The Life of Blessing in the Realm of God
April 19 - June 7, 2009
Sermons@Skyline
Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with a series of improbable blessings. By now they have embedded themselves into our cultural consciousness, but a fresh reading startles us with the audacity (or lunacy) of Jesus. Who would think to call the following collection of misfits blessed: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for justice, those who are pesecuted for doing right, and those who are mocked and persecuted because they follow Jesus? Of course, a few of those on the list of the blessed might not come as much of a surprise: the humble, the merciful, the pure in heart, and those who work for peace. These actions can be a blessing in themselves. And it certainly comes as no surprise that Jesus would have wanted to encourage people to live for others inhumility, mercy, purity, and energetically working for peace.
But the others on the list seem to be a sad lot. The blessings of Jesus ring a bit hollow in the face of their suffering in poverty (spiritual and material), sadness, injustice, persecution and punishment for following Jesus. He uses the language of future reward as he blesses them, of course, so his blessing could be considered a form of encouragement for them to hope that things will get better - that a day of reckoning will come when God takes notice of them and relieves their suffering. And the rewards seem vast indeed: the Kingdom of Heaven (promised to both the poor and the persecuted), divine comfort, the whole earth, the satisfaction of justice served, mercy, a vision of God and a place in God's family. Jesus closes the discourse by promising that a great reward in heaven awaits those he has blessed.
Yet the way Jesus teaches about this Kingdom of Heaven (it is at hand or drawing near, and many are not far from it) defies our traditional assumptions that this heavenly Kingdom can only be a post resurrection experience or reality - after our death. His first sermon, like that of his cousin and mentor, John the Baptist, consists of an enigmatic invitation: "Repent! The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand (or near)" (Matthew 3:2, NASB and NIV translations). The statement implies that this Kingdom of Heaven is a present reality that makes repentance possible.
Look again at the opening beatitude. Those who are poor (who recognize their desperate need for God) experience the blessing of God - the Kingdom of Heaven is (not will be) theirs. A recognition of our spiritual impoverishment, and a hunger and thirst for justice, and perhaps even persecution for following Jesus are, like humility, mercy, and working for peace, pathways to God's Realm, as well as a new way of life in the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven. Theologian Dallas Willard writes that the Kingdom of Heaven is that place wherever God's will is done. This is the blessing Jesus has in mind. Life. Abundant. As children of God.
We explore these blessings for the next eight weeks as an invitation to live in the new life Jesus Christ makes possible by his call to repentance and sacrifice of love for us all. He calls us to die to self, and to live for others. He calls us to magnify our lives - and glorify the God who made us and longs for us to open our eyes to the reality of God's realm all around us.
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April 19 |
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April 26 |
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May 3 |
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May 10 |
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May 17 |
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May 24 |
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May 31 |
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June 7 |
