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When I was primary school age we knew just one family who had been divorced. This was before ‘no fault divorce’ which began in 1981, prior to that unless there was proved unfaithfulness it took four years of separation. Proof was private detectives stalking the adulterers taking photos and all that sort of carry on repeated in open court, faithfully recorded with every lurid detail in the Truth newspaper. The family we knew had a very difficult time with several court hearings over a number of years to get custody, property and maintenance all sorted. It was a fraught business and still is. The husband remarried after his divorce came through but from that point on this born and raised committed catholic was no longer permitted to receive communion. Tough road for him, tough road for the whole family – whatever the specific rights and wrongs were.
Jesus talked about divorce in the Sermon on the Mount, he said in Matthew 5: 31-32
It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Jesus here is launching himself into one of the controversies of his day. Moses in Deuteronomy 24 had laid down that a man could divorce his wife if she displeased him because of some indecency about her, and if he did so he needed to give her a certificate of divorce in front of witnesses. She was then free to marry any other man except for her first husband.
Two schools of thought on how to apply this power had grown up, Rabbi Shammai was the conservative who interpreted indecency as being limited to adultery. The curious thing about that approach was that the penalty for adultery was stoning, which would seem to make the question of whether you can divorce an adulterer somewhat moot, as they are dead. The other curiosity was that ‘could’ divorce had come to be seen as a command, i.e. should divorce. That’s what the Pharisees said in Mathew 19.
The other approach was Rabbi Hillel who emphasised the husband’s displeasure, which according to him could extend to practically anything, if she burnt his dinner that could be it. Or, if he met someone else that he liked the look of more, the younger model. Sounds more like year 8 relationships rather than adults doesn’t it. No prizes for guessing which Rabbi was most popular with husbands.
Jesus was appalled by Hillel’s approach of easy divorce. The Law of Moses had been intended to protect women from arbitrary divorce which would see her destitute, or immediately remarried to whoever would have her. A divorced woman was very vulnerable. The requirement for a certificate was meant to stop husbands throwing their wives out then having them back the next day, it was to stop them terrorising their wives.
Speaking into this situation, Jesus says that if you divorce your wife for anything less than marital unfaithfulness of some kind, you are making her into an adulterer, and anyone that she subsequently marries. This is odd if you think about it, the woman has no power but is divorced and will likely become an adulterer through no fault of her own, as she will have to remarry to survive. However, if she had committed some act of marital unfaithfulness then she would fall within the exception, and freely be allowed to remarry. You could understand this as advice to the wife of sin big and you will be better off, but this is rhetoric. Jesus is not legislating here, rather he is expressing his outrage at easy divorce in very strong terms. He is trying to speak the truth to power, which in this case lies with the husband not the wife. Wives had little power, if they wanted a divorce they had to go to court. His message was that husbands divorcing their wives for lessor reasons were well in the wrong.
Jesus’ big point was that marriage matters to God and it is no small thing to divorce. In Matthew 19 he says
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
…
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning…
Marriage is a sacred thing, it really matters to God who has joined husband and wife together. Moses permitted divorce simply because people’s hearts were hard, so sometimes divorce is the lessor of two evils. It would appear that God is not a strict rule driven fundamentalist, sometimes the best option in an awful situation is to divorce.
In the past these verses in Matthew 5 have been used to beat people with, it has been said ‘no you cannot leave a violent husband unless he has been sexually unfaithful.’ I knew a beaten wife who agonised over these verses before she finally left. Likewise ‘you cannot divorce a man who has abandoned you’, unless you know that he has slept with someone else.
I think that it’s a massive misuse of scripture to say that a wife cannot divorce an abusive husband on the strength of Matthew 5 because
• Jesus was not legislating, this is rhetoric not law
• these sorts of issues were not discussed by Jesus, and I doubt that he who came to set the captives free would endorse someone being unable to leave a violent marriage,
• Jesus was addressing the husband’s power in his social context; and
• we are not the Old Testament people of Israel.

