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Part 3. This series will run 3 Sundays and be followed by a special interactive exercise on Thursday, Nov 26. To register head to www.commons.church and click on Next Steps.
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the CommonsCast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Alright.
Speaker 1:Welcome to church and same as every week. My name is Jeremy. But thank you for inviting us into your homes this way. It really means the world that we can continue conversation and community during this season this way with you. So thank you for that.
Speaker 1:But we are also at the end, sort of, of our Making More Room series. Bobby talked to us about making more room for each other. Yelena talked to us about making more room for peer groups in our lives. Today we're going to talk about larger groups, making rooms for crowds in our lives. But this Thursday we're also going to do a part four with an interactive Zoom conversation.
Speaker 1:There'll be some teaching and some breakout interactions and we'll be looking at the power of making room for different cultures in our theology and our communities. I think it's going to be a lot of fun, sign up at commons.church. Just click the Next Steps option in the menu. That will take you to the site where you can register for any of our upcoming events. And by the way, that's also where you'll find things like First Steps and Groups and Community Life events and pretty much anything that you might want to sign up for here at Commons.
Speaker 1:Today though we are talking about crowds. Crowds are an interesting thing, particularly right now this year. On the one hand this year we have seen all kinds of crowds, everything from political rallies run amok to profound protests for the dignity of black lives. At the same time we've also become a little averse to crowds, I haven't gathered as a church crowd in the same scale that we were once used to in almost nine months now. Even when the threat to public health has passed, I think we all know it's going to take a while to feel comfortable getting back into normal crowds.
Speaker 1:I watch TV shows now and I get uncomfortable about how close people are to each other. Although to be fair I was always a little uncomfortable with how close people get to each other. I like my space. You know what I mean. And yet we all know the excitement of being in a crowd at a hockey game or a concert.
Speaker 1:There's something that's really hard to match about a gathered body of people pointed in the same direction. And I remember watching the Avengers Endgame movie in the theater. Do you remember those? But I hate when people talk during a movie. I think it's just ingrained somewhere deeply in me from my childhood.
Speaker 1:My mom had this habit of reading anything that would come onto the screen out loud involuntarily. So you're watching a movie, it's a serious moment in the film, and beside you you'll hear Vienna 1974 and you're like I get it, I can read too. Anyway, back to the Avengers. Usually I cannot stand when people talk in the theater, but the moment when Captain America picked up Thor's hammer to confront Thanos and the crowd went collectively nuts, that was awesome. Because there's something about experiencing a moment together, not just with friends you know and appreciate, but realizing that you share something special with people you know nothing else about.
Speaker 1:I mean that is kind of beautiful, is it not? I mean concerts are about more than just a band, they're about singing along with the crowd. Worship at church is about more than just the music. It is about the gathered body singing for each other. By the way, I don't just mean singing to each other, I mean singing on behalf of each other.
Speaker 1:Knowing that when you can't bear to say the words the person beside you, they can. So crowds are important. They are a unique human experience and I think they are part of what we're all missing right now. And when the time comes remind yourself that even a hockey game can be healing and sacred. But today we want to look at the way that Jesus engages a crowd, way that Jesus uses the opportunity of a crowd perhaps to build a lasting, durable empathy within all of us.
Speaker 1:And to do that we're going to go back to the Sermon on the Mount. Now we looked at the Sermon on the Mount a little over a year ago. A little plug here. I've got a cute little book coming out on the Sermon on the Mount. Hopefully next year sometime we'll have more information in the New Year.
Speaker 1:But if you remember back to the series from last year where we talked about it, we spent eight weeks moving through Matthew chapters five through seven. However, in that series we only spent one week on the beatitudes and really I only focused on one beatitude that week. So that means we've got lots of room to come back and pick up some new ideas that I think can help us think about crowds in new ways. So this is Jesus famous opening to his Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Speaker 1:Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Speaker 1:Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. So really familiar, very famous words that are, if we're honest, not exactly the easiest to make sense of. That is part of our challenge today. First, let's pray.
