The Much Awaited kingdom of God... Be ready the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30)

In our house for the past month or so we have been living through exam season. Our youngest Isaac was getting ready for and sitting his level 3 NCEA exams. It’s been a hard year, with the disruptions of COVID to class room learning and study routine, and for Isaac it came on the heels of major disruptions last year: We moved him half way through the year to a new city, a new home, well a temporary home then into a permanent one, and to a new school. Possibly I was more worried than Isaac was about these exams, but he buckled down and studied so he could show the examiner that he knew all the stuff they had been teaching him during the year. He worked to try and get a good mark, hopefully an excellence, or a merit, even just an achieved and definitely avoiding not passing. These exam results could have a direct bearing on his future directions and prospects. Now we settle into that waiting period, waiting for the results…

Maybe you remember going through that exam season and its tensions yourself, when you were at school or university, or it may be fresher in your minds as you went through it with your own children or going through it at a distance with your grandchildren. The need to pass and do well in exams…

NT Wright says that many of us come to the parable of Jesus we had read out today, the parable of the talents as it is known, with that same mentality that same exam season tension. Hoping we have done enough work to hear the master say ‘well done good and faithful servant… it can feel like it revolves all around how much we achieve and it collapses Christianity into a cosmic level examination system. And maybe just maybe when we take it in isolation we can lose sight of the grace of God shown in Jesus Christ. Our true hope of salvation in Christ alone.

 This is the third of four parables that Jesus tells at the end of his Olivet discourse. His sermon on the mount… of Olives, in that week before his crucifixion. A private talk with his disciples in answer to their questions about the destruction of the temple, the end of the age and his coming as king. The third of four parables with which Jesus speaks to his disciples about what it means to wait for his return. The third of four parables with which we are finishing our yearlong journey through the five blocks of Jesus teaching on the Kingdom in Matthew’s gospel. A series we’ve called A 2020 vision of the Kingdom of God: The manifesto, mission, meaning and means of the much awaited Kingdom of Heaven.

 Like all the parables in the Olivet discourse it deals with the central figure going away and being away a long time. This time it is the master who goes away on a business trip. Like many such people in Jesus day he entrusts his wealth into the hands of his servants.  In the good news bible it uses the word gold coins, and in the NIV it speaks of bags of gold, but the measure for the wealth he gives them is the talent, five two and one. And measure is the right word it was a weight of money, either in gold coins or in gold bars. A talent was quite a lot of money a denarii was equitant to a day’s wages and a talent was equivalent to 10,000 denarii. So it was equivalent to about 15 years wages. Of course when we hear the word talent we think of skills and abilities that people have either naturally or God given, and that is because the English word talent actually comes from this biblical word and from this parable in fact.

 It would be easy to think that the master was being stingy to the third servant only giving him one talent, but remember how much a talent was worth. We also forget that the master gives to each of his servants according to their ability. He knows the servants and their capabilities so well. So entrusts them with what he knows they can handle.

The first two servants go right away and put the money that the master has entrusted to them to good use.  Maybe they started a business or risked investing it to get a good return, by the time the master comes back they have doubled what they were given.

 When the master returns he calls his servants to account and the first two servants are able to present the increase to him. The response is they are acknowledged as  good and faithful servants, who have been faithful with little things and so can be intrusted with bigger things. They enter into their master’s happiness, which echoes the wedding feast in the previous parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids.

 However the emphasis of the parable and the punch line comes with the third servant. Who had been afraid of his master and had gone and buried the talent he had been given. He saw the master as a hard man who was wanting to make money off the efforts of others. So he buried it because he feared losing what he had. The master is angry with him. He sees the servant putting the blame back on the master and his character, and really if he had thought the master such a hard man wouldn’t it have been easy to simply put the talent into a bank, with the money changers even, and get a return in that way. So the third servant is not faithful and is cast outside into the darkness. Again a punishment that echoes the dismissal of the foolish brides maids last week who were left outside with the stinging words “I never knew you’. It seems the third servant really did not know his master.

 It is easy for us to come to this parable with that exam tension that I talked about before right… There is something about us that we find ourselves wondering if we are in the position of the third servant. We ask have we done enough to pass. And as I said before I think in doing that we forget the rest of the gospel that has gone before and what is about to happen in Christ’s death and resurrection. This wonderful gift of being reconciled with God and the kingdom of God coming to reign in our lives by God’s grace.

 In scripture in particular the Old Testament stories told about masters and servants usually talked of God and his relationship with Israel. The parables of Jesus about the Kingdom do likewise… And remember here that Jesus is talking about the time when Jerusalem and the temple will be destroyed. He is also speaking after a stinging criticism of the self-appointed religious leaders of his day, the scribes and the Pharisees in Matthew 23. The destruction of the temple is a judgment on that religious system. Israel had been given the law and the temple and been called by God to show the goodness of God to the nations. To draw all people to worship the one true God, because of the way they lived. However they had turned that region into one where it was held onto and guarded and became insular and inward serving. They had buried what had been given. It came from a misunderstanding of the very character of their God. So God was going to take away what they had and cast them out… What they had done was the very opposite of Jesus parable of the kingdom of God where he likened it to a buried treasure in a field, where once it was discovered a person went and gave up all they had to possess it. Here they buried it and hid it away, piling rules and regulations which made it hard for people to find and have a relationship with God.

 The two faithful servants are the ones who know and have received the kingdom of God. The Disciples and all of us who follow on. The words the third servant uses to describe God, again go in the face of what Jesus had taught about the kingdom of heaven. The third servant had said that the master was a man who reaped a harvest that he did not sow. But Jesus in that central parable about the kingdom in Matthew 13 had talked of the kingdom being like a farmer who went out to sow seeds and where it took root in good soil it grew and produced a harvest, 30, 40 or a hundred fold. And we see that in the way the two faithful servant right away go and risk using what they have been given for the sake of the master. It produces a harvest while not one hundred fold, it is 100%.

The parable is also very much based on the generosity of God. Like with the parable of the day workers in Matthew 21 where all who work no matter for how long receive the master’s gracious reward, here we see the master, God giving his great treasure generously and graciously to his servant. It is by God’s great mercy and grace we are welcomed into the kingdom of God. He has given us all his Son Jesus and through Jesus death and resurrection we are given eternal life and the presence of God’s spirit in our lives. We are welcomed into his kingdom. All that is entrusted to us. He blesses us through providence and through his presence the gifts and abilities we call talents, and the talents that we call our wealth and resources. This parable speaks of all those things being entrusted to us because of God’s providence and his grace. They are God’s and so as we come to know the one who gave it to us we invest and risk using all those things for the kingdom of heaven.

Keeping that in mind how do we apply this parable to our lives.

Firstly, When we are aware of what Christ has done for us, the great generosity of God and the fact that he has given us so much to be Stewarts of it causes us to be able to be like the first two servants and gladly use what we have for the kingdom, for the sake of the one who entrusted it to us. It does not become a matter of exam tension, but a natural outworking, a joyful celebration of what Christ has done for us. To wait for the kingdom of God is to be productive is to allow the fruit of the spirit to grow in our lives, and take on legs and hands and heart and impact on the world around us. To take risks to see the kingdom prosper. Risk investing time and resources into those who are in need. To risk sharing the good news of the Kingdom come in Christ, to love lavishly. To take care of the gifts of creation we have been given, and to be good stewards of our resources, willing to risk investing in what God is doing in the world around us. 

