SERMON | Matthew 5:1-12 | GLIMPSES OF THE KIN-DOM - 3. "Of the Same Mind" by Rev. Joseph Sanford at Sellersburg United Methodist Church in Sellersburg, Indiana

Sellersburg United Methodist Church Sermon Podcast

Glimpses of the Kin-dom: Kin-dom - the activity and influence of God here and now through the people of God, the body of Christ in the church. Kin-dom - where heaven and earth overlap and coexist. We catch glimpses of it in and through the church — where the Reign of God is fully present and embraced by the Kin-dom family. We are born anew through baptism into the church. It’s in that moment that we embrace the Holy Spirit back We are raised in the church, like a family, to learn and grow into our faith. We have the same mind and purpose (our bigger yes) — to live as the Kin-dom together and share the power of the cross through our lives and in our relationships for our world. We begin a 3-week focus on the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew’s Gospel — Jesus is the new Moses Having avoided being killed by a powerful king… Having fled to a neighboring country to live as a refugee… Having come from Egypt into the land of Israel… Having entered the waters of the Jordan and passed through to the other side… Having assembled the people… Jesus now goes back up a mountain to not just receive the Law, but to give it. Now, let us remember that everything that has happened so far has defied expectation Mary and Joseph have been surprised… The kings from the east have been surprised… John the Baptists has been surprised… The disciples who have been called to follow have been surprised… Jesus is doing something no one has ever seen and no one had ever expected. He is bringing the Kin-dom into the world with the message: Repent, for the Kin-dom of God is at hand. To enter into the Kin-dom at hand, we must change our whole perspective. People are going to struggle to do this, but Jesus keeps at it… This brings us to our passage today: He offers what has been considered the greatest sermon ever given. The opening of this sermon are pronouncements of blessing. Let’s hear them now. Matthew 5:1-12 Jesus offers the new law. Moses received the Law of the ten words on the mountain in Sinai… Jesus gives the pronouncements of the Kin-dom on a hill in Galilee. What a list! We know from Paul that the Law of Moses brings a particular burden upon the people. Since the Law is impossible to fully follow, Paul says, it brings sinfulness into full view. No one has ever been able to embody and become what the Law demands — except Jesus, of course. It’s interesting that we hear of fights in our lives to make sure the 10 words are hung up in various public buildings. An impossible law from which we have been freed is a peculiar thing to want to see hanging everywhere. What if we hung the Kin-dom pronouncements of Jesus, instead? They are called beatitudes because the word for blessed in Latin produces the word beatus. What if the pronouncing message from the Kin-dom on earth, the church, was this list of pronouncements of blessings rather than a list of laws no one can actually follow? But therein lies the problem… We don’t know what to do with the beatitudes, do we? We often turn them into another list of things we are supposed to do…which prove to be impossible. It would stand to reason, then, if Jesus is bringing the freedom of the Kin-dom into our lives in a way that fulfills the impossible Law, that the beatitudes are not just another set of laws, right? They aren’t a list of ways we are supposed to live. They weren’t meant to be. If we can find ways to allow the Holy Spirit to grow our lives into the kind of shape that fits these beatitudes, GREAT!! But that wasn’t the point. Jesus pronounces blessings upon disciples who are listening to him on that hill. Who are his disciples? In the immediately preceding verses we see the call of Peter, Andrew, James, and John followed by a report of people from all around Galilee (including the decapolis), Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan (meaning people not from Israel). So…all sorts of people are following him. The kind of people who bring him all of the sick and diseas