Author: Revd Stephen Buckman

So, Jesus has sat on the mountain and taught, outlining a new way of relating to God and our fellow human beings. Jesus has come down from the mountain, like Moses, bringing God’s love and power into our midst. Jesus has healed a member of the Jewish community. Today we read of Jesus healing a gentile. Not just a gentile, but a Roman, one of the greatest enemies of first-century Jews. If the crowds were shocked at Jesus touching the Jewish leper, how much more profound must their shock have been when the same divine healing power was extended to a Roman officer?

For me, there are two key words in today’s reading: faith and authority.

No one can doubt the faith of the Roman centurion. How many of us have ever been able to demonstrate even half as much faith? We live in a modern ‘rational’ age where the simplicity of faith is constantly being challenged by the laws of science. We want to believe with a blind and trusting faith, but we constantly pull back from the cliff’s edge, and we constantly allow questions to get in the way. Just as we struggle with praying, so we struggle with following God in a spirit of blind and humble obedience, even though we may want to with our whole hearts.

And why should we try to let go and place ourselves in God’s hands? Because God created us in his own image and God loves us. It is as simple as that. We need to learn that all authority in heaven and on earth rests with God. 

The problem with managing our way in and out of lockdown, or coping with isolation and shielding, or planning for the uncertain nature of the days to come, lies solely in our inability to trust God. We want to manage, cope and plan, but we want to do those things on our own terms. Yes, we want our churches to re-open and we want to gather in prayer and praise, but we want to do that on our own terms. Are we ready for God to say to us, Let’s just re-think that and see how it fits in my plan?’

As we continue our journey through Matthew’s gospel in the coming weeks we are going to be presented with many such challenges. Let us all pause now, pray to God and ask for his strength to trust in his teaching, in his power to restore and renew us, and in his power to lead us on new paths.

Our readings for today and tomorrow recall events that took place immediately after the Sermon on the Mount, and they both concern Jesus’ God-given authority to heal.

Today’s short account presents us with Jesus restoring and renewing a sufferer from leprosy who was also a member of the Jewish faith. In this act of love and cleansing Jesus demonstrates the inclusivity of the Christian message.

In Jesus’ time the term leprosy was used as a catch-all term for a variety of diseases. What each disease had in common was their contagious nature and their ability to disfigure. They also resulted in social isolation. Nobody would willingly approach a ‘leper’, and a sufferer was not allowed to approach anyone else. We have come to call this self-isolation, social distancing and shielding; first century Jewish society described it as being untouchable.

The ‘untouchable’ nature of leprosy makes it all the more shocking when we read of Jesus touching the leper. How those who witnessed this scene must have recoiled in horror!

But, what about the leper? Imagine the thrill of simple, unfamiliar human contact. Imagine his surprise at the stirring of a long-forgotten memory – the loving touch of another human being (perhaps the first for years). Imagine feeling God’s restoration and renewal flowing through his body.

Of course, that restoration and renewal also involved re-integration into normal society. It also placed a responsibility on the shoulders of that leper: the responsibility to accept God’s healing touch and to share it with others.

Are we up for that challenge?

Are we ready to let God lead us through these strange times into his time of renewal and restoration?

Are we ready to share the Good News of Jesus’ healing touch with others?

Matthew’s gospel can be split into five great blocks of teaching. The first (chapters 5-7) being the Sermon on the Mount. Today we come to the end of that Sermon.

Our journey through this great moment in Jesus’ teaching ministry has been subtly punctuated, by Matthew, with many references that place Jesus firmly where he should be – at the heart of the age-old sweep of Jewish law and tradition. But, today, there is a real twist.

Up to now we have heard Jesus’ words and seen him pointing us in a new direction. Many centuries of interpretation have been overlaid with human ‘wisdom’. The simple message of faithful and obedient love of God has become confused and obscured by human routines and requirements. Jesus rounds off the Sermon on the Mount by warning us that if we hear his words and then follow a different path through life, well, then, we are just plain stupid! We are just like the man who builds his house on sand; we should not be surprised to see it all fall around us when the rains come.

As Jesus’ first audience was listening to his words, they could have turned their heads and seen Herod’s men working towards the completion of their rebuild of the Temple. This great house of God, they believed, would stand for ever. In fact, it would be destroyed by the Romans just a few years after its completion – just as Jesus predicted.

