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Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 7:7-12
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Your mistakes yesterday, they don't stop you from being generous today. Your momentary misfire this morning, that doesn't mean you can't speak grace and acceptance to those near you right now. Like, none of your mistakes, no matter how evil you have been, none of that stops you from being better right here, right now. Welcome to the CommonsCast. We're glad to have you here.
Speaker 1:We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Welcome. If we haven't met, my name is Jeremy. I'm one of the people who hang out around here at Commons.
Speaker 1:And today, we have reached the penultimate message in our Sermon on the Mount series. We have today, we have next week, and then we're on to something new. But last week, we looked at Jesus on judgment. And we read these famous words together. Do not judge or you too will be judged.
Speaker 1:First, take the log from your own eye, then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brothers. However, this is far more than just a pithy saying from Jesus. This is more than Jesus simply saying, to each their own, live and let live, do not judge. This is actually Jesus saying something far more profound than all that. This is something more like good, healthy, other centered judgment is an essential part of our shared humanity.
Speaker 1:We desperately need each other to become the best version of ourselves, but that can only ever happen when our judgment is always in the best interests of another. As we said last week, we need each other, but we need each other to be for each other. And it's interesting, this week, after that sermon, I came across an article in the Personality and Social Psychology bulletin, and yes, I was just casually reading psychology journals this week, but the article was entitled Hypoegoic Nonentitlement is a Feature of Humility. Now as opaque as that title is, the research in it was fascinating. Basically, these researchers, Chloe Banker and Mark Leary, were looking at humility and what the defining characteristic is across human cultures and systems.
Speaker 1:The idea being that every culture, every religious system seems to value humility. We know that it's something to aspire to, so what does humility actually look like in practice, or at least, what are the social cues that signal humility to each other? And what they came to was this idea of hypo egoic non entitlement, which was basically just a fancy academic way of saying that humble people don't seem to think they're entitled to special treatment. That's really it. Now, that may not seem particularly revolutionary.
Speaker 1:Your socks may still be firmly on at this point, but the really interesting thing here is that people who are perceived as humble, they don't downplay their achievements, they don't have low expectations for themselves, they don't undersell their possible contributions to those around them. In other words, people who are perceived as humble don't think lowly of themselves at all. In fact, humble people tend to have a very well defined sense of their value. Instead, what seems to set someone apart as humble is a sense of non entitlement. In other words, I know what I have to offer.
Speaker 1:I understand my contribution. I know my value to those near me. I just don't think that entitles me to anything more than the person beside me. And that is really fascinating when placed alongside Jesus' words from last week. Because Jesus walks us through our need to be introspective, to understand our biases, to do our own work internally first before ever turning our gaze toward another, but Jesus never assumes we have nothing to offer on the other side of that.
Speaker 1:In fact, Jesus' grounding assumption is that when we have done our work and when our perspective and position and bias and privilege are understood and metabolized well, we will absolutely have something to offer. Then you will see clearly enough, he says, to help your neighbor remove the speck from their eye. For Jesus, humility is not what buries your contribution. Humility is what unlocks everything you have to offer. If I could say it this way, your ego is what assumes your privilege within the story.
Speaker 1:Your humility is what assumes your contribution to the story. And those are two very different things. But, that leads us right into the next line from Jesus in Matthew. A line I ran out of time to talk about last week, but we're here now, so we might as well do it. Where Jesus follows up on this statement about planks and eyes and he says, do not give to dogs what is sacred.
Speaker 1:Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. Now, this is sort of a strange statement, and so sometimes people wonder exactly what to do with it. But the key here is to understand that while Jesus is changing metaphors, he's really just sticking with the same idea here. In verse five, he talks about doing our own internal work.
Speaker 1:First, take the log out of your own eye. Now he talks about our interpersonal work. Work. That before we ever take it upon ourselves to initiate a hard conversation with someone else about what they need to change, there are actually two important questions we have to ask ourselves. The first is, am I ready?
Speaker 1:Have I done my own work? Have I uncovered my bias? Am I ready to be humble in offering myself to another? And the second is, have I earned the place to speak just yet? Is this other person ready to hear me?