But, we who do not live under the Old Testament law can still take some meaning from this passage and Matthew 19, Jesus values our marriages, they are precious to him and wants them to prosper. But he understands that we are sinful people all, and that there will be times when divorce is the best outcome. I have already mentioned violence and abandonment, to which you could easily add the abuse of children, some mental illnesses and emotional cruelty. We will all know someone who has escaped a very bad marriage, and that’s a mercy.
It gets more difficult when the scenario is that two people come to the conclusion that they have made a dreadful mistake, that there is very little affinity or affection between them on which to build a successful marriage. I have known people who have divorced for that reason and frankly it’s pastorally tricky, but little is served by swotting people with a copy of Matthew’s gospel or any other proof text that we might care to throw around. We need to be gentle with each other even when we think the other is making a mistake, and earn the right to speak into one another’s lives. If I know that you care for me then I am far more inclined to listen to what you have to say to me.
I think that the better response is to find ways to support each other to live towards God’s ideal of two people doing life together until death they do part. Oxford Terrace is keen to do Alpha marriage with us again this year, it’s a really good course that gives you stuff to talk about as a couple and there is no cringe, look out for it. The port hillbilly’s homegroup are also talking about doing it.
But more personally, asking the people that we are close to how they are doing and being prepared to listen well is a good place to start, we all need to be heard.
If you are married, may God bless your marriage.
If you have been hurt by divorce, may God comfort you.

I used to be a youth pastor. At a youth camp I starred in a game of rugby league at a camp for about 2 minutes. I was running the ball up from deep in our own half of the field when two guys, one from behind and one from the side tackled me, so I didn’t really see them coming. As I fell there was this ripping sound much like this, and I also knew that legs weren’t designed to do what my right leg was doing, the angle was all wrong. In that tackle I tore several of the tendons in my knee and was quite literally stopped in my tracks.

Steph was still juggling the kids, her ministry responsibilities as well as picking up my slack in the family, so I was just at home by myself. I got quite depressed and I hid in my sad little hole feeling sorry for myself.

Then one day the phone rang, this young woman had a problem that she wanted to talk through with me. I wanted to say no because I felt like rubbish, but Jesus said in Matthew 5: 14-16

You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven.

But how could I help her from the low place I was in, but I thought you’re her pastor, she needs you so I said sure come over. We talked and to my surprise she left with much more clarity than she came with. Then I had another similar call and then a couple of days later a third. Each time I was helpful even though I was in far worse shape than any of them.

Jesus said that I am the light of the world and so are you, significantly he didn’t say
? be the light of the world; or
? do these three things and you will be the light of the world.

The verses that I read to you begin with a statement of present reality, of present identity.

Somehow our relationship with Jesus makes us the light of the world, the light which reveals the true nature of things and which shows the way as light does.

Jesus goes onto say that a city on a hill cannot be hid, Jerusalem is a city on a hill that can be seen from miles away. At night you can see the lights of Palmerston North reflecting off the cloud or the atmosphere over an hour’s drive away, and its not even on a hill. If there was ever a city that should be hidden its Palmy. We are the light of the world whether we like it or not.

Jesus goes onto say

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

The words ‘in the same way’ are an arrow to his main point. We are to let our light shine before others, the Jerusalem Bible helpfully translates this “in people’s sight”, so that they might see what? Their sin? Their need for God? No.

So that they might see our good works and give glory to the Father. So the light is on us revealing what we do, not what the evil mean bad world does, which is often how this verse has been understood, but on what we do. We are to let our light shine, not try to restrict it because that’s very hard to do and defeats the purpose of being light in the first place. [Look at the torch …] light is irrepressible; it just sneaks around the sides.

