Words of Wisdom

Originally posted 1/19/07

The words of Jesus are an amazing thing. We can try to lock them up and bury them deep within our subconcious selves and ignore them with all our might, but somehow, someway, once we have heard the astounding words of our Lord they seem to always be there tugging at our minds and hearts and whispering in our ears, reminding us of an extraordinary time 2,000 years ago when our almighty God set down His scepter and laid aside his glorious crown to become a lowly human being. The life and words of this remarkably divine Man have shaped not just the future of society or humankind, but the entirety of the physical universe and those elysian planes of existence beyond our own where angels sing with otherworldy voices of praise to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Perhaps the greatest address of His short earthly ministry are the resonating lessons found within the Sermon on the Mount, a discourse that has stood the test of time over these two millenia and still inspires and instructs today in the 21st century. Over the last week, we have trekked together through this teaching and today we will conclude this section of our study of the life of Jesus. If you would like to see the earlier “Mount” entries they can be found here in parts 1, 2, and 3. Today we pick up in chapter 7.

Scripture: Matthew 5-7
Many times inside and outside of Christian culture the great words of Jesus are thrown about with reckless abandon back and forth, picked at and pulled apart until they hardly resemble the original message. The beginning or this chapter gives two great example of this phenomena of misrepresentation among those who appear to twist the words of Christ to fulfill their own ideas.

The first words of this chapter, “Do not judge lest you be judged,” are often declared with scornfulness at those who may not approve of our actions or words, but what does this short sentence really mean? Are Christians supposed to turn a blind eye to bad behavior? If someone we know and love is wallowing deep in the muck and mud of immorality with no escape in sight are we to pretend all is well? In the following verses, Jesus again assails those hypocrites that preach one thing but do another, and it is here that He supplies our answer to the question. Jesus and His early followers did not stand idly by and watch soul after soul decay into nothingness, no, they took active roles in trying to turn people from their wicked ways. Before we try and turn those who are lost around, we have the responsibility, no the requirement, to look within ourselves, deep inside our minds and hearts, for any evil that manifests itself in our words or actions or thoughts and we must make every effort, with the help of God, to defeat it. When we abide in this life unrepentant of the immoralities threatening to tear our lives and bodies and souls apart, we cannot teach others the right way to go.

The second statement is one that has been grossly misused of late by the “health and wealth gospel” people that make the false claim that Jesus wants you to have a multitude of earthly riches and comforts and that he wants to pamper you all of your days on this earth. The passage reads, “Ask and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.” My personal belief is that this verse is not alluding to gaining money and personal comforts, I truly believe that God’s gift does not manifest itself in the treasures of this earth, but instead He has bestowed the greatest gift that we could ever want, one that surpasses all gold and sports cars and big houses, the endowment of an eternal life with Him.

Then, in verse 12, Jesus gives perhaps the greatest statement of personal morality ever spoken anywhere by anyone, the Golden Rule: “However you want people to treat you, so treat them.” It’s a simple sentence that abounds with the pure essence of all that is good and right in human interaction. Again, Christ comes back to that single word that is essential to our eternal well-being: love. You can boil all that comprises mortal relationships of those following God down to that one simple word. We must love others, all others, more than we even love ourselves. We must put the well-being of every man and woman in the world ahead of our own.

And most of the times that task seems to be insurmountable to a lowly, selfish human being like me.

The way to eternal life in heaven isn’t easy. As it says in verse 13, “Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and few are those who find it.”

We have a responsibility, an accountability for the way that we love each other, whether rich or poor or black or white or gay or straight or Christian or Muslim or nihilist, during our short time on this earth. The beautiful land of heaven awaits for those of us that are ready and able to put those prejudices behind us and talk to others and love others even if they don’t look or act like us.

But the role that we play in this great play of life and death and love and hate and war and peace on this earth is not only defined by how we treat and love each other. That is certainly a major component and through that we will procure a nice ovation, but to be called back for that eternal encore with the Lord of the universe, we must also love Him, our creator and our God.
And it is through these loves, for our God and our fellow man, that the Lord of the universe will bestow that greatest gift of all on us.

Originally posted 1/16/07

So far our voyage through the life and teachings of Jesus has taken us to:
His miraculous birth
His consecration through baptism
His hard-fought temptations
His greatest discourse on record: The Sermon on the Mount – parts 1 and 2.
Today we will continue our discussion on this teaching, perhaps the greatest sermon ever preached.

Scripture: Matt 5-7
The hearers of this great admonition from our Lord Jesus Christ were most certainly thunderstruck by the exhortations issuing forth from the mouth of this Man, a lowly carpenter with probably little formal education. This man of ignoble status was speaking with the utmost authority – amazing all of those who were present. His call for moving the Law forward to where its fulfillment depended a fortiori on the heart of man rather than on an imaginary celestial checklist, changed the perspectives among those in attendance, and His rejecting of those whose hypocritical actions veiled a soul rotting in egotism must have caused great lamentations of spirit among the self-absorbed guilty. Today we pick up in Matt 6:19.

