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June 15, 2003
The Blessedness of Hunger
The Blessedness of Hunger
Psalm 42 / Deuteronomy 8: 1-10
Luke 6: 21b
June 15th, 2003
This morning I will be baptizing little Maisie Parker. The topic before us is so timely, “Blessed are you who hunger, for you will be filled.” Why is this so timely? I hope we are welcoming this little girl into a hungry congregation where she may learn how to be satisfied. Our children learn from parents and us more by osmosis––than from formal lessons we teach.
Luke told us this morning that Jesus said, “Blessed are you who hunger, for you will be satisfied.” What did He mean? Luke, who recorded these words of our Lord, was a physician. He knew the human heart as well as the human body. He knew about hunger, about the range of needs that we gather under the umbrella of hunger. Unlike the rest of the animal world which has uncomplicated needs, we are complex in our hunger. All God-given. All able to be turned sour. All able to be satisfied.
Maybe Jesus referred to the vast populations of starving people that He knew would be present throughout history. We read in the paper this week that in Zimbabwe thousands of children are starving to death. Was Jesus making a promise to them? You will be satisfied with food. World Vision and other great relief efforts see satisfying the hunger for food as an imperative, part of obeying Jesus. Jesus will be asked at the final judgment, “When did we see you hungry and feed you?” And he will say, “Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” Maybe Jesus intended us to fulfill this beatitude. “Blessed are you who hunger for you will be satisfied” because my followers will see me when they see you hungry, and feed you.
But hunger for food is far from the only hunger that craves satisfaction. Hunger for knowledge drives the research at Purdue. Hunger for knowledge brings students and faculty together in a community devoted to the project of satisfying this hunger—or at least to making a living after getting a degree. Jesus relates to how this hunger for knowledge is satisfied.
Then there is that insatiable hunger that makes the world go around, that adds to the population, that makes of springtime an emotional roller coaster for young men and women, that induces mid-life crisis. It drives the clothing industry. It is the dominant theme in the entertainment industry. Freud said it is the dominant drive in us all. Of course, I’m talking about sex. Somehow Jesus even relates to how this hunger is satisfied.
If you have been treated unfairly you discover in yourself a hunger for justice. If you have been “taken” by a used-car dealer, or if you are underpaid because you are a minority or a woman, if you are falsely accused and stand before a judge and are convicted, led away in handcuffs to your embarrassment, and put in jail, when you are innocent, you hunger for justice. I have seen on Tuesday evenings the outrage of people who feel they were treated unjustly. We all hunger for justice. Jesus satisfies the hunger for justice.
When Luke tells us that Jesus said, “Blessed are you who hunger for you will be satisfied,” it gives us reason for hope that the inner longings that define us and drive us were not put into us in vain. The tragic ways that people try to satisfy many of their hungers will not have the last word. God created these hungers, and Jesus promises they will be satisfied.
But maybe you’re not satisfied with the direction I’m going. When Jesus said, “Blessed are you who hunger,” you still wonder, hunger for what? Surely Jesus didn’t mean that “your every wish will come true,” as the sentimental songs tell us.
When God led the Israelites out of Egypt into the desert, they found themselves on the edge of starvation. Grieke read for us that God humbled them, testing them to know what was in their hearts. . . He humbled them and let them hunger.” Hunger takes the starch out of you in more ways than one. God tested Israel with hunger to know what was in their hearts.
Gnawing need reveals what’s inside of you. For many of us, turning points in life hinge on how we respond to the hungers that drive us. What despair, what over-bearing hunger made Joseph Trueblood murder Susan Hughes and her two children? Hunger drives people to drink, and as they give in once, and then again, they find themselves at the turning point between being an ordinary person and becoming an alcoholic. The success or failure of our marriages often hinges on how we handle our hungers at pivot moments of temptation. Every temptation feeds on a hunger.
Israel as a nation was brought to this point of self-revelation in the desert. The Lord fed them miraculously with manna--which they did not know. Manna was mysterious food. They had not seen it before. They didn’t know where it came from. It just appeared in the morning. They were very hungry and ate it. They could only collect enough for one day, except on Fridays, when it would keep overnight—so they didn’t have to gather it on the Sabbath. They were in that awkward situation of having to practice self-control when they were hungry. If they didn’t trust God to provide the next day’s manna, they found that the excess manna they gathered turned moldy. Moses might have said to them, “Blessed are you who are hungry, for you will be satisfied.” And there the satisfaction was before them every morning. Manna. They had to be patient, trusting God for each new day’s supply. God would satisfy their hunger—but in His time.
