Sermons

Today we finally reach the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the first of five major blocks of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel of Matthew. And where we end is at the beginning of the life of faith.

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I find buzzwords—terms that get overused to the point of meaninglessness—to be pretty irritating. Today’s text brought up another one, one which actually defines a lot of what Jesus teaches throughout the Sermon on the Mount: Authenticity.

Every now and then when I was in college and living in the dorms, we would go into the lounge and find someone had tuned the television in there to the Christian channel. (There was only one on our system then.)

I’m sort of allergic to buzzwords. You know what I mean: words or phrases that become sort of trendy, and they get thrown around to the point that they lose all their meaning. Things like “throw them under the bus.” Or “in harm’s way,” which I know started out as sort of a cute way to describe someone being in a dangerous situation; but it’s just gotten out of hand now.

It became popular about thirty years ago, and still is in some circles, to wear bracelets and other doodads with the initials “W.W.J.D.” on them. The letters, as I’m sure you know, stand for “What would Jesus do?” We are encouraged to consider how Jesus might act in any situation, as we decide how we should act.

Fred Craddock once visited a church’s prayer group.  While he was there, he saw the group’s little book where they kept record of the things they had prayed for.  If a request was granted, they would make a note of the date on which it happened.

Fred looked at the things the group had asked for, and was sort of flabbergasted:  luxury cars, furs, dates, that sort of thing.  And he wondered, “Is that what prayer is for?”

Many years ago Mike was flipping through the TV channels when he happened on a dramatization of the Gospel of Matthew. We tuned in during the Sermon on the Mount, just in time to see Jesus talking about judgment, and minding other people’s business.

A couple shape note singers I know used to be in a sort of punk-ish band called Cordelia’s Dad. I have one of their albums, on which there is a song called “Imaginary Trouble.”

One of the first things we learn when we begin to study the Psalms is how, in Hebrew poetry, what rhymes is ideas, not necessarily words. So you have parallelisms, generally synonymous or antithetical.

Awhile back I bought some books from a friend of mine who has a sort of continuing online garage sale going. These books had belonged to his grandmother, who passed away a couple years ago. They were mostly “how-to” books; one was intended to teach knitting, crocheting (which I already know how to do), and other handcrafts.

The Sermon on the Mount, as it’s presented in Matthew chapters 5 through 7, is pretty loosely organized. There’s a lot in there, too. We’re spending the summer in these three chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, and we will barely scratch the surface of it.

The Iowa caucuses, for my party, at least, are sort of fun. (The other party’s caucus, I’m told, is a whole lot more controlled, but ours tends to be quite a bit more free-wheeling and chaotic.) We gather at our designated place on the designated night, and the first thing that happens is some of the local party leaders make a few speeches, then give instructions on what we’re to do. Then supporters of candidate “A” go to one room, and candidate “B”’s supporters go to another one, and so on until all the candidates’ supporters are separated out into their places.