St Michaels Church Podcast
A different King, a different Order | Lis Goddard | 29.09.24
(soft music) - Good morning. Today's reading comes from Luke chapter six, verses 12 through 49. One of those days, Jesus went out to the mountainside to pray and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he caught his disciples to him and chose 12 of them, whom he designated apostles. Simon, who he named Peter, his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, Son of Alphaius, Simon, who was called zealot, Judas, son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became traitor. He went down with them and stood in a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea and Jerusalem and from the coastal regions of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by and pure spirits were cured and the people all tried to touch him because power was coming from him and healing them all. Looking at his disciples, he said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil because of the son of man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is their ancestors treated the false prophets. But to you who are listening, I say love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those for whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid and full. But love your enemies. Do good to them, and lend to them without expecting anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be the children of the most high, because he is kind to be ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. He also told them this parable. Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall in the pit? The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes or grapes from briars. A good man brings good things out of a good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? As for everyone who comes to me, and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. And when a flood came and torrent struck that house, but could not shake it because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built his house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed, and its destruction was complete. This is the word of the Lord. (No audio) Good morning. It is lovely to be with you. Liam, isn't it? Thank you so much for reading that mammoth reading, and read it so well for us. Thank you. I bring greetings from St. James Lesk Church, and it is really good to be here this morning. Shall we pray as we start? (No audio) Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for the gift it is, and we thank you for this reading today and all the riches that are in it. And we ask that as we delve into it now, that you will open it up for us and that we will learn more of what it is to follow you, what it is to be your disciples. Teach us more so that we go out from here, living and working for your praise and your glory. In your name. Amen. So last week, I was in Oxford. I sometimes go there for various meetings and things. And leaving Oxford Station, I like every other visitor to the city who comes by train walked past the Said Business School. It is an impressive modern building, and all along its glass railings, it advertises the stories of its alumni who are now captains of industry. Of how doing one of their MBAs or other leadership courses and programs have led to stellar careers in industry and commerce. What's not to like? It's exciting and seductive. I even found myself wondering whether I should have taken up the many opportunities that have been offered to me as an Oxford alumna. On several occasions, I've lost count of how many, to do one of their online courses. How might my career and life have been different? If I'd just squeezed into my busy timetable, that chance to do that course. Interesting question. Now, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not here to undermine MBAs and management and leadership training. They all have their place, and they're all important. But it is vital that we know and understand, as the people of God, what that place is, and how it really relates to the kingdom we pray for every time we pray, the Lord's prayer. And what that means for us in our everyday lives, not just for the couple of hours on a Sunday that we spend in this lovely building. I don't know what you thought and felt as Liam read our reading for us this morning. It was quite uncomfortable, wasn't it? In lots of ways, it's a shame that we're looking at the whole of that passage in one week because we risk getting indigestion. There's so much in it. And it's not altogether easy reading, especially for 21st century Western Christians. Not comfortable, not easy. But let's start at the beginning. We find Jesus praying. We find him praying quite a lot in the Bible, actually, in the New Testament. Here we are, we find him praying. And he's just set out his stall. Those of you who have been here in previous weeks would have heard that. They would have heard him setting out his stall in his hometown. He has declared, as you'll have seen in Luke 4, that he is ushering in the year of the Lord's favor. And that this means something really radical. Good news for those who haven't had any for a long, long time. Those who are poor, those who are outcast, the prisoner, the oppressed. And then he has gone on, following that declaration, to show what that means by healing a leper, by forgiving a paralytic. And then, just to show that he has the power to do it, in case anyone's under any illusion that he might not be able to pronounce forgiveness, by healing him. So he gets up and out, he walks. Now, here he is, speaking blessing on those who are poor, blessing on those who weep, on those who are hungry, on those who are outcast. Brothers and sisters, this is radical stuff. He's not blessing those who the world sees as blessed. He's seeing those who the world sees as cursed. And for those who are there, it would have been even more obviously radical than it appears to us, because Jesus had just chosen 12 apostles out of all the many disciples who followed him, and he had a huge following. But he chooses 12 apostles, and he calls them apostles. One, for each of the 12 tribes of Israel. This is a clear statement by Jesus, like that back in Nazareth, Nazareth, when he quotes from Isaiah, that he is not messing about. He's not here to play games, that he was here and now challenging the status quo, that he was reconstituting Israel around himself. That things were shifting on their axis. And for those who had eyes to see and ears to hear, nothing, nothing was going to be the same again. God was on the move. The day of the Lord was come. The day of the Lord had come. So what does it mean when the day of the Lord comes? What does it mean for how we live, for how we think, for our everyday lives? Well, Jesus is very clear. He starts, as I've said, with the blessings and the woes. The day of the Lord means learning to see things from God's perspective, to understand the radical nature of the kingdom of God. To know that when we pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. We are praying for an upside down kingdom. Or perhaps we should say a right way up kingdom. The kingdom