 Secondly, we need to be aware that what we think of God will affect how we lives. When we focus on the grace and generosity of God, it allows us to want to live out of that. Where as if we have this idea of God as a cosmic policeman or slave driver we find ourselves ruled by fear and I fear we do not know Jesus as we should.

 Thirdly, as we use what we have been given faithfully, I believe that God actually entrusts us with more… now, as a foretaste of what is to come.

Lastly, to have a hope in the return of Christ, to be ready now and on watch for his coming which was the line that started and finished the first two parables in the Olivet discourse, in the future actually calls us to be invested in the here and now. Matt Woodly puts it like this “As we await the coming of the generous Lamb of God how will we spend our allotted jackpot? Of god’s grace and providence… then summing up the first three parables all together he says… “Our yearning for the consummation of all things causes us to live better today- serving, celebrating and risking…”.   

 

 

  

Be Ready: the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids (Matthew 25:1-13)

Here is the link to listen to the sermon as it was preached at HopeWhanagrei on December 6th 2020.

https://anchor.fm/hope-whangarei/episodes/6-12-2020---Howard-Carter-endla2/a-a41racn 

Commenting on the context of the parable that we had read today NT Wright says ‘every culture has its own way of celebrating a wedding and its own risks of getting things wrong.’  I’ve had a few interesting weddings where things have gone a bit wrong… but nothing too major…  nothing that would make a bloopers reel or be as social disastrous for me as the foolish bridesmaids not being ready for the bridegrooms arrival in Jesus parable.  Nothing so disastrous that the door would be slammed in my face and I’d be disavowed. Which is the shocking conclusion of this parable…

One wedding I took the bride was always known to us as Nikki, but for her wedding she wanted to have her full name used. I asked her if it was Nicola, but no it was Nicole, I wrote it down, and said time after time in my mind Nicole not Nicola or Nikki… Nicole…but it was my first wedding and I was really nervous … It’s Nicole not Nicola or Nikki… Nicole…the first time I went to say her name… you guested it Nikki… the second time… Nicola… I just couldn’t get it right… well they wanted me to take the wedding but I wasn’t a marriage celebrant at the4 time so fortunately someone else did the official “I Do’ stuff  and they got the name right… so at least the right people got married. And they have talked to me since. Although I always feel embarrassed.. And she’s back to just being Nikki…

For one wedding I was asked if it was Ok if a couple had a dog as a best man… Which I agreed to just as long as someone else, not the dog, signed the marriage certificate as a witness… while that was fraught with possibilities for disaster it wasn’t where the trouble came… the same couple asked me to sing at their wedding as well as take it… there was a church song ‘the power of your love’ that they wanted but thought no one would know… so could I sing it as a solo… which reluctantly I agreed to… I used it as  a waiata at the end of my sermon… and I sang it OK… right through to the last line when the  organist played the wrong note and  I finished the whole thing on this long  bum note crescendo… it really fell flat. Fortunately everyone just laughed… except the dog, but I don’t think he really minded that much.

Things going wrong at a wedding forms the context for the parable Jesus told that we are looking at today. The second of four parables with which Jesus finishes his Olivet discourse, his teaching on the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, the end of the age and the consummation of his kingdom. The second of four parables he tells to teach his disciples what it means to be ready and waiting for his return. The second of four parables with which we will be finishing our year long journey through Jesus teaching on the Kingdom of heaven in Matthew’s gospel. A parable that Jesus finishes with the punchline keep watch and be ready because you don’t know the day or the hour.’’ Which are the same words with which he started his first parable of the faithful and unfaithful servants that we looked at last week.  The two parables are used to together to convey the same challenge be ready now because you don’t know the day or the hour…

What makes this parable hard for us to comprehend is that the wedding rituals it speaks of are so different than our own western ones. The focus in the parable is waiting for the bridegroom, where as in our modern western culture the emphasis is more on waiting for the bride.  The brides arrival her grand entrance. And the bridesmaids attend the bride not the groom.

In first century Jewish society the wedding,  rituals were long and complex, and full of festivities, and focused on the groom… after being betrothed and a time of preparing the groom would proceed to his brides village and house to get his bride. They would have a feast with that family,  a farewell feast,  then a procession back to his family’s home with the bride and another bigger feast, a welcoming into the new family. It was a joyous occasion that the whole family and village would be involved in. kind of like when I was growing up I remember going with my mother if there was a wedding at our local church of someone we vaguely knew and gathering with other neighbours outside the church gates just to welcome the bride, even though we were not close enough to be invited to the wedding. It was a community thing. The unmarried girls in the family and village would be part of that joyous celebration and be given the role of welcoming the bride and groom back to the grooms village and house. To not be ready to celebrate with the groom was seen as a huge social insult.

We are also used to having weddings during the day, but in the desert like conditions of the Middle East these festivities happened more regularly in the cool of the evening. So lamps would be an essential part of the festive procession… The lamps were like our garden torches that need a reservoir of oil to keep them alight for as long as was needed. You didn’t know when the groom was coming so you needed to be prepared for the long haul.

Also it was common for grooms and their brides to be delayed. Now I usually tell the bride to be about five minutes late for a wedding… she was worth waiting for… so she is worth waiting for… and it builds up the suspense. The worst delays I’ve had were at one country church where a car crash closed the road outside the church for an hour, and the bride could get through and another hour long delay, at another wedding, because the bride decided to use the couples old camper van as a wedding car, and it keep overheating on the way and they had to keep stopping to allow it to cool down. But In Jesus day it wasn’t traffic or broken down cars but, on the way back to their home as there would be stops along the way and formal things that tradition dictated be done. Things that just took as long as they took to do them right. But for the wedding in Jesus day everyone needed to be ready even though they did not know what time the bridegroom would come. ready to celebrate.

In Jesus parable the action revolves around the bridegroom being so delayed that all the bridesmaids dozed off, Jesus tells us five of them were wise and had ensured that they had enough oil to fuel their lamps even if there was a delay. The other five Jesus calls foolish, they did not have enough oil, so when the procession appeared in the distance there lamps would be spluttering and be going out. We are told they asked the other bridesmaid for oil, but are told that there isn’t enough for them as well as the others, so they will need to go and buy some oil. Of course we are told it’s after midnight and this is well before 24 hour petrol stations, or convenience stores round the corner that sold lamp oil. So it would have been an arduous journey to go and wake the oil merchant and bargain for what they needed. By the time they got back the procession had come and the feast had started and the door was locked. When they knock they are told ‘ I did not know you’. Social disgrace and rejection.

How does this parable relate to us?

Well, it starts with Jesus saying at that time the kingdom of heaven will be like… So Jesus is inviting us to see that this parable is talking about the day of his return, has been talking about in the previous chapter… when the Kingdom he was about to inaugurate in his death and resurrection would be consummated, and Christ would return to set all things right.  Jesus is the bridegroom in the parable, in the Old Testament God is called Israel’s husband, in the New Testament in Galatians he is called the bridegroom and the church is seen as his bride, and the bridegroom is delayed. One of the big questions for Matthew’s first readers would have expected Jesus return  in their day… with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the romans in 70AD. However Christ did not return, and we are still waiting for this two thousand years later. We too are to await his return with joyful anticipation. Just like with the bridesmaids in this parable it is easy to lose that joyful anticipation and allow ourselves to doze off. Become wary, maybe even to wonder if the groom will ever here. 

