Oh boy, here goes Jesus again intensifying the law.
It’s not just don’t murder folks!
Don’t maim them with your anger either!
Don’t just not commit adultery!
Don’t cheat on your partner, don’t even consider divorce, and by the way don’t covet your neighbors, men, women, boys, girls, anyone other than your spouse, period!
This Sermon on the Mount was offered by Jesus as a way for his disciples, his followers, the Pharisees and the Scribes to get a handle on how God saw those Big Ten, commandments that is.
They were to be understood not as rules in the typical Pharisaic sense, but rather as the normative way the Kingdom of God functions.
In the Kingdom, relationships are everything, especially our relationship with God and with each other.
Now I know the one we freak out about is Jesus teaching on divorce, but you have to see it as a Kingdom value. In the Kingdom, marriage is a mirror of our intimate relationship with God.
And who in their right mind would cheat on God?
Stop it! Just stop it!
The point is, who cheats on God? Who wants to divorce God? Don’t all of us really want an amazing relationship with God that is nurturing and challenging and fulfilling?
So, why not build an amazing relationship with the person filled with the Holy Spirit that is already in your life: your spouse, your girl/boyfriend, your family, your friends, even your enemies!
And that’s the point! Make it real now, because get this – God’s presence lives in the one you married and all the rest too knucklehead!
So, one of the things to note here is that this teaching is not separate from the ones before. The
Kingdom of God is like a marriage, you can’t just walk out on the people you have made a commitment to. You need to deal!
You get angry, you talk it out! You get sidetracked, you stop turn around and fix it. You get interested in distractions and you need to refocus, and right away and rather abruptly, now! Because this matters!
Because the kingdom is worth the effort and the sacrifice.
Just like marriage is.
It’s relational, this Kingdom. It is not land. It is not money. It is not things; including people.
It’s about caring for and living for others as they care for and live for you. So, focus people!
And if you are finding yourself off track, or others are telling you that you are off track, remember who and whose you are.
If you are a fitness person (and we all should be) what do the experts tell us about diet and exercise? That when you fall off the plan, don’t quit, start again!
Look at your goals! Look at what you have accomplished!
Give yourself a pep talk and get back at it!
Often your fall is not unfixable, unless of course you have hurt others in the process, like when you are angry with them without resolving the anger, or are unfaithful to them, without ending the unfaithfulness and doing all you can to heal the relationship.
Unfortunately, some relationships can’t be healed.
When we cheat on the ones we say we love, when we treat as inhuman or somehow less than human those we are specifically told to love, including folks that may be very different than us, we damage the very fabric of the Kingdom!
The reason the church holds racism, sexism, gender-ism, and ageism as sin, is because in each case it diminishes the value of another one of God’s children.
Think of Jesus audience!
Men thinking less of women, because they weren’t men. Pharisees thinking less of the disciples, because they weren’t Pharisees. Adults thinking less of children, because they weren’t adults.
Jews thinking less of Samaritans and Gentiles, because they weren’t Jews. The wealthy thinking less of the poor and even the Middle Class because they weren’t rich.
The healthy thinking less of those who were ill, handicapped, suffering with diseases, mental illness, birthmarks, and congenital conditions, because they weren’t healthy, or even perfect, whatever that means.
And we could add lists and lists of other astonishing ways God’s people have thought less of folks, who are God’s beloved children. Those who are a different color, or who came from a certain part of the world, or whose hair is wavy or kinky or red.
Jesus is not suggesting we don’t be aware of those who would harm us. Rather he is pointing out that the Kingdom of God is full of folks we may be dismissing, sidelining, and even mistreating, whom God loves and values, and whom God has sent to enrich the Kingdom!
We are to value them as much as a husband is to love his wife, and a wife is to love her husband. As much as a father or mother loves a child, even a child who is stinky, naughty, and even difficult. Just saying!
Because we are all of great value to God. All of us have been fearfully and wonderfully made.
And all of us have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb, and it is only at our own peril that we reject or mistreat even the littlest one of God’s children.
As Jesus reminds us it would better to have a millstone hung around our neck and be tossed into an ocean than to mistreat one of God’s children, and we are all God’s children.
So, what have we learned? Look around. Each one here is beloved by God.
As a Kingdom person, we are to love them too. Amen.
You get angry, you talk it out! You get sidetracked, you stop turn around and fix it. You get interested in distractions and you need to refocus, and right away and rather abruptly, now! Because this matters!
Because the kingdom is worth the effort and the sacrifice.
Just like marriage is.
It’s relational, this Kingdom. It is not land. It is not money. It is not things; including people.
It’s about caring for and living for others as they care for and live for you. So, focus people!
And if you are finding yourself off track, or others are telling you that you are off track, remember who and whose you are.
If you are a fitness person (and we all should be) what do the experts tell us about diet and exercise? That when you fall off the plan, don’t quit, start again!
Look at your goals! Look at what you have accomplished!
Give yourself a pep talk and get back at it!
Often your fall is not unfixable, unless of course you have hurt others in the process, like when you are angry with them without resolving the anger, or are unfaithful to them, without ending the unfaithfulness and doing all you can to heal the relationship.
Unfortunately, some relationships can’t be healed.
When we cheat on the ones we say we love, when we treat as inhuman or somehow less than human those we are specifically told to love, including folks that may be very different than us, we damage the very fabric of the Kingdom!
The reason the church holds racism, sexism, gender-ism, and ageism as sin, is because in each case it diminishes the value of another one of God’s children.
Think of Jesus audience!
Men thinking less of women, because they weren’t men. Pharisees thinking less of the disciples, because they weren’t Pharisees. Adults thinking less of children, because they weren’t adults.
Jews thinking less of Samaritans and Gentiles, because they weren’t Jews. The wealthy thinking less of the poor and even the Middle Class because they weren’t rich.
The healthy thinking less of those who were ill, handicapped, suffering with diseases, mental illness, birthmarks, and congenital conditions, because they weren’t healthy, or even perfect, whatever that means.
And we could add lists and lists of other astonishing ways God’s people have thought less of folks, who are God’s beloved children. Those who are a different color, or who came from a certain part of the world, or whose hair is wavy or kinky or red.
Jesus is not suggesting we don’t be aware of those who would harm us. Rather he is pointing out that the Kingdom of God is full of folks we may be dismissing, sidelining, and even mistreating, whom God loves and values, and whom God has sent to enrich the Kingdom!
We are to value them as much as a husband is to love his wife, and a wife is to love her husband. As much as a father or mother loves a child, even a child who is stinky, naughty, and even difficult. Just saying!
Because we are all of great value to God. All of us have been fearfully and wonderfully made.
And all of us have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb, and it is only at our own peril that we reject or mistreat even the littlest one of God’s children.
As Jesus reminds us it would better to have a millstone hung around our neck and be tossed into an ocean than to mistreat one of God’s children, and we are all God’s children.
So, what have we learned? Look around. Each one here is beloved by God.
As a Kingdom person, we are to love them too. Amen.
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