rick morley

One of the interesting features of Year A in the Revised Common Lectionary, is that Ash Wednesday’s traditional year-after-year Gospel lesson comes after five Sundays in Epiphanytide of Gospel lessons from The Sermon on the Mount.

Unlike years B and C, we get to see the Ash Wednesday Gospel after hearing from the Great Sermon for over a month. We’ve been well-steeped in the Sermon this year, and it provides an interesting vantage point.

The entirety of the Sermon is about authentic faithful living as the cornerstone of the Kingdom of God. Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 is no different.

Portions of the Sermon on the Mount are Jesus telling his audience, and us, to “do something,” and other times he tells us “not to do as others do.” In the Ash Wednesday Gospel, Jesus is contrasting an optimal faith (maybe a “true” faith) with the faith of the Pharisees.

Jesus portrays these poor Pharisaical slobs as going through all the motions of religious living, but falling short in grafting faithfulness in their hearts.

For Jesus, faith is meant to be a matter of the heart.

Historically, Lent was a period of time spend catechizing the soon-to-be-batptized. Functionally, today, it’s a season where we a meant to ‘up our game.’

Some of us, and some of our fellow church-goers will take on a spiritual discipline or two. Some will give up chocolate. Some will give up soda. Some will take on something they don’t usually do.

Whatever we do though, we have to make sure that it’s a matter of the heart. Not a weight-loss technique, not a way to beat ourselves up, and not something to impress the priest.

Whatever we do with our Lent, let us make it about bringing our heart more in-line with the Kingdom of God. As we saw early on in the Sermon on the Mount, let us try on ‘purity of heart,’ so that we ‘may see God.’ Let us try on poverty of spirit, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and peacemaking. Let us pray, let us fast, let us make our needed repenting.

And let us analyze our spiritual echo-cardiograms. So that our hearts are set squarely in the Kingdom for the Day of Resurrection.

(The picture is of Cuthbert’s Island, just a few feet off the coast of Lindisfarne in the UK, taken in the summer of 2010. It was digitally manipulated, and a TTV filter created by borealz was used.)

After a person is baptized in an Episcopal Church, there is a prayer said for the newly baptized, which concludes like this:

“Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen.”

The gift of joy and wonder in all your works.

We’ve lost many things over the years. Joy and wonder are two of them.

It’s just so hard to conjure up wonder. As a parent, one of the parental goals I have for myself is to raise two girls with a sense of wonder. So, I take them to museums and cathedrals, and point out the intricacies and nuances of what they’re seeing. When I speak of God to them, I not only tell them that Jesus is their friend and with them all the time (which is good), but also that he made the sun, the moon and the stars. And manatee. And flamingos. And Cheetos.

OK, I definitely leave out the Cheetos…

As a priest, I try and conjure up for the parish I serve similar awe of the power of God, the minute and amazing details of the scriptures, and the movement of the Holy Spirit through the history of humanity and the Church.

Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don’t.

I’ve had too many experiences of taking youth into a grand nave of a wondrous, storied, cathedral or abbey… only to find them more interested in looking at their shoes and incoming text messages.

Those moments hurt my heart.

We had a clergy day a few weeks back with Mike Gecan, the author of “Going Public.” He talked about going into his child’s Kindergarten class and seeing a bulletin board illustrating what the students wanted to learn in school that year. Most of the statements were like, “behave,” “learn to sit still,” “follow the rules,” “listen to the teacher better.”

One child said “I want to know why the ocean shines like fire.”

Holy smoke.

I mean HOLY smoke!

Now that the kids mentions it… I want to know why the ocean shines like fire too.

There’s a kid who has the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works.

We can say a lot about the Tranfiguration. And given it’s prevalent use in the lectionary from year to year, we get to say a lot about it.

But, if there’s ever a “WOW” moment in Jesus’ earthly ministry, this is it. Jesus took his three chosen disciples up on a mountain to do many things.

One of them, was to blow their sandals off.

And, whatever shortcomings they have, and however paltry Peter’s words are, they at least do the appropriate thing and fall on their faces before the Presence of the Glory of God and His Son.

This is an intimate encounter, for only a few, on an un-named mountaintop. And so, I have to believe that this isn’t just a historical tale of one of Jesus’ afternoon excursions, but is a model of Christian life.