But this is not the whole point of this story. Moses said that God satisfied their hunger in the desert in this way so that He “might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but . . . by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.” Even after every physical hunger is satisfied, that’s not the end of our need. They had to learn to trust God for the supply of life’s basic need. We need everything that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
You and I live in a land where there is plenty to eat. We read far more about the need to combat overweight than of the need to combat hunger. Eating disorders bother a lot of people, even killing some. Well-fed people crave diversion. “Man does not live by bread alone.” We need diversion, we think. Entertainment is the “more” we crave. Give me not just bread, but bread and circuses.
It is at this point that I remember that Jesus said something else about our need. Perhaps it was because He saw how preoccupied we become with our sense of need that He said something that seems the opposite of this second beatitude. “If you would come after me, you must deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” The word for “deny” here is the very strong version of it (ajparnevomai). There is a casual kind of denial in which you shake your head “no.” Then there is emphatic denial. When Peter denied knowing Jesus the evening of His trial, he did it three times. That is emphatic denial. Jesus said we’ve got to deny ourselves emphatically, take up our cross every day, if we are going to follow Him.
This sounds like the opposite of seeking to satisfy your hunger. “Blessed are you who hunger for you will be satisfied.” “If you want to come after me, deny yourself emphatically.”
St. Antony in the fourth century heard Jesus’ words to the rich young man read in church one day. “Go sell all that you have, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.” He began a strain of Christian living that has attracted hundreds of thousands of earnest people over the past two thousand years. St. Antony hungered for something that he believed could only be satisfied by absolute self-denial.
Let’s turn to Matthew’s version of Luke’s quotation from Jesus’ “Sermon on the Plain.” Matthew tells us Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Ah, so it’s righteousness we must not only hunger for, but also thirst for. Hunger and thirst is a strong mix of appetites. Hunger and thirst for righteousness, Jesus said. This is the hunger and thirst that drove St. Antony to sell everything, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Jesus into the desert.
Now it may be that these are two different talks that Jesus gave. Maybe Jesus gave one on a mountaintop one day, and the other on the plain on a different day. Indeed, when I have spoken at two different places on the same subject, there are differences in what I will say at each place—though I’m talking about the same theme.
But in this case I think that it is the same teaching that Matthew and Luke report. The differences in what they report are not incompatible. They are the kinds of differences that will happen naturally if two of you get together this afternoon at 4: 00 o’clock to discuss my message this morning. Clearly, I suspect, you’d be talking about the same pastor giving the same sermon, but you “hear” me say different details. I’m told that if there are 150 people in church on a Sunday morning, the pastor preaches 150 different sermons. That is, everyone hears the same sermon differently. Matthew and Luke report the same teaching of Jesus.
Matthew tells us Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” This was the hunger of St. Antony that made him sell all his considerable fortune, go into the desert where Jesus had begun His ministry, and live a life of complete dependence on God. Not very many of us believe Jesus calls us to go to this extreme. Indeed, if everyone did it, who would care for the poor?
It seems impractical for other reasons. For one thing, St. Antony seemed to see that Jesus compelled him to a specifically “religious” exercise. Preoccupation with righteousness in his case was a preoccupation with religion.
Religion, however, is a mixed bag. A major part of what’s wrong with the Middle East involves religion. The religious aspect of the terrible violence in Israel now is about different ideas of “righteousness.” People are killing each other in the name of God. God save us from this kind of fascination with religion.
What, then is righteousness if we must divorce it from common ideas of religion? In one way I see righteousness as a will-o-the-wisp. It is like happiness, a butterfly to be chased. If we instantly make a transition in our thinking to “religion” when we hear the word “righteousness,” we’ve made a disastrous mistake. There is not a tiny piece of life that is not involved in “righteousness.” Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added for you.” The seeking for the Kingdom of God and His righteousness leads to the satisfaction of every hunger we have.
Righteousness pertains to our hunger for food. We give thanks before we eat because we acknowledge God’s supply. Righteousness pertains to our thirst for knowledge. On Fridays at noon, some of us men are reading John Polkinghorne’s attempt to explain how his thirst for knowledge led to his finding God. We’re reading this to understand God better, and His creation, and our life in this world.
Righteousness pertains to the craving that is so much a part of being created male and female. St. Paul told us that the love that makes us want to get married is an analogy of the love Christ has for the Church. I believe that high courtesy, respect, kindness is the finest expression of this instinct in us. It is this instinct under the control of God.
