Following in the Footsteps of Jesus: The King’s Law
Speaker: Andrew Brown
Key Passage: Matthew 5:1-16
Date: 7 Jun 2009
On a warm spring day in August 1963 a young minister stood up and delivered these words to a crowd of over 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day …right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers… I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”
How many of you recognise this dream? That’s right it’s the dream of Martin Luther King. Spoken over 40 years ago it fuelled the civil rights movement in the United States until today a man of mixed heritage sits in the very chair of President.
Most of you know that Martin Luther King had a dream and you recognise the impact that it has had. You’ve heard about it, read about it, and even studied it at various times and places, but how many of you know that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has a dream? How many you know that the Son of God, the King, has a dream that involves us all and is gradually rolling out around this planet today and will impact everyone around us? After all dreams matter. Dreams can change things. Dreams dictate what actions people will take in the future so that you can even predict their behaviour. The Lord Jesus has a dream. Did you know that, and do you know what it is?
The passage we read today is from the first of five major speeches that Jesus makes in the Book of Matthew. The whole speech is called the Sermon on the Mount. The first section of this sermon, which we just read, is called ‘The Beatitudes.’ You’ll recall how several weeks ago Jesus ‘Kingship’ was announced at His baptism. The voice of God the Father said, “This is my beloved Son who I am proud of.” Then last week Rob talked about how ‘the King’ then called Peter, Andrew, James and John to come and follow Him and to become “fishers of men.” Now, this week, ‘the King’ sits down with His disciples on a gentle slope near Capernaum and begins to sketch out to them what He is thinking and doing. This is His vision, His blueprint. He describes the kind of Kingdom that He is going to build and the kind of changes that He is going to bring about. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi both recognised the power of these words. The Early church taught the Book of Matthew especially to new Christians. Even today the Orthodox Church recognizes these same verses as a key summary of Christ’s teaching, a synopsis of the whole Gospel, so what is Jesus dream and what do His words say to us today?
1. Well Jesus dream begins with the very words you would least expect. He begins in a sense with a question, “so who do you think are the lucky ones?” Who are the lucky? If I was to ask this same question here today ‘who do you think the lucky ones are, particularly in this time of recession, what would you answer?‘ [Pause] Maybe you would answer the rich –those fat cats who won’t miss a few zeroes knocked off their fortunes. Maybe the famous –the beautiful people, the celebrities in the magazines who seem to jet set above all of life’s problems. What about royalty? Why not politicians? You never hear of their salaries ever going down. -Maybe the oil and electricity owners who seem to be holding the world to ransom? The rich, the beautiful, the powerful, the well educated, the well connected and the financially secure –we would say that these are all life’s winners, and it was no different at all in Jesus day.
For if Jesus had given the crowd a chance to reply they would have said “the tax collectors who rip us off with extra fees, officers in the Roman army who just seem to do whatever they please, the Sadducees and the Pharisees who run the money changing business in the Temple, the religious elite of the country, merchant traders, Roman citizens, the Roman Senate and above all else, Tiberius Caesar, the Roman Emperor himself. These are the truly lucky ones in life!”
You see life in first century Judea was incredibly tough. There was only a tiny middleclass made up of tradesman like Jesus. If a man was beaten up and robbed while travelling along the road from Jericho to Jerusalem there was every chance in the world that he would be left there to die there by the side of the road. The poor could not afford and the rich would not bother to help. Life was cheap. You were definitively better off amongst the rich and the powerful.
But Jesus will have none of this! Jesus says that the lucky are none of these! The lucky are not them! Listen! Jesus states, “Blessed are those of you who know that you need God’s help. Blessed are those who sorrow over their sins and the hurts of this world. Blessed are those of you who are gentle in the way in which you treat others, those of you who hunger and thirst for holiness and justice, who are merciful, who are single heartedly loyal to God, who are peacemakers amongst the people, and who are persecuted and insulted because now you live how God wants!”
