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Mt Olive Lutheran Church
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March 4
Luke 6:12-16 Jesus went off by Himself and spent the night in prayer. Only then did He select His disciples. Can you imagine spending a whole night in prayer? That is how important these disciples were to Jesus and to God’s plan. Jesus prays for those He chooses. Jesus prays for each one of us. He prays for our church. That God will use us to accomplish His plan, His purpose, His mission on earth Now, there is something surprising in this text that most people do not see. To unveil and reveal this surprise, I would like to examine three of the twelve disciples. These three are obvious, because each one has a parenthetical explanation. Simon whom Jesus named Peter, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. Simon. His name meant ‘sand’. And that is what he was, shifting and unstable as the sands of Judea. Jesus changed his name to Peter, meaning rock. And it was upon this rock that Jesus would build His church. How did Simon become Peter? Secondly, how did Simon the Zealot make Jesus’ group? Zealots were called dagger-men, always carrying a weapon, ever ready for a terrorist attach against Roman soldiers. It becomes clear pretty quickly that Jesus will not be a military Messiah; He will not lead an uprising against Rome. Why did he stay? Then there is Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. Iscariot probably means “man from Kerioth” in southern Judea. He was cultured. He was talented. He was the treasurer for Jesus’ disciples. He was especially close to Jesus, sitting in the seat next to Jesus at the Passover. How did Judas become a traitor? Those three questions call out for answers. How did Mr. Sand become Mr. Rock; why did Simon the Zealot hang around; and why did Judas become a traitor? The key is in verse 13. Do you see it? Jesus designated His disciples ‘apostles’. An apostle is a sent one. And apostle has a mission, a purpose. We are sent ones. Sent with the purpose of sharing a message. Marathon is a town in Greece, the site of the battle of Marathon in 490 BC, in which the Athenian army defeated the Persians. A legendary run of 26.2 miles by a messenger name Phidippides from Marathon to Athens is the basis of the modern marathon. When the messenger arrived in Athens, He shouted, “We were victorious.” That is our message. We have been sent to share that message. Jesus is victorious over sin, death, and the devil. Now you understand how Simon became Peter. His message, his mission was chiseled into his brain through the sharp pain of failure. Peter would become the rock solid foundation of Jesus’ church because he personally knew the power of forgiveness. He made it his life mission to share that message. In forgiveness power, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Now think of Simon the Zealot. Here he sits next to Matthew, a former tax collector and lackey of Rome. Matthew and Simon could poke each other with verbal sticks. They didn’t. A story from Max Lucado will help us understand. He tells of his brother and himself going on a fishing trip with their uncle. They were socked in my rain showers. In their small tent, they began to get on each others’ nerves. Max said what was true of that tent, is also true of the church; when fishermen don’t fish they fight. Simon found a significance bigger than his personal views; that is bigger than any conflict the church can face. What about Judas? What tipped the scales toward being a traitor instead of one of the most talented witnesses on Jesus’ team. Judas it seems had a problem with money. John tells us he was greedy and a thief. If you have a mission; money will come. If you wait for the money to come; you will never have a mission. Jesus has chosen us to represent him. To be sent into the world to share the rock solid message of His forgiveness. To overcome our differences because we have a mission that is greater than our differences. To establish a purpose and mission for our community, instead of only doing what we think we can afford.
Luke 6:17-26 A LARGE CROWD of disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon. People came from as far as 80+ miles. AND ON A HILL that slowly ascends from Lake Galilee, Jesus gave His signature sermon. Whatever Jesus says, is at the heart of his message. If I fail to understand these blessings, I fail to understand him. ANY GREEK SCHOLAR will tell you the word “blessed” is far too sedate and beatific to carry the percussive force Jesus intended. The Greek word conveys something like a short cry of joy, “Oh, you lucky person!” or “Be happy!” What meaning can the Beatitudes have for us? We live in a society that honors the rich, the well-fed, the self-assertive, and the confident. FIRST OF ALL, Jesus came down from heaven and knew well that the spoils of heaven can easily counter-balance whatever misery we might encounter in this life. The poor receive the kingdom; the hungry will be satisfied; those weeping will laugh; the hated will win out in the end. Jesus could make such promises with authority, for he had come to reveal the realities of heaven. In the Beatitudes, Jesus honored people who may not enjoy many privileges in this life. To the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the persecuted, he offered assurance that their future in heaven would more than compensate for their hardships and heartaches now. IN THE UNITED STATES, Christians have grown so comfortable that these promises of future rewards in heaven sound strangely unnecessary. We want to be rich now, to be well fed now, to laugh and party now, to acquire respect and acknowledgement now. HOWEVER, FOR THE SAINTS in previous times, they learned to anticipate and enjoy God in spite of the difficulties of their lives on earth. To people who are trapped in pain, in broken homes, in economic chaos, in hatred and fear, in violence – to these, Jesus offers a promise of a time, far longer and more substantial than this time on earth, of health and wholeness and pleasure and peace. SECONDLY, the Beatitudes describe our spiritual present as well as our future heaven. The Beatitudes express quite plainly that God views this world through a different set of lenses. God seems to prefer the poor and those who weep to the Fortune 500 celebrities and supermodels who frolic on the beach. Various scenes in the Gospels give a good picture of the kind of people who impressed Jesus. Nameless, nondescript children. A widow who placed her last two cents in the offering. Tax collectors A woman with a string of five unhappy marriages. A blind beggar. An adulteress. A man with leprosy. Strength, good looks, connections, and the competitive instinct may bring a person success in a society like ours, but those very qualities may block entrance to the kingdom of heaven. Helplessness, weakness, need, desperation – these are the gates to God’s kingdom. “Blessed are the poor,” said Jesus. One commentary translates that “Blessed are the desperate.” With nowhere else to turn, the desperate just may turn to Jesus, the only one who can offer the deliverance they long for. Jesus really believed that a person who is poor, or mourning, or persecuted, or hungry has a peculiar “advantage” over the rest of us. Maybe, just maybe, the desperate person will cry out to God for help.