Speaker 1:Have I demonstrated my care and my concern, my love beyond question in their eyes already? Because if not, then I may not be heard the way that I intend. And look, I know we tend to hear this line and we think, okay, dogs and pigs, obviously they're the villains in the story, but think about this. If you try to feed pearls to pigs and they get annoyed because pearls aren't what they need right now, is it really their fault? What Jesus is saying is that it doesn't matter how right you are, how wise you are, how well intentioned you are.
Speaker 1:If you are sticking your opinions, your perspectives, your wisdom, and your solutions where they're not wanted or needed, you need to learn to take a seat. Because here's the hard reality for Jesus. The measure of your wisdom is always the way in which it is received. Pigs aren't the problem. Maybe it's those of us who haven't yet earned the right to share our pearls of wisdom.
Speaker 1:Last week, as we said, we need each other. Sometimes we even need each other to judge each other. But the only one who ever gets to judge you is the one who has already demonstrated that they are for you. And when that's the case, when you have earned the right to speak, when you have demonstrated your care beyond question, when you are undeniably on the side of the person you are speaking to, then I promise you, your pearls will be welcomed as the gift that they are. But first, you have to earn that right.
Speaker 1:Now, today, we wanna talk about good transitions, the vulnerability of asking, doing good right where you are, and the difference between bread and stone. But first, let's pray. God of every good gift, who offers to us hope and welcome, embrace and warmth, may we today know what it means to turn toward you fully, To trust in you. To be confident in your goodness to us and your commitment among us. Might we truly believe that we are invited to know that you are always for us today.
Speaker 1:And if we have asked for help before, if we have sought you in the past, if we have knocked and knocked and knocked until our knuckles bled and still found no answer, Might you be present to us now by your spirit, tending to our broken hands, wrapping our wounds with care, bringing healing and peace into past moments where we may have felt abandoned. Might we learn what it means to trust all over again, but never now with apathy for those who feel distant from divine care. In time, may even our moments of loneliness only ever turn us toward those in need. May even our difficult stories become soil for your grace which spills out to those around us. May we learn to trust again in the goodness that surrounds us always.
Speaker 1:And when we find the courage to knock again, might you answer us with open arms In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Okay. Let's jump back in with Jesus, and we're gonna start bringing his sermon to a close here. But he still does have some really interesting ideas for us.
Speaker 1:But today, we'll begin reading from Matthew seven. This is starting in verse seven where we left off, where Jesus says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, the one who seeks finds, the one who knocks the door will be opened to.
Speaker 1:Which of you, if your son asks for bread would give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish would give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, well then how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask? So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. For this sums up the law and the prophets.
Speaker 1:Matthew seven verses seven to 12. Now, it's a bit of a rangy discussion here. Moving from asking, seeking, and knocking to fish and bread and snakes and stones, and then finding our way all the way back to the law and the prophets where we were preoccupied a few weeks ago. But this opening line, ask and it will be given, that sounds at times like a pretty straightforward prosperity gospel, name it and claim it kind of moment. If you want it, well, then God wants it for you.
Speaker 1:And, unfortunately, that is exactly how this has been used at times, and I'm gonna suggest right off the bat that is probably not what's going on here. In fact, I'm going to suggest that God giving us exactly what we think we want sounds like a terrible idea. This week, I was getting some of my hockey equipment ready. We have a team that plays in a local league. We won our first game of the season on Saturday.
Speaker 1:We are terrible, so pray for us. But I was fixing a screw that came loose on my helmet, and my son was watching. And he asked if he could try it on. And I said, sure. Of course you can.
Speaker 1:However, when I went to put it on him, he immediately turned to me and said, actually, on second thought, that helmet is very stinky, and I don't want it anywhere near my face. And I thought, fair, but also you're never going to be a hockey player with that attitude. However, point being, we frequently ask for things that seem much better on paper than they are in reality, and any theology that doesn't account for that seems woefully naive at best. So we're gonna have to take a closer look here at what Jesus is actually saying. Because first, he starts in with very little context.
Speaker 1:He says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. And this is really interesting because I think we tend to assume off the bat that Jesus is obviously talking about God here. But he doesn't actually say that, at least not yet.
