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Sermon - The People of the Kingdom - 3rd February 2008
St Aidan’s Carlingford 8:30am
Readings: Micah 6:1-8; 1 Cor 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12
We’ve barely reached February and already Lent is on the way. Its Ash Wednesday this week - almost the earliest it can possibly be in the Christian year. And Lent is a great opportunity for reflection as we think about our faith and the love of God and where we are going in our journey of faith. Lent is the opportunity to take our spiritual temperature, to take stock and to re-focus on where we are going.
And so today’s reading from Matthew comes to us at an appropriate time as we approach Lent. Matthew 5 provides teaching on the nature of the people of God, who they are, what they are like, how they should live. And all of this is the context of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Previously, in chapter 4, we learnt that Jesus began his ministry by preaching the message of the Kingdom of Heaven. Now in chapter 5 we get to see some of the content of that preaching. Here we see within the context of the Kingdom of Heaven, the nature, the character, the quality of the people who constitute that Kingdom. You may notice the way Matthew introduces this teaching, how he presents it like an earlier event in the history of Israel. When God brought the Israelites out from Egypt, under the leadership of Moses, he had them assembled on the plain before Mt Sinai. These were once the slaves of Egypt. Now they are being assembled as the people of God. This was God’s kingdom, and as their Lord, on Mt Sinai, he gave them his law – the 10 commandments. This was how the people were to serve their king – honour God, keep the Sabbath, honour your parents, don’t steal or kill or commit adultery, don’t look with envy on what others have. These were God’s people. This was how they were to live as God’s people in God’s world.
Now, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus repeats the event. Here he is on a mountain. These people have come from everywhere to hear what he has to say. And on this day he preaches the Kingdom of Heaven. He teaches how the people of God’s kingdom should live. This is a new law for a new day in God’s kingdom. What they are about to hear is very different from what they had been taught in the past. What Jesus is about to tell them had only ever been hinted at in the Old Testament. Isaiah and Jeremiah had promised a day when this new teaching would come, and now, at last the day had arrived.
There are a few things we can notice about this teaching and the first is that God pronounces a blessing on all of his people. But this is more than just a blessing. This blessing implies happiness – this is the ultimate enjoyment of happiness. This is the climax of all the blessings that God wants to shower upon his people. In the eight statements of blessing that follows, the content of the blessing at the beginning and the end are the same. God will bless his people by giving them the Kingdom of Heaven. He is God the King, but the kingdom is being given to his people. So if God is giving us the kingdom the implication is that there is no blessing that he won’t hold back from us. He will give us everything.
But then those who receive the blessing are described. Those who will receive true happiness are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and the persecuted. Some have said that what we have here is two groups of four. The first four are inner attitudes, poor in spirit, mournful, meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness and the second four are about our outward conduct. But whether this is right or not, it is still a unique description of the people of God. In effect, this is what the church will look like.
The church is made up of people like this. But, be aware of what Jesus is not saying. This is not advice on how to achieve your goals. He is not saying “You must become a peacemaker,” and if you work at it hard enough and for long enough, you will eventually inherit the kingdom of Heaven. He is not teaching us about how the world works as in “If you spare the rod, you will spoil the child,” or “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” or “He who laughs last, laughs best.” In fact, he is saying the opposite. He is saying, remember the poor, remember the persecuted, remember the peacemakers. In spite of all expectation, these people will receive a reward. God in his mercy will intervene on their behalf, partly because no one else will. And he will give to these people the Kingdom of Heaven.
The people that Jesus is describing are those who operate from the best of motives, yet they are those who the world often regards as weak. The peacemakers, the pure in heart, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are good people, but usually they have little power, and if they did have it they would hesitate to use it. They are not the people who build empires. They don’t engineer takeovers. They are weak. Just like the church is weak. We may feel uncomfortable with that. We might like to see a powerful church, a successful church. But you won’t find it in this passage. Someone once likened the church to the disciples in the boat on Lake Galilee in the middle of the storm. They feared for their lives. They were about to drown. But what mattered was that in the bow of the boat, Jesus lay asleep. And that made all the difference. We may look weak, we may be weak. But we rejoice, we are blessed because we are the people of God. Jesus is with us.
And if you look at those eight qualities of the people of God you may also notice something familiar about them. They are, in fact, a description of how Jesus lived. He put these qualities into action. Notice how he behaved at his arrest. Though it was a crisis he remained merciful, he was pure in heart, he was a peacemaker. And of course, he was persecuted for righteousness sake. But this is not the path to fame and fortune. This sort of behaviour won’t win power or wealth. This sort of behaviour doesn’t win popularity contests. Many would reject it and call it foolishness. To live like this you must be mad. People who live like this are not the winners in this world. Its just foolishness.
That is the point that Paul is making in 1 Corinthians ch 1. Because Jesus did live like this, it took him to the cross. He died because of it. And so Paul says the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But God chose not to reveal himself through wisdom. He revealed himself through the foolishness of the cross. In the cross, the love of God for the world has been revealed to the world. So Paul writes, “In the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom.” Rather, God decided that through the foolishness of the preaching of the cross, he would save and bless those who believe. The life we are called to live in Matthew 5, the life of weakness, that looks foolish, is part of the process of God revealing himself to the world. We are to mirror Jesus’ life in our lives. The world may see it as foolish. But through this foolishness the love of God is revealed. And we become inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven.
As a consequence Paul can write, “God’s foolishness is thus wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”
The way God works in our world is very different to human standards or human wisdom. There is little place in our world for meekness, humility or purity. But God doesn’t work on the “Might is Right” principle. But as we enter this time of Lent, its an opportunity to think again about the character of God, his love, his patience, his long-suffering endurance with us. His willingness to act towards us not with justice, but with love, not with law but with mercy.
He is the God who waits daily at the front fence, waiting for the prodigal to return. And when he is just a speck in the distance, runs to him and showers him with kisses. And particularly during Lent we remember that this precious love of God comes at the highest possible price. He loved us so much that he did not spare even his only Son, but gave him up as a ransom for us all. And so through the foolishness of the cross, the glory of God is revealed. And we can rejoice, and be glad, for our reward is great in the Kingdom of Heaven.