Matthew 5: 1-12

Matthew in the Margins…Epiphany 4…Revised 2020  

(It may be helpful to re-read LK’s ‘Beatitudes’ before launching into MT’s.) 

William Barclay’s comment ad loc., ‘the beatitudes are not pious hopes of what shall be, but congratulations on what is’, goes to the heart of the matter. It reflects Jesus’ consistent teaching that the Kingdom of God (‘Heaven’ in MT), is now on earth, ‘as it is in Heaven’! Not unlike the Celtic approach of the line between heaven & earth being a very thin one indeed. ‘It’s now or never’! God rules right now among those named ‘blessed’ by Jesus.

Do we need to unveil both our hearts & eyes to the world’s increasingly growing numbers of those who are poor in this world’s goods, rather than simply (?) poor in Spirit. Can we join the ranks of those Jesus calls ‘Blessed’ - in either sense - except by showing compassion to them? Compassion remains meaningless until it’s put into practice for someone.

Maybe we need to become mourners, not just at physical deaths, but the death of values that God in Jesus represents? Is talk of ‘closure’ (increasingly common today) really a form of escapism from death’s realities? What does this passage have to offer those who are spiritually dead although physically living?

Let’s not ever preach a Jesus who is ‘meek’ let alone mild! What a travesty! Can we make the earth more worth ‘inheriting’ by living out Jesus’ gentleness?

Are we hungry enough to do what’s right in God’s eyes & not simply mourn the lack of righteousness among us? (N.B. LK’s alternative form, also Thomas 54 & 69:2.) Could the old, discredited term, ‘God of the Gaps’ take on a new lease of life when we fill gaps, including stomachs? What do we need to do to go beyond mere pity to mercy & compassion?

How do we recognise a heart that’s ‘cleansed’ today? Is ‘cleansed’ a term that comes to mind about anyone round us, churched or not? Are we ourselves cleansed in heart, & able to see God clearly enough, to preach Him?

Can we break the cycle of talking, talking, always talking about peace by actually making it happen through living it? Let’s make ourselves worth persecuting & reviling by standing for God as revealed in Jesus!
Brian

Afterthought: Barclay gives another insight for our preaching when he sums up these Beatitudes as, ‘Jesus’ teaching distilled’. However we approach this passage, reflecting that the Beatitudes are ‘now’ as well as ‘then’ things, will serve us & our hearers well.

MATTHEW 4: 12-25 

Matthew in the Margins…Epiphany 3…Revised 2020

Light, introduced in vv.15-16, is the heart of our passage. Is this MT’s equivalent of JE’s, ‘I am the Light of the world’? To get to the heart of the matter we need to go further back than the IS passage MT is quoting. Right back to GN 1:1-2, where Light is the first thing YHWH creates. Making all else possible. Jesus, as God’s Light come into the world, makes the New Creation possible today! In the Light that Jesus is for the New Creation, &, God is calling us to be for the world!

Jesus’ testing out in the wilderness is immediately put to the test in the new situation He finds Himself in when JB is imprisoned. Jesus isn’t interested in mere theorising! How can we preach in down-to-earth terms, how can we live in down-to-earth terms rather than ‘in theory’? Live in a Way that lets Jesus’ Light shine out through us? If people stir over what they see as something that needs to be put right, do we jump in with both feet, either for, or against? Or, do we examine it in the Light Jesus shines on it & us, & act accordingly?

Change your ways / repent says Jesus. God’s Rule, the Light YHWH throws on every -thing through His Son, Jesus, has come near & remains near. As integral to the New Creation as God’s Light is to the original, ‘In the beginning…’.  What keeps it so? Or, better,‘Who keeps it integral? You & I do, as we absorb the Christ Light deeply.

God's Rule of Light certainly envelops the four first followers! Some of them have been ‘casing’ JB. Now they’re casing Jesus, too. Jesus, though, has been sizing them up, & turns the tables on them. Calling them so they have big decisions to make about their future direction. Does God's Light, God’s rule, ‘grab’ them & us enough to want in?

It's a big ask, still, to leave today's equivalents of boats & nets, & family. Proclaim-ing, teaching, & healing, though, all need to happen out there in the margins as well as in our churches. Outside the protective walls of our religious establishments. If people can't see the Light of Christ in us out there in life’s margins, not only are they living in darkness, but so are we!

Brian

Afterthought: There're at least two key differences between the way Jesus operates & the way JB did: You have to go out to JB, whereas Jesus makes home visits. And, where JB talks about sin, & repentance, or punishment, Jesus majors in compassion, acceptance, & healing.

MATTHEW 3: 13-17 

Matthew in the Margins…Baptism of Our Lord / Epiphany 1…Revised for 2020 

John is right to refuse Jesus baptism, & Jesus knows it. By insisting He demonstrates there's more going on here than meets the human eye. In the end, JB defers to Jesus. He knows, or is at least pretty sure, Who this really is, & has met his match! There is a pastoral question here: When do we dig in about something, & when let go for the sake of God's longer term plan for us?

