January 30, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13 + 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 + Matthew 5:1-12

For people familiar with Bible images and language,

this scene has layers of nuance and familiarity.

To a mountain Matthew takes us,

and our first thoughts should be of Moses ascending Sinai.

There covenant tradition was established

for a people who have been seeking, longing, and hoping

for freedom for unity, and for a future with God.

Their past is marked by a long search

that led them to many other and lesser gods.

Their life style has been marked

by infidelity, violence, stealing and murder.

On that mountain with Moses as guide,

they are called away from all of that and offered a covenant

with the God of Abraham who asks of them a great deal,

but offers them even more.

What happens in Mathew’s Gospel is a shadow of all

that happened before. Israel did not get it right.

The old covenant brought them far, but not far enough.

It brought them power, but they abused it.

It brought them prosperity, but they abused that as well.

It brought them identity, but they would trade that

for less than God had promised.

But it also brought them Jesus.

Like another Moses, up the mountain he goes.

There he unfolds the conditions of the new covenant,

one that will be sealed in his blood.

Like the commandments which expressed the old covenant,

the Word Jesus speaks unfolds the conditions and promises

of the new covenant, and that is where we go today.

These Beatitudes are not pious hopes of what shall be.

They are not glowing prophecies of some future bliss.

They are exclamations of what is.

And it is not for some future world postponed, either.

It is a state into which the Christian should already have entered. The Beatitudes are a proclamation of what it means to know Jesus. They speak of joy that comes from walking in the presence of Jesus; a joy that nothing in this world can take away. They proclaim the conditions in which people of the Covenant live. So let us review them.

POVERTY does not mean that being poor is a good thing.

It does mean that helplessness is at least for those who put their trust in God. These are people who know that things mean nothing and God means everything.

MOURNING goes with poverty suggesting that while it is right to be detached from things, it is not right to be detached from people. When things go well, it is possible to live on the surface of things and never go deep—shallow lives.

Suffering drives us to the deep things in life, and when accepted rightly, a new strength begins. Nothing bonds people together like the sharing of suffering and pain.

GENTLE The gentle bless our lives with kindness, compassion, and patience. It simply means they are filled with respect: for themselves and for others.

RIGHTEOUSNESS Goodness is the issue here, complete goodness not partial goodness, not self-justifying judgments about others, but a kind of balance and wholeness that brings one close to God.

MERCIFUL Get into the skin of another – inside their lives, that’s what makes mercy. This is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. From that moment on, God knew what it was like to be human. Mercy springs from understanding what another experiences.

CLEAN OF HEART is the quality of simplicity – what you see is what you get, no agenda, no hidden motives, say what you mean, and mean what you say.

PEACE MAKERS are people who make this world a better place. They are not trouble makers, but rather, they are people in whose presence bitterness cannot live. They bridge the gulfs, heal the breaches and sweeten the bitterness. It is the work of God. To bring peace.

These are the conditions of the new covenant

expressed in Christian tradition.

Moses gave commandments. Jesus gave beatitudes.

While some fight and argue over displays of the commandments in public, the beatitudes go begging for attention.

The path Jesus provides for those who would follow him leads to the New Covenant and the conditions in which we shall live it:

Dependent upon God and nothing else,

Dependant upon people and not stuff

Gentle, Good, Merciful, Simple, and Peaceful.

This is the only way to live in covenant,

and the only way to follow Jesus

January 23, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 8: 2-9, 9:3 + 1 Corinthians 1 1-33,17 + Matthew 4: 12-23

With Matthew as bridge, we stand between Christmas and Lent. With Matthew as our guide from now until next November, teach is more important than miracles. We shall hear more of what Jesus says than what he does. The narrative of Christ’s birth is closed now. John the Baptist has been killed, but his call to repentance has not been silenced. No sooner than Matthew announces his death, than he has Jesus take up the message himself. Matthew puts Jesus in Zebulun and Naphtali Capernaum, because that’s where the prophet said the Good News would first be heard.

It’s a place like Sayre, Oklahoma. We are not talking about prime real estate here, but the message is clear, no place is too far for the Lord, and no one is too little or of no value. This is a culture of tight family identity. Kinship matters and without it, one is lost. Matthew moves Jesus out of his family, away from “their town” and puts him in a new place where he begins today to form a new family.

And s, to a group of fishermen he comes. Fishermen: people who work hard. These are not men who have power, influence, or prestige. They are unschooled, tough, and they probably smell like dead fish.

They wait – have been waiting a long time. They wait for the fish: but more than that, they wait for the messiah. They are synagogue and prophet-schooled to look, expect, and wait for that messiah who will lead them from gloom and darkness to rejoicing and an abundant harvest. They wait for someone to life the burden and smash the rod of the taskmaster. And so, when he comes along with what power or mysterious appeal we know not, they follow.

Where he takes them however is not where they expect to go. As he puts out his map for the journey into the reign of God next week, we too are invited into the mystery of what it means and where it will lead. We are waiting too, just like the fishermen. We work, we know darkness and gloom, and we are no strangers to oppression terror and anguish.

There is a miracle here, but it takes some faith and some thought to see it. The miracle is that no matter how many times they had gone after another, no matter how often they tried something or someone else, those fishermen got it right that day. They found the one who would take them, the one who would fulfill their dreams and their hopes.

It is a miracle that can be repeated for us. Most of us have tried everything there is everything we could imagine , think of, find, or create. We try drugs, sex, fashion, and money. We try power, oppression, violence, and lately we try war that we try to soften by calling it preemptive. None of those things can ever or will ever bring us peace or joy. They will not bring us security or fulfill our dreams.

We look to politicians for the things that only come from the Messiah. Governments and ideologies do not make peace. Economic systems, materialism, and consumerism do not make us secure, justice does. It is Love not legal systems that brings peace.

The one who says: “Come, follow me.” Offers us the way to find what we have dreamed of since we awakened to sin. We can chase after all kinds of phony plans and systems, ideologies and leaders”, but only one can take us where we long to be. This broken, violent, hungry, and homeless world remains so not because the plan of Jesus has been found inadequate or wanting, but because it has not been given a a chance and put to use by people willing to put down everything and every old way and follow Him.

Perhaps the miracle can happen again, and we shall repent and turn from those old, failed ways and go with Jesus The way may not be exactly as we imagined, and it may not be easy. The presence of God’s reign is so radical and powerful that it calls men and women from the safety and security of everyday routines to a life of unheard-of-newness. For Peter, Andres, James, and Joh, it required a break with fishing and family to join Jesus in “fishing for other.” Following Jesus is not for the tentative and indecisive, maybe that’s why there are so few who take Him seriously. How it shall be for us remains to be seen, but it is clear that we are getting nowhere as it is.anuary 23,