as God intended it to be. Not as we normally live it. Not as the world structures it. A God-side-up kingdom. It is this kingdom and its norms which Jesus goes on to open up for the disciples, for those who are following him. He echoes the blessings and curseings of the Old Testament with his blessings and woes. That's what he's doing. And they would have known that's what he was doing. And he asks us to think, challenges us to respond to what it means to be a disciple, to be a follower today. This is, if you like it, his MBA, his leadership program, to turn away from evil and to follow him. Not to hold on to the riches and the comfort of this world when others are suffering in poverty and hunger. To understand that the kingdom of God, the kingdom that we pray for every day, as he taught us to pray, challenges us to live and to be something different. It's uncomfortable, isn't it? In the nine o'clock service today, there was a baptism. And I think there's going to be a baptism next Sunday in this service, isn't there? Yeah. Yeah. And promises were made on behalf of a child. Promises were made and we pray for her and we'll pray for the child next Sunday that she will come to make those promises for herself one day. These promises are about a deep relationship with Jesus, about forgiveness, about a relationship which involves following him with her whole heart, mind, soul and strength. And those here, those of you who have made those promises, make that promise too, make that commitment to follow with whole heart, mind, soul and strength, loving our neighbor as ourself. This is what Jesus is talking about here. He's sketching a picture of what that looks like. And brothers and sisters, it is challenging. It is deeply counter-cultural. And it is about living out what it means to turn to Christ, to repent of our sins, to renounce evil. It's about living life in all its fullness. Not perhaps what the world would think that is, but certainly what Christ calls us to. This is Jesus' leadership program. Jesus gives his listeners a series of challenges to love your enemies, to do good to those who hate you, to bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Not easy. I don't find that easy anyway. I don't like you. Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Not an easy call and not easy to understand. So he goes on to give them a series of visual images, typical Jesus. He maps it out. He draws us pictures to show us what does it look like. What does this mean in practice? You know, Lord, it's all very well to say that. But what does that really look like? So he draws some pictures, visual images to help them understand it. From the slap on the cheek where you turn the other one, someone taking your coat and you give them your shirt as well. Learning to lend, even though you know your chances of repayment are slim to non-existent. How many people do that? It's not very sensible, is it? It's not very wise economic wisdom. Loving our enemies. Not just our friends. Learning to be generous, even to those who hate us and mistreat us. All these go entirely against everything that we would naturally do. Why should we respond like this? Why do this? Well, Jesus says the reason for it is quite simple. It's twofold. You'll reward will be great. And you'll be children of the most high. In other words, you do it because it shows who's children you are. Because it shows the world that you belong to God, that you are God's children, that you're offspring with Jesus. And because our Father is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. In other words, to you, to me. Because He's kind to us, to us who are also ungrateful and wicked. Because we to us in us. And He doesn't say, well, that's it. I'm sorry. Get lost. No, He says, come to me. I forgive you. Now you forgive others. I love you. Now you love others. Be merciful, says Jesus, just as your heavenly Father is merciful. In other words, be holy, even as God is holy. That's what this is about. It's being Christ-like, learning to be like Him, allowing the Spirit, and we don't have to do this alone. That's the key thing, allowing the Spirit to change us from within, to transform us into His likeness. I want to just stop for a moment and I want us to think what that might look like in your lives today. This week. Who might God be challenging you, me? I'm not in any way suggesting that I've got this licked. I haven't. None of us have. Who might God be challenging us to change our attitude to? How might God be challenging us to live differently this week? With regards to our money, our possessions, our relationships, our view of ourselves, and in relation to Him? Let's be quiet for a second. [silence] [silence] Of course, our passage goes on with several more picture stories. To help the disciples to understand what it will look like to live in this upside down, God's side down kingdom. These are specifically about being a follower, a disciple of Jesus, knowing where you belong and sticking with it. So understanding that God is the only judge. God is the only judge and allowing Him to judge us and not judging others. How hard is that? How hard is that? How easy it is to see others' faults and to point them out. I know I'm very good at spotting faults in others. It's so easy, isn't it? But we are to emulate the one who we follow by being forgiving, bearing with one another, and constantly asking the Lord to refine us, to remove the log from our own eyes. They're also about not following false teachers. The blind leading the blind. What a brilliant image that is. We say it so easily, don't we? The blind. But it's so important for this. Not following those who are blind and leading us off a cliff. But rather building our lives on the solid teaching of Jesus, the teaching which will hold us firm no matter what comes against us in life. And boy, stuff will come against us. If we build our lives on that solid teaching, we ground ourselves in this. If we earth ourselves deep, deep, deep into Him, every second of every day, then brothers and sisters, we will bear rich fruit, fruit which lasts to eternity. Even though it may mean that we are the ones who are blessed for being insulted, rejected for Jesus' sake. Today, today I want to ask you, do you turn to Christ? Will you build your life on the rock? Will you commit to live in this upside down? Right way up. God's side up, Kingdom. Will you commit to daily praying? Your Kingdom come, your will be done in my life, in my workplace, in my family, in my thoughts, with my money, in my all. Let's be quiet for a moment and I'm going to pray. Lord Jesus, we thank You that You call us to follow. Thank You that You call us to live in Your Kingdom, to be part of Your message to this world. Lord, thank You that You give us Your Spirit, to help us to live and to work to Your praise and glory. And so Lord, we pray, may Your Kingdom come and Your will be done in our lives, in our community, in this church, in our workplaces, in all that You have given us. May we be part of your answer for your world. Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. Amen. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]