Old Testament: Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
Gospel: Matthew 5:38-48
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 3:10-23
This week our passages all seem to relate together better than some weeks. Throughout the first three chapters of 1 Corinthians the major theme, which we haven’t even explored yet, is the idea of earthly wisdom/foolishness compared to the wisdom of God. So let’s start with the Corinthians passage and then work our way backwards. Paul begins by writing about the importance of building one’s foundation on a solid foundation, which is Jesus Christ. Every foundation will be burned through the fire and tested to see if it will stand. I encourage you to read through this passage this week and try to make sense of verse 15, “If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” Is he saying that everyone will be saved, or is he only talking about Christians who have a solid foundation, but somehow got a bit confused? Verses like this just remind me that there is always something to learn and ponder when it comes to Scripture and remind us that we don’t read scripture in a vacuum. We must understand this in relation to all that Paul has taught and also read what others have said about this passage.
Paul then offhandedly says that we are the temple of God, before he picks up the theme again that we must become foolish, “so that [we] may become wise.” (18) This picks up the theme from chapter 1 that the message of Christ crucified is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (1:23) It is not a stretch in our imagination that the message of the Gospel sounds like foolishness. We serve a God who died a criminal, killed by the Romans. We confess the Trinity, a mystery so deep that it is unexplainable and incompressible. That is just theology, but we also preach loving our neighbor and our enemies, putting others above ourselves, justice, mercy, and love. The values of the world are fundamentally at odds with the values of the Kingdom of God.
This is one of the messages of the Sermon of the Mount in general
and our section here in Matthew chapter 5 in particular. In this passage Jesus begins each section by
saying “you have heard that it was said…but I say to you…” In the middle Jesus quotes
the Old Testament and then places his words at least on par with them. He takes what is wise in the world, “an eye
for an eye,” and takes it to the foolish level and says don’t ever seek
restitution. The world says it is wise
to love your neighbor, those like you, but hate your enemies. But Jesus says to love your enemies and pray
for those who persecute you. Again,
something that sounds so foolish. But
perhaps most foolishly Jesus ends chapter 6 by saying, “Therefore
you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (6:48) Most
of us have heard sermons on this particular passage before, and we don’t have
time to explore it in depth, but the traditional Nazarene response has been
about being perfect in love. Of course
no discussion of this verse is complete without a lot of talk of the Holy Spirit
and the grace of God. (Interestingly, the parallel passage in Luke says to be
merciful rather than perfect. (6:36))
When Jesus says to be perfect he
is quoting from our reading in Leviticus 19 when the Lord says, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God,
am holy.” (19:1) What follows after this is some more foolish teaching
in the eyes of the world. The farmer is
not supposed to fully harvest their fields and save some for those who have not
worked or done anything to earn it. In
the world’s eyes those who do the work get to keep the rewards. (Remember the
story about the Little Red Hen, “Who will help me eat the bread?”) Justice and
mercy are to reign supreme in our lives and we are to place others above
ourselves, just like Jesus said in Matthew.
Psalms 119 is a hymn declaring the
goodness of the Lord’s laws and precepts.
The Psalmist proclaims that he wants to follows the laws and decrees of
the Lord. Not something a worldly person
would want to do or say.
In a lot of ways the Christian
life can sometimes look foolish to those looking outside in. But we who follow Christ know that we act
this way and love this way because of what Christ has done for us and to
us. We love our enemies and pray for
them because Christ died for us and loved us when we were still disobedient to
him. Christ’s love flows to us and
through us so we can act in this way. In
2 Peter 1:4 it says that we are able to “participate in the divine nature.” It
is because of this promise and gift that we are able to act in response to the
Gospel in foolish ways to the world. The
Spirit gives us strength and grace to participate in some way in the divine
nature and to act in the ways Christ would act.
This week may we seek to follow Christ in such a way that the world is
left a little puzzled by how we act. Through
the power of his Spirit, let us be like Christ and bring his presence wherever
we go.
Grace and Peace.
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