On a Sunday where in Prayer we’ve relaunched some of our
more significant ministries for 2019 … sundayfunday, SPY and mainlymusic… it’s
appropriate that we look at a Passage that summarises the ministry of Jesus
Christ for us. That we look at Jesus focus in ministry, what Jesus invest his
time into, what Jesus did and what were his priorities? What Jesus Ministry was all about?
As a church we have a vision of being a vibrant, authentic
sustainable community, growing as followers of Jesus, and inspiring others
to join us on that journey. Following Jesus is at the centre of our vision and
what Jesus focused on, and spent his time doing then and there… in person
should speak into and inform and transform what we as a church are about, what
we as a church individually and corporately are focused on and what we as a church invest
out time and energy into… here and now as Jesus ministers to and through us by
the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
The passage is in
three sections all of which tell us something different about Jesus ministry.
The first section 13-17 tells us what is at the heart of
Jesus ministry. In verse 17 we are told that Jesus began to preach ‘repent for
the kingdom of heaven has come near’. If you were with us a couple of weeks ago
that will sound very familiar because this is the very thing that Matthew tells
us John the Baptist was preaching. There is a continuity of this message. John was preaching in anticipation of the soon
and coming king and now Jesus is proclaiming it as God’s chosen king come.
We can get a bit confused when we think of the kingdom of
heaven and think that Jesus is focusing on the world that is to come, the
afterlife. That he is preaching an insurance policy for when we die, there is
that element of it, because God is eternal it is an eternal kingdom we are
invited into. However, we get more a
sense of what Jesus is declaring when we think of the words of the prayer he
taught his disciples to pray… ‘Your Kingdom come, Your will be
done on earth as it is in heaven.’ The Kingdom of Heaven speaks of that reality,
that God’s purposes and vision for humanity would be worked out in the present world…The
here and now.
We’ve focused on the last line of this section, and it is
easy to dismiss the first part of it as a history and geography lesson. Where
and when Jesus starts his ministry. We can see the passage that Matthew quotes
from Isaiah chapter 9 as simply an affirmation that this was in accordance with
scripture. However this passage ties Jesus ministry and proclamation of the
Kingdom back into the vision the prophets had for the coming reign of God. There
is a continuity,,, The land of Zebulun and Naphtali were the first areas of
Israel to come under foreign occupation, as the northern kingdom was overcome by
the Assyrian empire and the passage that Isaiah is quoting is God’s promise of
restoration that will start there. It is the start of a passage we often read
at Christmas for unto us a child is born, that will be a light in the dark that
will be God’s chosen king establishing God’s reign again. Along with that comes
the vision of the kingdom that will be established. A place of peace, where
they will not study war no more, where the lion will lie down with the lamb,
where there will be no poverty or want, where people will be reconciled with
God and with each other. So when we hear Jesus speak of the kingdom of heaven
all this is what for Matthew comes to mind.
In Jesus day there was an expectation of the Kingdom, but it
was very much a political vision of Israel being free from Rome, the latest in
a long list of foreign powers that had ruled over them. But Jesus vision of the
kingdom is not of one that would come through violence or even political power,
rather as we move on to the sermon on the mount of people living a radically
different way. It was going to be like a mustard seed that would sprout and be
a big tree, yeast infecting the whole loaf.
Jesus also called people to action… to repent. Now repent is
not a word that we are comfortable with, we don’t like it. When it comes to
Jesus we almost see it as the opposite message to God’s grace and God’s
forgiveness. We tend to think it means to feel sorry for what we have done, to
feel bad about ourselves… woe is me I’m a dirty rotten sinner… that kind of
stuff. But Matthew tells us that the kingdom is Good news, it is about grace
and welcome, repent means turn around… A couple of weeks ago we looked at John
the Baptists use of this word and we used the example of how you would respond
to the news of a royal visit at your place. We talked in terms of making the
roads ready, doing some spring cleaning, some gardening even, getting rid of
the weeds and the unfruitful trees, burning off the rubbish, because well a
royal was coming, that’s good news. At the heart of the word repent and Jesus
message is the warm invitation to turn round from the way we have been going
and to embrace the vision of the kingdom of heaven, as we are invited and
welcomed and embraced into that kingdom through a relationship with its king
Jesus.
The challenge for us as a church, individually and
corporately is, ‘is our vision, is our hope, is our world view, is our
imagination of what should and can be, are our actions shaped by, and focused on
Jesus and his kingdom vision. Like In Jesus day we are bombarded with different
world views; way of understanding the world that shape who we are and what is
possible. in Jesus day it was the roman worldview the Jewish religious world
view, radical nationalism, for us its self-centred western consumerism, materialism,
and its alternative visions of multi culturalism, that teaches tolerance and
acceptance not radical reconciliation and unity, and a growing green philosophy. The challenge is for
us to repent to turn around and have Jesus’ kingdom of heaven vision grow in
us, develop and shape and lead us. To direct our values and our actions,
because we are loved and embraced and welcomed in by its King Jesus.