Speaker 1:No. He is going to give some context that will clarify that absolutely God is part of what he has in mind. But given where his sermon has just been, this deeply introspective look at ourselves, and then the need to be cognizant and careful in our speech to each other, I think that if you were just listening to this sermon, if you were following Jesus along as he goes, your first instinct here might actually be to assume that he is still talking about us. First, take the plank from your own eye, then you will see clearly enough to help your neighbor. Don't throw your pearls where they're not welcome.
Speaker 1:Earn the right to speak your truth because those who take a posture of asking and listening and knocking and waiting to be invited in, they will have the door opened to them eventually. Now, follow me here. I'm not saying this isn't about God. Jesus is gonna make a pivot in the next section to broaden the conversation to include the divine, but as a sermon, this is masterful. One of the things that I probably talk about too much with our team when it comes to writing sermons and presenting is transitions.
Speaker 1:See, I can't stand when preachers make one point, and then another point, and then another point. So what I find is that when I'm listening, every time it becomes abundantly clear that we have finished one section and now we are moving on to something else, that's the cue for my mind to wander. Now I get it. There are some people who really do prefer a very clear outline to what they're listening to. That's why I usually try to give you a bit of a heads up on where we're going for the day.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, when I talk, I always want my transitions to feel like the natural movement from one flow into the next. Granted, sometimes I do that better than others, but for me, the difference between a lecture and a sermon is the difference between the dissemination of information and the performance of a story that draws you in and moves you along through the same ideas. That means that for me, rather than hard stops and clean starts, good sermons tend to have slippery transitions that move between ideas as seamlessly as possible. And I think Jesus gets this better than most. Because ask, seek, knock applies just as meaningfully as a conclusion to what has just come as it does an introduction to what follows.
Speaker 1:And that is brilliant. If you want to be a good friend, if you want to be humble, if you want to judge well and offer yourself as a gift to those around you, well then ask where you can help. Seek first to understand. Knock and wait for the door to be opened to you, and it will be. Now, understand that Jesus is gonna transition here to our relationship with God, But part of what makes it so sticky is that he moves seamlessly from us to God and then back as if it was the natural extension of the same conversation.
Speaker 1:And I don't think that's unintended. You see, think ask, seek, knock is as much about our interpersonal dynamic as it is about our spiritual journey, and maybe that's the point. Because as much as we might initially hear this and think, okay, this is great. We're gonna get whatever we want. There's actually something very profound that only seems to really connect once we hear this in the context of a relationship.
Speaker 1:So think about it this way. You walk into monogram and you ask for a coffee. There's an assumed transaction with that ask. Right? They are gonna make you a coffee.
Speaker 1:You are going to give them the designated value of that drink. There's nothing particularly profound in that kind of interaction. It's understood. It's all part of the financial and social contract that we operate within, so no big deal. Problem is sometimes I think we think of God that way.
Speaker 1:Now, we know that we can't buy God or we can't pay God back, but we almost sort of think of the divine in transactional terms. I did my part. I prayed. Or I was a good person. Or I gave some money to this or that.
Speaker 1:Now I get to ask for what I need. And at some level, of this is true. Jesus tells us openly and plainly that we should all feel welcome to come and ask and seek and knock, and yet, if we go back now to the example of coffee and we replace walking into monogram with going to a friend and asking, look, I'm out of cash. Can you buy me a drink? It does feel a little bit different, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:Because it's no longer just a transaction. It's a relationship now, and there's an implication in that ask. It's not just an isolated moment. There's a history that's led up to that moment. There's a self disclosure in that moment.
Speaker 1:There's a future that will be shaped both by the ask and by how the other person responds to it. And sure, coffee is pretty low stakes, but what if you went to a friend and had to ask for a place to stay for a while? Or a shoulder to cry on or an interest free loan? What if you had to go to someone and call them to pick you up because you had a little bit too much to drink that night? What if you needed more than you could possibly ever pay back?
