This is the text of the message I prepared for Serviceton Shared Ministry for Sunday 9th February 2020. It is modified from the message I prepared for Kaniva in that Serviceton was having its Sunday School picnic, an outside event with lots of children present. This message was in no way dumbed-down, but it has been childed-up.
Psalm 112:1-9; 1 Corinthians 2:1:-12; Matthew 5:13-20
A lot of the Bible is made up of what people who speak Hebrew call “Midrashim” (eww, that sounds like a red and sore tummy!) and in English we call commentary or interpretation. Usually this is a bit like a sermon where a teacher (rabbi) takes a Bible reading and then explains what it means and gives an example about its usefulness for his or her disciples. So maybe Psalm 112 which we looked at today is a midrash of Psalm 111:10 where it says [t]he fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice them have a good understanding, because we read in Psalm 112:1, [h]appy is [the one] who fears the LORD, the one who delights in his commandments. We can ask what is so happy about these people and what blessings come on them, and then we hear the answer that their children will be winners, happy and shiny for starters. In other words the children of God’s people have good reputations. But even in their own lives the people who respect God will have God’s grace and compassion, because even in darkness light dawns says Psalm 112:4. Things are good if you behave like God behaves and you stick with God even in the hard times. People who do this will be generous and other people will think and say good things about them.
Well that sounds good, but what exactly are these nice people doing? How is their religion helping them to be good people? I don’t think it’s actually about trying to obey the Ten Commandments like rules, but about realising that they are good advice: so it’s not about trying very hard to obey God because you’ll get a smack if you don’t, but about being grown up about it and thinking that these rules are actually good anyway. If you are polite and friendly then people will treat you well and you’ll have lots of friends; if you’re a bully or a sneaky person then people won’t like you and you’ll be left out, whether you are religious or not. Try to act like Jesus, behave kindly, and you will be popular with the people who like kindness, and hopefully people will think nice things about you. That doesn’t mean that you can just be nice and ignore God’s word, but it means if you focus on being nice and acting like Jesus acted then you’ll be following God anyway. So it’s not about trying not to be naughty, because you should try, but it’s more about always trying to be good, because if you focus on being good all the time then you won’t be naughty anyway.
In the next few weeks we’re going to be reading about Paul and how he tried to gently teach the Christians in Corinth to act more like Jesus, less like snobby religious people or puffed up smarty-pantses. If you look at 1 Corinthians 2:1-3 you can see that Paul says, “you all know that I am actually quite clever, but I tried not to act like a smarty-pants when I visited you. My whole message was about Christ who lives the same way God lives, even though Jesus was a real man, and so the best way for Christians to live is to try to live like Jesus, and that’s it.” I really hope you’ve heard me say that too. I know I’ve told you that I went to four university degrees, but I told you that not because I’m a snob about being clever but because when I lived my life I spent a lot of time at school, so that’s part of my story and who I am. But my sermons aren’t supposed to be about how clever Damien is, no what I want you to learn is that Jesus is nice, God is like Jesus, and God wants us to act like Jesus in the world. Be nice: that’s the midrash for you about the whole Bible. It’s true that the Bible says other things, my midrash doesn’t include the message about salvation, but I have just told you everything you need to know about being a disciple. Act like Jesus, because when you look at Jesus you is actually see what God is like.
So, let’s see what Paul actually says here. We jump in at 1 Corinthians 2:6 where Paul begins to use the wisdom he has to speak to clever people on their level. The message of the gospel is very simple, God loves you and you should love each other. It sounds easy, but those words are wiser than anything Professor Wisey McWiseface ever wrote or said. “Clever as they are,” says Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:8, “they don’t get it.” Jesus, who was God as a person, taught that people who want to be most like God should be loving and generous, and the world’s leaders killed him because he said it. There is a word for that sort of behaviour and “wise” is its opposite, says Paul.
When we look at 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 we can see that God has such brilliance in store for the people who are like Jesus that it makes the Wisey McWisefaces upset. But Paul keeps going and he says in 1 Corinthians 2:11 that they are the foolish ones, because God says in 1 Corinthians 2:11b-12 “let me tell you who you really are and what you are really like.”
In the words of Jesus which are in Matthew 5:1-12 Jesus describes eight groups of people that he calls “blessed”. In one church, I used to belong to our pastor used to define “blessed” as “happy and to be envied”; I think that fits very well. People who follow Jesus and act like him are happy, and they are to be envied. We can read in Matthew 5:13-16 where Jesus said his disciples are like salt and light on the earth, in a looking and tasting example of God. Our job as disciples, like it was for Jesus personal friends 2000 years ago, is to live a life that reminds people what God is really like. When we think about the people Jesus was talking about we can see that God responded to them by recognising how they were:
Matthew 5:3 declaring their need for spiritual insight;
Matthew 5:4 declaring their need for spiritual comfort;
Matthew 5:5 declaring their need for spiritual strength;
Matthew 5:6 declaring their desire to see the way of God become universal in the world;
Matthew 5:7-11 declaring their love for God and the ways of God even when they are actively and viciously opposed.
Jesus promised that Heaven would come to you (and you would go to Heaven) because if you are being treated like the prophets of old then you’re probably showing people God’s life like they did, and also making the world think about its lack of goodness. Keep bringing up God-colour and God-flavour wherever your life is: talk about how the Ten Commandments are promises that God ill lift you up and keep you safe. We can say that Jesus is teaching a midrash about religion here: “everything is valid” he says, “as long as you think about it in the right way.” And what is the right way? Well behave like God does, with kindness and love. In Genesis 1 it says that all people were created in the image and likeness of God, so just go back to being normal like God made you with your behaviour and your attitude. Be generous, be wise about God, act with righteousness because if you’re being attacked it’s only because your example is making the wicked upset about their own wickedness. The way the world does things is not normal says the Bible: it’s not normal to the stingy, conceited, or self-interested, it’s normal to be like Jesus. So, be yourself, the person God made you to be.
Amen.
damienwrites 