Speaker 1:God, for all the ways you make room for us. You welcome us, you invite us, you save a seat at your table for us. May we make room for each other. First, one on one in the people that we encounter, may we hear those stories, may they change us. Next, in our peer groups, may we see our stories reflected back to us in the ways that we share and grow with each other, but God also in the crowds.
Speaker 1:May we begin to see more than just faces across a room, but beloved children of the Divine, created in your image, loved infinitely, someone that we can learn about you from. May we recognize your face all around us all the time. And as we truly begin to believe that we are welcomed and loved and embraced, may that become the way that we see every face we encounter. In the strong name of the Risen Christ we pray, Amen. Okay.
Speaker 1:Before we jump into what Jesus has to say here, we have to talk about who he's saying it to here. I mean this is a sermon about crowds after all and so the first question is well, who is this crowd? And if we back up a bit into the end of Matthew chapter four we read a little bit of the background. You start all the way back in verse 18 where it says that as Jesus was walking beside the Sea Of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake for they were fishermen.
Speaker 1:Come, follow me, said Jesus, and I will send you out to fish for people. At once they left their nets and they followed Him. So again, another pretty famous story here, although not a lot of detail. However, there is clearly something already magnetic about Jesus as these two guys just drop everything at a simple invitation. And our observations there are confirmed when the story continues that going on from there he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, and they were in the boat with their father preparing their nets and Jesus called to them.
Speaker 1:Immediately they left the boat and their father and they followed him. So I mean this is sort of the same story again but this time even more intense. This time they leave their dad in the boat and they go with Jesus. Pretty clearly I think these are stylized stories. I don't think this is meant to convey the totality of the conversations that Jesus had with these four men.
Speaker 1:This is a quick way for the writer to demonstrate the power, the draw of Jesus and to get on with the story. But it is fun though to wonder about how these conversations might have unfolded in more detail. We know that at this time studying with a teacher or a rabboni like Jesus this was a great honor. Jewish children would attend religious school from a young age and those that showed the most aptitude, they would go on to the next stage while the rest would return to learn the family trade. But then, of those that continued in their religious education, it was only the tip of the top, the brightest of the bright that would be offered the chance to learn directly from a Master Teacher like Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now, actually don't know much about Jesus education. We get this little story in Luke about him studying in the temple and wowing the scholars with his insights so who knows about his formal education. All of these four, these first disciples, they are working in the family business when Jesus comes to him. Are fishing on the Sea Of Galilee which means none of them were the brightest of the bright. And maybe Jesus saw something special in them, maybe Jesus didn't want something special in his disciples.
Speaker 1:But you wonder after being sent home from religious school or after being passed over by other teachers perhaps it was simply Jesus' invitation that sparked a long dead longing in each of them. I mean we kind of read this quick story about Jesus walking along the beach and calling out follow me and people do and it seems kind of silly. But don't underestimate the power of someone who sees something in you, particularly something others don't. So there's a crowd and we'll get to that. But those closest to Jesus, as they often are, are those that have been overlooked before.
Speaker 1:And maybe that means something to you today. God, next verse here. Jesus went throughout Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria and people brought to him all who were various diseases, sufferings, severe pain, the demon possessed those having seizures and the paralyzed, and he healed them all. So Jesus starts with the overlooked, he moves on to the ignored, and because of that we read that large crowds from Galilee, Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and the region across the Jordan began to follow him.
Speaker 1:Then verse five starts, Now when Jesus saw the crowd, he went up to the mountainside and he sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach. So this is what we know about the crowd that he's addressing here with these Beatitudes that we've read. The crowd starts with the overlooked, it builds with the ignored, the sick, and the forgotten, it grows with those from the Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem and Judea, the region across the Jordan. Now, we've talked about all this before but it's important.
