Matthew 5:21-37

 From Jesus' "classroom on the mount" we get a sense of the kind of person who might be called Godly or righteous. Looking specifically at the passage from Matthew 5:21 to 5:37, we can draw the following conclusions:

• The Godly person that Jesus commends is never insulting, demeaning or even "angry with his brother or sister." This anger would indicate a lack of forgiveness, a lack of generosity. This person is instead in control of his or her passions, especially where injury to another is possible. Apart from such control we have bickering, law suits, and even violence.
• The Godly person does not see others as objects of sexual lust. This must be combatted with a kind of inward ruthlessness. It is the source and origin of much sin.
• Related to this, divorce is a symptom of marital dysfunction. Elsewhere the Bible commends the enduring and forebearing nature of love. The Godly person's marriage is marked by such an attitude of enduring and forebearing love.
• The Godly person will never lie, is not afraid of the truth. His or her word is always reliable and trustworthy.

Imagine a family or a small community where these character traits were always evident among all its members. What would that be like?

The Meek shall inherit?

 What then is meekness?

The answer seems complicated, perhaps because the simple meaning of the word, the meaning we all know, is one we recoil from. It does not seem like a virtue, something to be extolled or sought after. I have heard people try to substitute some more desirable trait in order to make meekness acceptable. “Meekness is courage,” they say, though clearly that is not the meaning of the word. No one, apparently, wants to be meek.

The dictionary says, “humbly patient or quiet in nature, as under provocation from others.”

So patience under provocation gives us a good handle. And the world is a provocating place, right? How patient under provocation will I be today? I’m less than optimistic! Provocation, in fact, is always our ready excuse. “You provoked me!”

Meekness is the opposite of assertiveness. Maybe a meek person doesn’t stand up for his rights and so he gets walked over by many. A meek person does not kick against the goads or rage maniacally against the dying of the light. Meek can seem weak, and maybe a recognition of our weakness lies behind meekness. The meek do not jockey for position, assume they deserve the honored seat at the table, or (alternatively) whine because they weren’t invited to the soiree. 

Ambition does not reside well with meekness. When ambition comes into the presence of meekness it is chastened, even embarrassed, and seeks a way out. The meek are not scrappers, strivers, or warriors. The meek do not envy the powerful or yearn for their power. The meek are not going to be in the vanguard of anyone’s revolution. The meek did not attend the January 6 rally in Washington or run through the streets of Portland tossing Molotovs. Neither are many of them fighting in anyone’s army. In a world run by the meek, there would never be war.

And finally, it is well to remember that the world will more often than not make doormats of the meek. The meek, it seems, are always the losers. And that’s why it’s so strikingly counter-intuitive, so shocking, when Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

That’s just seems like pure nonsense. Either that or it’s the power of God in Christ. So when Jesus says, “The first shall be last and the last first,” it would not be wrong to think of these “last” as the meek. The ones who chose the lowest place at the table, the ones who the world scoffs at as wimps.

It’s the strong that inherit stuff, not the meek. It’s the go-getter, the assertive types, staking their claim and defending their turf, who come out on top. That’s our way of thinking. But to all this Jesus shrugs and says, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

True repentance = true meekness.

A Great Light

Jonathan Pennington's book, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing, is really engaging. I can't wait to pick it up each evening. Pennington is helping me "adjust my focus" when it comes to the Sermon.

If you'd like to hear Pennington himself discuss the book, this podcast is for you. And this one. Oh, and this one too.

Needless to say, I'm kind of stuck on the Sermon. My Bible-reading modus operandi lately has been to focus primarily on the four Gospels (I said "primarily," not "exclusively"). As for the Sermon, I just can't seem to get past it. In one of those podcasts above Pennington suggests that one good practice to help you understand the Sermon better is to memorize it. He admits he hasn't got it all down just yet, but much of it. Maybe I'll try that.

The Sermon as a whole is, among many other things, a call to radical selflessness or humility. I keep thinking, as I read this, that Jesus is out to convince people of the ultimate beauty of humility, and that in humility is foundational to holiness.

As such, the Sermon acts as a corrective, a kind of re-orientation of our hearts, turning us away from our normal concerns, calling us to something better and yet something daunting and apparently counter-logical. That which is central to God is not normally central to us.

Christmas can act as the same kind of corrective. So to finish, let's hear from Isaiah:

But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

2 The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
    on them has light shone.
3 You have multiplied the nation;
    you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
    as with joy at the harvest,
    as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
4 For the yoke of his burden,
    and the staff for his shoulder,
    the rod of his oppressor,
    you have broken as on the day of Midian.
5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
    and every garment rolled in blood
    will be burned as fuel for the fire.
6 For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon[d] his shoulder,
    and his name shall be called[e]
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and of peace
    there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
    to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Lloyd-Jones on the Peacemaker Beatitude

I'm now reading two books about the Sermon on the Mount. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, and Jonathan Pennington's The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing. I will no doubt be sharing many quotations from both of these books in this space. Here is Lloyd-Jones on Peacemaker Beatitude (p.100):

Here, then, we are reminded once more that the outworking in the Christian of the Christian life is altogether and entirely different from everything that can be known by any man who is not a Christian. That is the message which recurs in every one of the Beatitudes and which, obviously, our Lord desired to emphasize. He was establishing an etirely new and different kingdom. As we have seen in all our previous studies, there is nothing more fatal than for the natural man to think that he can take the Beatitudesand try to put them into practice. Here once more this particular beatitude reminds us that this is utterly impossible. Only a new man can live this new life.