So when my life is bathed in light what will you see that you didn’t already? I did a chaplaincy placement a few years ago at a large retirement home and while I was there I visited a friend’s mother several times. My friend was rapt that I did this and did she give glory to God, not really, she thought that I was Christmas and I’m sure that many of us have had that experience. And if you try and deflect their praise onto God you look like you don’t have the good grace to take a compliment. You also appear to be making a shameless grab for the spiritual high ground

Oh it wasn’t me it was God working through me.

So not only am I really good I’m really spiritual as well. Either way God does not get the glory.

If people think that I am wonderful that is not advancing the gospel, my good deeds don’t witness to the truth of the gospel that I am a wretched sinner saved by grace. Those who are fond of saying that my life is my witness to the gospel are quite wrong; my life if it’s a good one is a witness to my own goodness. So how is it that our good works will give glory to God and not to ourselves?

My view is that if people only see our good works and our best public face they will either smell a rat and be put off, or they will think that I can never be as good as you. You are a special person and I’m just a nobody.

But look what happens when you let the light fall on yourself, when you are bathed in light. You can see that I am missing a button, there’s a loose thread on my shirt, there’s a bit of weetbix on my front – I’m a messy eater. I don’t look quite as good as I do when it’s darker, and this is what I think that Jesus is trying to say to us. The light reveals what would otherwise remain hidden.

An example of this is one of my heroes the late Henri Nouwen who wrote ‘In the name of Jesus’ which is one of the best books out there on leadership, and ‘The wounded healer’ which is one of the best books around on pastoral care. All through his life he struggled with homosexual feelings, a lifestyle that he knew wasn’t God’s best for him. I praise God for this man’s contribution, because if it wasn’t for God strengthening him he could not have made it. Nouwen was a broken man who God did great things through, his life glorified God because he was prepared to be seen for who he truly was, a battler.

I told you the story about the pastoral chats I had when I was laid up with a busted knee today, because it demonstrates the good that God can do despite us.

God is glorified when his sinful broken people persevere, when we show the whole iceberg of our lives not just the tip. When the broken and sinful person that our good deeds come through is visible. I’m not suggesting that we should put all of our whole life struggles out there for everyone to see, because that would be the cast our pearls before swine, we need to be more self protective than that.

But we ought to be letting the people who we are getting to know see more of our struggles and our weaknesses, they should be encountering the whole person not just our best public face. Do your friends here at church know your struggles? They should.

Are you willing to truly live in the light, to live good lives that glorify God by being seen for who you really are? My witness and your witness should not just be a good life well lived, it should be a good life well lived by a struggling sinner. People need to see who we truly are. If they see our sin and our brokenness they will see hope in the Christian gospel, the hope that God can change them and do great things through them as well. This is what it is to be the light of the world. But, if we hide our shortcomings then people may praise us for our good deeds, but they won’t praise God.

Its only when we are seen for who we truly are that our good deeds will glorify God. Otherwise we are the star of our own story, not God. We are living in his story so we should live for his glory – not ours.

So my challenge that I will leave you with today is, whose getting the glory for your life? How much of yourself and your struggles are you prepared to let others see.

We are working our way through the blessed statements in the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is probably the best known and amongst the most misunderstood scriptures.

Here’s an example of what I am talking about-

Blessed are the cheesemakers clip from the Life of Brian

A lot of the misunderstanding comes from seeing them as ethical standards which stand alone, and listening to them you can see why. Here is the second part of the beatitudes that we are going to be mulling on today:

Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
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.

With the response gosh it would be good if you were like that, I’d really admire you if you were meek or a peacemaker or pure in heart – shame you’re not. Just try harder and maybe you can be meek like the Dalai Lama, or a peacemaker like Mandela, or pure in heart like umm no one.

Actually, I think that there is a coherent progression in Jesus’ thought that is much more nuanced than a series of random ethical teachings. So going back to the beginning in verse 2 the expanded version goes something like this:

I am poor in spirit, I realize that I have no righteousness of my own, nothing that would commend me to a holy God. In his presence I am helpless; I can do nothing about my situation. I am a sinner, it’s not just that I do the things that I know are wrong but my identity is tied up with my sin, it defines me. On the basis of that humble attitude of heart I am accepted into God’s kingdom as his humble citizen.