Righteousness pertains to our thirst for justice. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness impels us to see justice done in every sphere of life—from the courts to the work place.
Hungering and thirsting for righteousness cannot be stashed in a compartment called “religion.” King David wrote, “As a deer longs to find water in ravines in a forest in time of draught, so longs my soul for Thee, O God.” Beneath every hunger we have is a hunger for God. And when we hunger and thirst for God, if we let God’s word guide us in finding satisfaction, we will find righteousness—holy living—living that satisfies us in every area of life and that pleases our Creator.
I proposed two weeks ago when we began this series of messages on the Sermon on the Plain that Jesus doesn’t tell us what to do. He informs us how to live. Here Jesus points to the way of having God’s ways written on the fleshy tables of our hearts, motivating every aspect of life. Seeking God I find myself earning my daily bread in a way that not only supplies my need for food, but also does His work in the world. My work becomes an instrument of His grace. Seeking God, I seek to know of God’s world. Righteousness encompasses my search for knowledge. Seeking God, I love people honorably, so that inner drives translate into courtesy. Courtesy is exquisite consideration. Courtesy is treating women, if I am a man, with grace. Seeking God’s righteousness I seek justice for people. I am keenly in tune with fairness, God’s righteousness with regard to other people.
Jesus said, “Blessed are you who hunger for you will be filled.” He said this to His disciples. Do you remember that there were two categories of people who came to Jesus? There were those who wanted His touch, to get something from Him. And there were those who wanted to learn of Him—disciples—learners. The question you need to determine in your mind is this: Do I want Jesus to make my life better? Or, Do I want to learn of Him?” If you want to learn of Him, to be His disciple, then He will take your hunger, your hungers, and use them as a means to your satisfaction. It will be joy unspeakable and full of glory. You will be satisfied.
If you look at yourself and find there continuing dissatisfaction, maybe you need to recognize that it is only Jesus’ touch you want. You want him to fix your life as you think it needs to be fixed. I’m sorry to say there is no hope in this way. No satisfaction awaits you. Come to Jesus to learn of Him—that’s another matter. You will be satisfied.
I hope that we teach Maisie Parker how to find satisfaction for her hungers because she can see we turn to Jesus in all our hungers and find fulfillment.
Let us pray: Thank you, Lord God, that You created us with so much possibility for joy. Help us to want to learn of Jesus, that we may follow Him. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
June 08, 2003
The Way With us Pentecostals
The Way With us Pentecostals
Psalm 8 / Joel 2: 26-29
Acts 4: 13-31
June 8th, 2003 (Pentecost Sunday)
Today is Pentecost, the second most significant feast in the Christian year. Easter is the most important. Pentecost next. The beautiful pulpit fall Kathleen Kirsch made is the color of fire. Fire came to the first Christians at Pentecost. It celebrated God’s gift of the Law.
The Jews would read from Exodus and the Book of Ruth on Pentecost. Both were love stories, the first about God’s love for Israel, the second about Ruth’s love for Naomi, and then for Boaz, whom she married after her first husband died, and by whom she had a child, the grandfather of King David. Red just happens to be the color we associate with love.
This morning you listened to the 8th Psalm in several languages. I began the service in Hebrew, quoting from the Book of Genesis. This was to illustrate what happened on the first Christian Pentecost. On the birthday of the Church God gave the Gospel in many languages because Jews who didn’t speak Aramaic needed to hear of Jesus’ death and resurrection too. It was such a remarkable event that ever after most Christians associate Pentecost with “speaking in tongues.” Luke tells us in the Book of Acts that the 120 followers of Jesus who waited for the coming of the Holy Spirit “spoke in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” But Pentecost is not about the practice of “speaking in tongues.”
Speaking in tongues is strange to most Presbyterians. It’s what the Pentecostals do, we say. But in fact, “speaking in tongues” today is not what happened at Pentecost. Nowadays “speaking in tongues” is an ecstatic spiritual exercise; it is not real language. At the first Pentecost “speaking in tongues” was the ability to speak fluently actual languages the speakers didn’t know before. It was as if all of you whose native language is mostly English should begin to speak in Bemba, a Zambian language, or Arabic, Swahili, Swedish, Telegu, or Malayelam—fluently. This has never happened since, so far as I know.
