[audio:http://www.dodgevilleumc.org/pastor/sermonbrowser/?download&file_name=01-31-2010-JesusMessageOfOffense.mp3|width=90%]
Back in Matthew 4:17, Jesus began to share the message that said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is near!” In response to that, those who were following him began to ask him about what qualifications they would need to be a part of such a kingdom. That’s when he started into his sermon—the Sermon on the Mount, in answer to that question. Beginning with those Beatitudes (i.e. ‘Blessed are…’), Jesus began sharing with them how they should live, in order to qualify for a kingdom like his, by letting them know how they would be blessed. From there, he seems to throw in their faces some teaching that seems even more absurd than the Beatitudes; just listen…
"You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your friends, hate your enemies.’ 44 But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil. 46 Why should God reward you if you love only the people who love you? Even the tax collectors do that! 47 And if you speak only to your friends, have you done anything out of the ordinary? Even the pagans do that! 48 You must be perfect—just as your Father in heaven is perfect. – Matthew 5:43-48 (TEV)
So, how many of you are perfect? Are you stressing over that? Well, if you ever have, you’re in good company. Jesus’ sermon, folks, was ‘a sermon of offense’ to many. It begins with the Beatitudes, which may have seemed more ridiculous than offensive at the time. The Beatitudes, being the first step toward understanding the Sermon on the Mount, we really need to get to know the rest … if we’re to come to know the Christ of Christmas. However, I just cannot get over the uncompromising harshness of the rest of Jesus’ sermon! After all…
- Has anyone ever lived a life as perfect as God’s?
- How can we even respond to such impossible ideals?
Let me share with you an illustration that comes from Phil Yancey’s book, The Jesus I Never Knew: Phil had a friend of his who was an English professor at Texas A&M University. One day, this English professor gave an assignment. The assignment was to write an essay on the Sermon on the Mount (which, yes, meant that they had to read Matthew 5-7). Now, this professor thought—being right smack in the middle of the Bible belt—that her students would have a basic respect for the text. Not so. Here’s some of what they wrote:
- “In my opinion religion is one big hoax,” wrote one.
- “There is an old saying that ‘you shouldn’t believe everything you read’ and it applies in this case,” wrote another.
Apparently, we don’t live in the same world that we used to. This professor recalled her own introduction to the Sermon on the Mount in Sunday school, where pastel flannel board illustrations showed Jesus sitting on a green hillside surrounded by little eager, pink children. It never occurred to her to react with anger or disgust! Her students, apparently, thought otherwise…
- “The stuff churches preach is extremely strict and allows for almost no fun without thinking it is a sin or not.”
- “I did not like the essay ‘Sermon on the Mount.’ It was hard to read and made me feel like I had to be perfect … and no one is.”
- “The things asked in this sermon are absurd. To look at a woman is adultery. That is the most extreme, stupid, unhuman statement that I have ever heard.”
Let me tell you how the professor reacted to her class responses: “At this point,” the professor wrote about the experience, “I began to be encouraged. There is something exquisitely innocent about not realizing you shouldn’t call Jesus stupid. … This was the real thing, a pristine response to the gospel, unfiltered through a two-millennia cultural haze. … I find it strangely heartening that the Bible remains offensive to honest, ignorant ears, just as it was in the first century. For me, that somehow validates its significance….”
Folks, do you know what this means? We’ve come full circle since Jesus’ day! We are now living in a time where people will react to Jesus’ teaching … just as they did in his day! In other words, we don’t have to look too far to understand what Jesus was up against! There’s no reason to get upset at the way these students reacted; we should be excited that God’s word is still as powerfully moving (albeit ‘offensive’) as it ever was!