We are to look around and search for those places and events where God knocks our socks off. And we’re to fully soak in the WOW of the moment. And maybe even fall on our faces.

It reminds us of God’s power and glory and splendor. And it reminds us of our appropriate, faithful, response: worship.

And, once we experience wonder – and help others do the same – maybe we can put the incoming-text-message-machines down… and experience joy too.

Why does Jesus shine like fire? Let’s see for ourselves, and invite others along.

When is the last time you let God blow your socks off? How do you encourage wonder among the churches you serve?

We are so familiar with Jesus’ command: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. What many aren’t as familiar with though, is that this command is a redaction of two Old Testament laws:

Deuteronomy 6:5
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

Leviticus 19:18
Love your neighbor as yourself.

We typically think of Jesus transcending the laws of the Old Testament: Jesus, and the Gospel, is about grace.

And, yet, in Matthew 5, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus isn’t ignoring the laws of the Old Testament.

He’s re-issuing them.

Like Moses, ascending the mountain of the Lord to receive the law etched in stone, Jesus ascends the mountaintop with a vast multitude, and gives the law of God. Again.

Anew.

In some ways he takes the law to whole new levels, as we saw last week with lust and anger being extensions of adultery and murder.

But, sometimes he just quotes directly.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells his listeners, and us, to love our neighbor.

Of course, we’re used to this command being tied in with it’s twin. (Love the Lord your God…) And, I think, we’re also used to it being reinterpreted in the story of the Good Samaritan.

But, here, on the mountaintop, if we take the time to listen closely to the sermon on the mount, and filter out our other preconceptions, it can take on a new hue.

I’ve often thought that the Great Commandment of Jesus gives us enough fodder to ponder, and try to live out, to keep us busy for a lifetime. We spend a lot of time in the church arguing about this-and-that. And, sometimes those arguments are important theological conversations to be had.

Sometimes they just plain bog us down, though.

We are told explicitly by God, and Christ, to love our neighbor as ourself.

And so we must wrestle, as the questioning lawyer did, with figuring out who exactly our neighbor is.

Then we need to work on loving ourselves, rightly and humbly, before we can truly attempt to love another.

And, then we must work on loving our neighbor in the same fashion we love ourselves.

And, here in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expands the circle one more time: love of neighbor includes loving your enemies.

Here, in the fifth chapter of Matthew, it’s one-and-the-same.

As if loving our neighbor isn’t hard enough, our enemies are part of the mix. Religious enemies. Political enemies. Family, or historic, enemies. Intellectual enemies.

The kind of enemies that would dance on your grave.

Love them. THEM.

We could even expand our understanding of this verse to ‘opponents,’ not just enemies. “Enemies” carries a lot of weight.

At the least Jesus is asking us, once again, to love those we don’t usually hang out with. The people we avoid. Those who we’d give a double-take to if they walked into our church. Those we’d rather shelter our kids from.

The people who give us the willies.

Love them. Pray for them.

Here, Jesus quotes from the Old law, and he takes it to whole new levels.

Living with the values of the Kingdom, and the Sermon on the Mount, entails serious work on love.

Really, it should keep us busy for a while.

And, for always.

Matthew 5:27-30
‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

Even if only a small portion of Jesus’ followers today followed through with the plain-sense meaning of this teaching, we’d run into mangled faces and hacked off limbs every time we went to the grocery store, the movies, or work.

When we went to church we’d encounter people resembling the cast of a horror movie.

Jesus says that if you’ve looked with lust upon another person, you’re to pluck out your eye. If you’ve touched someone in lust you’re to hack off your hand.

Apparently, the excruciating pain of mangling yourself, and the life-long consequence of that gruesome action, is better than “for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

Of course, even the most stringent of biblical literalists don’t advocate for taking this teaching word-for-word. Though, had Jesus said something a little less extreme, like “slam your hand in a door,” instead of cutting it off, this one might have more of a following.

I’d agree with the conventional literalist, that while Jesus’ point is a good one, he never intended his followers to actually pluck out their eyes or saw off limbs. Jesus didn’t mean for anyone to actually do what he said here.

The most compelling evidence for this is, of course, that there are no reports that any of Jesus’ disciples walked around with empty eye-sockets. Had this been a serious component of Jesus’ message, one would assume that his followers would have had to look more like the sinners that they indeed were.

