Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for this meditation is written in the 5th Chapter of the Gospel
according to St Matthew: Verses 38 – 48:
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But
if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two
miles. 42 Give to the
one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
43 “You have heard that it
was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you, 45 so
that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise
on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
46 For if you love those who
love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
47 And if you greet only
your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do
the same? 48 You
therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
We don’t hear today’s readings very often. The movable nature of Easter means that the
Epiphany season has different lengths.
Most years by this time we are already into Lent and we don’t get to
hear the readings that we heard today.
In the Old Testament reading from Leviticus 19 we
heard the second most important commandment.
You may remember the incident of Jesus answering the question about the
greatest commandment. [Mark
12:28–31] One of the scribes … asked him, “Which commandment is the most
important of all?” Jesus answered, “you
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind and with all your strength.’
The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There
is no other commandment greater than these.” Jesus quoted the greatest commandment about
loving the Lord from Deuteronomy 6. He
quoted the second commandment about loving the neighbour from today’s Old
Testament reading in Leviticus 19. Love your
neighbour as you love yourself.
Today’s Gospel is a continuation of the readings
from the Sermon on the Mount, and whilst this is a well known section of the
Bible for most Christians, the fact is that for us Christians it is hard to
listen to and and it is equally hard to preach about. You see the composition
of the Bible – the Holy Scriptures – is two parts – The Law and the Gospel. The law, God’s Law, is summed up in the
first five books of the Bible and God commanded the Law through Moses so that His
sinful people may have a set of rules to maintain a righteous, ethical and
healthy life. The scary part of all this was that to reject God’s Law was to
sin and God’s spoken penalty for sin was death! The most well known section of
God’s Law is the Ten Commandments.
Conversely the Gospel is all about God’s plan for our salvation through His Son
Jesus Christ. It is important to know that whilst God sent His Son that we
might have forgiveness and eternal salvation, we would not really feel the need
for Jesus in our lives if it were not for the Law that continually reminds us
of our sins and our inability to avoid sinning.
In this part of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus
continues to unpack the law. He preached
some of the harder parts of what it means to love your neighbour as you love
yourself.
Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel is very
relevant to us today. It provides us
with a understanding of why there is so much conflict in today’s culture and in
today’s churches.
Many Sunday School teachers us an acronym that I
think is great; They teach about JOY.
The J
stands for Jesus and Jesus is God and to love Jesus with all your heart, soul,
mind, and strength is to love God and keep the greatest commandment. O
stands for others and the others in your life are your neighbours and to love
others is to keep the second commandment about loving your neighbour as you
love yourself. Y, the last letter, stands for yourself. Last of all, you love yourself. Jesus first, others second, yourself last … J – O – Y …
JOY. How much conflict in our lives
would go away if we all followed this simple little acronym? We honestly have to ask - What would life be like if we gave first
place to what Jesus wants as He gives it to us in His Word, the Bible … if we
gave second place to what the other person wanted, even if we didn’t like it …
and finally, if we made our wants to be the very last of all?
In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of the O in JOY
… the others. What does it mean to love
your neighbour as you love yourself? “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn
to him the other also. If anyone would
sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with
him two miles. Give to the one who begs
from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” Jesus is very clear. You love your neighbour by placing their
wants above your wants.
If we honestly look at society today there’s not
much JOY … Jesus Others Yourself. It’s all
about YOJ … Yourself Others Jesus - Number one first and then others, especially if
there is something in it for us. In fact we can draw some odd looks and
comments if we openly confess Jesus is the focus of our life’s endeavours. We are encouraged to ‘go for it’; compete and
win!
As if it isn’t hard enough to follow JOY with people who are
friendly, Jesus goes on to extend the idea of neighbour to our enemies. Love
your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of
your Father who is in heaven. Jesus
tells us to love our enemies.
In the English language we get off light with
the love word: We love: parents;
spouse; children; chocolate; sport; Holden Cars; pets; food; sleeping etc. etc.
etc. In the language of the New testament - NT Greek – love comes in four
categories Eros; Philia; Agape’ & Storge’. When Jesus commands us to love
our neighbours, including our enemies, He is using the word Agape’ - that kind
of love that sacrifices itself for others. How hard is it to make sacrifices
for your enemies?
This is where Jesus nails His point home: He
tells us that God provides sun, rain and all good things to all peoples good
and bad alike; He asks us to compare ourselves to God our Father; that’s is
love selflessly like God and be perfect as He is perfect!! Wow – that’s an
impossible ask is it not?
Are we as perfect as our Father in Heaven? Do we put Jesus first in your life? Do we put others next? Do you put ourselves last? Is our life’s journey, relationships and
interactions guided by the Bible; by prayer?
I said this was hard! These are Jesus’ questions to us. They prick
our conscience, make us feel uneasy. If
they don’t, 1 John 1:8 tells us that we are deceiving ourselves and the truth
is not in us. If they do, then realise
that this is Jesus’ teaching the law, and the law is supposed to make you uneasy. The primary purpose of the law is to show us
our sin and our need for a saviour.
There is only one thing that can give us comfort
when Jesus hammers us with the law like this.
These high standards that Jesus sets for us are also for Him. When Jesus took on His humanity in the womb
of the Virgin, He placed Himself under the authority of the law. While we can never live up to this high
standard, Jesus lived up to this standard in every way. He totally submitted to the will of God the
Father. He constantly thought of others
before He thought of Himself.
Even when Jesus was scolding His enemies, He
also loved them. Parents can easily relate to that. He warned them of the
dangers of their false teachings. Jesus loved His enemies by warning them of
the eternal danger of their false beliefs.
He loved them by warning them of the wrath to come.
Jesus lived the life of perfection that He spoke
of in today’s Gospel. He kept the law
even as He preached it in today’s Gospel.
Jesus was obedient to God the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prayed, [Matthew 26:39] “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” Ultimately, Jesus suffered and went to the
cross in accordance to the will of God the Father. [Philippians 2:8] He humbled himself by becoming obedient to
the point of death, even death on a cross.
He is perfect even as God the Father is perfect.
Jesus’ passion is also the ultimate expression
of His love for us. As the Holy Spirit
inspired the Apostle Paul to write, [Romans
5:8] “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.” While He was on
the cross, He prayed for the people who crucified Him: [Luke 23:34] “Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do.” While He was on the cross,
He promised salvation to those who were crucified with Him: [Luke 23:43] “Truly, I say to
you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” While He was on the cross, He was thinking
about us. He was taking on the
punishment that we deserved for our sin.
He was thinking about giving us the righteousness that He earned with
His holy life. He was thinking about our
eternal salvation.
So it is that even though we fail miserably at
keeping the law that Jesus preached in today’s Gospel, we still have eternal
life. We have it not because of anything
we do, but because of the holy, precious blood, and the innocent suffering and
death of the one who preached such stern law.
He fulfilled the law for us and took its severe punishment onto Himself.
We have the ultimate sign that Jesus did all
things well. Although He defeated sin,
death, and the power of the devil with His death, He did not remain dead. Instead, He bodily rose from the dead and
ascended to the Father. In His
resurrection, we have the promise of eternal life.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus taught us that we are
to place God first in all things, then we are to love our neighbour even if our
neighbour is our enemy. Finally, we should
think of ourselves last of all. We fail
this teaching miserably every day. Never
the less, God the Father declares that we have kept this teaching for Jesus’
sake. Because Jesus kept this teaching
perfectly and took our punishment to Himself, we receive the benefit of His
prefect life. We receive eternal
salvation in Him. Our entire salvation
rests in Jesus Christ and nowhere else.
Amen
The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
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