At the outset of Jesus' ministry MT foreshadows what an enigma He’s going to be, & not only for JB. Is Jesus as Messiah still an enigma to some of us? What of those we are called to minister to who can’t get their head, let alone their heart, round Jesus any more than JB can at this point? Can we open people up to all the Jesus possibilities by being more open to them, & to Him? 

MT tells us Jesus sees the Spirit coming upon Himself after the heavens open. MK uses the term ‘torn open’, as MT does later of the Temple veil. How can we help our people grasp Christian Faith is no spectator sport. It’s a Spirited participation in the things of God, even the uncomfortable bits! Have we yet found our own personal point of entry to become a participant rather than a spectator?

In GN, the Divine Wind hovers over the waters as the Word calls Creation into being. Now, the same Word, but in flesh this time, calls into being a new chapter of God's eternal, ongoing plan for the restoration of a ‘fallen’ people. How can we ‘dust off’ the ‘old, old story’ & tell it on a stage further through our responses. When we stop telling it out in our own lives, the story stops with us. Stops short!

The voice of God acknowledges Jesus as ‘Beloved Son’ [PS 2:7], & ‘Servant’ [IS 42:1, etc.] as He accepts the role of the Anointed One. As beloved daughters & sons of God, we, too, are also to be servants, even suffering ones if necessary. Anointed in our own Baptism. God’s approval today is still “I'm delighted!” How well are we responding to God's loving delight in us?’ A relationship with Jesus that lacks enthusiasm is to damn Him with faint praise - or praise him with faint damns. Is there a hymn in there somewhere?

For all his greatness, JB is an enigma. He points to Jesus but doesn’t follow Him. So far as we know, JB never goes any further, comes any closer, than his enquiry, “Are You the One who is to come?” Are some of us, & some of those to whom we minister enigmas, too? 

Brian

Afterthought: Maybe JB is too individual a character to function within a group he himself doesn’t lead? Think of any group we belong to, church or otherwise: how is our ‘participation rate’?

MATTHEW 2: 13-23 

Matthew in the Margins… Christmas 1…Revised 2019

If we were to take a survey, many would tell us two of the most important issues facing our world are Climate Change, & the Refugee Crisis. Our passage speaks to the latter. To preach the flight into Egypt with relevance to today, we need to draw people’s minds beyond the challenges of Israel’s past to the challenges posed by today’s international Refugee Crisis.

Joseph represents those of us tuned into God enough to see the relevance of the Holy Family’s experiences in their day to today’s trials & tribulations. Are we representing today’s myriad refugees fleeing wars & persecutions, personal & larger scale. Last night’s news told of 80,000 fleeing one area of Syria alone!

How might YHWH see, & expect us to see, the myriads of ‘Boat People’ as so many contemptuously dismiss them? Having His own earthly family go through the trials & tribulations they do, equips God to understand from inside the experiences today’s refugees face. Will God then not expect us, His people to be accepting & pro-active in our dealings with them?

We could also explore our own various personal captivities & escapes & how these follow in the Holy Family’s footsteps. Are we prepared for life around us to become a kind of ‘enemy’ territory when we differ from the popular anti-refugee stance?

Are we ready to don 'wings' (or, shed them?) should God call us on Dial an Angel when someone needs our guidance & protection?

Joseph is the protector of his little family. He is a positive & wholesome role-model for today's males, many of them confused, &, maybe, angered by changing societal expectations. As Moses flees from Egypt (to Midian) to escape an avenging Pharaoh, the Greater than Moses flees with His family to Egypt to escape Herod. 

The flight into Egypt & back - reversing Hebrew history from long before - gives us opportunity to revisit our own personal history & find new God-given possibilities for our future. To be stuck in some ‘Egypt’ of our past is to hamper God’s plan for our future, wherever that may be, ‘kicking in’ with all the new life in Christ it brings.

Brian

Afterthought: As a class, angels are too valuable for us to pass them up so readily as we often do today. Bad spirits are very much 'in' in a lot of circles. Allowed to take over, rule the roost. Help the good guys & gals make a comeback. For starters, why not become one?

MATTHEW 1: 18-25 

Matthew in the Margins… Advent 4…Revised 2019 )

So we think we know what it is to face a dilemma? May we need to re-think that when we read about the one Joseph & Mary, each in their own way, face here? 

They are having a tough time. But they are tough customers. Not the almost un-believably pious ones we tend to turn them into come Christmas season. To connect with them at the deepest level, do we need to identify with the tough time they are going through? And what about some possible ‘Marys & Josephs’ in our church? 

Does today’s reading of their dilemma speak to someone in our congregation’s personal dilemma? To someone’s sexual dilemma? Perhaps to an inconvenient & unwanted pregnancy, or fear of it, in their personal life today? Or in someone in their extended family’s life? The outcome YHWH God wants, & needs from us, is that we ‘hang in there’ with Him, knowing He is hanging in there with us, too?

Isn't it the right of every child to be ‘conceived by the Holy Spirit’ if not ‘born of the Virgin Mary’? What prayerful, emotional, practical support, ‘all meanly wrapped’ in love, if not in swaddling bands, do today's soon to be parents & children need. Can we see through the figures of our traditional Christmas Crib to those facing dilemmas of one kind or another this Christmas? 