Sadly, not everyone got the message. A Christian theologian from the early third century, Origen, evidently castrated himself to bring his soul into a more pure state.

But, if Jesus didn’t really mean what he said here in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, then why did he say it at all?

He said it to make a point.

Jesus uses incendiary language here that is so over the top to drive a message home: sin isn’t just about what we do, it’s also what we think about. What we look at. What we ogle.

For Jesus, there is a radical shift of disposition between looking at another human being with lust, and living by the standards of the Kingdom of God. In a person’s heart there is no room for God if all there is, is lust.

And Jesus believes this so deeply that he conjures up gruesome language, and uses imagery that is so graphic that one might be justified to cover the ears of nearby children.

Lust, and interior disposition are that big a deal.

And, Jesus puts it in the context of salvation and damnation: if you live with lust you will be “thrown into hell.”

Lust has consequences.

To take this one step further, there were two major words that Jesus could have used to refer to what we commonly call “hell.” There is the Greek word “Hades,” which Jesus does use from time to time. And then there is the word, “Gehenna,” which is the word that Jesus uses here in Matthew 5.

The reason I bring this up, is because “Gehenna” was a place that the people Jesus was talking to could have actually visited. Maybe earlier that day. Probably at some time in their life.

“Gehenna” didn’t just have spiritual, after-life connotations. It’s a place. Like, a geographical place.

On a map.

It’s also called, “The Valley of Hinnom.”

The Valley of Hinnom was literally the trash dump for the city of Jerusalem. It must have been a truly gross and frightening place, because fires burned night and day consuming the trash, and packs of dogs wandered through it constantly ripping at the bits of edible refuse.

It was a smelly, smoky, scary place. No wonder people referred to it when they wanted to talk about “hell.”

Not only that, but in earlier biblical times the Valley of Hinnom was a place of pagan worship. Hundreds of years before Jesus, and a long time before it was a trash dump, it was the cultic center for revering the god Molech.

People would travel from near and far to come and worship Molech, and make sacrifices to him.

And, what did the god Molech desire as sacrifice?

Children.

Children were brought to the Valley of Hinnom to be killed in the honor of this “god.”

I love the fact that the Israelites thought so highly of this god and his disgusting devotees that they chose to house their trash in his “sacred” site.

There’s a statement there.

But, it also does much to color the emotional and spiritual weight of The Valley of Hinnom: it is a dark place, where dark and evil things were done in the name of dark pagan magic.

And, as one approached this awful place, one would have been overcome by the stench and the rising smoke. And the haunting reminders of the screaming children.

And the silenced children.

When Jesus speaks of lust, he tells his followers to knock it off. For such things are worthy of being thrown into a place like the Valley of Hinnom.

There’s a cold shower for you.

Jesus doesn’t explicitly talk about salvation here, per se. This isn’t a “how to get to heaven” kind of teaching.

But, he is talking about damnation.

According to Jesus there are ways to find oneself on the path to Heaven. And there are ways that pave the road to Gehenna.

And, it’s not all about confessions of faith, and praying sweet little prayers.

For when Jesus talks about the way to hell here, it’s about what goes on inside you. It’s about burning desire, that may or may not ever be acted upon.

But, for Jesus, what one thinks, where one looks, and what one chooses to orient their life around has eternal, and possibly damnable, repercussions.

And Jesus is so crystal clear about that, that he uncorks some serious language, and summons the memory of dark demons.

We recently took our daughters to see the movie “Tangled.”

Now, having two little ones, we don’t get out much. My wife and I don’t see a lot of movies that aren’t animated and involve princesses, if you know what I mean.

So, I went to see Tangled with my kids, hoping for an hour and a half of mindless oblivion, and not much more.

But, “much more” is what I found.

I was startled by the subtle Christian motifs woven through the story. The interplay between light and darkness, and the infinite power of love, and the beautiful sting of sacrifice.

(My wife, the social worker, also found powerful themes of an abusive parental relationship. So, maybe like any work of art, we see our own reflection in it… But, I digress.)

At the beginning of the movie we’re told that a pure drop of sunshine (pure Light?) fell to earth and created a flower with the power of life, healing, and immortality. (Uh, see what I mean!?) This flower is found by an old woman who uses it to keep her forever young.

