Jesus and authenticity

Texts: Genesis 12:1-9 & Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

We are greeted by a couple of interesting lessons for this Sunday.

At our Wednesday night service, I reminded the people assembled that they are church, not the building that is the meeting place. In fact, our church buildings seem to serve us as the Temple; as a means of distracting our attention.

How easy is it for us to look at the stuff of our worship? How easy is it to look at stained-glass, altars, vestments, and holy hardware as what makes St. David’s a church. But what makes it a church is the people gathered together, in at least twos and threes. In fact, the land that is considered 1519 Elmwood is a place marker: it is not holy land in and of itself, but a place where the holy meets humanity.

On the way out, I mentioned that I loved the passage from Genesis where Abram is wandering on his desert journey and makes an altar to God, as a place marker and as a show of faith for God. How coincidental that this should be our first reading! And how appropriate! For this same confusion is explored in the gospel (conceptually, not literally).

In the gospel, Matthew describes Jesus as “walking along” and finding a man named Matthew. Jesus says to the man “Follow me.” And the man does.

The way Jesus communicated was using two methods: words and actions. For Jesus, these are always in tension, but necessarily so. In this first example, Jesus speaks and the man acts. Next, he acts and then he speaks. He sits with the undesirables; when this is brought to his attention, he says “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” For Jesus, you do what is needed for those that need it. But even more, we don’t expect a doctor to perform a tonsillectomy on a person whose tonsils are fine, so why do we expect Jesus to spend his time with the righteous? (us?)

The last half of the reading is a wonderful demonstration of Jesus’s earlier words. I am not compelled to wonder about the miracle of healing that Jesus performs here as much as I am the obvious illustration of his earlier point. People are coming to him for healing who need it and he declares that “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” Healing is the appropriate response to a person who needs it.

We say that those who say one thing and do another are hypocrites. We say that a person who says one thing and does nothing about it is lazy or insensitive. But isn’t this the norm? Isn’t this how we behave normally? Isn’t this what you notice about your teachers, parents, public officials?

The word that describes what we long for is authenticity. We want Jesus to be the authentic savior. We want God to be authentic in the way we are treated. We want the Holy Spirit to be authentically present with us. It is precisely because we worry about that authenticity in our human souls.

What are some of the ways that you and I can be more authentic? How can we apply those things that we say we believe? What changes can we make to the injustices we witness? How can we treat others with the respect to which God invites us?

Rock, Sand, and Authority

Sunday’s gospel (Matthew 7:21-29) without its context may seem a bit strange. In Matthew 5, Jesus

“went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them”.

Beginning what is known as the Sermon on the Mount: the most prodigious teaching of Jesus’s entire ministry. He begins with what we know as The Beatitudes with some of our most cherished teachings such as verse 5: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”: and verse 9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God”.

This “sermon” dealt with how we ought to behave (more generous and joyful than pious) and what we should do (love God and show mercy). It represents the closest thing to Jesus speaking to us directly: it approximates the lives that all of us should lead.

Over the course of three full chapters, Jesus’s teachings go on until we get to the end of chapter 7. Here, in verses 21-27, we have the “so what now” part of the speech. It’s Jesus saying “Did you get all of that? I’m not messing around!” Then he suggests that any “who hears these words…and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock” as opposed to the fool who builds his house on sand. To Jesus, those ‘words’ were the three preceding chapters! He is finally concluding his sermon!

Then the writer gives us an interesting note at the end of the reading:

²⁸Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, ²⁹for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

The scribes had a specific job at that time. They were among the only people that could read and write, so they copied the Bible by hand, often making notes in the margins and sometimes correcting mistakes they found or “improving” the language. They had a truly powerful job as a gatekeeper to the sacred Scriptures. It also meant that they were virtually the only ones outside of rabbis and rabbinic students that would even read the Scriptures! A scribe’s job, however, wasn’t interpreting Scripture or having a relationship with God; it was simply working with the text as it was written.

We come to the Bible like those scribes. Our understanding is limited—we haven’t gone through the strict rabbinic training—nor could we claim Jesus’s knowledge of God. Adults in your religious community, as well as priests and pastors have a lot more in common with the scribes than they do with Jesus.

Perhaps that is what those people recognized when they were “astounded at his teaching”. They saw Jesus as not just some guy that really “gets” the Scripture, but being well beyond those scribes: “as one having authority”.

Who do you see “as one having authority” in your life? How do you relate to her/him?

Read The Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12. What do you think Jesus was saying? These are the first words of the Sermon on the Mount. How do you think these statements affect all of the teachings that follow? What can you take out of this teaching for your life?