Discipleship 101

Epiphany 4

Micah 6:1-8

Matthew 5:1-12

When Jesus is preaching, blessings abound.  Jesus is announcing God’s favor right and left.  This is a good news party.  Blessings are overflowing.

But the blessings are surprising.  These blessings are announced on people we usually overlook or ignore.  They are not simply another way of congratulating the successful and the high performers.  They are not rewards for those with impressive track records of achievement. 

Jesus does NOT say, “Blessed are those who are strong, and healthy, with beautiful features, and little body fat.”  No, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit.”

 

Jesus does NOT say, “Blessed are those whose lives are full of exciting adventures, expensive dinners, lots of leisure and travel.”  No, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn.”

Jesus does NOT say, “Blessed are the those well-regarded by others, the respected, those with good educations and enviable jobs.”  No, Jesus says, “Blessed are those persecuted and spoken against by others.”

There are a string of eight blessings (nine if you count the add-on to the eighth).  And I’m glad that Jesus is doling out God’s blessings all around.  But I’m also a little concerned, because I have spent a good deal of time trying to avoid the kinds of difficult life circumstances Jesus appears to be blessing. It makes me wonder if I should repent, turn around, find a new way to live.

What are these blessings anyway?  We often think of God’s blessing as a kind of promise of a future reward.  Live God’s way, love God, trust in God, or do enough good things, and you’ll get a reward in the distant future, the reward of an afterlife with God in heaven.

Well, that doesn’t look like what Jesus is promising.  He speaks in the present tense.  “Blessed are these kinds of people, for theirs is, right now, already, the kingdom of heaven.”

For the month of February, we’re talking about “discipleship.”  What does it mean to be a disciple, a student, a follower of Jesus?  What does it look like when we live our lives his way?  We’ll be reading Matthew 5, the first part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  (By the way, “beatitudes” is latin for “blessed” or “happy,” and the title “sermon on the mount” was coined by Augustine in the late 4^th century).

We might think that discipleship to Jesus Christ means doing something very new and unique.  If I become a disciple of Jesus, I will be shaping my life in a very particular way – and it will look nothing like other paths or walks of life.  I’ll have a life that is visibly different from Jews, from Muslims, from Buddhists and Hindus and Sikhs, and from those who aren’t religious. 

Yes, Jesus is calling all of us forward into something new.  He is asking us to turn towards the future of God’s kingdom.  But what he lays out for us is a life that is very old, very Jewish, and very common.  In these blessings, and in the rest of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he says very little that’s new or unique or original.  Instead, he is calling us back to ancient, Jewish paths.  These blessings on the lowly, the humble, the gentle, the peacemakers, the persecuted – they aren’t new.  They aren’t “Christian.”  They’re ancient Jewish ways of life, and they are values shared by many cultures and many religions.

There is a real simplicity to Jesus’ teaching that reminds us of the simplicity of Micah’s prophetic message.  God is disappointed with Israel and brings a case against them in court.  God summons the mountains and hills as witnesses when the charges are made.  Israel’s defense is comically off base.  “But Lord, we’ve been very, very religious!  How much more religious would you like for us to be?  Should we make even more animal sacrifices at the Temple?  Is that what you want?”  No, God says, that’s not what I want at all.  I want something very simple.  I want you to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.

Lives shaped by God’s arriving kingdom is not new, nor is it Christian.  It is old, and shared by many of the great religions, certainly Judaism, as Jesus and his early followers were Jews.  What is NEW is the announcement that in Jesus’ life and ministry, God’s kingdom is “at hand.”  God shifted the plan for the world into a new gear with the arrival of Jesus – that’s what’s new.

Perhaps Jesus has caught our interest.  Maybe we’ve never crossed a threshold where we committed ourselves to following his way, and we feel like that time has come for us.  Or maybe we’ve been following Jesus for a long time but we’ve wavered in our focus and commitment.  So whether it’s the first time or the seventeenth time, some of us are saying, “I’m on board, Jesus.  It might be hard, but your way is the best way.  Show me how to do it.  Tell me the rules.  Give me some specifics so that I can take my discipleship to a deeper level.”

OK, let me give you one specific thing you can do this week to deepen your discipleship.  You can read the Sermon on the Mount.  Read it from beginning to end – three chapters, Matthew 5-7 – and reread it as often as you can and let its force work its way into your life and reorganize the patterns of your life.  So that’s specific, and you’ll find that Jesus has some specific things that disciples do.

