institutions, but to form a community of hope. He came not to gain influential followers, not to discard the broken and the weak, but to heal the bruised reed and to trim the smoldering wick. He came to repair the lives of the broken and the discouraged. But in the end, the text Matthew quotes from Isaiah says, it is he and his type of ministry that will bring justice to victory and it is in his name and no other that the peoples of the world will at last find hope.

Isaiah had foreseen it, Jesus had embodied it, Matthew had reported it—this strange new way of seeing life and all its possibilities when we look with eyes trained to the reign of God. When Matthew reported Jesus’ words, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…” he was referring to a way of seeing life, by looking for the mostly hidden signs of God’s redeeming presence and power.

Where do we see and seek the reign of God? Where have we seen the hand of God at work among us this past year?