There are times at work when we have various financial advisors and experts leading workshop-style meetings in which they bequeath knowledge about money and how to save it in order to one day have a somewhat satisfying retirement with plenty of wealth to use as you wish, and I can’t help but wonder whether or not this is a righteous activity for Christians to be involved in. Jesus seems to assert in these first verses that it is most assuredly not an enterprise that we should embrace.
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Later at the end of verse 24, he seems to affirm this even more: “You cannot serve both God and mammon (money).”

In our overly materialistic Western culture where we just want to get more and more things to stuff our considerable homes with, this has turned into one of the greatest traps lying agape for any one of us to fall into. First of all, there is nothing wrong in itself with earning money, even large amounts of money if it is accomplished in an honorable fashion, but we must overcome the impediment of selfishness, that disease of heart and soul waiting in the dark recesses to devour our entire being. We must remember that all things that we currently may have in our possession do not truly belong to us – they are still the Lord’s – and, once we have established that within our depraved minds, having the newest and best and most expensive new toys does not carry that much meaning anymore. We can still earn our earthly treasure and we can even place some of it in a bank for safekeeping, but we must not let that impermanent dollar dictate our lives to us.

Along these same lines, Jesus then moves into a short narrative about anxiety and worry – two conditions that probably affect each and every one of us every day. Jesus again breaks it down into simple terms – consider the birds, they don’t put 5% of their earnings into a 401k or debate whether or not they need a new car or worry about how they are going to pay their electric bill and God takes care of them anyway. In our worry and hustle and bustle we need to take a few moments in prayer and thank God for our blessings and try to always remember that these are only temporal materials that will some day fade away into obscurity.

Remember His words in verse 33:
“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Originally posted 1/14/07

For the last few weeks, we’ve been venturing through the life and times of Jesus – from His birth to His baptism to His temptation and then, a few days ago, we began a discussion on Jesus’ greatest narrative – The Sermon on the Mount – and today we will continue along that path.

Scripture: Matt 5-7

By this point, with His calls for the people to be “perfect” and to have “righteousness surpassing that of the scribes and Pharisees,” he had surely acquired their full attention and had undoubtedly elicited some sort of response, either positive or negative, from those present. I imagine that the audience was somewhat perplexed at what this Man, a virtual unknown, was proclaiming as truth – perhaps they were aghast at his boldness or amazed at what they knew in their being to be right.

In today’s world, we hear a lot about the idea of a private vs. public faith – whether it is in open prayer at football games or posting gargantuan idols to the ten commandments in our courthouses . Jesus took those supposedly virtuous men, that day’s religious leaders, to task for flaunting their religion in acts reciprocal to many we recognize in today’s Christian culture.
The first verse of chapter 6 reads:
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”

He begins by procuring their attention with this overarching statement before delving into individual, more detailed, items for their consideration. First he assails their contributions to the disadvantaged by telling the assembly to not make their offering to be seen by others – don’t call a press conference or work to get your picture in the newspaper – do it to assist the needy, not to promulgate your supposed charity. Corresponding to that, He proclaims to the throng of listeners to not pray in order to be hailed by those that hear or to use words and phrases to dazzle those around you. Also in accordance with this, people are not to attempt to educe sympathy from others while fasting by putting on their “sad face” and moping around to garner attention for themselves.

While there is surely nothing wicked about any of these things – giving alms or praying or fasting – the iniquitous act of trying to wrest the approval of man for righteous acts may crush the uprightness of the deed. We are to do these things, but we must scrutinize our priorities and establish that we are carrying out the action in order to benefit others, rather than our own selfish nature, and to give glory to our God. So there is nothing at all dishonorable about giving to the poor or praying in public, but we must not grandstand for ourselves.

Within this discourse, Christ presents instructions on how to pray by giving them a short, simple example – probably the antithesis of the prayers they were accustomed to hearing from their religious leaders. The passage reads as follows:

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen.

It’s a wonderfully simple prayer that runs the gamut of our human experiences and feelings, from sorrow regarding our own shortcomings to unfettered adoration to our God, and it provides an amazing framework for any and every time we lift up a request or a praise to God through the avenue of prayer. I will be the first to concede my deficiencies relating to prayer – I just don’t feel comfortable doing it while standing before an accumulation of people – but the ease of the Lord’s Prayer assists me in finding the right words and pattern to use when speaking to God.

Immediately following Jesus’ prayer instructions, He makes a quick statement that may be easily missed in the context of this great narrative, but these two sentences contain a theological wallop equitable to few other sayings in our holy book.
“For if you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”
Therefore, there is no authenticity for our contrition if we are holding a wrongful act perpetrated by another person against them. We are required, as children of the almighty God, to forgive everyone for their personal deficiencies, for their criminal behavior or for their evil deeds. If we refuse to let go of a wrong commited by another person, God will allow the crushing weight of our own iniquity to burden us, and us alone, with no help or forgiveness.