Then we have to ask ourselves where do we stand in this parable? Did you notice there is no mention of the bride. Now the emphasis is supposed to be on the bride groom in the parable, but we are used to thinking of the church, us as followers of Jesus as part of the church the bride of Christ. That is where we are used to seeing ourselves in this kind of metaphor. In fact in some later latin translations of Matthews gospel and the bride is added in at the end of verse 1. It is the part of the wedding ritual where the groom brings his bride back to his house. That’s full of biblical imagery for us. But we are supposed to see ourselves amidst the bridesmaids. Peoples whose role and task is to await and to joyously celebrate the arrival of the groom. To be ready and looking forward in anticipation of his return.

Then we need to ask ourselves what it means to be either one of the wise or the foolish? Now when the bible uses the word wise and foolish it’s not talking about the relative IQ of the women involved… It’s not putting young women down it’s not the idea of a dumb blonde or giggly school girl. In fact proverbs in the Old Testament wisdom is portrayed as a women. Rather wise and foolish in scripture are used to talk about how people live their lives in relationship with God, and the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. To be wise is to live your life in a right relationship with God. That is to be the place from which your life and behaviour and priorities come from. On the contrary to be fool is to live your life without reference to God. Psalm 14:1 says only a fool says in his heart there is no God. They live their life accordingly. In this case it is manifest in not being ready for the coming of the bridegroom not preparing now for Christ’s return.

Now many people have looked at this parable being about keeping good spiritual practices as Christians so our oil reserves will be good for the long haul… and that’s Good advice... and I can’t help but think of that old 1960’s youth and children’s song… give me oil in my lamp keep me burning and its cheesy derivatives… give my gas for my ford keep me trucking… or give me wax for my board keep me surfing… But that fact that the oil is not able to be shared with others gives it a deeper meaning and focus on salvation. That’s backed up by the shut door and being disavowed by the bridegroom and the welcome and sitting down to feast of the wise bridesmaids in the parable. It begs the question have we given our lives over to Christ in a way that even if we get wary and sleep waiting for him that we will have enough oil in our lamp to joyfully welcome him. I do believe that the oil does represent the Holy Spirit, then that is given to us as we come to put our faith in Christ.

The real challenge of this passage is be ready and be on watch now. If you wait till the last hour… if you wait for Christ’s return well… no one knows the hour or the day. As this is a parable about the kingdom, Jesus could be likening the foolish bridesmaids to the religious leaders of his day who while having a faith in God had rejected Jesus and the wise as those who had come to follow. But weather it’s that or speaking to each of us individually. The challenge, the call and invite of this passage is to be ready and waiting now. To be wise and to see Jesus Christ for who he is and to give our lives over to him and live prepared and with joyful anticipation of his return… yes sometimes we grow weary and tired what is happening round us can just wear us down and out… but it is that faith in Christ, the soon and coming king, that gives us the joyful hope we need.

Well where do you stand? … Do you need again to examine where you are at with Jesus… are you ready today… and also if you are here and you haven’t really thought about where Jesus fits into your life and what you will do about eternity… the time to think seriously about it is well now… be ready and be on watch… 

the Certainties of the Timing of Christ's return (Matthew 24:36-44)

 

Here is the Link to listen to this sermon  https://anchor.fm/hope-whangarei/episodes/22-11-20-Howard-Carter---The-certainties-of-the-timing-of-Christs-return-emqdgv/a-a3tohm6  

I wonder how you would respond if you came home and heard this message on our answer machine.

Beep

“Hi it’s Rob Heist from Northland Break Ins and Theft:  your local friendly neighbourhood burglars and I’m ringing to advise you we have booked to do your house over at 2am on December 12^th.

To save any unnecessary unpleasantness it would be good if you were not home at that time. It would also make things a bit easier if you would leave a ground story window or door open and any valuables out in the open where we can see them.

We also recommend you check that your content insurance is up to date. We personally recommend the insurance broker firm of fraud, Larcen and associates.

If you have any enquires please contact me at 027478633… that’s 02748633 or if it’s easier to remember that’s 02RIPUOFF…

Have a nice day.”

Click beep.

What would you do?

I think you’d be ready. Right… You’d install security lights deadbolt everything including the cat flap, you’d have the neighbours rabid Pitbull tethered in your front yard. Your shot gun filled with rock salt. You’d have rung your cousins from Dargaville to come over, you know the shady ones who run the kick boxing gym.  Well maybe not… but you’d definitely ring the police and be ready for when Rob Heist came to call.  In the passage we are looking at today Jesus uses that kind of metaphor of a thief in the night to speak of being ready for his unexpected return. No one knows the day or the hour so don’t wait be Ready now. Live Ready every day, be on watch.

We are working our way through the last of the five blocks of Jesus teaching in Matthew’s gospel, we are on the home straight of our year long journey to have a 2020 vision of the Kingdom of God: the manifesto, mission, meaning and means of the much awaited kingdom of heaven in Matthew’s gospel. A journey that not even COVID has been able to disrupt. We are looking at the Olivet discourse in Matthew 24 and 25. Where Jesus deals with the much awaited part.

Jesus had left the temple and talked of its destruction and his disciples had privately come to him while they were on the Mount of Olives and asked him for the signs of the coming of the destruction of the temple, Jesus Parousia, being fully revealed as king and the end of the age. We tend to see those things as uniquely different events but for Jesus disciples they were the one and the same.  In the passage we looked at last week Jesus answered the signs part of that. All of which would happen before that generation passed away. All of which could be seen to be fulfilled with the destruction of the temple in 70ad.  But also from our perspective can be seen as what the church has dealt with down through history as it awaits the coming of God’s kingdom in its fullness. In the midst of that Jesus words to his disciples and to us are Don’t be deceived, don’t be alarmed and afraid, stand firm to the end, be aware that we live in this time between the already and the not yet of God’s kingdom. Looking forward in the midst of trouble and difficulty with our hope in Christ.  

In the passage we are looking at today Jesus turns to the when, the timing of his Parousia, and if you are sitting there with your dairies open waiting to write down when you can expect Jesus and pencilling his return into your busy schedule, Then I’m sorry because Jesus leaves it pretty vague. Events like a pandemic and historically things like the reestablishment of Israel as a nation and the second millennium after Christ, and the time of the most rapid changes in history have caused people to have a heightened awareness of these end time things. But again Jesus is vague about the timing. One of the big challenges for Matthew’s first readers would have been that the end of the temple did not mean Christ returned. We don’t know when Matthew’s gospel was written but there is a good possibility it was after the events of 70AD.  It explains why in all the four parables in the Olivet discourse the Christ figure has gone away and his return is delayed.  While Jesus is vague about the timing there are certainties in what he says.