We think of those who speak ecstatically in tongues like this as Pentecostals or “charismatics.” But I don’t want to concede the term “Pentecostal” or “charismatic” to the Pentecostals. I am a Pentecostal because the one Church of Jesus Christ to which I belong began at Pentecost. You are a charismatric if you believe in Jesus, because the Holy Spirit has given you a gift.
There are far more important gifts than speaking in tongues. The Holy Spirit promotes the spread of the Gospel, preparing the hearts of people to receive it. The Holy Spirit guides, convicts, encourages, protects, instructs, provides wisdom and generally spreads His blessing to build the Church. The Holy Spirit strengthens the lives of all kinds of people who have come to Jesus in faith. This began at Pentecost. We are Pentecostals.
The word about Jesus, and the gift of the Holy Spirit spread first at Pentecost to all the countries around the Mediterranean basin, but it kept on going. It reached Russia, where Sergey and Nadya were born. You heard Psalm 8 in Russian today. In our church just now we have a number of people whose mother tongue is Russian. It reached Holland where Grieke Toebes was born—which is why you heard Psalm 8 in Dutch. We might have heard the psalm in French, German, Italian, broad Scots, Hindi, and many other languages besides. Because the Gospel has spread to all the world as the Holy Spirit has blown over every continent.
Wycliffe Bible Translators and other mission agencies are today translating the Bible into the languages spoken by remote tribal peoples. They are continuing the momentum of Pentecost. But let us not allow the earliest work of the Holy Spirit to distract us from the broader work of the Holy Spirit that began that day.
The broader work was envisioned by the ancient prophet Joel. Let’s remember again what he said.
When I read the words of Joel, written 400 years or so before Jesus was born, I wonder what he envisioned. We know very little about Joel. He lived in a time when there was a terrible infestation of locusts in Palestine. Joel told the people that God sent this plague on them for a reason. They had strayed from God’s ways. He pleaded with Israel, whose people were tearing their clothes in mourning, as they saw their fields ravished by these insects, “Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil.”
I picture Joel walking from town to town where people looked in dismay as their harvests of grain and grapes and fruit and vegetables were eaten before their eyes. The grinding sound heard everywhere was the sound of locusts masticating the food a nation depended on for life. The locusts were like war horses. They sounded like chariots, like the crackling of fire devouring everything. “Before them peoples are in anguish, all faces grow pale.”
Joel called for repentance, but he also reassured his people. “The threshing floors shall be full of grain, and vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I will restore to you the years which the swarming locust has eaten . . . you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied.”
But today we remember most one part of Joel’s prophecy. At the first Pentecost Peter quoted,
It shall come to pass, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I will pour out my spirit.
Peter stopped quoting the prophet Joel at that point. He told the massed audience before him in Jerusalem, who were startled to hear ordinary Galileeans speaking fluently a strange message about a crucified and risen Jesus, that this fulfilled the message of their ancient prophet.
It must have felt strange, even improper to those who spoke. Young men and women who were not public speakers, not well educated, spoke forcefully and convincingly in public. They were accused of being drunk. These were not priests or scribes, authorities on Scripture. These were ordinary people speaking with an authority that welled-up from within them. But they were open and available.
This is a clue for us. I have the deep hunch that the Holy Spirit may burst on the scene again. The times seem ripe. Dismay everywhere. Chaos has replaced much family life. The culture of the West is mostly a glorification of materialism––which satisfies nobody. For what are you available? Anything, even to being surprised, at being taken out of yourself, out of what is usual for you?
But it is a tragedy if we stop there. The Book of Acts has sometimes been called the “Acts of the Holy Spirit.” Because in it we see how the Spirit of God began to shape the early Church from inside out.
Donna read from the 4th chapter today how the Holy Spirit gave people boldness to speak of Jesus. Now we think of Jesus as a “religious” word. Then that name had revolutionary overtones. People hesitated to speak of Jesus for fear of getting in trouble with authorities. But the Holy Spirit gave them boldness. And with this forthrightness came credibility. If you speak of Jesus hesitantly, you are not convincing. But it’s not just a matter of being in-your-face blunt and bold. If you speak of Jesus from your heart, displaying your love for Him and for the one to whom you speak, there is an uncanny appeal to what you say. Without the Holy Spirit, without that deep trust that Jesus really matters, what you say will sound aggressive.
The Holy Spirit prompted what we now see as “experiments” in living together. Bonded by a common love for Jesus, gratitude for His resurrection, and expectation that He was coming again soon, some early Christians in Jerusalem came together in communal living. Rich Christians sold what they owned and gave the money to the pool from which everyone was cared for. It is good to note that this was not something the Apostles commanded. People did it voluntarily. Nowhere do we read that this is what all Christians should do. In fact, just the opposite is true. Paul wrote at one point to Christians in Greece, “If someone won’t work, neither should he eat.”