The one unifying factor in all of this is just one small word. A word that is Lilliputian in size but insurmountable in significance. And that word is, once again, love. If we love our friends, if we love our enemies, if we love those people that are apathetic to our existence, we will not hold their sins and shortcomings against them. We will not feign integrity for the approval of others, rather we will work for the betterment of all through the love of a mighty, everlasting God.

Originally posted 1/11/07

Over the last few weeks, our journey through the life of Jesus has taken us from His humble birth in a filthy barn, to His decision, at age thirty, to reject human yearnings in favor of following the almighty God though the rite of baptism, to the temptations that enticed His human nature to forsake His divine duty. Today we will begin peering into the teachings of Christ and what significance they hold for us today.

Scriptures: Matt 5-7
At some point in time after defeating His carnal desires, Jesus stumbled out of the wilderness, bedraggled with hunger and weariness, and it was at that point that His ministry began. As time passed a multitude of people began amassing about Him, hanging on His every word with an unflagging eagerness for more. I imagine that swarming horde about Him was growing to such size that those people on the fringes could hardly hear the words He spoke. Jesus, though, in His wisdom probably realized this and He knew that everyone would not be able to hear and see and experience Him while He was standing in the midst of the great legion of followers, so, when the opportunity presented itself, He climbed atop an area elevated above the thronging masses and gave one of His greatest teachings to all those present – what we know as the Sermon on the Mount.

He launches into this great teaching with a collection of blessings that we know as the Beattitudes and it is through these that we ascertain the characteristics of a true follower of God – we are to be humble, to be gentle, to be merciful, to try and do the right right thing in all circumstances, to look for peaceful solutions and to keep our minds and hearts apart from those things in the world that may corrupt. But then the last two blessings seem to move in a slightly different direction – “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness” and “Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kind of evil against you falsely on account of Me.” I imagine that during the first six everyone is nodding with rousing amens, until these last two are uttered – then something else materializes as people begin to understand that this radical discipleship could cost them their livelihoods or their health or even their lives and I suspect that some of those present, like the rich young ruler later, sadly turned away.

But the Son of God wasn’t finished yet, oh no, there is more, much more, because those that strive and struggle to keep these qualities against those forces clawing at them and trying with all of their ungodly might to drag them into the mire, are not just helping themselves – for we all know that eternal life cannot be gained by a person’s merit. He calls those that follow Him the salt of the earth and the light of the world – in other words, they are meant to be examples of Jesus to those around us – we are to be kind and gentle and merciful not for our own good, but for the good of those around us, and through acts of servitude to our fellow man (or woman) God will be glorified. Then, in verse 20, He drops a bomb on those gathered around Him that none of them could have foreseen – “…unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” In my mind I can see those gathered around staring open-mouthed at each other thinking, “Did He just say what I think He said?” How could you be more righteous than the Pharisees who at least in appearance abided by every jot and tittle of the Law? A closer look at the preceding verses may give an answer – in their fervent advocacy of the Law, had they perhaps given up on humbleness or gentleness or mercy?

Then, perhaps in repsonse to that, He launches into a soliloquy concerning personal relationships and their connection to the Law. Jesus seemingly takes the Law up a notch – youv’e heard it said don’t commit murder, well I say don’t even be angry or slanderous. You’ve heard it said don’t commit adultery, but I say don’t ponder any sexual thoughts outside of marriage. Get rid of anything that may cause you to sin – cut off your hand, cut out your eyes, throw out your TV or your computer, get away from people that drag you into the abyss of sin. Whatever it takes, separate yourself from the worldly desires that pull at you from every direction. His monologue then veers into marriage and divorce and the danger of making promises that you may not keep – all important aspects of the Christian life that we should keep near our hearts – before coming to a portion that I cherish as much as any other.

Despite the saber-rattling that we hear from many Christian leaders today, Jesus was undoubtedly an espouser of nonviolence – even to the point of radical pacifism. He quotes again from the Law before giving His new spin on it,
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
Again, a little bit later in the passage, He says,
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor,’ and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
What a powerful, powerful thing to say! And He exemplified it later when, while dying a torturous death on the cross, He begged God to forgive His murderers! Do we take the time to pray for our enemies? Granted, we don’t face much, if any, persecution in this country (please hold all of your nonsensical aggravations for now), but there are those around the world that are constantly facing death because of their ardent belief in Jesus. Do we pray for terrorists? Did we pray for Saddam Hussein before or after his barbaric execution? Do we pray for Osama Bin Laden? Do we pray for the common criminals on the streets of our cities? It’s easy for us to love those that love us back, but how do we love those people who may seek to harm us or our families or those who may hate us or even those that are just completely apathetic to our existence?

Brothers and sisters, I tell you we can do it. We have to realize that the end cannot justify the means. Death and destruction and killing and the collateral damage cannot validate the illusion of safety. We have a calling to love everybody – regardless of their color or religion or belief system or where they live or any of those other barriers that we put up around ourselves.

And that’s a charge we must keep.