But, instead of sharing this gift of light and life, she hordes it.

And, literally, she hides it under a bushel basket.

And, I literally gasped when it happened.

I was so startled because this is a direct reference to Matthew 5, when Jesus (still in the sermon on the mount) proclaims that we are ‘the light of the world’ and that we aren’t to hide our light under a basket, but put it on a lamp stand for all to see by.

The movie highlighted something about Jesus’ words that I hadn’t previously thought.

From the days I sang the words in Sunday School, “Hide it under a bushel – NO! I’m gonna let it shine!,” I’ve always interpreted this sentiment to be about getting past the fear and shyness of telling others about our faith.

What the evil ‘mother’ in Tangled taught me is that hiding the Light and Life of God under a basket is also an act of selfishness.

It’s a hoarding of God.

In this day and age we’re all about sharing ideas. We’ll tell people about a new diet, a great book, a sale that’s going on, or a new restaurant. We’ll do that in person, over the phone, or via Facebook. Entire companies – billion dollar companies – are springing up around the premise of sharing with others.

We don’t let a shoe-sale, a good movie, or a decent restaurant go by without telling someone else about it.

We don’t put those things under a basket.

We let them shine.

Let’s let Jesus shine too.

I mean, who wants to be like the wicked old hag?

There are certain sections of the Bible that modern Western culture has undoubtedly and unfortunately tamed. These wildly potent sections that we’ve castrated are easy to recognize: they’re the ones that we find needlepointed onto pillows, fleece throws, and the swollen bellies of teddy-bears.

They’re the ones we find unashamedly emblazoned onto sweatshirts and t-shirts with an air brush. And, they’re usually found inconspicuously read by someone’s aunt at their mostly secular, but trying-to-hide-it-with-a-reading-from-the-Bible, wedding.

We find them used in these places not because of their intrinsic worth, or because of their incredible power and truth, but usually because of some warm and fuzzy sentiment we have attached to them.

Because on the surface they just sound so nice.

The Beatitudes in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is one such text that has been used and abused for its sentiment. But as for its resoundingly powerful message and mandate? – It’s been sadly ignored.

The text we call the Beatitudes in Matthew is the very, very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. This ‘sermon’ that Jesus gives is the first major teaching that he gives in his ministry as Matthew has chronicled it. He motivated crowds of people to hike up to the top of a mountain because in return for their effort they were expecting a pretty good show.

These masses of people are folk who had been magnetically drawn to his healing presence and undoubtedly his very being. He takes them up the mountain evoking the unmistakable biblical images of the holy leaders of Israel who also did notable things from altitude: Abraham, Moses, and Elijah. He takes them up there, and assumes the posture of a rabbi: he sits down. And then, as if the drama couldn’t get any more intense, he begins his first major teaching as the Savior of the world.

He begins this inaugural speech, this coming-out party, with a flood of blessings. He blesses the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for doing the right thing, and those who are reviled and persecuted on his account.

What is Jesus doing here with this list of blessings and blessed people? Why did he drag a mass of people up on top of a mountain and begin a sermon with all this talk of blessing?

It’s tempting to think that in the beatitudes Jesus is talking about specific groups of specific people whom he is declaring “blessed.” As if somewhere in the wide world there is a group who are the ‘peacemakers’ – and let me tell you – those guys and gals are pretty blessed. God likes them. And then there is another group of un-named and unknown people out there who are the ‘poor in spirit’ – and they’re pretty tight with God too.

As if what Jesus is saying here is akin to “Blessed are the Republicans” or “Blessed are those who give to Greenpeace.” One may wonder if there are discernible groups of people out there complete with membership cards and secret handshakes, which because of their identity in that group are blessed by God.

No.

The only discernible group that Jesus is referring to here is his followers – Christians. This is a blueprint of action, a plan for behavior, and a reorientation of life for the followers of Jesus, lovers of God, and the blessed.

Jesus took this mass of people up on the mountain to give them a new way of life, a new direction for relating to others, and a lifestyle that pleases God no end.

