But I Tell You

3

Brian and Kathy Emmet
 
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago …
but I tell you …” (Matthew 5:22, 27, 32, 34, 39, 44).
 
This week, we’re exploring a section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that would strike a familiar chord with his audience, but which would also sound a new and unexpected theme.  God’s core command to Israel was not first to do anything but to listen: “Hear, O Israel …!”  Of course there are things that need doing, but listening precedes them all.  In this section, Jesus draws upon the people’s familiarity with the Ten Commandments, specifically citing several: you shall not murder, commit adultery, or bear false witness.  So far, so familiar.
 
But in the midst of the familiar, a new note:  “You have heard that it was said … but I tell you …”
 
The more time we spend in the Sermon on the Mount, the more impossible it can sound!  If you’re angry with your brother, you’re a murderer; if you look at a person as a mere object for the fulfillment of your desire, you’re an adulterer?  “Don’t resist an evil person”??  “Love your enemies”??
 
How are we to listen to Jesus?  One mistake is to hear Jesus as The Great Moral Teacher, the one whose words dispense enlightenment to the few souls strong and courageous enough to be real serious about moral self-improvement.  Jesus is only speaking to spiritual “Green Berets.” 
 
Or we can relegate these words of Jesus to the next world:  “Jesus can’t be talking about our here-and-now.  This stuff could never work in ‘the real world,’ so he must be telling us what Heaven will be like.”
 
Or we can listen to Jesus seriously, even as what he tells us seems impossible.
 
Our greatest need is not more or better moral advice or education, not better laws or better leaders, helpful though those might be.  Our greatest need is to become a different kind of people.  Jesus is not offering better counsel for a better life; he is speaking a Word that creates what it commands. 
 
Listening to Jesus is active, not passive.  We are not listening as consumers (“what’s my preference here?”) or as critics (“How will I judge what Jesus says?”), but as those who want to get our lives turned right side up, as those who want to enter the kingdom of God.
 
Listening to Jesus, we find ourselves becoming the kind of people who do these seemingly impossible things!  Not because we try harder; because we are being made new by the power of the word of Jesus.
 
 
As you take time this week in our passage (Matthew 5:21-48 – yes, it’s a long one!), where do you find yourself saying, “I wish – I want – I need -- to be more like that?”  How could you start turning that desire into prayer?

3 Comments

Thanks for your comments, Karen and Suzanne. We all face distractions, but our situation isn't hopeless! But learning to live with a lowered distraction level is challenging: we have to practice not doing some things and to start doing others.
Always good to take advantage of the tremendous resources we enjoy in Scripture translations. Great to have a favorite/go-to version, but remember to check out others from time to time.
I need to be in the bible much more and also much more in prayer. I am so distracted...
I love Matthew 5:48 in The Message: “Live out your God-created identity." As Blake Barbera preached on Sunday, God not only gives his followers a new identity, he empowers them to live it out. Encouraged!

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