The Holy Spirit moved people to generosity. The first churches met in the homes of well-to-do believers; they opened their homes.
We see in the Book of Acts that “signs and wonders” were done by the Apostles. The Holy Spirit gave them power to heal people. When they healed people in the name of Jesus, it drew the attention of many people to the Apostles. But they made it clear that the attention should focus on Jesus. It was a report, not a command for the future, to do signs and wonders. The Holy Spirit has to give the power for this. It cannot be coerced and is deadly wrong if it is faked.
All of this was new to these early Jewish Christians. From their Scriptures, the Old Testament, they thought of the Holy Spirit as God’s agent of creation. The teaching wasn’t clear. But they no doubt thought of what happened at Pentecost as similar to what happened at creation. Then the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of chaos, separating it into dry land and water. Now they saw the Holy Spirit hovering over people, separating them into those who trusted in Jesus and those who would not. The Holy Spirit made the Gospel clear for those who were ready to accept Jesus.
But Paul realized that it was not just outward things that the Holy Spirit did. He wrote of “the fruit of the Spirit,” as though the Spirit of God would produce a harvest inside of people who trusted in Jesus. Always there was this togetherness of Jesus with the Holy Spirit. They were never in tension. The presence of the Holy Spirit reaped a harvest of “love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, and self-control.” These were benefits that everyone could ask the Holy Spirit for. The Spirit of God had been poured out on them all.
Indeed, the Holy Spirit was present like the wind was present. When you go outside on a Spring day and feel the wind blowing, you can’t tell where it’s coming from, or where it is going. Jesus taught that this is how it is to be “born of the Spirit.” God blows on your heart, and if you will respond, he creates in you a new heart. But it was not wind but the sound of wind that day.
The Holy Spirit blows into you love and joy and peace, all the harvest of inner qualities we long to have. People were surprised to discover that the Holy Spirit would give this inner harvest regardless of circumstances. Even during persecution, in fact, they exhibited joy. And this joy made the faith of Jesus very appealing. A lot of people who came to Jesus were attracted by the inner harvest of joy and affection and peace they saw in those who trusted in Him.
The Holy Spirit stirred in some people, giving them gifts useful to the Church. The Church needed teachers and pastors, and people who could discern God’s leading. The Holy Spirit gave these gifts to women and men, to young people like Timothy, as well as to people old enough to be thought of as “elders.” Before that God had used older men most often. But now He came on all kinds of people. They had to get used to the idea. We’re not quite there yet.
Perhaps you wonder what or who the Holy Spirit is. St. Paul taught us that the Holy Spirit is not a force, even though the words for “spirit” and “wind” are the same in Hebrew and Greek, the languages of the Old and New Testaments. Instead, this power at work inside of them was God-Himself at work. God was not just the Creator, the One they referred to as Father in heaven. God was also present in Jesus. And God was present in the Holy Spirit who gave life in such an extraordinary way. Beyond this it’s difficult to speak for sure. Christians have divided over how to define the Holy Spirit, who was given to us to produce unity.
At one point Paul wrote to early Christians not to “quench the Holy Spirit.” He spoke of the Spirit of God as a person, a friend who could be either accepted or rejected. As you have seen in your own friendships that you are drawn to people who are kind to you and put off by those who are unkind, so the Holy Spirit is like a friend. When you are open to the Holy Spirit, living life openly, honestly, and with sincere trust in Jesus, then the Holy Spirit works in your life. He gives wisdom in difficult times when you ask Him for it. James, Jesus’ half-brother, tells us in a letter included in our New Testament, “If any of you lack wisdom, ask of God, and He gives liberally and doesn’t scold us.” The Holy Spirit is God who offers us wisdom.
When we are walking with God openly and honestly, the Holy Spirit keeps us from stumbling into sin, and when we do, He lets us know it, so we don’t sink into sinful behavior. If we open our hearts to the Holy Spirit—and I can’t put it any other way than that—then He will keep us sensitive to ways of living that are hurtful. He brings conviction, stirring the conscience, and then frees us from guilt when we have repented of our sin.