Firstly he says that, no one apart from God the Father knows when that time will be. Not the angels, not even Jesus as God’s son.  Which of course has caused some debate as to the nature of the trinity. But for our purposes it says that the certainty is that time is held in the sovereignty of God. This is the God who created the world and all that is in it including time. This is God our father who ‘when the time was right’ as Paul says in Galatians 4: 4-7,’sent his son born of a women, subject to the law.” God’s plans and purposed are being worked out beginning to end in human history.

It is that certainty that gives us hope, not that we have a when but we know the who. The olivet discourse occurs in that week between Jesus triumphant entry into Jerusalem and his death and resurrection, for Jesus here to say God the father knows is a statement of absolute trust in the character and the righteousness and sovereignty of God. On the cross Jesus will say “into your hands I commit my spirit’ an ultimate expression of faith and trust as Jesus, fully human, faces death. It’s a quote from my favourite psalm, psalm 31:5 in the midst of lament over rejection, enmity, pain and suffering the psalmist expresses his utmost trust in God. A psalm that goes on to say “But I trust in you, My times are in your hands”. To say that the father knows when the age will end, when the Parousia of Jesus as king will come is to trust that God is in control, and can be trusted that it will be the right time, the appropriate time. When God’s purposes and plans come to fruition. We are to live with the same trust and faith that Jesus has in his father. Even amidst the whirl and swirl, the churn and blurr, the tragedy and triumphs of history. The certainty of Jesus Parousia is that it is in the hands of God the Father.

The second certainty is that just like with the time of Noah, life will go on as normal. People will live their lives with no real understanding of the coming future, of God’s judgment and salvation. They will eat, and be married with no thought to the future. One of the challenges of the ecological issues we face as a planet today is the difficulty of asking people to modify their behaviour now for future generations. We are not good at delayed gratification, which lead to such tragedies as instant coffee, the rise of pornography rather than finding fulfilment through commitment to loving long term relationships. The convenience of things that look good but we use once and throw away and didn’t think of the consequences. Here Jesus says people will simply get on with life and not really consider what is to come. Just like in the time of Noah, until there was that resounding boom and God, in his sovereignty, at the right time, closed the door and the rains came. As we’ll see later Jesus tells us we are not to be like that, rather we are to be on watch. Living with our eyes fixed on the kingdom come, with it’s soon and coming king.

The third certainty is that it will come suddenly. Like two people in a field  and one disappears and one is left standing still, two women grinding flour, one is gone the other remains.

Now many people have seen this as Jesus speaking literally and from this passage some theologians have seen it as pointing to something they call the rapture. Where God will take his people out of the earth to be with him. The best-selling ‘left behind’ fiction series is based on that, what is called dispensationalist theology. Other books like the late great planet earth by Hal Lyndsey, and films like ‘like a thief in the night’ that when I was a teenager was used to scare people into the kingdom… are an expression of that. For decades in the united states churches were divided between whether they believed that the rapture would happen before what was called the tribulation, when it got really bad, or after it. What it boiled down to was that while Jesus used the thief in the night as a metaphor, then goes on to use four parables to speak of what we should do as we await the coming kingdom, here with this one going one staying verse he was talking about a literal factual event. Also there is no implication that it is God’s people who are taken away and the unrighteous who are left behind… to assert these things, I think, is doing some very difficult and dubious biblical interpretive gymnastics…

When I read this passage I can’t help but read it through the lens of something that happened to a school acquaintance of mine. I hadn’t seen him for years and my mum told me that he had died in a car accident. He had been the passenger in a car with his friend and they had been driving in the country, when a rock came away from a bank rolled down and smashed into the car they were driving. Crushing and Killing my friend, the driver escaped without a scratch. Christ’ return will be sudden.

The fourth certainty is that the time to be ready is now, and we should live filled with the hope of Christs return and being on watch. Because while if you knew when a thief was coming, if you got a phone call from Rob Heist, your friendly considerate neighbourhood burglar you’d be ready…  But we don’t know, be ready live ready and on watch now.

Be ready because you know the kingdom of God is always breaking into the realms of humanity, in how we live and ‘what we say and through what the spirit is doing in the world. Our lives should be focused on putting first the kingdom of God and his righteousness first.  As followers of Jesus who pray ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ we should be watching for it as it breaks into that everydayness that we live in. we should be living it now until it becomes a reality.

To be on watch is to be prepared to live our lives like a watch man on a wall. Jesus had been in Jerusalem all day and I wonder as they were making their way back over the Mount of Olives in the late afternoon, that they could see the watchmen being posted as the evening came along the walls of Jerusalem. A watch man looks off to the horizon and then lets people know what he sees there so they can be safe. They dedicate themselves to that. Be ready living with our eyes fixed not on the last things and the last days but as the author of Hebrews says our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. The one who in his life death and resurrection inaugurated his kingdom and will come again to consummate it and make all things right.

I could finish by drilling down and talk about telling people who are oblivious to Jesus and his all ready but not yet kingdom that they need to get ready and even give an altar call to say are you ready. I could do that. I’m not because over the next four weeks we are going to look in depth at what Jesus says to watch and be ready and to wait means. How we should live in light of what Jesus says about the ‘what and when’ of his coming. Those four Sundays are traditional known as advent when we ready ourselves for Christ’s coming, celebrated at Christmas and looked for all year.

So I just simply want to finish with a question…   

I wonder how we would respond if you came home and you heard this message on our answer machine…

Beep

Keep watch because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known at what time the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him”.

Click Beeep   that is the message from the scripture today… amen

Birth pangs of the Kingdom Matthew 24:1-36

When Kris became pregnant with our oldest child Naomi, we, well I, didn’t know what to expect when we were expecting or the great amount of pain and upheaval that occurs round a baby being born. It was a nine month process of getting ready, getting all this stuff we needed, pre-natal classes horrible videos of labour and birthing, and learning stuff that we needed to know so the baby could live and prosper. So we would be ready for Naomi.

But I don’t think as a bloke you are ever ready… for example I found out about Braxton hicks or false labour pains, when Kris had stopped work at eight months pregnant and on my day off we went out to Piha about 40 minutes outside of Auckland over a winding road through the Waitakere rangers. I went out for a surf, and left Kris to lie on the sand reading a book. Kris’ mother was with us so I hadn’t left her all alone. After about an hour I looked landwards and there was Kris’ mum standing at the end of the ditch, a series of rocks at the end of the south Piha frantically waving and signalling me in. Kris was having labour pains. Were we going to drive the long trip into Auckland hospital or were we going to have a baby along the scenic drive, or did we need to get the rescue helicopter to come? Fortunately it was a false alarm and the contractions stopped. I didn’t go back out into the water however and it was the last trip out to the Wild West coast before the baby was born…

About four weeks later and a couple of weeks after the due date, it happened for real and we went through a harrowing forty hour process of labour. I wasn’t ready for that. A long drive to the hospital stopping every five minutes for a contraction. We went through a sleepless night and day with all this pain and nothing much happening. An assessment by the leading gynaecologist who decided that it would have to be a caesarean section. Rushing to the operating theatre at 11pm and I went through the trauma of seeing Kris be opened up. Then Naomi appeared. They held her up for Kris to see and said, “see what you’ve got” and of course she couldn’t because they’d taken her glasses away. I had to tell her it’s a girl. I got to hold Naomi for the first half hour of her life outside the womb as they sowed Kris up. Looking at Naomi my world changed forever for the good.