Speaker 1:What if you knew that, and what if they knew that? You see, when we enter this conversation about asking and seeking and knocking from the imagination of God as vending machine in the sky and transaction is the framework, I think we miss the moment. But when we enter this conversation through the lens of relationship, and when we're tracking with Jesus through his teaching on interpersonal dynamics and we watch him now transition to God through that lens, I think possibly we hear things very differently. Because all of a sudden, Jesus' teaching on asking is no longer about this blank check to cash in whenever we want. It becomes an invitation to be vulnerable before the divine.
Speaker 1:See if we heard ask, seek, knock, and our first thought was amazing, now I can get whatever I want, I think we might have missed the point. Because I think actually a better response might be something like, I'm not sure I'm ready for all that yet, Jesus. I mean, I appreciate the offer. I really do. I'm just not sure I'm ready to be that vulnerable yet.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure I'm prepared to be that naked even before God. Because asking for help, like really asking, really seeking, really standing at the door, pleading for it to open to you, this is a sacred moment of coming to terms with our essential dependence. And that will always take a certain measure of courage. You see, wanting is easy and buying is simple. Borrowing and purchasing, these are second nature to us, but I'm convinced that asking can be a spiritual act of surrender for those of us who are too enamored with our own self sufficiency.
Speaker 1:And it's only when we begin to see our ask of God in relationship with our ask of each other that this reality really comes home for us the way that Jesus intends. And so it's now in that light that Jesus makes the full transition here. He says, which of you, if your son asks for bread, would give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish, would give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to all those who ask?
Speaker 1:In everything you do, do for others what you would have them do for you, for this sums up the law and the prophets. And you see here how easily Jesus transitions from us to God and all the way back almost as if they were never separate to begin with. But, also, notice here that Jesus refuses to pull his punches. He says, if even you who are evil can give good gifts. And I think our first response here is to put our backs up a little bit, like, I mean, Jesus, I'm not evil.
Speaker 1:Calm yourself. Sure. I've kicked a puppy or two in my day, but let's not start calling names. By the way, that's just a joke. I have never kicked a puppy.
Speaker 1:Don't put that on Facebook. However, I don't think the point here is that we should take offense. In fact, I don't think the point of Jesus is how bad we are. In fact, I think it's actually the opposite. Sometimes in religious circles, we have this terrible tendency to focus on the worst of ourselves.
Speaker 1:And don't get me wrong, we all have work to do. And sometimes the more work we do, the more spirit is able to show us just how much more work there is ahead. But the focus here isn't our badness. The focus is actually how much good we can do even in the midst of our badness. I mean, if we're willing to listen to Jesus here, he's not jumping down our throat.
Speaker 1:He's actually saying something more like, it doesn't matter how much work you have ahead. You are still capable of goodness right now, right here. Your mistakes yesterday, they don't stop you from being generous today. Your momentary misfire this morning, that doesn't mean you can't speak grace and acceptance to those near you right now. In fact, none of your mistakes, no matter how evil you have been, none of that stops you from being better right here, right now.
Speaker 1:And there's something actually incredibly freeing when we realize that. But we still have one important piece to talk about here. Because Jesus talks about bread and stone and fish and snake. And part of this is obviously the absurdity of these images. Right?
Speaker 1:It gives a stone to someone who's hungry, but there is another level here as well perhaps. See, in the ancient world, bread was baked in stone ovens. It wasn't formed into trays to create that familiar toast shape that we're all familiar with today. It was largely just lumps of dough baked on stone into blobs of bread. Now today's sourdough is all the rage.
Speaker 1:You know this. I know everyone here has their own starter that they are deliberately keeping alive in their fridge. I get it. That's great. It's at least much less terrifying than those SCOBYs everybody was keeping alive to make kombucha a few years ago.
Speaker 1:That was terrifying. But in the ancient world, bread looked like this. And this is an image of a loaf of bread that was actually made with recovered 4,500 year old Egyptian yeast. It was found alive on unearthed pottery and then cultivated so that it could be used again. Quite fascinating, actually.
Speaker 1:But Jesus is teaching in the area of the Galilee, right along the ancient shore where for thousands of years water had run up on the rocks. So this is not the Rocky Mountains. This is the land of smooth, worn volcanic rock. Here's an image of the shore of Galilee from today. Note the water bottle washed up on the rocks.