The big task that the Holy Spirit needs us for is to make Jesus winsome and appealing through our personalities. Our personalities will either hide or display the grace of God. Each of us has a different personality. We are shaped by life’s experiences as well as by genetics. The Holy Spirit needs you and me just the way we are as His means of presenting Jesus winsomely to someone. If you say you are a Christian, but you are harsh with other people, if you speak of Jesus, they won’t listen. But if your heart is soft towards others, and your ways are gentle like Jesus’ ways—having learned of Him meekness and gentleness, then the Holy Spirit can use you to attract other people to trust in Jesus.
The Holy Spirit began to work at Pentecost in a dramatic way. He usually works now in far less dramatic ways. If you have been drawn to trust in Jesus, the Holy Spirit is in you. Open yourself deliberately to His work. The Holy Spirit will help you, if you are of a humble and contrite heart. He is patient and courteous. He never works, apparently, without our welcome. The Holy Spirit will use you for good, if you’re available, and you’ll find great happiness in being used. When enough of us in this place are available to the Holy Spirit’s leading, who knows what good will come from us.
I look forward eagerly to what the Holy Spirit is going to do in us, and through us for others. I have hunches, sometimes strong hunches, that the Holy Spirit would like to lead us to a level of joy and freedom and power if only we are available. Be obedient to all that you know to do; expect God for something more. What a joy it will be to discover that God the Holy Spirit is using us extraordinarily, causing joy unspeakable and full of glory—making Jesus so appealing that He escapes the religious mold into which we’ve put Him. Then the name of Jesus will charm our fears, make our sorrows cease, and be music in every sinner’s ears. Let us pray:
O Lord God, we thank you for sending us Jesus. And we thank you for giving us Your Holy Spirit. May He find us available to welcome Him, and to use us, that others may be drawn to Jesus. In His name we pray. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
June 01, 2003
“Whose is the Kingdom?”
The Sermon on the Plain, Point 1
“Whose is the Kingdom?”
Psalm 19 / Exodus 21: 2-6
Luke 6: 17-21
June 1st, 2003
This morning I begin with you one of the most important and most difficult series of studies it is possible for a pastor to attempt, “The Sermon on the Plain,” that you know best as “the Sermon on the Mount.” This is difficult because, on the one hand, this sermon Jesus “preached” is thought of as the greatest ethical teaching of Jesus, while on the other hand, its ideals seem impossible to achieve.
A Jewish friend of mine told me he didn’t think the Sermon on the Mount was realistic. He is a good fellow, but he told me he had no ambition to follow the way of life it describes. “Turn the other cheek” is nonsense, he said. Christians, however, assume they accept its idea of life. It has become like a beautiful dish propped up in the back of the China cabinet. We look at it but we don’t eat off it.
But there is nothing decorative about the Sermon on the Plain. Of no other aspect of Jesus’ teaching is it more pertinent to say that it has not been tried and found wanting, but not tried, and declared impossible. Then why bother with it? Because it describes for us the core of Jesus’ life. Jesus said, “Come, learn of me.” Here Jesus outlined how to learn of Him.
Part of our difficulty in trying to learn of Jesus here is that He is not telling us things to do, but how to be. We think of obedience usually in terms of what we do. But Jesus is not, for the most part telling us what to do, but how to form our inner selves.
We sometimes refer to Jesus’ teaching here as “the beatitudes.” While this word refers to the word “blessed” with which each statement begins, you may have heard the pun—they are the be-attitudes. That is, they describe attitudes, habits of thought. What we do arises from how we think. Jesus is teaching us deeply how to think—not how to think deeply, but deeply how to think. Here are the seeds of the attitudes that guide us to think as Jesus thought. Here Jesus is carving our souls, shaping the contours of the deep “us.”
Jesus begins each statement with “Blessed are.” He is not commanding but describing. He does not say, “Thou shalt or thou shalt not.” He tells us, “The one who is like this is blessed.” Since we want to be blessed, to have the inner satisfaction of God’s approval, of inner peace, we are lured to the inner quality Jesus is describing with the bait of blessedness. Most of us would say, “I want peace of mind.” But peace of mind is elusive. Many of us live in quiet desperation. I come to church, but why do I always feel so desperate? Inner peace is like a butterfly evading our net. Jesus puts the butterfly within reach of our net. “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.” Jesus is describing the roots of our thoughts. How so?
The Apostle Paul wrote of “making every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” I see that the devil has found a playground in side-tracking Christians in their thought-life. We imagine our thought life means our opinions, or our theology.