It takes a person of great Spirit to be open enough to move away from their original intention to ‘dismiss’ any other person quietly’ as Joseph has considered in Mary’s case. But he can do better than that, understanding the part he has to play in bringing Jesus to birth for God. 

A lot of today’s would-be ‘Marys & Josephs’ are stuck in the muckiness of the world's many & varied stables. Not in some pretend nativity scene, but in real life. How can we help bring somebody to birth for God from such circumstances?

 We can’t just dismiss them, can we?  

Brian

Afterthought: If you can find a copy of John Irving’s ‘A Prayer for Owen Meany’ - it’s worth searching out - a highlight is an unbelievably amazing crib scene - one worth pondering deeply!

MATTHEW 11 : 2-11 

Matthew in the Margins… Advent 3… Revised 2019

Is JB’s musing about Jesus: “If you're who I think you are...what am I doing in prison ...get me out of here!” at all unreasonable? What if that One who came then doesn't appear to be taking up our cause today, either? Are we ourselves imprisoned in any sense? Don’t we deserve to be set free from whatever kind of ‘prison’ it is? If ‘God mysteries’ still puzzle us, why not explore them as openly & honestly as JB is doing here?

What kinds of things are we hearing & seeing that give us the responsibility to tell of them? Are we telling of the blind seeing again, though in different ways now? Telling of the lame walking, skin diseases being healed, deaf people hearing again, & at least the seemingly dead being raised to life through modern medicine if not the physically dead? As well as telling of these things, are we also playing our part in making them happen today when we can, where we can? 

When it comes to caring for the poor by ‘proclaiming the good news’ to them, are they still in the too-hard basket? If we’re setting up caring agencies to serve others, without down-playing these, can we go further than this? Agencies can't love people. Only people can love people. Being loved is the way the poor, or anyone else, can discover the ‘Good News’. Can we truly proclaim Jesus as Good News to the poor - or anyone else - except by becoming that good news in person? 

A reed, a fancy dress show, or a Prophet? There's a lot of bending this way & that in today's church, sometimes in a good cause, sometimes not. Not to mention dressing up. How does one recognize a genuine Prophet among the reeds & fancy-dressers? Whatever nurturing we may be giving others, is anyone nurturing us in becoming a recognizably authentic, prophetic, compassionate, hands-on word-of-God for each other? That we all need what the Celts call an ‘anamchara’, or soul friend, comes to mind. Why not explore that with a view to implementing it?

Jesus says JB ‘is the greatest human being’ up to that stage of history. At this point in the Gospel, though, even JB fails to recognize God's Rule present among us in Jesus. Rather than be discouraged by his failure, why not learn from it & grow stronger in faith as a result.

Brian

Afterthought: The Gospel of Thomas Ch.46 [Complete Gospels, Harper Collins '94] may help us see where we come into all this with its: ‘whoever among you becomes a child will recognize God's Rule & will become greater than John.’

MATTHEW 3: 1-12 

Matthew in the Margins…Advent 2…Revised 2019

Can John, fascinating character that he is, also be a distraction? Long after his death, there were those who persisted in following him rather than the Jesus to whom JB pointed. Not helpful! 

Is true wilderness a matter of interior, spiritual geography? If that’s true, & I believe it is, is there any point in desperately seeking physical ‘Jordans’ of one kind or another to cross in the hope of deepening our spirituality? 

JB speaks to the people in heart language, not head language. Heart language is directed to the heart of our human problem: sin (separation from God) through disobedience, rebellion. Are we ourselves speaking ‘heart language’ or just the old head stuff? 

Without pre-empting next Sunday’s Gospel, is Jesus a ‘puzzlement’ to JB, as the King of Siam might have said to Mrs. Anna? And, maybe, vice-versa? How much is either Jesus, or JB, a puzzlement to the other? Or, to us & those round us today?

I think it was Dom Crossan who said somewhere that JB preaches God as coming where Jesus models God as already present. What JB is on about out there in his wilderness is telling people about God, & preparing us for God, whereas Jesus is showing us what God is like by being God! As we go about our daily lives, are we doing more telling, or more showing through being the Body of Christ? 

When I started primary school I was in ‘Beginners’ in one half of a divided room. Miss. C, the teacher on the other side of the partition was always shouting at the kids & belting them with the leather strap Victorian - in both senses - schools used back then. We littlies all lived in terror of being promoted. But, God is good! I developed a severe dose of Whooping Cough, & by the time I’d recovered, our family had moved & I went to a different school where no-one shouted at you! If I’m unfair hinting JB shouted at people, I guess he did, compared with Jesus showing people how to live? 

When Jesus asks for baptism, the heavens open, & God acknowledges His beloved Son, JB recognises Jesus as the Lamb of God. The One who is going to pick up all our pain & division & separation & broken-ness & put us together again. How well are we living out our put-togetherness as distinct from simply re-telling it?

Brian

Afterthought: Turning from something or somebody without as a consequence turning to something, or, better still, Someone, is an invitation to a vacuum to possess us. If that sounds a contradiction in terms, don’t let’s put it to the test.