Luke Chapter 6 (NRSV)
If this was yesterday, I would have focused today on the stories about keeping the Sabbath that are in the very beginning of this chapter. I worry that we have completely lost the point of the Sabbath in our own day - we don't unplug, we don't focus on family and friends we don't even focus on God once a week anymore. The Sabbath was one of the defining qualities of the Hebrew people and it was once that for us too. I wonder what we would regain if we each tried on own to recover the idea of Sabbath rest?
But it's Monday, not Sunday. So…
The majority of this Chapter contains the familiar words of the Sermon on the Plain. (As opposed to the Sermon on the Mount that we remember in Matthew's Gospel.) It, along with Matthew's version, is probably the most coherent presentation of Jesus' teaching anywhere in the gospels. It's not a verbatim report of course, but it does represent his longest direct teaching to his followers in Luke's Gospel. Much of it is familiar to you I hope. Certainly the beatitudes - the "blessed are the…" phrases that are found in verses 20 through 23. Perhaps you're familiar with the "woes" as well that follow in verses 24 through 26.
Which, oddly enough, reminds me of one particular wedding. The bride and the groom joined the Cathedral in Arizona where I was serving as dean and after a year as part of the community, asked me if I would do their wedding on Jan 1 a couple of years ago. (1/1/11 was a cool date for a wedding apparently. I hear Las Vegas was doing a lot of business that day.) For some reason I agreed.
The groom had a peculiar request (at least in my experience) and asked me in particular to preach on the beatitudes in Luke. The Prayer Book suggests that we use the version that appears in Matthew, but I'd never preached on that particular passage in the context of a wedding - much less the Lukan version. Having already agreed to do the wedding, I guessed there was nothing for it but to honor the preaching request too. So I spent most of the week between Christmas and New Year's Day (The Feast of the Holy Name) thinking about why the Prayer Book suggested the Beatitudes as a gospel for a wedding. There's nothing particularly matrimonial about them. The context and setting of the words in the respective Gospels has nothing to do with marriage either. So why are they assigned?
After a few days of noodling about, I stumbled across a writer who off-handedly mentioned that in Beatitudes, Jesus is sketching out description of what the Kingdom of God will be like when it arrives in its fullness. It will be a time of reversal, a time when we finally see where the arc of history has been taking us. It will be the time when we become God's people in truth and not just in promise.
And the words are used as one of the options for a wedding because at its best, the relationship between two people that truly reflects God's will for us, will look like the Kingdom of Heaven to the people who look at the relationship. The relationship becomes an icon of the Kingdom of God - a sign of the beginning of the breaking in of God's reign on Earth.
The Prayer Book makes the connection in the wedding liturgy, but looking at the Bible directly, perhaps we can see that all human relationships have the potential to become this sort of icon of the Kingdom. And even go so far as to suggest that we can use this idea to unlock the full teaching of the Sermon on the Plain.
Jesus is telling us that as we live into the characteristics that he is describing, we are drawing closer and closer to the reality of the Kingdom. And that we aren't just doing that for ourselves, we are becoming the sign of the Kingdom for the whole world. We become the proof of Jesus' teaching to people who are struggling with his words.
We become (to borrow a phrase from the Sermon on the Mount) a light that gives light to the whole world so that the whole world can find its way in the dark.
Isn't it interesting that Jesus ends the sermon he gives in the 6th chapter with a warning of what will happen to all of us if we don't heed his teaching?
So, here's something to think about today. What do you need to change in your most important relationship so that you might move toward becoming a living icon of God's Kingdom? What do you (y'all) need to take on? What needs to be let go?
And… are you willing to do that?
Genesis 2:2 "So on the seventh day he rested from all his work" This passage of scripture clearly gives us an indication of what God not only did after the sixth day of creation, but what he would like the Jewish to do on the seventh day. This is why the Pharisees are so up set with Jesus. There is a new covenant emerging and they don't understand. But Jesus gives them all of the answers they are looking for. These answers however are very unfamiliar to the Pharisees they are upset. Jesus is a game changer.
ReplyDeleteOn to the new Sabbath. I call it a new Sabbath because Jesus is preaching and teaching on the seventh day. In our time, the present time, right here in our own diocese, there are many clergy and lay people alike go out from church into the world to live into their discipleship and serve others. They might go to the hospital or bring the Eucharist to shut-ins, or go downtown to be with the homeless amongst us. If there was a time machine that could deliver the Pharisees to us while we are serving Christ on Sunday afternoon, I suppose they would be just as upset with us as they were with Jesus while he was the living and breathing God bearing witness and delivering the good news.