Birth pains that process of a child being born is the metaphor that Jesus uses to answer his disciples question about the destruction of the temple, the Parousia or revealing of Jesus as king and the end of the age. Three things which we often think of as separate but to Jesus disciples would have seen as the same thing, the same event. Jesus talks of all the trouble and sorrow that was to come would be like the process of giving birth painful and traumatic, but it would all be worth it when the kingdom came in its fullness.

The passage we are looking at is the beginning of what is known as the Olivet discourse where Jesus talks about the future with his disciples and tells them in a series of four parables what it means to follow him and wait for his kingdom to come in its fullness. Many people have focused on this first section of the discourse that we are looking at this week and next and have, focused on the events or the last things that are to happen. Along with other sections of scripture like Revelations it has become a playground for idle speculation and elaborate timetables and systems of what will happen before Christ returns and when.  The focus however and what we are going to focus on between know and Christmas, advent… is Jesus instructions to his disciples on how to wait. Not a passive sitting and waiting for a train out of here our eyes fixed on the timetable kind of thing, but a living out that much awaited kingdom now, in and through our lives.

Last week we saw Jesus finishing his time with the scribes and Pharisees with a scathing series of woes, challenging them about the blindness and hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees. Then he leaves the temple. On the way out the disciples point out the wonder of the place. The temple had just been refurbished and restored under king Herod. And Jesus tells his disciples that the temple will be destroyed and not one stone will be left standing. They are shocked as Jewish people they would equate that with God’s judgment, like back when Jerusalem had been destroyed by king Nebuchadnezzar in 532 BC and God had taken the people into exile in Babylon. Maybe we get a little of their confusion, if we think what it may have been like touring New York city before September 11 2001 and seeing the grandeur of the world trade towers and being told these tributes to human engineering  and commerce would end up being just a pile of rubble in matter of a few hours.

So as Jesus is sitting on the Mount of Olives on their trip back to where they were staying. They ask him about what he means. What will be the signs of this event happening and when. They would see it as the start of Jesus reign as king, the word Parousia used here was used in common language to talk of a king coming to a city, a royal visit. They saw this even being the end of the age. The end of Jewish life as they had known it, for over a millennia focused and built round the temple.

Jesus warns them that many false messiahs will come, people with answers and solutions, saying they come from God. It is something he repeats in three different sections of this passage. That there will be earthquakes and famine, rumours of war and unrest as nations rise up against each other. He says that the disciples will find themselves being persecuted and put to death. That many will turn away because of false prophets. That the kingdom will be preached to the whole world before the end comes.  He then speaks of the ‘abomination that causes desolation’ from the book of Daniel. That pagan symbols and objects of worship would be put in the temple. That there will be a time of great dismay and uproar that he encourages his people to flee from.  Then we have what seem to be things happening on a cosmic scale, with signs in the sky, the sun being darkened the stars falling to earth and the heavenly bodies being shaken, a prophecy from the book of Isaiah, which can be taken literally or seen as a metaphor for disruption of the world order on a large scale.

Jesus speaks of the coming of the kingdom being an event that will not be hidden as was now, but that the whole world would know who Jesus is. It would be revealed like lightning flashes. He finishes by telling them that they are to look for the signs. Just like when the fig tree starts to sprout leaves and blossoms people know that summer is near. We have a fig tree in our garden and it is quite amazing one week it seems to be dead and have no leaves, and then boom it is sprouting leaves and starting to look alive. Of course many people see the fig tree as a metaphor and symbol for Israel, so with the reestablishment of Israel in 1948 there was a great expectation that we were about to see Christ’s return. It sparked a whole industry around that.  The section then finishes with Jesus saying that all this will happen before the generation alive then dies.

The way we understand this passage can really be split into two main streams of thought. AS a photographer I really appreciate Matt Woodly sums it up as being through a close up lens and a wide angle lens.

The close up lens says that all these things are fulfilled with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the romans in 70ad. We know about earthquakes and famine in those times, part of Paul’s later missionary trip was to gather funds to help the church in Jerusalem and Judea as they struggled with a famine. There were wars and rumours of war. The apostles suffered persecution and death. Revolts in Judea itself which lead the romans to act, ruthlessly putting down that revolt and bringing their legion standards dedicated to various roman deities into the temple. Taking the temple down stone by stone, as they had burned it and the gold of the temple had flowed down between the stones and they had to be pushed over to extract it. Even the gospel being preached to all the world could be seen to be true. At Pentecost all the languages of the roman world were present. The Roman Empire was seen as the extent of the world, and we have the gospels spread even to the heart of the Roman Empire recorded in Acts. All this would happen before that generation of apostles passed away.  Before 70 ad

The other way of looking at it is through the wide angle lens. That down through history the church have faced times of devastation and change and upheaval. Earthquakes, famine and wars and rumours of war, a pagan adoption of our Christian values. Faced false messiahs and teachers. It maybe too soon but you just have to look at all the religious activity around President Trump to see people in times of great change and uncertainty looking for a messiah. Maybe today we are tempted not to look to the wilderness but to the wired-ness of the internet, the screen in our inner room as the place where we find the people in the know that have secret insight or all the answers. Just look at the resurgence of conspiracy theories and the way many Christians seem to be susceptible to them.

Both lenses have their value and are true. Both look forward to a greater coming or awareness of the kingship of Jesus. However we can get caught up in the details of the last times and last things and forget what the last one, the alpha and omega, Jesus is the important one, and not listen to what he is saying to his disciples and to us.

Let’s listen…

‘beware don’t get deceived… there are many temptations as we face uncertain times to look for this answer and this solution, this guru, this prophet, this supposed successful person with the answer.  We’ve seen the obvious dangers of such messiahs, things like Jones town and Waco Texas, but I wonder if we also need to be weary of people who point to the latest business theory or practice as the way forward for the church. The latest celebrity pastor, the new mega church mogul. Even this political leader or that political party, haven’t we seen that in our world and even our country recently, political messiahs, some good some bad… Rather we are to look to and focus on Jesus Christ: It is his kingdom come, a kingdom come though his service of others, his faithful obedience to God, his costly love, his sacrifice, his resurrection from the dead.  It is Christ and his word…

Do not be alarmed, stand firm. It is easy when we see the things that are going on around the world to become alarmed and afraid, to want to lock down and isolate, to think it is all out of control, as like with the temple the landmarks and symbols of stability and our way of life seem to be swirling out of control. Particularly at a time like this which is a period in world history in which change is happening at such a rapid, comprehensive and unprecedented way. I’m not just talking about COVID… I remember a time before TV. I still remember the manual telephone exchange. Punch card computing, and computer screens before windows…for my kids I’m a dinosaur… and in the way society and culture thinks it’s equally as rapidly changing. Leonard Sweet talks about it being a waterworld all is fluid. Sexuality, social institutions, language itself. He says there are two ways we can go we can hunker in the bunker, or unfurl our sails and set sail on the wind of the spirit. Either way we face all these times as Jesus encouraged his disciples, by standing firm and not being alarmed; fixing our hope and our reassurance and our ability to live openly for Christ in the fact that God is sovereign, and is working his plans out in what is going on. The passage we had read to us today finishes with that wonderful affirmation of the sovereignty of God, heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Finally that we should know the times… It’s easy to see that as being aware of the impending end, catching an idea that it is all finishing now. That by the way was how the people Matthew were writing to would have seen it. The end of the temple meant the end of all thing. For many the big faith dilemma was that Jesus seemed to be taking a long time… But as we will see next week Jesus says that no one knows the hour or the day. Rather it is important for us to realise we live in an in-between time, the already…when the kingdom has been inaugurated in Christ’s life death, resurrection and ascension. It is becoming known in this world by humble people living it out and sharing it by the power of the spirit. And the not yet… there is still evil and trouble and darkness in the world around us as we await the final revelation of Jesus Christ and his kingdom at some future time. That we are going through the long birth pains of God’s kingdom. To know we live in those already but not yet times we are called to live with hope of thy kingdom come, and live out that hope thy kingdom come, now in our lives and how we relate to all that is going on around us. That just like with a baby we have time to get ready for its arrival.    Are you ready???