The second section is v. 18-22, where Jesus calls his first
disciples to follow him, we looked at this passage last week so I’m not going
to dig into its detail. But central to this Kingdom of Heaven is community.
Jesus ministry is about gathering people together to live out the kingdom.
One of the amazing things about this is that Jesus picks his
disciples in a totally different way to the Jewish rabbis and teachers. They
would have people coming to them to ask to be their disciples, and they could
check out their CV’s and qualifications and only pick the best of the best.
I’ve watched the series of movies about Ip Man, who is a famous teacher of the
wing chun style of martial arts, and in
each movie they relate a moment when a young man comes to his door and asks Ip
Man to train him, to take him on as a student, initially Ip man closes the door
later he asks to see what the young man can do, finally he accepts him, of
course the Young Man is Bruce Lee, who is the greatest kung fu legend. But Jesus does not do
that he picks ordinary people… Peter, who will has impulse problems and control
issues, John and James who are not only
the sons of Zebedee but have the nick name the sons of thunder, they have anger
issues and definitely have mummy issues (you know ‘Jesus can my Boys sit at
your right and left) and bring them together as a community. The one thing
these men do is show repentance: they leave it all and follow Jesus.
The kingdom of God is about a community of ordinary
imperfect people prepared to do that … That vision of the Kingdom of Heaven
starts here with you and me. I like the way Matt Woodly expresses this…
“community is where ego comes to shrivel and die, because God delights to throw
us together with people who love poorly and then they have to deal with our
pathetic attempts at love… so from the beginning the kingdom was marked by the
harsh demanding but beautiful reality of shaping a new kind of community under
a new kind of king.” It is the same today the kingdom comes as we live it out
in community. It is why being a church together is so important… so essential…
even though its hard work. It’s kingdom of heaven work to grow us and mature us
as we learn to love as Christ loved. Peter will later express this as being an
immigrant community, living here but having who we are shaped and formed by
another culture and place, the kingdom of Heaven.
The third section is v23-25 and it speaks of the tactics of
the Kingdom of God. How Jesus spread the kingdom. ‘Jesus went through out
galilee teaching in their synagogues proclaiming the good news of the kingdom
and healing every disease and sickness among the people.’ Matthew makes a point
of emphasising that last part in verse 25 with a list of different types of
affliction and illness.
AS a Presbyterian church we have a strong emphasis on
teaching…teaching our children, bible study in small groups… and expository preaching. We know from the few
times Jesus sermons in a synagogue are recorded in Luke that Jesus took the
scriptures and opened them up and showed
how he fulfilled them, as he did on the road to Emmaus after the
resurrection, in the sermon on the mount Jesus will take misunderstood scriptures
from the Torah and open them up for people to grasp their true meaning and
spirit. In our reformed tradition our worship and life together are centred
round the reading and teaching of the word of God, our hope is that as we open
then up and explore them and explain them, in the power of the Holy Spirit, that
we will meet Jesus Christ, God’s living word in a way that will bring Kingdom change
and transformation.
There is a lot of talk these days about being life-long
learners and the challenge for us as a church both leaders and congregation is
to remember that to be a disciple a follower of Jesus is to adopt that posture
of humility and being willing to learn from Christ. Speaking of learning one of
the things that the parish review has bought up for the parish council is that
alongside developing the depth of our community our Kingdom call, is a call to kingdom proclamation, calling people to
transition to faith, calling us to address poverty in our community and justice
issues.
The church is also to be a place where people experience
health and wholeness, both through prayer and through community. As I was
preparing this message I couldn’t help but hear Jesus words on Prayer in the
sermon on the mount… ask, and you will receive… seek and you will find… knock
and it will be open to you… an invitation to come and know Christ’s healing.
The flax flower and seed head that has been the visual motif
with this message, is all about growth and pollination, and seeds producing
more flax bushes… the passage finishes with what Jesus was doing in the
synagogues and amongst the Jews living in the region of galilee, which was a
mixed area of Jew and gentile, spreading outwards, this vision of the Kingdom
of God, this community they were working on developing, this Good News they had
in Christ and the demonstration of in people finding healing and wholeness
spread and people came from all over Syria to see Jesus and be healed… . It’s
these crowds that Jesus will give the sermon on the mount to and teach them
what the Kingdom of heaven is like and invite them to be the people who would
live it out in relationship with him. The vision and the challenge for us as a
church is to have that outwards focus…to cast our nets as we talked about lastweek as we allow that Kingdom vision to grow and develop in our midst that
people will see what is happening, they’ll hear as we share what God is doing
and experience his presence and power it as we show them and offer it to them
and will want to meet Jesus for themselves.
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