Speaker 1:The Galilee is the Jewish region in the North where Jesus is from. Jerusalem is the Jewish center of the Jewish region from the South called Judea. The Decapolis is the region across the Sea Of Galilee, primarily Gentile and Roman. The map looks something like this at the time. What the writer Matthew is telling us here is that everyone is slowly becoming pretty fascinated with this Jesus.
Speaker 1:The crowd he's about to address is incredibly diverse. In fact, if we're going to try to map modern terms onto this crowd we would probably talk about the Galilee as this sort of rural blue colored Jewish region. I mean these are Jesus people. It's who he grew up with later when word about Jesus spreads even farther and someone asks Nazareth? He's from Nazareth?
Speaker 1:Could anything good come from Nazareth? Those are the people he's talking about. I mean this was like the Edmonton of ancient Palestine. And by the way I have nothing against Edmonton. I'm just a Toronto boy trying to fit in.
Speaker 1:That's the Galilee. Now Judea and Jerusalem is also a Jewish region but it's the more sophisticated urban side of the story. This is where all of the decisions get made. It's where the religious power is centered. It's where everyone expects Jesus to head as soon as he gets a crowd and yet it's also where Jesus avoids until the very last minute.
Speaker 1:Which by the way I kind of love about Jesus. You can be a big shop wealthy donor powerful man about town and Jesus is not going to shun you at all. But you're going to have to find your way into the crowd just like everyone else. There is no priority access to the Divine. Then there's the Decapolis.
Speaker 1:Now the word Decapolis means 10 cities and this included the cities of Gadara, Garrison and Gargesa. Not very creative on the naming front back then, although if you've ever driven through a suburban neighborhood in Calgary, I mean you know what I'm talking about. How many variations of Tuscany Valley View, Ridge Drive, Cove Close Northwest can you possibly have? And by the way I lived in Tuscany for a time. The answer is you can make exactly ten thirty four variations.
Speaker 1:We talked about the area of the Garrisones on YouTube this fall. You can check that out if you're interested. It's a video called Modern Readers and Demons in the New Testament. However, as part of that YouTube video we talked about how this region was primarily a Gentile Roman area. Most of the Jewish people stayed on the West Bank Of The Galilee and the Garrisones were known colloquially as the region of the cast out ones.
Speaker 1:In fact that word Garrisones that's used in the New Testament it seems to be perhaps a pejorative based term even making fun of this Gedara Gergesa Garesa trio of cities. Point is these 10 cities were not just Gentile. They were on traditionally Jewish lands and there was a lot of bad blood and political ill will built up over years between the two sides of the lake. And yet this crowd comes to hear Jesus, a Jewish man from the Galilee surrounded by Jewish people from Judea, is full of people from the region of the Decapolis, people who have crossed the lake to hear Jesus speak. So what does Jesus say to them?
Speaker 1:How does Jesus address an audience, a crowd of rural blue collar townsfolk, urban elite Jewish leaders and powerful despised Gentiles all mixed together with their common fascination of Jesus? Well, here's what I think is part of so fascinating about Jesus. Is that he continually finds ways to create both invitation and challenge for everyone and here he does it right from the start. If you remember back to last year, back to the beginning, back to the blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, this is where Jesus starts and this is where we focused a lot of our time last year. Truthfully, I think this is the key to the entire Sermon on the Mount that follows, but Poor in Spirit is not a compliment.
Speaker 1:This is not a statement about your knowledge of need. This is actually a description of your spiritual lack. It's about those, in the words of Dallas Willard, that cannot make heads nor tails of the Divine and Jesus says to them, You are blessed because God has come to you. Like if you can't find your way to God, don't worry. God will find God's way to you.
Speaker 1:Trust that. We spent the entire sermon here last year. You can find that online if you're interested, but imagine for a moment how each of these three groups of people we've identified in the crowd might hear this opening gambit. I mean, you are one of the religious elite you're probably a little put off right now. Let's say to the poor in spirit, what about those of us who are rich in spirit?
