life or death. talking and acting like Jesus.

Matthew 5:21-37.  Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Life and prosperity, death and adversity.  No less than life and death are on the table in the Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy. As we listen to the Scriptures, as we consider what the Master Jesus is teaching us, we recognize that this word was about matters of life or death.  For the Jewish community, life and death hang in the balance.  The seriousness of the law makes me think of God as a powerful judge and Jesus as a high power district attorney.  Are we the defendants, the disciples the twelve jurors, our neighbors, our accusers? There is a way in which these texts can be heard in that context.  What would the heavenly court say about us?  Do we not stand condemned according to our sins?  Does Jesus raise the bar in order to accuse us, to show us how weak we are, to expose our misbehavior?  Do we stand before God then, accused, convicted, sentenced to death?  We are happy with the grace-filled, merciful and loving Jesus.  But ethical Jesus challenges us to think about what we are doing, what others are doing in our world. As God’s blessed ones, how do we live, how do we behave?

Blessed are you.

Matthew 5: 1-12 The sermon on the mount

The mediocre teacher tells.  The good teacher explains.  The superior teacher demonstrates.  The great teacher inspires.  ~William Arthur Ward.

 

When we think of teachers, we think of formal education, school, professors, and homework.  School is something that we complete, that we finish.  So what does it mean to be a student or disciple of Jesus?  We are going to find out.  What is Christian education and who needs it?   

It all started on Saturday when I slipped on the ice and sprained my ego, I mean ankle.  Then on Sunday, Jonah fell and split his head open, needed stitches.  Then Cherie had a disasterous trip to the grocery store, in which she dumpled an entire bag of dog food in the checkout aisle.  Can you say clean up on aisle 12?  Then my computer failed. I was going to say died, but I don’t want to over-humanize the machine. It’s not human.   It was one of those weeks---like someone has it in for you, when trivial things cause frustrations that turn into self-pity.  Why is this happening? Ugh.  Not now.  Not me. Not today.  I am important.  I have things to do, places to go, people to see.  You know the feeling? The whole, “Why am I being cursed” feeling?  The feeling that you are not blessed, that someone up there has it in for you.  Then I see Linda Shelley, who has good news about her cancer fight and she tells me how blessed she is.  Blessed.  Sick with cancer, having just come from chemo, and she is blessed.  Man do I have a ways to go.  I think I was also able to be a blessing a couple of times this week.  I delivered food to some neighbors.  They genuinely seemed grateful that I came, listened to their stories, felt their pain, tried to help.  I was blessed to be a blessing a couple of times this week.