New Life in Dying Words: Father Forgive (Luke 32:24

recording of sermon preached at Hope Whangarei feb 7th 2021 https://anchor.fm/hope-whangarei/episodes/Howard-Carter---Father-Forgive-Forgiveness-at-the-Heart-of-God--the-Gospel-and-the-Human-Condition-eq1mre 

 Elvis Presley’s last recorded public words came at the end of a press conference. He was about to leave but the entertainer turned back to the microphone to say one last thing “hope I didn’t bore you folks””. Gen John Segwick was the highest ranked US solider killed in the American Civil war. He had just finished exhorting his men by saying that the enemy couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn at this range, when he was shot just below his left eye, a perfect shot by a confederate sniper. Convicted killer James French on his way to the electric chair stopped and quipped to the gathered press “here is your headline “French fries”. 

 Famous last words and leading into Easter this year we are going to be working our way through Jesus last words on the cross. trust me… they are more edifying than the other ones. Jesus words as he is suffering and dying. There are seven sayings. We are calling the series “new life in dying words”. And before we look at Jesus saying “Father forgive them they know not what they do”. 

I want to make some introductory remarks about the series. 

 The first is that we do not have a definitive chronological order of when each saying occurred in the six hours of Jesus crucifixion. None of the saying occur in all four gospels. Modern biographies may have wished to capture all the things that a person said at that significant time in their lives, in the right order, however the gospel writers are using the sources they have, both eye witness and oral history. Matthew Mark and Luke are similar and John seems quite different. For example you can imaging Jesus words to John about caring for his mother Mary being etched in John’s mind and maybe not overheard by many other people. The gospel writers also approach Jesus life with different audiences and issues in mind, the gospels are theological and occasional in nature. But through the four of them we get a pretty full picture of what happened at the cross. 

 There is a traditional order in which the sayings are placed and we will be following that traditional order as much as possible. Because we are trialing a different way of preaching this year, where one of our preaching team will preach on the same saying at each of our three sites, over a three week period you may get them in a different order. Because we record the message at Central and it is put online as the official version we will be following the traditional order most closely there.

 You may well ask why spend so much time seven weeks on Jesus words from the cross.. Surely it is more important to focus on Jesus teaching. Adam Hamilton in his book Last words gives three reasons why these words are significant and important. The first is the sheer effort that Jesus would have gone through to say them. Crucifixion is a slow death by asphyxiation. He would have had to pull himself up on to the nail through his feet to get the breath to speak, so they were important to him. Secondly, Jesus came to reveal God, he was God’s word made flesh, and it is at this time when the word made flesh is experience the worst of our humanity, suffering and death that we want to hear what is said. Finally, the gospel writers thought it was important enough that they recorded them for us. 

 Hamilton says “each saying tells us something important about Jesus… Together they offer a powerful and moving picture of what was on the heart and mind of Jesus at his death”. Because of that I believe they reveal to us the very heart and nature of God, they speak to the very heart of the gospel, Christ’s good news for the world, and they speak to us about what is at the heart of the human condition. 

 So with that in mind let’s turn to look at Jesus saying recorded in Luke 23;34 “father forgive them they know not what they do.” Jesus first saying on the cross is a prayer. It is his response to his rejection by his people, the injustice he has faced the brutality of his treatment the indignities thrown at him on all sides, the being condemned to and in the horrific reality of a slow torturous death. For three years he had spoken and taught the people, now we overhear what is intimate communication within the trinity. At the heart of the Godhead. ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do”. 

 I was involved in instigating and running ‘going further’ which was a weeklong national Presbyterian retreat for young adults. One year we had Australian theologian Jason Goroncy as the key note speaker. He was a lecturer at KCML (Knox Centre for Ministry and leadership). Jason spoke about that fact that it was not in creation that we see God’s goodness, not with natural disasters and a like, nor in God sovereignly moving in history, through the rise and fall of empires, that it is ultimately only at the cross that God’s goodness is revealed. I really struggled with that. I often reflect on that and in looking at this first saying of Jesus father forgive I think we start to catch the truth of it. We see the depth of God’s love, his response to the issues of sin and evil in the world Father forgive… that is the heart of God in Christ. The revelation of the goodness of God. 

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 Here in this Prayer, we see what William Willmon calls God’s eternal search to love us. We see a God who responses with grace and love towards us. It is only God who can forgive and here in this heart to heart within the trinity, between God the father and god the Son we see that expressed in God’s pre-emptive forgiveness. God is aware that because of the problem of our sin that the starting point for relationship is forgiveness. Normally as humans we would want people to be aware of what they had done wrong, feel contrition and remorse before forgiveness is offered, but the goodness of God is shown here, that even in our ignorance God offers forgiveness first. Even though we had rejected God in Christ God died to restore relationship with us by making forgiveness possible. 

 ‘father forgive them, they know not what they do” is at the heart of the gospel at the heart of what is happening at the cross. We first have to ask who the them are who Jesus is offering forgiveness to. The immediate context is that Jesus has been crucified by Roman soldiers who sit down and gamble for his clothes as he is praying this prayer. Jesus offers forgiveness to them, they know not what they do. You can imagine it is another day in the occupation force for them. The innocence and identity of the person on the cross is of no consequence. WE are still within living memory of the soldiers who used the defence “ I was just following orders” to hide the worst of inhumanity in the holocaust. The them is the crowd who stood and scorned and mocked, ignorant of the truth of their words “he could save others”. The them extends to the Jewish religious leaders, whose motivation was that it is better than one man die for the people than the whole nation perish, injustice clothed in political expediency. Them extends to Pilate who though he found no fault in Jesus gave in to political pressure, to the crowd, ordinary people swept up in the situation who were easily incited to cry crucify him crucify him. And when you hear all that it is easy to see that the tem extends beyond the those who were there to the whole of humanity. A truth that is encapsulated in that old spiritual ‘were you there when they crucified My Lord’. There we are lost in our ignorance, we had all gone our own way, done what we should not do, and left undone the good God called us to do, we are in need of God’s forgiveness. A forgiveness prayed for by Jesus on the cross, and offered through his death. 

