A, Ash Wednesday- Matthew 6:19-21 "The Litany of Jesus' Treasures"

Matthew 6:19–21  Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Who is Jesus?  How do you explain Jesus to someone else?  Who is Jesus to you? What makes Jesus important to you, for you in your day-to-day life?

Jesus tells those who listen to his Sermon on the Mount, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasurers on earth… but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

In coming weeks, we will be examining a litany of Jesus’ life to see his treasure.  Then we can identify our treasure to gain a deeper understanding as to why and how Jesus gave up his divinity and served humanity through what he treasured.

Last Sunday we came to and from the Mountain of Transfiguration.  Now we travel with Jesus in remembrance to the Mountain of Calvary, to the cross, where the Gospel was nailed out for our deliverance from sin and death. 

We are being led to God’s kingdom, forgiven, and equipped to forgive.  Given what we need to walk the way of this wilderness through heartache and suffering.  But also, given it with hope in the great day of salvation, when Jesus will lead us through the Jordanian waters of death into the eternal land of milk and honey.

However, first we find ourselves on the mountain of teaching with Jesus as he opens up the Law to us in greater depth than the Old Testament, and with greater width than we can possibly fulfil during the length and breadth of our lives on earth.

Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with the beatitudes, “nine statements of blessedness”, then calls the hearer to be the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world”. 

He explains that he has not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfil them.  Then what would have surprised everyone he teaches, one’s righteousness needs to exceed that of the pharisees and scribes, to enter the kingdom of heaven.

He expounds the laws of murder and adultery to include, hatred and lust.  He teaches how to pray, giving them his prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, to turn meditation from themselves to God and his gifts.

What becomes apparent to all who listen with the right heart to his Sermon on the Mount, is that no one can fulfil what the law and the prophets have said.  And even more so!  Now, that Jesus has expanded the Commandments to include not glorifying the self, nor being anxious or worrying.  As well as increasing hating and calling one a fool into the same as murder, and likewise desiring with sexual hunger as the same as adultery. 

In the midst of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus focuses on what are one’s treasures.   A treasure is literally anything that you set aside as security for yourself.  He then focuses us on the greater treasures of heaven.  But the sting he leaves with us is this:  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

What is your treasure, where is your heart?  What is your haven of heavenly treasure?

To work out firstly what your heaven might be, we can place ourselves in the shoes of the young man who came up to Jesus, enquiring…

“Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”  And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.  The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?”  Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”  When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”  (Matthew 19:16-17, 20–22 ESV)

Jesus tells him to sell all his goods.  Or, to rid himself of all the things he deems good for his existence.

Now that you are in the shoes of this young man, how do you receive these words from Jesus?

This should rightfully make you feel uneasy.  With his word, Jesus cuts to the heart of every person’s treasure.  Or what we can rightfully call, goods or riches that have become idols or gods.

Jesus follows on, and says to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”  (Matthew 19:23-24 ESV)

The disciples get the gist of Jesus’ word and on hearing, “they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?”  But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:25-26 ESV)

God gives us what we need to live, but we take these things and they become treasures greater than the treasures of heaven.  But they perish, and once we’ve made them our gods, we too are in danger of perishing with them. 

Yes!  We all die!  However, these earthly treasures tempt us to trust them and lead us away from being saved.  One’s treasures can lead, not just to a physical death, but an eternal death!

The treasures of the kingdom of heaven are only possible through God.

So, what Jesus was teaching at his Sermon on the Mount is that getting the treasures of heaven is only possible through him.

In a moment we are going to receive the imposition of ashes and I will announce to you as I place an ash cross on your forehead, “remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

We do this in full realisation that through humanity’s knowledge of good and evil, we lost access to God, and that we live under the curse of death.  But upon the knowledge of the law we live looking forward in faith in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

During the Lenten season we will examine just what this knowledge of Jesus Christ is.  After the imposition of ashes, we will pray the “Litany on the Life of Jesus” which will be the form of our five meditations. We will also learn of the activity of God the Holy Spirit as Jesus passively lived seeking treasures of his Father in Heaven, his name, his kingdom, and his will, as he walks to the cross for us.

In this Litany of Jesus’ treasures, the Holy Spirit will seek to give you a deeper understanding and teaching of…

1)   The prayers of Jesus, so we might allow the Holy Spirit to inspire us to pray.

2)   The gifts of Jesus, so we might allow the Holy Spirit to inspire us to give.

3)   The toils of Jesus, so we might allow the Holy Spirit to inspire us to work.

4)   By the love of Jesus, so we might allow the Holy Spirit to inspire us to love.

5)   By the cross of Jesus, so we might allow the Holy Spirit to inspire us to live. 

In allowing the Holy Spirit to rule in our hearts, bringing us to Jesus, we will be Holy Spirit prepared to tell others what the Gospel is.  How we are blessed by forgiveness.  Understand for ourselves God’s purpose for us, despite the curse of sin and death in our lives.  And therefore, show the compassionate steadfast love and generosity we receive, to others, who like us, need God’s forgiveness and salvation.  Amen.

C, Epiphany 6 - All RCL Readings "A Level Playing Field"

Jeremiah 17:5–10  Psalm 1:1–6  1 Corinthians 15:12–20   Luke 6:17–26

The Gospel reading before us today is Luke’s parallel to the Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew Chapter five.  Luke however begins by saying, “Jesus came down and stood on a level place”, which here in Luke is why it earns the name, “Sermon on the Plain”.