Not only that I mourn because of the sin within me, as a result of the work of the spirit in my life I have come to see my true moral state before God.
When Paul cries out ‘O wretched man am I’, I can relate. But I am no longer alone, I know the comfort of God.

That true view of self has coloured my demeanor so that I am now meek, no one can really put me down because I have come to understand how truly bad I am. My greatest enemy does not know the worst of me, so ego has little to grow on. This has developed a real hunger and thirst for righteousness in me, I long to be free from the limitations and pollution that sin leads to in my life. And progressively this desire is satisfied as God by his Spirit is remaking me into the person that he would have me be. Not perfect but under construction.

The focus of those first four beatitudes is need, our need for God because of our sinfulness. The bearing in the human heart that always causes us to miss the mark, like the guns they used to give you at the A and P show to try and shoot for prizes. The aim was always skewed so you were predisposed to miss. That is the broad human experience of trying to be good.

We are not to try to be poor in spirit, to mourn, be meek or hunger and thirst for righteousness – it’s not a list of shoulds dropped on our already overburdened shoulders. Our faith drives us not we it. We are not called on to identify Christian teaching, and then by a series of exercises and practices change ourselves. Paul said it’s no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me. Our role is to consciously day by day minute by minute surrender to the leading of the Spirit in our lives. Sure we cooperate with he who would change us to be more like his Son, but activity flows from character inside. We don’t fake it till we make it like the salesman who forces themself to be someone they are not, instead God works in the unseen places in our lives and our conduct is changed as a consequence.

Christianity is not a behavioral veneer, it is a change at the very centre of who we are. Hence Jesus uses the extreme language of born again to indicate the drastic nature of what God is seeking to do in our lives, to become Christian is akin to a second birth. We are so different that we can regard ourselves as new creations. If we say that we are Christian yet Jesus’ comments about sin in these beatitudes don’t resonate, then we are early on the journey.

So why now blessed are the merciful, how does it fit? Well, if I am truly forgiven and have truly grasped my sin such that I am poor in spirit, meek, I mourn my sinfulness and want to be free of it, how can I hang onto my right to justice to those who have wronged me. If in my inner being I have been change in the way that those first four beatitudes indicate, then to be unmerciful would be incongruous. If I know how bad I am and how much mercy I have received, then I must release others. It does not come from a position of superiority, it flows from an insight into myself and that I am a sinner as well as the sinned against.

Think of the people that have wronged you, where it still hurts, are you so very different from them? Quite a while ago I was in a bruising church battle in which I was really hurt by friends and a colleague. I was slandered, my motives were unfairly represented, and by people that I trusted. It took me ages to get over it but I have. I have done the same, been unfairly critical of people, not listened properly and doubted their motives. How could I hold onto my hurt? It’s the height of hypocrisy to accept forgiveness from God but to withhold it from the people in our lives.

Then blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. When Jesus says heart here he does not just mean our feelings or our emotional centre, heart includes our mind and our will also, it’s our very self. A modern equivalent might be our soul, it’s the total you. Again, Jesus is pointing into our inner world of attitudes and character rather than conduct. We are given an identity to live out rather than a set of tasks or ethics to adopt. Purity of heart like these other part two beatitudes are the consequences of discipleship.

And the pure in heart will see God, now through a glass darkly but eventually face to face in all his fullness. Our vision of our future, our hope, is a life lived in the fully perceived presence of God. Our life now is like we are walking around wearing glasses made from the bottom of milk bottles, blurring our perceptions but we can still discern something of God. We can see his fingerprints in the life situations that we are involved in. In New Zealand history many Christians got involved in the anti apartheid movement because they saw the hand of God in that cause, at the same time plenty didn’t. They missed it.