Speaker 1:What about those of us who have worked really hard at this? Those of us who are the best of the best students and we dedicated ourselves to the craft of unlocking the divine in our midst? Shouldn't we get what's coming to us? I mean this is sort of par for the course for Jesus. He likes to flip tables.
Speaker 1:That's a money changer joke for those who know. But this is sort of his modus operandi, right? Those who are first shall be last. Those who are last shall be first. This is the opening beatitude.
Speaker 1:It's what it's all about. And if you're a Galilean, used to be looking down on, your ears have probably perked up. You know what poor in spirit means. Fun fact: in the Lukan version of the same sermon Jesus simply says, Blessed are the poor. Period.
Speaker 1:Which would certainly get the attention of those in the Galilee. By the way, it's the very fact that Luke hears Jesus talking about the poor and Matthew hears poor in spirit. This is part of why we know that this Beatitude was intended to elevate those the crowd might have wanted to ignore. Both writers understood Jesus was talking about something you don't want to be, they just relate it to different aspects of life, economics or spirituality. But either way, the point is God comes for those we least expect.
Speaker 1:But what if you're one of the Gentiles here from the Decapolis here from the other side of the lake here to listen to Jesus? I mean in some ways if that's you, you are the poorest of the poor spiritually. Now ironically you might also be the richest of the rich economically but you certainly are struggling to make sense of the draw behind this peasant laborer from Galilee. I mean certainly you've heard the stories and you couldn't help but be intrigued but once Jesus gets going about law and Sabbath and fasting and commandments, I mean it's probably all Greek to you which by the way is a very funny joke because they would have spoken Greek and the Jewish people spoke Aramaic, get it? Alright fine, anyway.
Speaker 1:There's this really interesting thing that Jesus is doing here right from the start though. He's leveling the playing field in some sense. You've got a crowd that's drawn from all across the social, religious and economic landscape and yet those that assumed themselves elevated, those that assumed themselves outsiders to the message, they are all of them placed on equal footing to begin. They are none of them excluded from this conversation that is about to unfold. And right from the start the ground rules are established here.
Speaker 1:There is no us and them anymore. That's a good start, I think. See, I think any time we come together as a crowd, time we gather as a church community, for example, we are inevitably going to have all kinds of different experiences, all kinds of different perspectives, but the ground rules, this expectation that everyone is welcome as long as everyone is welcome. It's super important. Understand that if you are rich in spirit, if you spend a lifetime studying God and walking the way of peace, you are integral to community.
Speaker 1:Precisely because community is accessible to the person who is still finding their way to that path. Like that's part of what crowds do for us. They introduce us to the peers and the persons that need us and in that they give us access to the relationships we need as well. Except that can only happen when the doors are flung wide open right from the start. A crowd that is like you is not actually a crowd.
Speaker 1:But if that is part of what Jesus is doing in this opening beatitude, if he is indeed preserving the place of everyone to find themselves in this conversation, then things get really interesting as he unfolds it all from here. Next he says: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Now, who are those who mourn? Well, it's all of us, isn't it? We've talked about this in the story of Jairus this fall.
Speaker 1:All of his privilege, all of his status, none of it can save him from losing what he cares for most. But looking at the context here, this crowd that's gathered, who are those who mourn? Well, specifically I think we could say it suggests it's Jewish people who have been alienated from their land, who now stand on a scrap of land left to them side by side with those who had taken the land from them. I mean particularly because in the very next line Jesus says Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the land. Now, if you're used to reading that in something like the NIV you're probably used to hearing inherit the earth but the context here is much more earthy than that pun intended.
Speaker 1:Jesus is not talking about the globe, he's talking about the earth beneath their feet right now. And if you are part of a nation that employs a colonizing force to rule the world by power, well then this? This is a pretty big stake in the ground. Everyone is welcome here as long as everyone is welcome here. But Jesus is on a roll now.