As I have watched the tug-o-war going on at the General Assembly between the two sides who argue about the “Fidelity and Chastity Amendment” of our Book of Order, I can hear the Devil smacking his lips. We are focusing furiously on opinions on matters of behavior, and count as our friends those who have the same opinion we do on sexual behavior, and count as enemies those who disagree. Our thought-life has been sabotaged by the devil. We pride ourselves on our opinions on sexual behavior. Such arrogance is found on both sides of the present argument. But how flexible our opinions are. I’ve seen peoples’ opinions on controversial issues turn around so fast that I had to do a double take.
Jesus digs down below our opinions into the roots of our thought life, teaching us how to govern not just what we think, but how we think. Because what we think follows how we think.
The Apostle Paul wrote of a spiritual war in each of us: “bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” The battlefield is not nearly so much in the realm of particular ideas we have, much less on the outside in terms of what we do. The big battle is prior to that. It is inside--in how we think. If you and I could win in the battlefield of our thought-life, in the warfare of the roots of our thoughts, what we think and what we do would follow like puppies,wagging their little tails.
If the roots of our thoughts are under the control of Jesus, what we think and what we do will be wholesome, obedient to God, giving us peace.
So, our project over the next weeks will be to see how to think as Jesus thought. I pray as I prepare that God will teach me and us the mind of Christ, the attitude of Jesus, from which may flow Jesus’ way of thought and life lived out in my body and in yours.
It would be helpful if you had your Bible open as I think aloud with you because my project with you will be first to understand what Jesus is saying before I think of its application. You may want to have a book mark in Matthew 5, because I hope we may understand the breadth of Jesus’ intentions for us.
You noticed that I refer to our subject as the “Sermon on the Plain,” because in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus speaks these words not on a mountain, but on the plain. In Matthew 5: 1 begins, “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain.” Luke begins, “And he came down with them and stood on a level place.”
This isn’t a contradiction. Instead it points to a difference between the outlook of these two Gospels. Matthew is a Jew and his gospel is distinctly a Jewish Gospel. He presents Jesus as the One to whom Moses referred in the Book of Deuteronomy, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren, him you shall heed.” Matthew pictures Jesus like Moses up on Mt. Sinai, only now Jesus isn’t receiving the law from God, but He is describing the thought-life of the one who will please God.
Luke on the other hand was written by a Gentile, a Greek physician, and he shows us a picture of Jesus as a non-Jew saw Him. Jesus came down on the plain and mingled with people. A good doctor gets close to patients. Jesus got close to people. Luke describes Jesus as the cardiologist, the heart-doctor, telling us how to think so as to live as He did. Proverbs tells us, “As a person thinks in his heart, so is he.” Jesus is teaching us how to think.
This differences between Matthew and Luke begin in the very first statement. In Matthew Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs (aujtw~n)is the kingdom of heaven.” While Luke tells us Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor for yours (uJmetevra) is the kingdom of God.”
Matthew shows us Jesus looking down from the mountain top on the verge of heaven far from earth—speaking of them. Luke shows us Jesus looking around at the people gathered around him speaking of you all.
Matthew says Jesus said “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Luke says Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor.” What did Jesus say? There is nothing ethically superior about economic poverty. Who are the poor? The poor are those who realize their spiritual poverty. You can have no money or property, be economically poor, and be filled with jealousy for those who are rich. There’s no blessedness in this poverty. You can be spit-poor materially and long for wealth, so that you are bitter. If you are poor and waste your money on lottery tickets to become rich, you are anything but blessed.
But if you are like the deer that pants for a flowing stream in the desert, longing for God, Jesus tells you, “You are blessed for the Kingdom of God belongs to you.” This poverty has nothing to do with economic circumstances. The sense of need for God breeds the words of the 63rd Psalm, “O God, Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee. My soul longs for thee; my flesh faints for Thee as in a dry and thirsty land where no water is.” This is the poverty that is blessed. When you look up on a starry night and find yourself feeling the thoughts penned by the psalmist in Psalm 8, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, what is man that Thou art mindful of Him, or the son of man that Thou visitest him?” then your heart knows what it is to be blessed.
What do you think about during the day? How do you begin thinking? Do you think about how you’re going to pay your bills? Do you think about getting a better job? Do you think about the clothes you want to buy, or the car, or the vacation that you’re sure would make you happy? What do you think about? What drives those thoughts? Jesus teaches us, and we know He is right—we can sense it is right—that if our thoughts are governed by our awareness of our need for God first, then we are blessed. It seems a contradiction to say, but we are never closer to God than when we feel our need for God. It is those who never think about their need for God who are farthest from God.