There are many theories of the atonement, ways of explaining and understanding how Jesus death on the cross made our forgiveness possible. One helpful image comes from Leviticus 16 that we had as our Old Testament reading. Where on Yon Kupper, the Jewish day of atonement, a sacrifice is made for the forgiveness of sins, the priest offering the sacrifice asking God to forgive the people, then a Goat is bought into the tent and the priest lays hands on it, symbolically putting the sins of the people on that Goat, where we get our English word scapegoat from, it is then released into the wilderness and the symbolism is the sins of the people are forgiven and are seen no more. In Jesus prayer Father forgive and his sacrifice we see him doing the role of priest the sacrifice for forgiveness and the scapegoat. He asks God to forgive offers his life for our sin, and taking our sin upon himself to the grave and it is no more. Jesus prayer father forgive shows us that first and foremost our forgiveness starts with God. It is God’s doing in Christ, it is through nothing that we are or are able to do that can put us right with God. It is God who forgives, who opens the door for us to enter back into relationship. We do not deserve this, we cannot earn this, nor can we do this for ourselves. God has done it for us in Christ, and we must receive the gift of forgiveness he offers, as we acknowledge our need for that forgiveness and acknowledge Jesus as God’s Son. 

The third thing that Jesus saying does is speak to the very heart of our human condition. As humans we find it hard to forgive. In praying father forgive Jesus gives us the example of how we to should live. We are supposed to over hear this prayer and it models forgiveness in the most difficult of situation. Jesus could teach on forgiving your brother not seven times but seventy times seven, but here we see it in action. I remember TV presenter Paul Holmes being speechless on one show, something that did not happen that often, when he was interviewing a Tongan Methodist minister whose two grandchildren had been killed by a young Samoan without a licence who had stolen a car, rounded a corner too fast, mounted the curb and hit the little children pinning them to a power pole. It was at a time of high tension between the two island groups in south Auckland. The Tongan man had said that the families had gathered and reconciliation and the young man was forgiven. It was as if it had never happened. He and his family was going to go to the court and plead on the young man’s behalf. When we hear of such costly forgiveness we glimpse the divine. It is a reflection of ‘father forgive’. 

Catholic scholar, James Martin, speaks of a friend Jeanne, whose sister and her small child had been murdered. The killer was in prison, he had expressed no remorse or any inkling that he was aware of the pain and hurt he had inflicted. Jeanne, knew for her to be healed she needed to forgive so she forgave him, and wrote a letter to him telling him that she had done so. The response was a letter in return where the killer expressed his remorse and grief at what he had done and the pain he had caused to the family. Forgiveness opened up the relationship and allowed for change and transformation. Just like the pre-emptive ‘father forgive’. 

 On a more day to day level, you can’t be married for a long time or be in a long term friendship with out having to forgive. There was that wonderful old cartoon series featuring two naked children, which really shows how old they are and one of them said Love is never having to say I’m sorry. But I’m sorry love is made richer and realer as we ask for and give forgiveness to each other.

 It is hard and it sounds very hollow to tell people particularly survivors of such things as abuse that they should forgive, in Jesus however we see that forgiveness freely given and offered. In his death we see the costly price he was willing to pay for our forgiveness. I the Lord ’s Prayer Jesus taught us to pray ‘forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us’. We can think of this as some sort of condition to God’s forgiveness for us, in a reflection on the lord’s prayer by Adrian Plass he speaks of a friend who he was telling about someone who had slighted him in public many times who he would not forgive and was told “so you are going to have problems having your sins forgiven?’. But it’s not that we earn God’s forgiveness by forgiving it is when we see know the greatness of God’s forgiveness and see the example he shows with this saying on the cross that we are willing to give forgiveness. Even if we know they know exactly what they did. Forgiveness opens the possibility for relationship. Forgiveness is important. 

Hudson Smith is a renound scholar on world religions and in a lecture he gave he talked about the most notable features of each religion. With Islam it was Prayer, with the Jewish faith it was family and with the Christian faith it was forgiveness…. In Jesus first say on the cross we see that In Father forgive them they know not what they do, Jesus reveals to us the goodness and grace that is at the heart of God, he shows us the heart of the gospel, that God deals with the problem of sin that separates us from God and from each other, and shows us the way to be reconciled.

having an unadulterated passion in a sex saturated society (Matthew 5:27-30)

On Sunday morning I had my laptop, external hard drive and flash drive stolen. It means I don't have a script  of this message to place on my blog...

Much of it was based on an old message I preached which is on my blog...

However here is the audio of the message I preached on 02022020.

I've also included two images in this post which are important for understanding what I am saying as I reference them in my message.

the first is a cartoon about male dominated society.

the other is a picture which sums up I think Jesus teaching that the time to self discipline is not when you are crashing but at the start of the gaze...

right way up in a topsy turvy world: introduction to preaching plan for the year and the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12, Isaiah 61)

It's hard to preach a message which tries to do too many things. This message serves as an introduction for an extended series of messages on the five blocks of Jesus teaching in Matthew's gospel. It also provides some points and reflections on the Beatitudes... here is the audio link of this message. 

I lost my glasses out at the beach over Christmas. I came back from a couple of hours in the surf and couldn’t find them anywhere. I couldn’t find them in my bag, I couldn’t find them in the car, I couldn’t find them in a pocket, or on my towel, or on the ground, and definitely not on top of my head. So I’ve had to get new glasses. At the same time, I’ve got to the life stage where my arms have got too short because as well as having trouble seeing at a distance reading up close is getting hard. So I’ve got progressive lenses and I’m having to learn how to see the world in a totally different way. To tell you the truth it’s kind of disorientating, I’m assured that it will transform my life, but at the moment it’s just weird.

I made a joke about it on facebook, by posting a photo and saying ‘conservative evangelical minister learns to see world through a progressive lens’. I find it rather strange that using a progressive lens means I now look down my nose at other peoples’ perspectives and opinions, no it is not a posture of superiority I simply do it to be able to read what is written, through these glasses.  Apparently the best way to get used to these new lenses is to put your glasses on first thing in the morning and leave them on all day. To live seeing things in a new way…

At the same time I’ve been reading a book that talks about the word ‘repent’, and the authors say that we misunderstand this word, we can think it means to simply feel bad about things that we have done wrong, and so ask for forgiveness to stop feeling so bad. Feeling bad does not really lay a solid foundation for true change we need to have a vision of a preferred future. We are even used to repent meaning to turn around from going our own way to going God’s way, usually as a one off event, a conversion experience. The authors suggested that the greek word can mean to see things in a different way, in a new way. When Jesus starts his ministry in Matthew’s gospel he says repent for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near… come and see things in a new and different way. View the world through the lens of the Kingdom of Heaven, breaking into the realms of humanity in the person of Jesus the messiah. That will transform your life.  Repent…View and live in the world through this new reality.

In the ethos section of our Proposal to Join Together and Become One (the document that forms the basis of our three churches coming together) it states that “We aspire to truly understand, embody and proclaim Jesus’ Good News about the Kingdom of God.” We have a clear vision for having a clear vision of the Kingdom of God and living that out. This year to help us see that vision become more a reality in our morning services we are going to be working through Jesus teaching in Matthew’s gospel that speaks about the Kingdom of Heaven, Matthew’s way as a Jew writing to Jews of saying the Kingdom of God.