Jesus had just chosen the twelve disciples, or twelve learners, on the mountain and coming down from doing this, teaches the crowd together with the disciples.

As Matthews Gospel records, Jesus teaches not just Judeans and folk who had come from Jerusalem, but also Gentiles too.  The Gentiles he mentions in his account are from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, this is the region of Southern Lebanon today.

Although the locations seem different between the two accounts, the material Jesus teaches is the same.  He teaches what it is to be blessed.  And it is where we get the name Beatitudes, as beatus is the Medieval Latin word for blessed.

However, Luke also adds a parallel list of woes.  Four blessings are counted by four woes, whereas in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount there are nine blessings.  These are the four in parallel…

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.” “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.”

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.”  “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.” 

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!  Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”   “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”

After the Israelites crossed over the Jordan into Canaan, the land of milk and honey, Joshua led the Israelites, proclaiming blessings and curses from Mt Gerizim and Mt Ebal, as Moses had commanded them to do beforehand.  (See Deuteronomy 27-28, Joshua 8:30-35)  

Jesus is the new Joshua announcing blessings and woes.  We know Joshua and his generation died.  Following him, came Judges in Israel who were called to lead the Israelites out of their curses back into the blessings of God.  Unlike Joshua, after Jesus died, he was raised in glory.  In fact, Joshua, like all who die, waits in hope for his resurrection blessing through Jesus Christ.

Paul speaks on the blessings of Jesus’ resurrection and mirrors that against, “if Christ was not raised from the dead”.  If Jesus did not die or was not raised from death, Paul says our faith is vain and futile.  We would be still in our sins.  In other words, we would be the most cursed of all cursed to walk the earth, having falsely trusted and testified about God.

However, we are blessed because Jesus Christ has risen in power over our sin and death.  This blessing was begun in us when we were baptised into Jesus’ death and resurrection.  So, what do these “woes” have to do with us now that we are baptised into Jesus’ death.

Jesus’ death has everything to do with our woes!  Just as much as his death and resurrection has everything to do with our blessedness!

In fact, Jesus becomes cursed for us, and we receive his blessedness.  Our sinfulness is hung on him on the cross.  A completely desolate, destitute, and deserted Jesus Christ descended into hell in our place.  But, because he was without sin in himself, but selflessly bore our sin according to the will of God the Father, he was raised and has received all the blessings of the first-born Son of God.

Unlike Jesus, we are still journeying through this life.  We live with the hope of our resurrection, but also with the reality of the curse and its woes.  These have been with humanity since Adam and Eve turned from God to the desolation of life without fear in God, without trust in God, and with all love directed inward, towards both one’s good and evil desires.

Just as those from the coastal plains of Tyre and Sidon, as well as those from the hill country of Judea and Jerusalem were taught together with the disciples by Jesus, he levels the playing field with us too.  He levelled the playing field for Jews and Gentiles who heard the same plain message at the Sermon on the plain.

Today it’s still relevant for all believers and unbelievers, pagans, and people of all religious persuasions, and Christendom too.  We all face the droughts of life and the final desolation of life in death.

All of us face the “Blessings and Woes” of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain.  For those not in Jesus Christ the woes and blessing are an inexplicable riddle or a cruel twist of fate in which one lives.  No matter how much good one strives to accomplish, the result is the evil of death.

However, for Christians guided in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit gives plain and simple understanding, in the curses and blessings of us living with the curse of sin and our deeds of sin, and at the same time as living with the blessedness of forgiveness that covers sin. 

As the psalmist says in Psalm 32, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.  For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.  [Selah]  I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.  [Selah]” (Psalm 32:1–5 ESV)

The Holy Spirit wills us to confess our sins to God.  We acknowledge the poverty in our life and receive the wealth of God’s blessing in Jesus Christ.  For now, it is held in faith and in the hope of the dissolution and death of all life sources other than Jesus’ resurrection.

So too, the death and resurrection of our hunger and fullness, our weeping and laughter, and our exclusion as evil as well as the perverted goodness in pleasures and popularity.

Jesus is like the weed and feed we buy to hose our lawns.  He kills the weeds and feeds our faith in the weary walk through the drought-stricken desolate deadliness of our days we spend here on earth. 

This is not about bringing down the tall poppies around us and making us better than our neighbour.  No!  It’s about the weeding and feeding within each of us, so we all grow together, healthy, and strong.  Like a healthy lawn pleasing the gardener, who has gone to the effort of painstakingly weeding and feeding it.

Jeremiah warns those of us who trust one’s own strength to feed and fertilise themselves.  Those who do, kill themselves with the salts they seek within themselves.   He cautions, “He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come.  He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.”  (Jeremiah 17:6 ESV)

But those who live in the drought-stricken desolate deadliness of our days are called to be weeded and fed in the solution of God’s salvation. 

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.  He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?  “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” (Jeremiah 17:7–10 ESV)

God is making desolate the weeds of our sin with his forgiveness in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  The wickedness of our sin is being levelled in God’s judgement, poured out on Jesus.  We now live on the splendour of Jesus’ holy faithfulness that led him through death into life with our Heavenly Father.

God knows the way of the righteous because the Holy Spirit continues to destroy your wickedness and make you holy and righteous in Jesus Christ.  Therefore, God knows you better than you even know yourself. 

You have heard him and are being healed from this life’s disease!  Your unclean human spirit, which causes trouble in this life, is being cured of the curse and is being blessed in the body of Christ.  Amen.