Monday, February 11, 2019

Vision 2019 (part 2) Jesus Ministry Then and Now, There And Here, In Person and In And Through Us (Matthew 4:13-25)



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.


This is what is classically known as Jesus three fold ministry, teaching, preaching or proclaiming and healing or to put it another way…declaring, discipling into, and demonstrating the Kingdom. As Jesus tells of the coming of the kingdom, he also shows that God’s reign has broken into the realms of humanity by overcoming the results of sin and evil, in restoring people to health. The kingdom has come and sin and death are defeated. There is a new creation where God will put things to right and that breaks into our reality now through people coming to healing and wholeness, both physically and spiritually.

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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