Out of sync

I recently began reading Jonathan Pennington's The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing, In the opening chapter he talks about the various readings of the Sermon through the ages. There is, for example, the Lutheran "impossible ideal" view. The notion here is that the Sermon presents an unreachable standard of holiness, causing the Christian to fall back wholeheartedly upon the grace of God. Pennington:

Intended or not, this view, which stans in stard contrast to the Roman Catholic monastic interpretation, contributes to the neglect, evasion, or at least confusion regarding the Sermon in much of the Protestant tradition.

I think "neglect" is the right word. My suspicion is that since Luther's groundbreaking insights are drawn mostly from Paul's letters, the epistles have remained the primary preaching texts of those in the Reformation traditions. So we hear much more about the epistles generally than we do about the four Gospels (except at Christmas and Easter, I suppose), and for certain much more than we do about the Sermon.

And perhaps it is also because the Sermon troubles us. Not because its ideals are impossible to achieve (as Luther thought) but because even to approach those ideals is to put ourselves drastically out of sync with the culture around us. This is no highly prized calling.

I don't have much more to say here, except that I will be sharing more from Pennington's book in the coming days.

More thoughts on the SotM

Jesus is astonishing. Jesus is disturbing. Jesus is challenging. Jesus disorders the way things are. Jesus is a disturbance in the field. And yet, Jesus comforts. Jesus consoles. Jesus restores. Jesus loves.

These two things together. It is difficult for me to think of Jesus primarily as a source of commands. “Seek first the kingdom” – in its context, do these words sound like a command, or simply a statement of truth. Jesus reveals the way things really are, and posits a life, a way, which follows naturally from that new understanding. This life, this way, being utterly true, is utterly compelling to those who have come to see and understand. To those, as Jesus might say, who have eyes to see, ears to hear.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus astonishes us with this compelling vision, giving us leave to imagine a life beyond the borders we have always drawn for ourselves. We have lived our foolish little lives, and now Jesus comes along and says, here is something so much larger. How large? A life where the broken and helpless receive all the riches of the kingdom of God. A life where there is no more mourning. A life where the meek, the weak, the ones who get walked all in this life and from whom the strong do nothing but take – because they can – these will receive the whole earth as their blessing.

Look, Jesus says, in this world you try to moderate sin, keep it within certain well-defined bounds. The Pharisees, men like them, men in positions to set bounds and define what shall be accepted, what shall be deemed unacceptable, define these bounds, then hammer away at people who cross them. Forget them and the likes of them. They have their reward already. I'm calling you out of their flimsy kingdom into something far higher and purer and freer.

Listen, everything depends on the reign and rule of God. Follow Jesus, listen to him, and you will understand. He will teach you about this realm. For now it is like a tiny seed, or it is like leaven in dough. You are the ground in which the seed is planted, and you are the dough into which the leaven is kneaded. The kingdom of God, as Jesus says outright to his followers, is in the midst of you (Luke 17:21)

There is therefore no pretension among you, no spiritual status-seeking, no pandering for approval. You have nothing to prove, and nothing to fight for. What you treasure is with God, the things of God, the plan of God and the glory of God and way of God. All the causes of anxiety are things enforced by this world's kingdoms. We've grown so used to anxiety we can hardly imagine life without it, but under God there is no longer any reason to worry. Nor even to return slap for slap (I have nothing to fight for), nor to deny another for the good of myself. If someone asks for my shirt, I can give him my cloak also, for I have no worry of what I will wear. God will provide.

How crazy is that!

And why should I judge anyone. This world is full of name-calling, full of condemnations. Jesus says, even to call someone a fool (a mild epithet these days) is to commit a sin worthy of eternal separation from the Father.

In the beginning of the Sermon, Jesus tells us that the kingdom is for the spiritually helpless, and in many ways throughout his ministry he will teach us that this spiritual category includes us all. At the end of the Sermon he advises us to build our house on a rock, not on sand. And yet, we don't think of the helpless building houses. We think of them, perhaps, as getting rescued, saved, yes, but building a house?

Step into the picture that Jesus paints in this Sermon, live your life in that place, in that “house.” A house of non-retaliation in a world of violence, a place of forgiveness in a world of vengeance, a house of mercy in a world of advantage-taking, a house of mercy in a world of hardened hearts, a house of freedom from anxiety in a world of debilitating worry, a house of meekness and a world that rewards the assertive, the aggressive, the puffed chests, the strutting and cock-sure.

All that – all that! – is going to get washed away by the next tide. Don't worry about. Don't even judge it. Build your own house. The kingdom has come. It's a new kind of living. Step in.

Just thinking

So I'm just thinking about things.

I think these posts are going to continue to be intermittent at best. I'm no daily blogger anymore.

I think when Jesus says "Do not judge," that's what he means.

Did you ever notice this? When Jesus challenges the church, church people like to pretend he's challenging everybody else.

Jesus says to church people, "Do not judge," and church people turn around and say, "Look at those people in the world, will you? Always judging, judging, but they don't want to admit it. They just won't listen to Jesus!"

In fact, I think that when church people start talking about "the world," it's pretty much a sure thing that  you're in for a whole raft of tired truisms intended to get everybody shaking their heads in agreement.

Jesus says that when you call someone a fool you've committed a sin worthy of hell. The idea here, I think, is to challenge our notion of what constitutes a truly serious sin. What we think is, if the recipient of that label really is a fool, he deserves the insult. We're just being honest, calling a spade a spade. But Jesus doesn't indicate exceptions to this rule. It even includes, I think, calling the president a fool . . . or any other choice insults you may be prone to hurling at our elected officials.

I think that any time we find ourselves trying to define exceptions to some plainly stated command of Jesus, looking for nuance, special cases, we're drifting away from the plainly challenging intent of the Jesus' words. He says, "Don't judge." We say, yes but . . .

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking.

SOM Thinking

Scott McKnight on the Sermon on the Mount