Isaiah 58.1-9 2 Corinthians 2.1-12 Mt 5.13-20
In the general way of things do you veer to the right or to the left, are you instinctively liberal or conservative, traditionalist or progressive? Do you see things politically, or is the Christian life for you a matter of personal private decision-making?
The Hampstead Christian Study Centre’s new reading group – and you are all warmly invited to come along, do watch out for what we’re discussing in the magazine and the notices – our latest book is co-authored by two contemporary New Testament scholars, both of them, prolific and popular writers. Bishop Tom Wright from the conservative wing of the church, and Marcus Borg an American from the liberal wing. They explore their differing understandings of ‘the meaning of Jesus’: who was he, and what his purpose and work was.
From where I stand, there is something to learn from both perspectives – though ppossibly you realise by now, that perhaps I veer towards the left! The reality is that our community – all communities – need people of all persuasions to contribute to whatever the debate may be. We need all our skills and talents and understanding, to build our life together.
This morning we begin our reading over the coming weeks of perhaps one of the most famous text from the gospels: the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew’s great gathering together of Jesus’ teaching. Selections from this challenging Sermon become our Sunday gospel as we journey towards Lent.
It is this sermon which drew Gandhi passionately to Christ. He declared that had he met any Christian who truly followed the precepts of this Sermon he would have immediately joined the Church! In this Sermon Jesus sets out an uncompromising set of reasons for obeying the Law, seemingly very much tightening its strictures.
We are not allowed to wriggle around our deeper destructive urges viewing them as just the way life is. Our thoughts are parent to our actions and we need to firmly address how we allow ourselves to think.
If the likes of Gandhi, and other heroic leaders, such Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, and far less famously, women such as Etty Hillesum who died in the Nazi death camps having chosen to relinquish all hatred towards her enemy, rather believing in the possibility of love in all her circumstances; they have indeed astonished us by living out such personal maturity and love of others as Jesus commands, when many, and perhaps most of us, have gasped at what Jesus has to say, and approached his propositions as ideals to aim for rather than standards we could ever hope to arrive at. Nevertheless, there is good reason, powerful reason, to take heed of what Jesus has to say – as new self-help gurus also now urge us.
If I was asked to choose a favourite part of the gospels, Jesus radical love declared in this sermon would probably be a high on my list.
But it is also the case that the very personal challenges of this sermon have led to a view among many that being a Christian is about personal private behaviour – and the Church should not be getting involved in public politics!
It is these opposite perspectives that I think are reflected in the differences between Wright and Borg. It could roughly be said that Wright sees salvation at an individual level, while Borg sees Jesus as challenging the oppression of the political structures of his society, in the language of anthropology, the ‘domination system’. Of course they do not exclude one another! In the wisdom of those who have chosen the readings for the Church’s year, the Common Worship Lectionary, as we set out into Jesus’ challenge to our personal thinking and doing, we hear first from Israel’s prophets who have harsh words for the people who follow Yahweh.
Within the metaphysical understanding and cultural milieu of two and a half thousand years ago, the message of the prophets was couched in the context of ‘correct’ worship of the right God. Though the challenge decidedly concerned social justice. However in our own time, this context of worship has led some to a perspective that God is most concerned with the offering of right worship accompanied by right belief, with a primary focus on the individual, and personal behaviours. Thus we have the current intense focus in the Church on sexuality. But this is far from reflecting the primary concerns of the biblical text. Our reading from Isaiah clearly summarises what right worship is all about! The prophet addresses a people returned to the land from exile in Babylon, returned as God has promised – yet they are not free.
In our reading the prophet Isaiah does not speak of offering sacrifices so presumably the Temple has not yet been rebuilt, but the people have practised fasting in exile and returned. They do so again now. But it seems that God is deaf to their worship for they are not prospering as a nation. Almighty Yahweh, why are you not blessing us? the people cry out. They perceive themselves as faithful worshippers, they have taken their fasting seriously, and delight to come near to God! So why does God remain distant from them?
The prophet has God’s answer: they are missing the point. This is the fast in which I delight: To let the oppressed go free, to break every yoke. To share your bread with the hungry, to share your prosperity with each other. To take care for the homeless and not to hide from those in need. This is what it means to be salt to the earth, light of the world.
I hope these words are ringing bells with you. They are words that Jesus uses himself on many occasions. In the declaration of his mission in Nazareth. In his warning to us of judgement to come at the end of time. In his challenge to the Temple, and the religious authorities who ruled Jerusalem and Galilee. In his abhorrence of hypocrisy among the religious leaders, who rather than helping the people, put millstones round their necks.
Heeding these words from Isaiah is what it means to be salt to the earth, light of the world.
In the foolishness of loving our enemies, praying blessing on those who persecute us, is the hidden wisdom of God where true worship may be found.
And incidentally, properly understood, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, of which more to come in the weeks ahead, these are forms of non-violent resistance, not a call to a range of personal martyrdoms.
I am personally more drawn to Borg’s Jesus, Jesus passionate about the well-being of the people, championing social justice even if this will lead to his death, than I am drawn to Wright’s Jesus, Jesus who fulfils a somewhat complicated sacrificial role as the Messiah of God dying for our sin. Of course they are not exclusive of one another. We need to embrace them both. Believing and social action.
I do hope you are looking forward in the next few weeks to engaging more deeply with the spirituality of the Sermon on the Mount. Amen.