Jesus begins His dream with the very people that no one would have started with –the have-nots, the underdogs! In fact this passage is called ‘the Beatitudes’ after the Latin word for blessed which is at the start of every statement. The word ‘blessed” in this context means someone who is in the best place from God’s point of view -someone who is blessed and fortunate in God’s sight. So what Jesus is saying is that the have-nots, the underdogs, have far more going for them than anyone knows. These kinds of people are in the very best place as far as God is concerned. They are in reality the truly lucky ones! For this is the place where God’s dream begins. They’re standing very close to the heart of things.
2. Which kind of begs the question ‘why?’ What is going on here?
Well if you look closely at what Jesus says it is really a list of contrasts. On the one side are those who are economically and spiritually unable to help themselves. On the other side are the proud and self-sufficient. On one side are those who mourn over the spiritual state of our world and the hurts of others, and on the other are those who are hedonists and simply seek more pleasure. There are those who are humble and gentle towards others versus those who are forceful and aggressive, those who hunger and thirst for what is right versus those who “well adjusted” to our world and see no real need for change –call them ‘the apathetic.’ The merciful and forgiving contrast with those who use the excuse that “everyone should take care of themselves” and are unmerciful, those who focus upon God above all else contrast with those who ‘adult’ and ‘broadminded,’ peacemakers contrast with peace breakers, and the persecuted contrast with those who adapt, fit in and try to be popular –i.e. with those who don’t rock the boat.
What Jesus says is that this group [right] is on top right now, this group [left] is on the bottom, but in the end only this group, and this group alone, [left] has a bright future that lies ahead of them!
You see what Jesus is proposing to do is to build a whole new society based upon these kind of values. Jesus is embarking upon an adventure that will soon turn the whole world upside down. He is going to create a new community, a community of goodwill, that will change the world from the bottom up –and as this brave new world emerges there will simply be no more room for these (right hand side) kind of people. The days of the proud, the self-centred, the lover of pleasures, the exploiters, the tyrants and the ‘Ayatollah’s’ are passing. As the lights come on all around the world they are all going to be squeezed out. Those who are big in their own eyes will eventually die out as a breed. This is the King’s law and this is the King’s intention!!
But it is not so much a ‘promise’ or a ‘hope,’ rather it’s an expectation. Jesus uses the words, “will” and “shall.“ These things will and shall come to be pass. They will take place over time.
I mean can you imagine what a world would look like where people really lived like this –where those who mourn over the state of this world will be comforted, where those who are gentle will govern the earth, where those who hunger and thirst for justice and holiness will be satisfied, where the merciful will be shown mercy, where the loyal get to see God, and where the peacemakers who speak of Jesus will be called the “sons and daughters of God?” (Where persecution has ended?) Jesus says this vision shall come to pass, and you can see this struggle continuing throughout history all over the earth as more and more people gravitate towards Jesus.
For example Christians transformed the Roman Empire within a few hundred years. They banned the gladiator blood sports for being too barbaric. They discouraged people from committing suicide because their lives were too important. They rescued unwanted children who would have been abandoned at birth, gave new dignity and new freedoms to women, stamped out paedophilia, opened the first hospitals, argued for a more compassionate approach to slavery, formed charities (which was very unusual in the ancient world) and even forced the Emperor to acknowledge that the powerful must stay within the rule of law.
Diognetus wrote at that time, “Like others, Christians marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives. They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, yet they live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them… They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonour, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult.”
What is clear is that Jesus is calling His disciples to live in a very different way and in this way to change the world.
3. Which kind of raises the question -where are you and I in all of this? Where do we fit into the picture? Do we side with the rich and the powerful, the potential oppressors, or do we side with the poor and the humble? Where are you in regards to Christ’s dream?