Speaker 1:Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. I think we often hear this as a challenge. I mean, better start working hard at being righteous, being better religious persons for Jesus. But in the light of the way this opening is unfolding so far, I think there's a lot more going on here than just that. First of all, this word righteousness is the word for justice.
Speaker 1:In Greek and in Hebrew and by the way in Spanish and French and most other languages there is no difference between doing what is right religiously and doing what is right in the world. In fact, it's only in English where we use two different words depending on the context. And because of that, every time you read righteousness in your Bible understand you are reading someone's interpretation. The righteousness you are reading about is doing what is right. Period.
Speaker 1:And Jesus has just told us that everyone is welcome as long as everyone is welcome, that those who mourn will be comforted, that everything that has been taken will be returned, not through force but through gift. Now he says that what is right is like something that grabs a hold of us from the inside. And the more we see what is right, the more we understand what is right, the more we experience what is right, the more we want what is right. And the more we long for justice in the world, the more we will enact justice in the world. In other words, the more we learn to want the good, the more we will get the good.
Speaker 1:Which is perhaps why the merciful will be shown mercy, which is why perhaps the pure in heart can trust that they will eventually see the Divine. Because Jesus is talking about, he's introducing us to the slow transformation that happens when we begin to see each other as more than just faces in the crowd. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of what is right, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. And all of a sudden we're all the way back to where we started.
Speaker 1:This Kingdom of Heaven where everyone is welcome as long as everyone is welcome. And you see, this is the importance of crowds in our lives. Because following Jesus cannot just be done on our own, it has to be done in this mixture and mix, this confusion and tension of human lives rubbing up against one another. And when you realize that God has come to find you in your poverty, slowly you recognize that God has come to find your neighbor in whatever state they exist, and eventually you understand that God has come to find the one who looks nothing like you at all standing beside you right now. This is part of the power in the way that Jesus engages a crowd.
Speaker 1:Because he creates entry points for everyone, he affirms the place and love for everyone, and then he invites everyone to discover themselves in the other that stands near them. See, you can know that God loves you, but you can't ever become a peacemaker. You can't live in that Divine Love until you know that God loves the one who lives across the sea from you. In one on one we can share our stories with each other and we are moved by them in surprising ways and in peer groups we see ourselves in those near us and we are shaped and refined as we see ourselves reflected back in a crowd. In a gathering like a church that brings us together across racial and economic and social divides, a crowd that transcends these false barriers we construct in our minds.
Speaker 1:It is here that we learn peacemaking, that to love our enemy is to dissolve our enemy, it is to transform our enemy into our neighbor, the one that we owe ourselves to. And look, don't kid yourself about how easy this is. That won't do you any good. I'm not naive and neither is Jesus. Remember, he is talking here to Roman Gentiles whose wealth and power was predicated on land, forcibly taken away from those they stood beside listening right now.
Speaker 1:But it is only in knowing that we are blessed, That we are led to see the struggles around us, which helps us believe in a new future that transforms our desires for everything that is right, that becomes a gift back to us, that promises more for us, that invites us to participate in a story that is bigger than ourselves. That confirms our commitment to the Kingdom and the Commonwealth of God, to everything that is possible when we start with the fact we are loved. May you see your story in the crowd that surrounds you today. May the crowd around you help you to see your story in new ways as well. Let's pray.
Speaker 1:God, for all the ways that you invite us into a story that is so much bigger than we have eyes to see. May we recognize that our belovedness, the way that you come to us, you embrace us exactly as we are, you tell us that we are forgiven and loved, This is only the beginning. And that from here our eyes are changed to see the world around us, our desires are transformed to want what is good and just, our actions slowly come in line with that and we begin to participate in your kingdom. Step by step, choice by choice, relationship by relationship. In all the ways that we build your commonwealth, the common good for everyone we encounter.
Speaker 1:God, may we be fascinated by the crowd today. May we be captivated by the ways that we can change our view of the world. May we become citizens of your kingdom, your commonwealth, your invitation in this moment, right now. In the strong name of the Risen Christ, we pray. Amen.