But now let me disappoint you, or frustrate and confuse you a bit.  More than any specific advice or rules for living, Jesus offers his disciples a powerful, life-shaping symbol: the “kingdom of heaven” or the “kingdom of God.”  And Jesus teaches that being his disciples has EVERYTHING to do with receiving this kingdom, entering this kingdom.

The “kingdom of heaven” was the driving theme of Jesus’ preaching.  Matthew prepares us for the sermon with Jesus words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”  (4:17).

Notice also that the first and eighth blessing (the first and last) refer to God’s kingdom.  So the rest of the promises related to blessings two through seven simply flesh out what Jesus means by “kingdom of heaven” . . .

To live in God’s arriving kingdom means to receive comfort in face of mourning, to inherit the earth, to be filled with righteousness, to be shown mercy, to see God, and to be called children of God.  These are not future promises only.  They are promises claimed right now and which will unfold more fully in time to come.

Matthew sets the scene so that we can see Jesus as the king speaking to his subjects – here is how this realm works, he is saying.  Jesus ascends the mountain, sits down, and his subjects come before him.  And he pronounces the kinds of behavior and people who are in the good favor of the king.

You might be wondering why Jesus says “kingdom of heaven” rather than “kingdom of God” (as in Mark and Luke).  There is no difference – they are ways of saying the same thing.  But some Jews avoided saying God’s name out of reverence.  So they said “Kingdom of heaven” instead of “kingdom of God.” 

Jesus’ preaching about God’s kingdom is so simple that any child can understand it.  God is the king of a realm.  And God is a good king who organizes the realm in a way that all things flourish together.  And God sent Jesus to announce the kingdom’s arrival.  It’s at the door, now, you can enter it, and receive it.

And yet the symbol of God’s kingdom is so complex that we will never cease exploring its richness and depth.  If you try to define it, it will slip through your fingers.  Jesus never attempted to define it.  He just told stories about it.

When Jesus says that God’s kingdom is “at hand” or has “come near,” he is saying something profound.  It can be entered right now, though it is only beginning and has yet to be fully established.  In fact it won’t be fully established until the end of the age.  It is nearby every place.  You don’t have to leave where you are to find it.  But it cannot be identified with any one place.  It’s near all places. 

So where does this leave us?  It leaves us with Jesus invitation to follow him.  Jesus invites us to turn towards the newly arriving kingdom that is now “at hand.”  He invites us to join together with others who are following him in order to live out his way of life.  Now this will be hard, because there are many challenges.  But it will also be easy, because Jesus promises to be with us through his teachings and through his Spirit.

You might think of Jesus’ followers who are entering the kingdom as “early adopters.”  Early adopters are people who embrace some new technology ahead of time.  When you’re just discovering Facebook for the first time, they’re leaving it for the next new thing.  They try things out before most of us want to even mess with it.  Like Google glass – the wearable technology that includes a little screen in your field of vision. 

They are the vanguard, the small group of people who forge ahead and learn a new way of using technology before there’s been time for everyone else to figure it out.  So if you looked at a community of early adopters, what you’d see is a community that embodies the future.  If you look at the way they live, you can see the future.  You can see what will be true for everyone before long.

That’s what the kingdom of heaven is like.  God’s realm is arriving from the future.  Why from the future?  Because it will only be finalized and completed when Jesus returns at the end of the age.  And so Jesus invites his followers to already begin living together in ways that will signal to the rest of the world this coming future.  We anticipate what will be true for everyone else when Jesus returns.

So let’s focus in on a couple of specific blessings to see how this works.

Blessed are those who “mourn” and blessed are the “peacemakers.”  Who are those who “mourn”?  Jesus is not thinking here of specific occasions of loss and grief.  He is speaking about people who mourn the way the world works, the way it tramples on the needy, ignores the poor, shames the outcasts, offers too little help and encouragement to those depressed and despairing.  Mourning – it is a kind of lament about the present order of things, the kingdom of this world.

Who are the “peacemakers” – they are not passive pansies who lack the backbone to stand up for themselves.  These are people actively working in their sphere to bring peaceful healing where relationships are broken.  They are not doing what most of us do – harboring grudges, remembering hurts, keeping lists of people on their bad side.  They are menders, sowing up tears in the fabric of relationships.  They’re reaching out and repairing bonds that have been broken.  They are doing the work of forgiveness and friendship that is the marker of life in God’s new kingdom.

Those who “mourn” the way the world is currently organized and who get to work doing the “peacemaking” work of God are early adopters.  They are living in ways that anticipate already the full arrival of God’s kingdom when Jesus returns. 

Follow me, Jesus says.  Enter God’s new kingdom.  Blessings abound.  Amen.