The Orthodox Church believes that the Beatitudes are in fact a perfect picture of the spiritual development of a person. They believe that they are like the rungs upon a ladder. Each step leads on to the next one, and each is to be attempted in a particular order. To reach the second step, you need to make the first step. So you start out realising that you are a sinner and that you need God’s kindness to save you. Then you begin to mourn over this world and the hurts that you see in others. As a result you yourself become more loving and less aggressive in dealing with people. You begin to long for right living in your own life and in the world. You become more merciful and forgiving. You become more single-minded about living for God. So you actively seek to make peace and bring about reconciliation between others, and eventually you will risk insult and persecution in order to advance Christ’s cause. They claim that this represents your movement from passive to active as you move up the scale and that this is ultimately what a good person looks like. Now I’m not sure that I agree that there is a ladder of progress (there seems to be just a bit too much self-effort involved), but what I do agree with is that this is what the Holy Spirit will produce in you in time as you carry on with God. Over time you will begin to look like this –which is a whole lot more like Jesus.
4. In fact some of you will be amazed by what you will do in the future as part of the Kingdom of God. You will be astonished! Look, don’t be fooled. The Kingdom of God will take everything that you’ve got. Christ’s dream and vision will call for every ounce of resource that you possess.
Fredrick Nietzsche, the great German philosopher, for instance, thought that Christianity was a wretched religion – a religion for worms. He considered it a dreary and sub-human way of living. He felt that it held human beings down. He believed it turned people into fearful, pathetic, weak-kneed creatures who embraced all the wrong kind of values, while rejecting everything that makes humans strong. Instead of being servants, he said we should all be masters and rulers of our fate. Now some of you might be tempted to think like him. After all, who would really want to live like a wimp?
But the truth is that Jesus does not tell us to be poor. He simply reminds that’s what we are spiritually. Jesus does not tell us to be mourners. He simply says that you will mourn for this world. Jesus does not ask you to be weak. What He says is that you when you are strong, you can also be gentle. If others sin against you, instead of revenge you will chose to forgive. If you see fighting going on, you will not crawl into a corner and hide, but you will seek to make peace between the warring parties.
Perhaps part of the problem is that following Jesus is in fact more demanding than most people realise. Maybe that’s why some people act scared and want to count the cost. Certainly Jesus had no illusions about how difficult achieving His dream would be. Two of the eight statements that He makes, the first and the last, are only fulfilled in heaven -so He doesn’t pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.
But what He suggests is that following me is not always easy, but it’s ultimately worth it. Yes, it’s worth it in the end. You see in Jesus book there are only two sides at the end of the day that you can be on. Some people look at the way things are and ask why, while others dream of the way things could be and ask why not? Jesus the King simply asks you, “What do you think of my dream and are you in?”
C. To those of you, who are not yet following Jesus, He invites you to become a part of His dream. In fact you may already be part of it, but you never realised or acknowledged it. In that case ask yourself, ‘What would it be like to part of His community? In what ways might it be rich and rewarding? How might it fulfil what I was born for?‘ Why not come out in public for Christ? Why not believe and be baptised?
And for those of you who are already following Jesus, keep the big picture in view. Keep Jesus dream crystal clear and fresh in your mind. Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up. Later in our passage today Jesus says, “Stay salty. Don’t lose your saltiness,” but He was just pulling the leg of his listeners. Do you know why? -Because salt never loses its saltiness. It is physically impossible. Salt will always be salt. It will always enhance and preserve what it is good. That’s why you should never be afraid of being different. Don’t be afraid of being who you are -for you are the hope of the world. Let’s finish with the words of Philippians 2:15-16, “Become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life (Philippians 2:15-16).”
Prayer: Please bow your heads. Take a moment to pray for the person on your right. Then pray for the person on your left. If there’s no one beside you pray for the person in front.
Pray that if they don’t know Jesus they will want to become one of His people. Pray that if they are one of His people that they will live His dream everyday of their life. [Pause]
Now you pray along with me in your mind, “Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Lord, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life in Jesus name. Amen.”
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