What Jesus is saying here is that we are meant to be the poor in spirit, full of humility and wonder. We are to be willingly emotionally exposed and open enough to fully mourn, mourning the state of the world, the failures and losses of our brothers and sisters, and the loss of our own innocence. We are the ones who are to be meek, not seeking power by dominating others but attaining true power which is only found in the weakness and vulnerability of the cross of Christ. We are to hunger and thirst for righteousness, yearning for what is right, holy, and good from the deepest part of our souls. We are to be merciful not ruthless, pure in heart not corrupted, peacemakers not instigators, the persecuted instead of the persecutors, and reviled and despised not honored and exalted.

This is the picture of what the Church is supposed to look like in full Technicolor, with not a single blemish or seemingly unattractive facet left on the cutting room floor. Jesus hiked his people to the top of that mountain to give them the skinny on what God was all about, what he himself was all about, and what he wanted them and every person on the face of the planet to be about.

The Beatitudes isn’t some warm and fuzzy little slogan to be brandished on a neon yellow coffee-mug, it’s a mandate for life in the Kingdom of God. It is who we are meant to be.

As my wife said to me one night when she was trying to be coy, they are the “be – attitudes.” The attitudes we are meant to have, the attitudes we are meant to be, the attitudes that Jesus taught and modeled by his loving and sacrificial life.

And what becomes of such people who live by such attitude and manner? What accompanies the blessings? What does the blessing look like?

The Kingdom. The Kingdom of Heaven.

For the poor in spirit – theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. The mourners will be comforted, as in those glorious words from Revelation: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:4) The meek will inherit the earth. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled, their hunger satisfied. The merciful will receive mercy, the pure in heart will see God, the peacemakers will be called the children of God, and those who are persecuted for righteousness and reviled for Jesus’ sake will gain the Kingdom of Heaven. “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.”

Amazingly, this isn’t just a blueprint for behavior and a manifesto for action – it is the litany of characteristics describing the citizens of heaven – the redeemed, saved, and sanctified people of God.

Us.

“What are you looking for?” Jesus asked.

“Where are you staying?” was their reply.

“Come and see,” said Jesus.

Did you ever get called on in class, and get caught daydreaming? Not me.

😉

Or, even worse, have you ever been asked a question in class that you indeed heard as clear as a bell, but you had no idea – not a first clue – what ballpark an answer might even come from?

The 2.3 seconds which follow the teacher’s question are excruciating, as panic flows through your head.

Whatever is said in that awkward, painful moment, it’s never erudite.

Usually it’s ugly.

Jesus, presented by John the Baptist here as “the Lamb of God,” asks a question of two disciples of John the baptist.

And they haven’t the first idea what he’s talking about.

“What are you looking for?”

Seems like that should be a question which a thoughtful person would have worked out, don’t you think?

Think about being in a job interview, or being across the restaurant table on your first date, or being in a thoughtful book study – and a potential boss, date, or intellectual asks you ‘what you’re looking for.’

Don’t you want to have a good answer to that?

What are you looking for in life? What are you looking for in your career? What are you looking for your family, your future, and to fulfill the deepest yearnings of your spirit?

What are you LOOKING for?

Do you really want to blank on that one? Doesn’t a non-answer to that one, grunted out with a few ‘umms’ and ‘uhhs,’ speak volumes?

At the very least, hum a few bars of U2.

When the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world asks you what you’re looking for, come up with something. Anything.

As this passage from the first chapter of John is constructed, John the Baptist is the one who points the way towards what/ who should be sought after: Jesus, the Lamb.

In The Gospel of John, John the Baptist isn’t the wild-eyed prophet wearing the hair of camels and eating insects. He’s not the guy who yells at everyone he sees to repent.

He has a very easy job in the Fourth Gospel. He points the way to Jesus.

That’s it. That’s enough.

As Jesus asks these two disciples of John the Baptist what they’re looking for, these disciples would do well to listen to their leader.

They should be looking for Jesus.

And, since they blow it, Jesus gives them a chance to brush up on their existential questions and answers.

He invites them to “come and see.”

In effect, he gives them a chance to figure out what it is that they should be looking for. And, he gives them a chance to find it.

This week we have a chance to conjure up those moments from our schooling days when we were caught unawares. And, we’re given the opportunity to come up with an answer, without the 2.3 seconds of agony.

What are you looking for?

If it’s not Jesus, keep looking.