The series is called ‘A 2020 vision of the kingdom of heaven: The manifesto, mission, meaning and means of the much awaited kingdom of heaven’. Good preaching alliteration and yes a play on the use of 2020 as the date and prescription for perfect vision, which I did think was clever when I thought of it last year but know I see it’s a cringe worthy cheesy cliché.

We are going to look at five blocks of Jesus teaching that Matthew presents in his gospel… the sermon on the mount Jesus teaching on kingdom living, Matthew 5-7, Jesus teaching on mission when he sends out the twelve in chapter 10, the parables of the kingdom in Matthew 13, his teaching on being the church together in Matthew 18 and what’s known as the Olivet discourse in Matthew 23-24, about what is to come and what it means to wait for the kingdom to be consummated, to come in its fullness.

We start today with what’s known as the Sermon on the Mount. It’s an election year and by the end of it we are going to be bombarded with party manifesto’s. People telling us what it will be like if we elect them to govern in our country. It’s election year in the US and that may over shadow our own elections as we see a ding dong battle over whose vision of America and the free world that nation wants. The Sermon of the Mount has been called the manifesto of the Kingdom of God. We don’t like the idea of the gospel being political, but we tend to forget that Good News, gospel was a political word, and politics is about how we live together as a society. In the ancient world, a certain ruler would come and conquer a people and say Good News Guys I’m the boss now I have kindly come and conquered you and it means that you will live together as a people in this way. In Jesus day you had the Romans say this is the Good News of Caesar Augustus, live this way and pay us taxes for the privilege, and these will be the benefits, peace, prosperity, commerce, protection…blessings. Matthew’s birth narrative focuses on Jesus as the long awaited ‘king of the Jews’ and now Jesus teaches his Good News of what it means that ‘Jesus is Lord.’  

Right away Jesus calls us to see things in a different way. He starts off with what we know as the beatitudes, a list of people and attributes that are blessed and what that blessing entails. Right off the bat it feels very disorientating, because we are not used to thinking about people who are poor, physically and of heart as blessed, people who mourn, or thirst and hunger as blessed. We tend think of the powerful, not the meek and humble, those who have peace not those who make peace as blessed, those who are popular and highly thought of as blessed, not when they are being oppressed and persecuted, put down and spoken falsely against. We see those who have their hearts desires meet, not the pure of heart as blessed, maybe we are Ok with the mercy one, but we tend to think people should get what they deserve. Commentator Matthew Woodley talks of a friend of his shaking his head and walking away when he read the beatitudes because they just didn’t make sense to him. Jesus flips the way we see who and what is blessed on its head, upside down. Or is it that we are so used to seeing things the wrong way up, in a topsy-turvy manner and in Jesus and the Kingdom of God things are being set right, put the right way up.

We tend to view things through our western materialistic worldview, but for Jesus and Matthew and the disciples and crowd, their hope their expectations were shaped by the scriptures of the Old Testament and in particular passages like Isaiah 61 that we had read out to us that gave hope to the exile suffering physical and spiritual hardship, but continued to trust in God, that a time when God would establish his kingdom, and put things right. In fact in Luke’s gospel Jesus starts his ministry in synagogues by quoting from Isaiah 61 say that the spirit of Lord is upon me, to preach good news to the poor recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the prisoners, to declare the acceptable year of the lord” and in the beatitudes Jesus proclaims that reality.

This is an introduction to the series, and so we are not going to get the chance to delves too deeply into the beatitudes but I want to make a series of quick comments about what the beatitudes say to us about God’s kingdom.

The first may sound rather obvious but it is all about Jesus. The context for Jesus teaching in verse one and two was that Jesus called his disciples to himself and began to teach them. The teaching is for those who already had made a commitment to follow Jesus, who had been captivated by him. The crowd in this case listen in and hear and for them it is to help them know about who Jesus is and what it means to follow him. But also we may think the beatitudes give us a list of characteristics of a disciple that is unrealistic and over the top, but in actual fact they paint us great picture of who Jesus was and is. Jesus speaks of being meek and gentle and lowly of spirit, trusting in God even on the cross, he shows mercy, he is the ultimate pacemaker between humanity and God, calling us together across the divides of humanity to be God’s people together, he mourned for the restoration of God’s people. Paul will later call Jesus follows to imitate Christ.

Secondly, the beatitudes are this wonderful amazing welcome to all into the Kingdom of heaven. Specifically, those who the religious people of Jesus day saw as being outsider, or in no way blessed by God. The poor the sick, the lame the broken and the hurting, those beset by difficulty and tragedy, even though despite those things they still longed for God’s help and love. At the heart of the Kingdom of heaven is the great offer of God’s love and Grace.

Sometimes we think of the Beatitudes as a list of qualifications for God’s blessing. To be blessed by God we need to be more like this, and we forget that it is a proclamation of good news, the blessing is God’s welcome and love and care and consolation. We forget that at the heart of the gospel is God’s offer of grace. We want to jump right to the how do I earn it. You know in the old testament we can often read the ten commandments as a to do list to earn God’s favour and we can forget that they come some twenty chapters into the story of God redeeming Israel out of Egypt, fulfilling God’s gracious promises to their ancestors. It is about how do we respond to the gracious love and saving activity of God, not earn it. You are loved and invited in by God, the broken will be whole, our poverty met with the resources of god’s kingdom, our sorrow comforted by God, as we experience that in Christ our hearts are turned to peace making and mercy and being meek; working for the common good and not being turned aside by hatred, slight, false accusation or persecution.

It invites us to see people through the eyes of the kingdom of heaven, through Jesus eyes.   The beatitudes calls us to see the people we might not consider as blessed with dignity and not as being marginalized but important to God and his kingdom. The rest of the sermon shows us how to show that dignity and love.

One of the challenges when it come to studying and understanding and applying the beatitudes is the difference between Luke and Matthew’s versions. Luke’s version focuses on the physical needs, the poor, hungry, those who weep and those who are persecuted and he reinforces that with a series of Woes for those who are invested in being fulfilled in this life. The rich the full, those who simply seek amusement, and doesn’t that say something to our devise distracted culture today, those who seek public acclaim and popularity. Matthew is often accused of spiritualising Jesus teaching, but the reality is that they speak to the kingdom of God being about the both, in fact they are intertwined and they call us to be both about evangelism and also about justice and peace in our world. It invites us to have the passion for the lost of a billy graham, the compassion for the least of a mother Theresa and the courage to dream and dare for difference and justice of a martin Luther king Jr.  That might set bar rather high, but all three are examples of God’s kingdom at work in the world.

I find comfort in the fact that in the beatitudes Jesus shows us that being blessed is not tied to our circumstances, rather it comes from God’s goodness and God’s promise and god’s provision. When we face difficulty and trouble when we find ourselves joining the psalmist in the prayer “how Long O God” that we can trust That God is setting things right. When it comes to that we live in the tension between the already and not yet, we can experience it in God’s presence and moving in our lives now, because Jesus has come and inaugurated the Kingdom, in his life death and resurrection, and we can have hope that it will have a future fulfillment when Christ returns to finally set all things right.

With my new glasses I am learning to see things differently, hopefully to see things more clearly, and with the beatitudes Jesus invites us to start seeing things through the lens of the kingdom of God… to start to see things in our topsy turvy world the right way up.

Lets pray