How I think of my wife is governed with how I need God. How you think about your career has begun with how you think of or do not think of God’s role in your life. How you think of patriotism, of our nation’s enemies, about 9/11, about every thing you hold most dear and most detestable begins with how you think of God’s place in your life. That’s why Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.”
Lots of people are full of patriotism, full of appropriate hatred of the enemy, full of community pride, full of pride in their families, full of much that we applaud, but God may be far removed from the roots of their thoughts. Blessed are those who know they need God above all else. Jesus said, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and you’ll get everything else.” How the “everything else” that you want hinges on seeking God first. Augustine said, “Love God and do as you please.” A lot of people only catch the last part, “Do as you please,” and try to love God from there, and it doesn’t work.
Who qualifies to get the Kingdom of God? In both Matthew and Luke I notice that Jesus spoke to his disciples rather than to everyone. Both Matthew and Luke tell us of two categories of people who came to Jesus: the crowds and His disciples. Luke says there was a great crowd of disciples, very many people from near and far, suggesting that many more people wanted to learn of Jesus than Matthew had in mind.
Matthew tells us that Jesus left the crowds, separating Himself with His disciples. By this time it seems Jesus only had four disciples, Andrew, Peter, James and John . Matthew accentuates that Jesus’ teaching will not be for everyone, only for His disciples, those who learn of Him. There is a difference between those who come to Jesus for His touch and those who come to Him to learn of Him. Luke suggests that there were more who wanted to learn of Jesus than Matthew had in mind. Perhaps this reflects the Jewish-ness of Matthew, the exclusiveness. But there is a distinct difference between the “crowd mentality” and the “learner-of-Jesus” mentality.
This distinction appears still today. Many of us want Jesus’ touch. We like being in the crowd as He walks by, hoping for His healing, His comfort, His healing our financial crisis, His help to get ahead, even His peace of mind. But not all of us want to learn of Him. We display which we are in how we regard what Jesus teaches, rather than how we regard Jesus as a source of help and comfort. Learning of Jesus requires more than walking in the crowd that surges around Him.
Finally, what did Jesus mean by the Kingdom of God that belongs to the poor? Is there a Kingdom of God and some other kingdom? Jesus was not talking about the Created order which God governs. He was not talking about God’s reign over nature, giving regular patterns of summer, fall, winter, and springtime—giving rain and sunshine—governing the progress of human history. All of these represent God’s reign, it is true, but it is possible to be under the control of God’s created order while thinking as a complete maverick—and enduring the consequences.
The Kingdom of God is the domain of those who deliberately call Him King. The Kingdom of God of which Jesus speaks is the province in which He lived that found Him continually deferring to the will of His Father. “My will is to do the will of Him who sent me,” Jesus said. And the will of any of us who are in the Kingdom of God is deliberately informed by the thinking in terms of the will of God.
You might think it presumptuous to imagine that we can know the will of God about everything. Indeed, I’m leery about people who overtly talk about knowing the will of God. But that’s another thing entirely from having the purpose to live by the will of God. Jesus didn’t teach us to be forever talking about knowing the will of God. He talked about desiring the will of God.
If you want to live according to the will of God, even if you don’t know what that will is in terms of specifics, then you are thinking Kingdom of God thoughts. When the root of your thought-life is planted in the desire to submit to the will of God, then the thoughts you think and the life you live will display the will of God. “I being in the way, the Lord led me.” If you want to know the will of God, so that you can do it, your spiritual poverty will drive you in the way of God.
In Psalm 1 we read, “Happy is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord, who is like a tree planted by a river of water.” It is a picture of a well-rooted tree, nourished by the water and the nutritious silt that flows along a river bank. The only people who root themselves in the law of the Lord are those who are spiritually poor, who feel their need for God. It all starts with the root of your thoughts. Spiritual poverty. The sense of basic need, not for great thoughts, not for stuff—money, what money can buy, but for something deeper. And this “deeper” points toward God. How happy you are if the driving purpose of your life is a need for God.
You need God more than you need any thing God has made. You are happy when you know this. You are blessed when you live with your purpose deeply rooted in hungering and thirsting for God. This will put everything that happens to you in a different perspective than if you are living to maximize your life in all the usual ways.
So, what should you do in response? Begin by praying, “O Lord, take from me the hunger for things that do not and cannot satisfy me. Give me a hunger for you.” Blessed are the spiritually poor, the spiritually thirsty and hungry, for yours is the Kingdom of God. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)