Jesus is warning us about trying to confine God’s love, power and truth within human boundaries. 

We have spent much time outside our man-made churches this year. 
How have we used that time?
Have we drawn closer to God?

Or, are we waiting with the bricks and mortar to try and reinforce the false barriers that we so readily erect between us and our loving Creator and Father?I pray that our prayers and devotion have taken us nearer to, and not further from, the God who loves us all.

The opening of today’s reading must seem like a complete contradiction of Jesus’ earlier teaching that we should not judge and condemn others, but it isn’t really. The talk of dogs and swine always causes confusion because it sounds so condemnatory, but is it?

One interpretation of these words requires us to put them back into the context of Jesus’ great Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has been guiding us, steadily and systematically, onto a path that will lead us into a closer relationship with God, our Father in heaven. The terms ‘dog’ and ‘swine’ were common terms for gentiles in Jesus’ times. The gentiles were those who did not understand the importance of all that was holy in the Jewish world; they were those who did not understand what it means to see God as the loving Father of all.

This may sound as though Jesus was trying to institute a spiritual and theological ‘closed shop’. He was not! We know, that in his Great Commission, Jesus will send us out to all corners of the world to baptize all who would come to him – no matter who or what they are.

Today, Jesus is summarizing all that he has been teaching. Today, he is reminding us to make sure that we know what is holy and good, and then to use that knowledge to establish and strengthen our relationship with God. 

Once we understand, then we can become true, faithful and effective disciples of our risen Saviour.

Then we can lead others through that narrow gate.

It is easy to condemn others – to point the finger of blame – to ask why others are not as good as us. This is the situation that Jesus is addressing in today’s reading. Jesus is drawing attention to the casual judgements and condemnations that we all indulge in on a daily basis. Jesus is drawing attention to them, and then telling us to: Stop it!

In the context of last week’s readings, we can see that Jesus is speaking about the old ways of engaging with God. But, to stop there is to ignore that Jesus is talking to us too. Yes, us, in our modern, sophisticated twenty-first century world.

There are so many things that cause us to condemn and judge: politics, morality, economics, the environment, what should and should not be opened as we come out of lockdown, to name but a few. We all have opinions, and we all fall into the trap of seeing our personal opinions as sacrosanct; we use our own prejudices as the yardstick against which we choose to judge and condemn others. This is exactly what Jesus is telling us not to do!

Of course, Jesus is not telling us that we should not have high standards. Rather, he is reminding us that we need to make sure we apply those standards, first and foremost, to ourselves. Jesus calls us to stop focusing on the shortcomings of others, whilst wallowing in our own failings and sins.

Do you remember last week’s reading when Jesus taught us how to pray in a new way?

The challenge for today is contained in that prayer: And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

Lord, guide us in our thinking and in our interaction with others, that we may love as you love.

The message contained in yesterday’s reading  was so important that that is where we start today.  Today it is summed up in just a few well-known words: You cannot serve God and wealth.

The readings this week have challenged us to examine our relationship with our God and with those amongst whom we live out our daily lives.

Jesus understands that all this will require an enormous leap of faith.  All of our human instincts fight against putting ourselves in such a vulnerable place as Jesus describes in his Sermon on the Mount.  Two thousand years on, we are just the same, if not worse, than those amongst whom Jesus lived out his earthly life.  We have more personal wealth and we have developed an even greater sense of greed.  Our wealth and our ‘need’ for more and more things has evolved to a stage that would have been far beyond their wildest imaginings.  We also live in a society where commitment to God, even a superficial commitment, is not seen as important by so many.

Of course, that is the spin we are constantly being offered by the media, but is that true?  During our period of lockdown many churches, including those in our own benefice, have gone on-line. We have journeyed into the world that encourages us to put wealth before God.  Perhaps you are one of those who think that the church does not belong there, but, during these times, contact with church websites, and the wide range of spiritual resources that have been made available through them, have been accessed by many, many more people than normally attend our churches.  There is a spiritual need in this world, and there are still so many who want to come to know God, even if they do not put that desire into words.

In today’s reading Jesus gives us a recipe for supporting those who worry about the challenges of the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus is telling us to stop worrying, even though he knows that that is one of our favourite pastimes.  Jesus is telling us to trust God and to keep everything in the perspective he sets for us.

