In many ways the beatitudes are not just a proclamation of the postures of the heart we need to enter into the Kingdom of God but what we have to give up is also implied.
In Luke Nine three people ask if they can follow Jesus. They don’t ask if they can have eternal life or what commandments are most important they just want to follow Jesus. In all three situations Jesus challenges their propositions; basically saying they aren’t ready. If somebody came up to us and said I want to follow Jesus; would our next response would be to bring up things in their life that are in the way of really doing that? Jesus doesn’t affirm them and say “oh that sounds like a great decision but here are a couple things you might want to work on to get started” No, he says
As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good bye to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."Luke 9:57-62
Hey when you follow me you become a vagrant; are you ready for that? If you want to follow me come and do it right now let the spiritually dead bury the spiritually dead (your father) and come be spiritually alive. Hey if you want to follow me you have to do it all the way you can’t start and then look back at your old life.
Are you guys sure you want to do this?
What would he say to you or I today if we said we wanted to follow him?
What would he point out to us?
In the beatitudes some things he is hinting at are….
Hey if you want to follow me, If you want to live life in the kingdom…
Give up your status, pride, position, comfort, forceful ways, abilities to get you want, satisfaction with your life, your first reactions to people, violence, your grudges, your anger, your peaceful life, your well-liked state among friends and family, ………..
…Are you sure you want to follow me?
Are we sure we want to today? It's been hard for me to think about the last 10 years I've been trying to follow Christ and wonder if I really have been for much of it.
In Luke 14 Jesus says “strive” to enter through the narrow gate. The word strive is a forceful striving with intense effort. As John the Baptist said the kingdom of heaven can be entered by forceful people. Forceful in the sense that it’s the most painful and forceful experience to allow God to do a 180 in your life to turn your will to his.
The beatitudes can almost serve as a warning sign as we enter the Sermon on the Mount; as we enter Jesus teaching on how to live with him.
Warning: Are you sure you want to do this?
Through this lens the beatitudes become the framework for the entire sermon. Without them the rest is read but not embraced.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Isn't it funny that we have gotten to the place where the High Cost of entering into this covenant with Jesus is a hard thing to talk about or understand. Wasn't that the mark of Christianity from the begining. Do you think if one of us was called to do something crazy for Jesus that would put us in certain financial ruin we would respond, i am a woose
Yeah, I guess the first thing that comes to mind is the usual post-constantinian (spelling?) stuff. I think Hauerwas said really simply in that sermon on the mount teaching. Before Constantine you had to believe that God was taking care of the church becuase the world was beating the hell out of you. After Constantine it seemed that God was taking care of the world because the churh was "accepted and supported" but you hoped that God was taking care of a few true Jesus followers in the vast sea of "church-goers". I guess that's why being a Christian was called "the way" early on in Acts and then it lost that name soon after.
Unfortunately we still retain much of our constantinian past in the way we view how the western church should function within our society. We want a place of honor rather than be humbled, and consequently loose the cross. We forget how true Bonhoeffer's words were, that Christ calls us to come and die.
Post a Comment