A New Identity - A Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent
Here we are in Lent.
In Lent, we have the opportunity to explore our own hearts, our relationship with God, and our understanding of how we are called to the work of the Kin-dom of God. We have the opportunity to make a new commitment to walking in the footsteps of Jesus.
As Lent cycles around, we bring with us new perspectives and new experiences each year. Our vision is slightly (or sometimes radically) changed from one year to the next. That is because we are learning and growing and coming and being transformed all the time. I remind our young families that when we visit a bible story with our kids, we don’t need to worry about getting all the details crammed in and perfect because we have a lifetime to keep unpacking these stories. We are where we are in any given year. And we will likely bring different things to the story the next time we explore it.
What a year it has been since we last entered Lent.
For the next five Sundays, as we continue our yearlong study of We Make the Road by Walking, we will linger Matthew’s gospel, specifically in chapters 5 – 7, known commonly as the Sermon on the Mount.
I chose in this season to also teach a parallel study of this same text by Jewish New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine. The next time I get a wild notion of lingering with two different books on the same subject for multiple weeks, someone pull the plug on it. My head is spinning already. But it is good spinning!
Seriously though, it is good to sit in the tension of two different readings, because it helps us to realize that there is not just one “right” way. And ideally it helps us locate our way, based on our lived experience of God, right?
Levine notes in her book that we often assume Jesus was teaching a crowd here on the mount…but the text says that Jesus saw the crowd and went up the mountain, where is disciples gathered around him. He then begins to teach.
And I think just last week that whenever someone goes up on a mountain in scripture, we should expect there to be some sort of revelation. The mountain for Matthew’s readers would have pointed toward Moses and the Sinai covenant.
Levine believes that this was not a public teaching here on the mount…it certainly wasn’t a “sermon,” per se. It feels more like an all day intensive course. Rabbi Jesus removed himself from the crowd and gathered with those committed to learning his teaching and becoming teachers under him – the disciples. And at this point in Matthew’s gospel, just five chapters in, Jesus has only specifically been seen with Peter, Andrew, James and John. It could be that he is teaching with a very small group – it is still early in his ministry. We don’t actually read that all 12 were yet gathered.
Depending on who gathered to listen, his message would have had different impact. In light of where I am on the journey, of where we are on the journey, I have seen these texts more through the eyes of the disciples this week rather than through the eyes of the seekers who might have gathered to hear him or receive healing near Galilee.
The text we study today is commonly known as the Beatitudes – with a few extra lines tossed in to sweeten the pot. A beatitude is a blessing. In the Jewish tradition, the formula of a phrase beginning with “blessed are…” would have been a familiar part of scripture, used in the Psalms, in Jeremiah and in Isaiah.
The concept of “blessing” is a tough one for us sometimes. In general, we are blessed with gifts not for our own good but for the good of the kingdom. If we find ourselves “blessed” in some way, we ought to also feel some obligation to share from that blessing to make the world a better place, to bring out just a little more of the Kin-dom of God.
Similar teaching from Jesus about blessing is also found in the gospel of Luke, but it is vital to note that the Matthew text offers blessings without offering a counter judgement, or a “woe” in the formula found elsewhere in scripture.
The formula in Matthew is “blessed is x and in light of that blessedness, y is true.”
In the Luke text, the formula is more like “blessed are X, Y and Z. And in light of that, woe to you who are not X, Y, and Z.”
For example’s sake:
From Matthew: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
From Luke: Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God….woe to you who are rich for you have already received your consolation.
Feels different, doesn’t it?
Sticking then, with the list of blessings in Matthew, we have to wonder what is meant by those who are poor in spirit, or those who mourn, those who are meek, or those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Today, we hear those words and we have specific definitions or understandings of them which are rooted in our context here and now. We think of this list being about the downtrodden, those experiencing the heartache of loss, and those who are submissive.