Our challenge is to live God’s life of humble generosity and love.

Our challenge is also to lead others along the same path.

Are we up to the challenge?

As in our modern culture, Jesus’ first century world was obsessed with wealth.  In today’s reading Jesus invites us to consider our priorities.  Jesus invites us to consider the value of a life faithful to God as opposed to a life focused on acquiring more and more worldly riches.

Today, many people make a hobby out of window shopping.  During the weeks and months of lockdown, that pastime has become even easier to indulge in.  Thanks to internet browsing and on-line shopping we have not had to stop acquiring all those ‘things’ that make us feel so good.  Of course, we wrap it up in the language of need, but …  we are so easily tempted down the path of acquisition and greed, aren’t we!?

My grandmother, who like many of her generation lived through periods in our modern history when there was great hardship, used to have a saying about greed: there are no pockets in a shroud.  This simple saying is not a bad summary of what Jesus is saying to us today.

We all want comfortable lives, but that desire can so easily confuse us.  Living a comfortable life is not about hoarding as much ‘stuff’ as possible.  Living the truly comfortable life is about achieving the balance God wants us to know, and understand, and enjoy.  That balance is about putting God first in our lives, even if it means, as we are taught in the Sermon on the Mount, setting aside all that we thought was important.  

Our comfortable lives of excess make no sense to so many people in the world.  Even that which we would cast aside as rubbish would be classed as riches by the vast majority of our fellow human beings.  Why do we struggle so much with this issue more than so many others in our lives?

Today’s challenge is real, and it is important.

Lord, help us to set aside the trivial and the superficial, that we may draw closer to you, the one true God.

We all find it difficult to pray.  There are so many distractions that clamour into our minds no matter how determined we may be to focus solely on God.

It was the Jewish tradition to indulge in wordy formulaic prayers.  In today’s reading we see Jesus  introducing us to a new style of prayer.  This newness is seen in his prayer’s opening phrase: Our Father.  These two words (originally contained in the single Aramaic word: Abba, meaning ‘daddy’ in our modern way of speaking) points us towards a more intimate relationship with God, the God who is Jesus’ Father and ours.

Jesus tells us that God knows what we need before we ask, there is no value in wordy, formulaic prayers.  Jesus also tells us that God will answer our prayers if we work on developing that very special relationship with Him; if we make the step into a committed Christian life.

The Lord’s Prayer, as we know Jesus’ radical new style of prayer, could also be thought of as The Disciples’ Prayer.  By using this prayer we are expressing Praise, Hope, Intercession, Penitence, our need for Deliverance and Praise.  In these few words we are entering into the totality of prayer in a direct and faithful way.  In this most special of prayers we are turning our backs on the many diversions that distract us when we pray.  In this most special of prayers we are following the lead of Him who knows God better than any of us.  In this most special of prayers we are allowing ourselves to focus on the God who loves us.

Today’s challenge is simple.

How often do you find it hard to pray?  Here is the solution.  Say The Lord’s Prayer (or The Disciples’ Prayer) and allow those words to transport you into the nearer presence of your God and Father.

Jesus’ teaching on almsgiving, praying and fasting presents us with further challenges from his teachings in The Sermon on the Mount.

People like recognition for doing good.  People like to talk of their generosity, even when they are not at all generous.  People like to talk of their strength of will and character, even when they have little or none.  Basically, most human beings crave the recognition of those around them, they like others to know that they are good people, even when they display few characteristics of goodness.

Today’s reading, like the others we encounter during this week, is really about our relationship with God.  It is also a challenge for us to set aside our ‘puffed up’ ideas about ourselves and reflect upon the more humble way in which God wants us to live our lives.  We are being urged to set aside our need for the honour of our friends and neighbours, and focus on developing a closer relationship with God.

It is so easy to deceive those with whom we live out our daily lives.  It is not possible to deceive the God who created us, who redeemed us, who loves us with a love that is way beyond our human understanding.

God calls us to set ourselves aside, out of the limelight, and into the deepest possible relationship with him.

We are being called to reflect on the generosity of God’s love.  The love of a God who does not require worldly pomp and display, but rather the intimacy of a personal relationship.  The love of a God who gave not a pittance but everything for the good of the totality of humanity.

How do we face up to today’s challenge?