Firm
foundations
Jesus’ intensive crash-course in
Christian living draws to a close with a further simple guide to being and
doing. And when he finished, Matthew tells us, the crowds were astonished at
Jesus’ teaching because he taught as one who lived and breathed the words he
spoke. His teaching appeared to have gravity and lightness, profundity and
simplicity. They rang true.
When I was a boy I had one particular teacher
who was eccentric (this word literally means ‘off-centre’), passionate about
history, a vivid communicator and someone we came to admire for his
unpredictable methods. He once jumped up on all our desks, marched up and down
on them and repeated a mantra about the causes of the Second World War which I
remember to this day. He also went way beyond the limitations of the classroom
to help his students.
On one occasion, he cycled 10 miles to
my home to speak directly to my parents and me about my further education options,
encouraging me to believe in my ability in a way which opened doors that just
would not have been possible had he not made the extra effort. He had a
seriousness and intensity about him and a lightness too. He had authority.
The authority of Jesus as a teacher and
guide is a quality Matthew returns to throughout the Gospel. On this occasion, his
authority is compared to the scribes, the class of religious leaders whose job
it was to interpret and regulate the Torah. Jesus is portrayed as the
liberating lawmaker (Moses delivered the 10 Commandments from Mount Sinai,
Jesus delivers the new liberating law from a humble unnamed hill). He is the
one whose simple precepts are not about doing away with the old law, but rather
they are about breathing new life into them: fulfilling them.
Eugene Petersen, in his paraphrasing of
this new teaching, sums things up this way: ‘Here is a simple rule-of-thumb
guide for behaviour,’ says Jesus. ‘Ask yourself what you want people to do for
you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets
and this is what you get.’ (vs 12)
This blogging is all very well. But if
all the wisdom we learn from this bible study remain as a paper exercise and
does not work its way into my life then I am like a foolish house-holder who,
on receiving the plans from the architect, decides to build my dream home on a
sandy self-serving quick-fix beach rather than a life-long rock of sacrificial faith.
Storms come. Few of us get through a
life without them. Christ’s teaching anchors us to a firm hope – because his
teaching is always going to direct us to him and the fullness of relationship, not just his words. I remember
with huge gratitude my eccentric teacher, not just for his words but for who he
was and how he lived and how he put himself out for me. Oh, and I remember he was an unashamed disciple
of Jesus whose love sent him off-centre.
This chapter speaks to me of discipline and faith. It is easy to find fault with others, to shoot off opinions without much thought. It links with what Paul says about " taking every thought captive and making it obey Christ" and James, when he speaks of taming the tongue. Ask, seek and knock speak to me about perseverence in prayer, again more discipline as does passing through the narrow gate and building on a rock. As Hebrew 12 tells us,
ReplyDelete" ... Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus , the author and perfector of our faith... Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled , but instead be healed."
We’ve all sat through sermons which caused us to pray silently for the end to come, but the Sermon on the Mount was not one of them. Jesus’ hearers don’t seem to have been moved to prayer in this way; instead they were fascinated and amazed by what they heard. It was radical, and it was delivered with an authority they were not used to. No wonder the ordinary people were spell-bound and the authorities disturbed by what they heard – it was an apple-cart upsetting sermon, radically different and challenging.
ReplyDeleteIn this concluding chapter Jesus is relating how he would have us be (our character) to how he would have us treat one another (our actions and relationships). He tells us, for example, not to rush to judgement on people and condemn them. Against the standard set by the message in this sermon, Jesus asks whether we really are so much better than the people we are quick to criticise? We all fall short of the standard, and need the grace of God. Only the hypocrite believes otherwise.
In verse 12, for the first time in Matthew’s gospel, we get to that much quoted phrase ‘do to others what you would have them do to you’. Jesus puts such emphasis on this as a guiding principle for his followers that he calls it a summary of the Law and the Prophets. His hearers were, of course, Jewish and well versed in the Law and the Prophets, so he is harking back to the principles of his faith which had been so much distorted and turned into strict knit-picking rules by the time of his birth. Jesus is not denying the tradition in the Old Testament, but he is freeing it, and giving it a new interpretation as a life-guide.
Then he turns to the need for repentance, a turning, a new way of living our daily lives. It is a way to be found through a narrow gate, but it leads to a wonderful harvest from the good tree that it nurtures. Finally, he warns about the need for firm foundations in building our lives. He tells the story of the foolish property developers who built their estate on the flood plain by the river, and were surprised when the houses flooded next winter. He advised such people to build their estates higher up in the rocky hillsides where the storm water will drain away and cause little damage. It is much harder to cut foundations into rock than into the soft soil of the riverside, but how much better not to cut corners by taking the easy option. So it is with the message at the heart of the Sermon on the Mount – it is a challenging summary of the Gospel principles, but worth the effort to understand them fully and, by the grace of God, build our lives upon them. That is the best insurance policy against the floods that sweep into our lives.
So the sermon is finished, challenging and daunting as it was. There’s just time for the last hymn, before we go back into the ‘real’ world and have to apply the message out there.
The "real" world where storms can throw us overboard is the world which Matthew tells us in chapter 1 Jesus was born into and he was called Emmanuel, "God with us". "God with us" is our Rock, our strong foundation.
ReplyDeleteI see that at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is preaching to His disciples although a large crowd are not far off. By the end of the sermon the crowd were amazed at the way he taught, so had the crowd followed him up the hill? As He came down the hill, large crowds followed him.
ReplyDeleteI was always under the impression that some of his disciples were simple fishermen and I know we thought at times that his followers didn’t always understand what he was trying to tell them….. I’m certain there would be people there who heard the commotion, knew something was going on and followed out of curiosity, there must have been many there who did not know what he was trying to tell them. I gather the crowd consisted of Jews and Gentiles, folk from miles around.
How difficult it must have been for them as it still is for us at times.
Can you imagine the mind of Jesus, he talks off the top of his head about all sorts of rulings, no notes or prompts, it’s all there, and The Sermon on the Mount is one heck of a sermon. Amen.