Levine has a particularly interesting interpretation of these various categories like the “poor in spirit” and the “meek.” With some intensive word study across Hebrew scripture and the new testament, she offers the idea that really, for the disciples sitting in front of Jesus receiving this teaching, all of these categories would be true for each of them in some way.
In fact, these categories are inclusive of most of humanity at some point in time.
Her helpful explanation of what is meant by “poor in spirit” suggests it is a “synonym for the people who have enough humility that they do not operate out of a sense of pride.”
Or another way, “those who recognize the gap between what we have and what we should have,”
or “those who see what many don’t and are blessed because they have this vision and because this vision compels them to act.”
And really, as she points out, everyone who experiences love or deep care for an issue also experiences mourning in very real ways. To love and to care is inevitably to experience loss. To mourn means that we have also loved and cared.
Well now, that is a different angle on the list, isn’t it? And when you lay those alongside a hunger and thirst for righteousness, lay those alongside those who are merciful and pure in heart, well then it suddenly feels like an acknowledgement of how hard it can be sometimes to care, and also a call and a challenge in the midst of all that is hard about being human – a challenge to recognize how things could be different, better for all, more just and inclusive. And to do something about it.
It is as if Jesus has set the disciples down and said to them that this is not just a matter of sharing information. It is not about a right and wrong way of doing things and who is in and who is out. The work is about widening the circle and making sure more people have what they need. It is not about a violent overthrow of Rome. It is about making sure that those of us who are under the thumb of this oppressive government still know love and joy and goodness, still known God is with us.
It will be hard, but the reward will be widespread and abundant.
It is as if Jesus has offered a whole new way for the disciples to understand what a successful day’s work is really about – or what a successful lifetime of work is really about - it is about expanding the Kin-dom of Heaven. Because the Kin-dom already exists, it is happening around us and our call is to join in the work. It is as if Jesus is inviting the disciples into a new way of being alive, a new identity within the emerging Kin-dom.
Jesus tops of the list of blessings with a charge to the disciples to be more salty and to shine brighter.
I wonder, as we live into our blessings, is it possible that we naturally become more salty and brighter?
I see this at work already here in the community of Faith. Some of you have caught fire with the call to address poverty or hunger or healthcare access or racism or exclusion.
And you are brighter for it. You are bolder. At points you are on fire. Your voice is louder. You are saltier.
McLaren puts it this way: “He (Jesus) means for our lives to overcome the blandness and darkness of evil with the salt and light of good works…instead of drawing attention to ourselves, those good works will point toward God.”
And so here at the beginning of Lent the call is to consider who we are…who is it that we are called to be? Can we hear that call?
We take the first steps by saying yes. Yes to a new identity as followers of Jesus.
Saying yes changes things.
That is no small statement.
Saying yes to following Jesus changes things.
As I finished working on this sermon, I felt an altar call coming on….
Sometimes, I marvel at being with you here in the community of Faith for more than 18 months, but more than half of that now has been during COVID restrictions. Which means that we are not gathered in the sanctuary, and I cannot invite you to the rail to renew your call to discipleship. In fact I’ve never really had that experience with you all.
If we were gathered together in this place, I’d ask the organ to fire up and invite those feeling called to come forward for a time of commitment and prayer and renewal.
And I would kneel with each of you to pray for guidance as you recommit in this season.
The Spirit of God is at work among us and I feel it. I feel it changing our outlook on church, on community, on discipleship, and I pray we can keep the flame alive even without being gathered under one roof. I feel the Spirit of God acknowledging the hard work you are all doing to stay connected, to find focus, to lean into Kin-dom work.
Do you feel it too?
Each one of us is called. And each one of us have a different way to answer that call.
My prayer is that you are hearing.
My prayer is that you are following.
My prayer is that you feel the blessing of what God is doing in our midst.
May it be so.
Instead of gathering at the rail, I invite you in this moment to pause, to breathe, to give thanks for the ways that God is at work and to commit to following Jesus in this season. It will change things.
Amen.
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