Then there is blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God. This is the complete reversal of the Jewish messianic expectation; Jesus did not come to build an empire as the Jews supposed. Rather he came to make peace between us and God primarily, but also between people. Peacemaking is where God’s heart is so his followers are naturally drawn towards peace. The children of God naturally take after him, their heart reflects his heart. If your own rights are not important, if you show mercy, if your heart is pure, then that is a great description of a peacemaker.

Attitude and character leads to conduct. So at the beginning Jesus speaks out these beatitudes, then later in the sermon you see them lived out. Blessed are the peacemakers leads to turn the other cheek, love your enemies and don’t judge others. Likewise blessed are the merciful is mirrored in the Lord’s Prayer, Forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are our debtors. These threads extend out into Jesus’ general teaching. For example the story of the unforgiving debtor in Matthew 18:23-30

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
Which beatitude? The servant was forgiven but then would not forgive. Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy is writ large in this parable, just as blessed are the poor in spirit is reflected in the parable of the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus asking what must I do to inherit eternal life. If you look through the gospels with one eye on the beatitudes you will see traces of them all over the place.
The gospel is a call to be a child of God not to do particular things. The doing rolls out from the being, but Jesus’ initial focus is our spirituality. If we draw near to him he gives us the opportunity to do great things in us and through us.
I was at the funeral of a guy who was a youth leader with me when I was youth pastoring in Wellington, while there I ran into a guy that I have not seen for years. We talked briefly at the funeral and I went away as I often do at such things thinking I would love to have had a few hours with him. He wrote me a Facebook message later that really touched me.
Your influence on me has been enormous. You taught me that on top of all the pomp and ceremony in churches, we must be active and living out our faiths. You showed me how to do that. Thanks so much for the time you gave me as a youngish one and the great leader you are.
I was staggered by this because we were in a team together for about a year, we got on well but we were just working together. I was not trying to influence him particularly, he was just someone in the group that I was a part of. God will produce things through you in the lives of others that you are just not aware of.
The last beatitude is blessed are the persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. There is a sense of completion here because the first beatitude was blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
This is not a charter for the bombastic Christian, the fanatic, or the annoying evangelist. Steph overheard a guy in a café complaining that his employee had stuck a christian fish symbol on his company car, when the manager objected he cried persecution for his faith. I think that he was really cheeky; you don’t use your job or other people’s stuff to make your statements. If you make a nuisance of yourself then you deserve a bit of persecution, that is not what Jesus is talking about here.
He is talking about persecution for being righteous, that the more we grow in Christ the more that we can expect that to provoke a negative reaction in others. I guess that the point is that our reward is our treasure in heaven, it’s not in the respect and plaudits that do the rounds here. If the good opinion of the world matters to you then that’s a problem, because the more we advance in God the greater will our rejection be. Because, there is a spirituality that underpins our secular society, and it’s the opposite of Christian spirituality. I heard a Satanist from the Hutt Valley interviewed on the late news one night, and he said that the essence of Satanism is not worshipping a deity its worshipping yourself. He got it exactly right. He worshipped a created flawed being, himself – I think that self is at the heart of modern western spirituality.

The challenge for us on the Christian road is what really matter to us, the applause of the world or the inaudible invisible applause of heaven. I know it’s the latter but I am not there yet, how you doing?
In these beatitudes Jesus is pointing into our inner world of attitudes and character rather than conduct. We are given an identity to live out rather than a set of tasks or ethics to adopt.

If God has done his work in us then you would expect to see mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking etc. God is in the business of changing us but from the inside out, not the way of the Pharisee which starts with externals. In Philippians 1:6 Paul said he who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it. You and I are God’s works in progress, our city is being rebuilt and so are we.
Small group discussion:
Which of the beatitudes resonates with you particularly and why?
I suggest that being precedes doing – what do you think?

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