In the Great Reversal of God’s kingdom, prosperous saints are very rare. The Beatitudes are not patronizing slogans, but profound insights into the mystery of human existence. God’s kingdom turns the tables upside down. The poor, the hungry, the mourners, and the oppressed truly are blessed. They are blessed because of an innate advantage they hold over those more comfortable and self-sufficient. Human beings do not readily admit desperation. When they do, the kingdom of heaven draws near. THERE IS A THIRD LEVEL of truth in the Beatitudes. Jesus sets forth a plain formula of psychological truth. The Beatitudes reveal that what succeeds in the kingdom of heaven also benefits us most in this life here and now. They still jar us every time we read them, but they jar us because we recognize in them a richness that unmasks our own poverty. The people we laud, strive to emulate, and feature on the covers of popular magazines are not the fulfilled, happy, balanced persons we might imagine. The “stars” of this world, including NFL football greats, movie actors, music performers, best-selling authors, politicians, and TV personalities are as miserable a group of people as I have ever met. NOW LOOK AT PEOPLE who serve. Sometimes in poverty. Amongst the hungry; themselves hungry. Hugging those who weep. Comforting those who feel criticized and outcast. Doctors and nurses who work among outcasts. Ivy league graduates who run hotels for the homeless. Health workers who have left high-paying jobs to serve in a backwater towns of poor America. Relief workers in Somailia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and other repositories of human suffering. We may honor them for their selfless service. Look closer. Such people possess qualities of depth and richness and even joy that you will not found elsewhere. This picture is Henri Nouwen, who gave up a teaching position at Harvard to move to a community called Daybreak, near Tornoto, in order to take care of a 25 year old man who cannot dress, bath, or feed himself. Nouwen said, “What makes us humanis not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.” Jesus came, he told us, not to destroy life but that we may have it more abundantly, “life . . . to the full.” Paradoxically, we get this abundant life in ways we may not have counted on. We get it by investing in others, by ministering to the weak and needy, by pursuing love and not self-satisfaction. In the Beatitudes, strange sayings that at first glance seem absurd, Jesus offers a paradoxical key to abundant life. When you first hear the Beatitudes, they sound like impossible ideals given by some dreamy mystic. Now, though, I see them as truths proclaimed by a realist. Jesus knows how life works, in the kingdom of heaven, as well as the kingdom of the world. MANY HAVE TRIED to follow Jesus’ commands. Perhaps the most famous was Russia’s greatest writer, Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy was an advocate of nonviolence. He tried to live simply, giving away much of his wealth to those in need. Tolstoy kept devising lists of rules to help him follow Jesus’ commands. His religion ultimately became unattainable laws. For all his effort, Tolstoy was a deeply unhappy man. He had no peace or serenity. He had to hide all the ropes on his estate and put away his guns in order to resist the temptation toward suicide.
THESE WORDS of Jesus show me how far our world is from loving their enemies. The nightly news is filled with car bombings and such. How many wars are going on as I speak? Iraq. Afghanistan. Israeli-Palestinian. How many others?
JESUS’ WORDS show me how far I am obeying them. I easily get hurt and bear grudges. I have trouble with those who come to the office and ask for help. We have one fella who we know is on drugs. He is a pest and a nuisance and I have a hard time showing him compassion and concern.
SECONDLY, Jesus’ words tell me what God is like. He is kind and gracious to the undeserving. He is not a God of vengeance, of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Modern Israel has a policy of two eyes for an eye and two teeth for a tooth.
AND ALLAH – what kind of God must He be with two airplanes loaded with men, women and children are flown into two civilian office buildings and cries of “Allah be praised” arise from Moslem lips.
THE TRUE GOD loves His enemies. He cares about those who – to me – are a bother and a nuisance. He loves me. “If, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him the death of his Son, how much more having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:10) And, of course, Jesus – on the cross – cries out, “Father, forgive them.”
FINALLY, Jesus’ words challenge me to allow the Christ in me to become evident in my actions. I can not do this on my own. I certainly cannot solve all the world’s wars and all of this countries conflicts with law and force. Only Christ in me enables me to love those who mistreat me; to care about those I hate. Only Christ in me allows me to be kind to those who ask for help.
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