Speaker 1:We really do need to do something about single use plastics in the world. But the comparison is hyperbolic. Right? Nobody gives a hungry person a stone. The images, however, seem to be chosen purposefully.
Speaker 1:Okay. Fine, you say. But snake and fish, I mean, we're not exactly going to make steak those for each other, are we? Well, the Sea Of Galilee was home to a lot of, how shall we say, not high end stock. Tilapia was the predominant food source, but carp, catfish, and eel were the majority catch.
Speaker 1:Now interestingly, Jewish people typically did not eat any of those, particularly eel because eel don't have scales which is part of the Levitical dietary restrictions. But they certainly would have caught them and they definitely would have sold them to Gentiles. This is what an eel from the Sea Of Galilee looks like today. Now, I'm certainly not gonna eat that, but to each their own. An interesting little aside here, if you look closely at da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper, they are actually sitting around the table eating sliced eel, is a very common meal around Leonardo's time, maybe one of his favorites.
Speaker 1:However, the images Jesus chooses here seem far too familiar to just be purely coincidental. And maybe that's part of the point. That our asking and our seeking and our knocking are inherently relational because they involve more than just what we want. They involve who we trust to ask. Look, sometimes what we ask for and what we need, sometimes what we think we want and what we actually desire, sometimes these are much harder to parse than we imagine.
Speaker 1:In fact, sometimes, if we're not paying attention, if we ask the wrong person, we may ask for one thing and receive another and yet not even know it until it's too late. And I think that part of what Jesus is implying is that part of our asking is actually about our trusting that the one we ask from has our best intentions in mind regardless of how we phrase our request. See, I think Jesus is saying that just as we need to be careful about where we offer our help, maybe we need to be just as cautious about where we ask for our help from. Because the freedom to come to God in our asking, in our lostness, in our seeking, in our knocking was never just about our ability to get what we want. It was always about trusting God's goodness that invites us to come in the first place and then transforms us into an answer for someone else.
Speaker 1:Look, I know that there have been moments in your life that have let you down. You asked, you sought, you knocked, and no one answered, and I don't want for a second to minimize any of that pain. I don't know why things happened the way that they did. I don't understand where God was in your hurt. But I know that Jesus tells us the universe is for us.
Speaker 1:And that the way we come to connect ourselves with the truth of all of that is to be there for each other in this moment right now. Because what Jesus seems to be saying is the more we come to believe that God is on our side, the more that we will be there to open the door for those who find themselves left on the other side. And this is really the brilliance and the beauty of what Jesus offers to us in this section. It's beginning with us. It's moving to God, and it's bringing everything back around to each other.
Speaker 1:That God is not a vending machine in the sky to answer all of your problems. It's the conviction that when we believe the God of the universe is actually willing to listen to us, we will then instinctively become the answer for those who still seek. So may you find in yourself the courage to be vulnerable in your ask. And then may the answer you receive become within you the strength to open the door for the person who continues to stand outside. May you trust that God is good.
Speaker 1:And then in everything you do, may you do for others what you would have them do for you for this sums up the goodness of God. And it makes real in the world the freedom to come, to ask, to seek, and to knock. Let's pray. God of every good and gracious gift. For those times when we have come and we have sought and we have knocked and we have bloodied our knuckles and not found what we were looking for.
Speaker 1:Would you be present to us by your spirit? Healing us, caring for us, consoling us, comforting us, repairing us and bringing us back to the place of knowing that we are loved. And then, God, may even those moments of despair turn us only towards those who are still in need. May we recognize that our invitation to come to you with all of our needs, with all of our concerns, with all of our questions, and all of our lostness should only ever turn us into the person who is willing to share our resources with another, to offer our story to someone who is seeking, to open our door to those who need welcome. God, may your goodness and your graciousness be transformed into our answer for another.
Speaker 1:And in that, may that virtuous cycle invite us deeper and deeper into relationship with you. May we sense your goodness that surrounds us always even in the midst of our seeking. And may that turn us back toward each other with grace. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.