Third Sunday BeforE Lent

Full time Curates in Lichfield diocese are required to spend a day a week in structured learning and reflection. For me, that time is set aside to study at The Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham, where I am taking a master’s degree in Applied Theology. This term, I’ve been reflecting on leadership and what this means in the context of church today. This Wednesday– we were considering change and transition, fascinating stuff!

Change and the process of change – transition, is something common to all of us; I invite you to think about that for a moment. What change or transitions have occurred in your life in the last year? At home, amongst your family and friends, in work, out of work, in health, relationships or in circumstances? Perhaps you’re right in the middle of a transition of change right now.

Some of us thrive on change and are hugely energised by it, but let’s be honest; some of us find change draining and rather scary. But one thing is certain; change in our lives is inevitable! Even as Christians, even though we might think at least here in church things needn’t change – they can stay the same. I’m afraid not, our gospel reading today challenges that very idea.  For change is what today’s gospel reading is all about.

Come with me, to take a look again at Matthew chapter 5: verse 38 following. We are still in those verses which scholars call The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has sent the crowds away and is sitting  his close friends the disciples, the ones who are journeying with Jesus and learning a new way of living with and from him. And we are invited, this morning to eaves drop on their conversation.

We hear two further sayings or antitheses of Jesus as he sits chatting to his friends. Each time, Jesus starts, “you have heard …..” and then he goes on to talk about the Jewish law and contrasts this with a radical change of understanding the law – which takes Jesus’ followers deeper into the heart of God, deeper into a new way of living, a change from how they’ve seen things before and a gradual transition as to how they are to behave as followers of Jesus. And we have here three little cameos, sketches or cartoons which Jesus uses to explain this new way of living to his followers. First he talks about a man who is struck on the right cheek – insulted by a left hand slap, implying he is inferior to the one who slaps him. Don’t retaliate says Jesus, in fact offer the other cheek. The second cameo takes place in the law court where a powerful enemy is pursuing a man.  Give him not only tunic but also cloak says Jesus. And finally, a Roman military sketch, walk the mile you are required to but go says Jesus and go on another mile,  be like God.  

The old law, set in place to prevent retribution getting out of hand, is swept aside by Jesus as he speaks. What Jesus is saying to his followers is clear:  being a Christian involves changing, seeking day by day, to have the same mindset and attitude of God. For when Jesus was mocked, he didn’t respond. When Jesus was challenged: he told quizzical and sometimes humorous stories that forced people to think differently. When Jesus was insulted he didn’t retaliate. When Jesus was struck he took the pain. When told to carry the cross: he did so, to the place of his death. When nailed to the cross: he prayed for those with him.

So, the gospel reading today is not just good advice given by Jesus to his close friends – it is good news. Jesus is good News. In Jesus we see a new way of being – a way, all who seek to walk with Jesus can discover for themselves. Sound impossible to be so radically different?  Let’s be honest with each other, it can feel so sometimes can’t it? It’s hard not to retaliate, even if not physically, in our minds, hard to offer a gracious and merciful response to those who hurt us, who ridicule us or leave us feeling, crushed.

In our Old Testament reading this morning, God spoke to Moses saying: Speak to … the people of Israel and say to them, you shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy. How can we be holy? Even if we feel we want to change? We want to cry like the psalmist “Teach me…. the way of your statutes... Give me understanding that I may keep your law and obey it with my whole heart.” Impossible? Yes it is on one level but not with God.  “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells within you” says Paul, in this mornings’ New Testament reading. God’s Spirit living within you and me … makes the impossible, possible. God’s Spirit enables a transition in our lives that we can hardly dream of or imagine if we open ourselves to allow God to work.

So what about my situation or that individual with whom I am tempted to seek retaliation, or hold onto a past wound allowing it never to be healed? What would it mean for us to change to enable us to reflect God’s generous love despite the provocation we may feel towards the other?  

Well, in God’s spirit, asking for God’s  daily in  prayer, listening and waiting on God, reading the Bible regularly by ourselves and with others, sharing our longing to grow as followers of Jesus, and coming to the Lord’s Table, sharing in the Eucharist … a transition is possible with God. Change can and will happen in and through God’s grace and because of God’s love. 

The way of living Jesus asks of us, is to change and daily be transformed into the way of agape love. A love that gives itself for the good of the recipient; that springs from the heart of the giver, who knows that love because they have experienced for themselves the gracious and merciful love of God despite their own failures and shortcomings. Like the disciples, gathered around Jesus, we too meet Emmanuel – God with us, and we discover the living God in the dying Jesus and in him we can be changed and daily transformed,  learning as we walk with Jesus to reflect God’s love to a world that needs God’s love so badly. Amen.