Remember the context; we’ve talked about it before. Roman soldiers have just invaded Galilee. They were serious about squelching those who were trespassing against the Roman Empire…
- They strung up Jewish men of fighting age…
- They shoved their hysterical wives to the ground…
- They even speared babies in order to ‘teach these Jews a lesson’…
And, into the midst of this context comes Jesus, ‘with eyes ablaze,’ saying things like:
- I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you…
- Listen to me! Love your enemy! If a Roman soldier hits you on the left cheek, offer him the right one. If a man in authority orders you to walk one mile, walk two miles. If a man sues you for your coat, give him the shirt off your back…
You can just imagine the villager’s response to such unwelcome advice … can’t you? The Sermon on the Mount didn’t confuse them; it infuriated them! Well, let’s look closer at more of Jesus’ teaching from this sermon…
LOVE YOUR ENEMIES. Verse 44 tells us, “But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you….” Why? “…so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven.”
What the crowds of Jesus’ day really wanted to know was whether Jesus was a revolutionary (their preference) or an authentic Jewish prophet (God’s purpose). They didn’t have to wait long for the answer:
“Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. I have not come to do away with them, but to make their teachings come true.” – Matthew 5:17 (TEV)
They soon found out that this Messiah was not the revolutionary of their dreams! They didn’t like this one… It’s as if they were trying to tell God: “This is not what we expected … so you must have made a mistake!” (I’m sure glad that none of us have ever treated God that way…) A little further on in the Sermon on the Mount, then, Jesus takes absurdity to a whole new level and tells them this…
BE PERFECT. In verse 48, Jesus says, “You must be perfect—just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” This seems next to impossible … if not impossible! What on earth could Jesus possibly be doing here?
Well, speaking of perfection, let’s jump back (still in Chapter 5) to Verse 20 and see what Jesus tells the crowds there:
“I tell you, then, that you will be able to enter the Kingdom of heaven only if you are more faithful than the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees in doing what God requires.” – Matthew 5:20 (TEV)
Remember: “[Blessed] are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them!” – Matthew 5:10 (TEV)
You see, the Pharisees and teachers of the law competed with one another for strictness:
- They had atomized God’s law into 613 rules … and bolstered them with 1,521 emendations…
- To avoid breaking the third commandment—“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord,” they refused to pronounce God’s name at all…
- To avoid sexual temptation they had a practice of lowering their heads and not even looking at women (‘bleeding Pharisees)…
- To avoid defiling the Sabbath they outlawed 39 activities that might be construed as ‘work’…
So, using the Torah as a starting point, Jesus pushed the law in the same direction, further than any Pharisee had dared push it… Jesus basically made the law impossible to keep … and then charged us to keep it. Just listen:
- “…anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery….”
- “…anyone who divorces his wife … causes her to become an adulteress….”
Do you see what I mean? So where does that leave us today? Let me try and explain as I wrap up our time together today…
Over the years, I’ve learned this about Matthew, Chapter 5—and some of it the hard way…
- What permeates Jesus’ teaching throughout the gospels (and we always need to weigh scripture against scripture) is: absolute ideals AND absolute grace…
- Especially in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus never lowered God’s Ideal; yet, at the same time, Jesus tenderly offers absolute grace—absolute, inflexible, all-encompassing grace. It extends even to those who nailed Jesus to the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” were some of the last words Jesus spoke on earth…
Folks, for years I felt unworthy before the absolute ideals of the Sermon on the Mount; I had totally missed in it any notion of grace. But once I understood its dual message, I went back and found that the message of grace weaves itself through the entire speech!
Isn’t that good news?
Jesus never gave us these words to burden us; he gave us these powerful words to tell us what God is like! The character of God lies in the very fabric of the Sermon on the Mount…
- Why should we love our enemies? ‘Because we have a God who causes his sun to rise on both the evil and the good. God loves (not necessarily ‘likes’) everyone—good and bad alike; so should we!
- Why be perfect? Because God is perfect…
- Why live without fear and worry? Because the same God who takes care of the lilies of the field has promised to take care of us, too…
Jesus gave us the Sermon on the Mount as God’s ideal toward which we should never stop striving, but also to show us that none of us will ever reach that ideal. In other words, here’s who God is … AND, at the same time, here’s God grace that makes it possible for us to live with that God for eternity… Phil Yancey says, “Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.”
So, as you reflect on the Sermon on the Mount, in the future, don’t just see it for ‘how hard it is’; rather, see it for what it is—‘full of God’s grace and love … for us.’ Are you now getting to know who this Christ of Christmas is … even more?