No return to the old ways...

Matthew 8: 1-17

¹⁷This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.’

Only the Creating, Sustaining and Redeeming God can instantaneously cure the sick. The writers of the gospels were in no doubt; Jesus is the Creating, Sustaining and Redeeming God. Jesus is God with us (Matt 1:23). However, the question remains: is it possible for us to live out His teachings, there related practices of the Sermon on the Mount and be transformed by them? Perhaps these teachings are a set of high ideals that we strive to attain but we have little hope of being transformed by them. Or, perhaps they are for a time to come; a time when there will be no choice in the matter we will live by them because the transforming power of the Kingdom of invitation and love of enemies will be displaced by a benevolent dictators rule and his authority to enforce them. Will love inspired transforming participation be displaced by a return to a gentler oppression and violence?  At the end of the Sermon on the Mount the writer of Matthew presents us with three ‘Healing’ stories and one summative generalisation about the crowds that followed Jesus which again demonstrates that Jesus has inaugurated the Kingdom of God; the Kingdom has come and is in the process of being wholly established through seeking our participation and transformation; but it’s here and elicits a response from us. These three stories again present us with three elements of the: current cultural practice, current cultural outcome and the transformative practice of the inaugurated Kingdom. Illness and the life threatening frustration of physical needs, the loss of health has not only physical but psychological and social effects. A leper (2), a desperate Roman centurion (5) and a family referred to as Peter’s house (14) are suffering the effects human needs being unable to be met with life devastating outcomes. Physical, social, psychological suffering and death are presented in these stories and is reversed by Jesus. The writer underlines this by stating that through His practices (His teachings have just been presented in the Sermon on the Mount) Jesus is fulfilling the promise of God in Isaiah 53:4 for renewal and freedom from the forces that rage against Him and against us.  Jesus seeks those who experience this renewal to follow Him through obedience to the Word of God (4) and live out the new Kingdom reality practically that is to be a witness in and through our lives. Those who have their lives renewed by Jesus are to let the community see there has been a transformation by living out the Kingdom values of inclusion: lepers, centurions and families are all welcome in the Kingdom. Jesus renews family and community relationships by addressing fears, and suffering; He meets family and community needs as an invitation to hear His words and put them into practice. Jesus of the Nazareth sermon, explained in the Sermon on the Mount is demonstrating the fulfilment of the Kingdom promises among the precarious people meeting their precarious needs and vulnerabilities. It is possible to live out the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and be transformed in the process but it will mean serving precarious people like ourselves in precarious places like the places we live and we too will become the fulfilment of the prophecy through participation in a renewed humanity.