Last spring I spent a weekend at a conference in the hill country of Texas. I met a kind and friendly group of people who genuinely exhibited a comfortable hospitality. Throughout the weekend we were welcomed with warmth and laughter and friendship. It was really nice.
One night at dinner Beth and I talked with a young couple and we compared notes about the differences between California and Texas and they told me this story. One of their friends had moved to Austin from the Bay Area and after only a couple of weeks in their new neighborhood, the wife had to go out of town leaving the husband at home for a few days with his two young children. One of the boys slipped and cracked his head open in the kitchen. Blood pouring all over the place, one boy crying and another upset at the sight of blood, he called the paramedics.
They of course came, bandaged up the boy, assured the dad that he only needed some stitches and sent the Dad and the two boys off to the hospital.
When they returned a few hours later, they found to their shock that the EMT who had come to the house and bandaged the wound, also cleaned the house. Not only all the blood, but even cleaned up the kitchen. On top of that he went to the neighbors and let them know what happened. By the time the formerly Californian family had returned, the kitchen was cleaned, food was in the frig and two moms had left notes that they’d be glad to help with babysitting if he needed it.
The Dad said to his two new Texan friends, “A paramedic who does dishes and washes the floor? Neighbors who just show up and help out. This is so much different than San Francisco! You Texans are from another world!”
The woman telling me the story said with a shug, “You know what? He thought that was really something special. But for us, that’s just the way we live.”
For my Texan friends, caring for your neighbors, making food, cleaning up and giving help is not something that you are supposed to do, it’s not even particularly special. It’s just the way you live. And so too the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:20-48.
Most of the time when this passage is taught, it is offered as a list of new commandments, a list of rules where Jesus makes all the laws of the Old Testament even more difficult. We think that he comes to us and says, “You think the Ten Commandments were hard? Well get a load of what I am going to make you do!”
But that is not what’s happening here at all. Jesus is not giving a list of things to do, he is illustrating the kinds of people we are to become.
Let me say this as clearly as possible:
As we learn some of the specific behaviors that Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount: Our goal is NOT to do these things. It is to become the kind of person who does these things by heart. Our goal is to become the kinds of people who naturally live our lives in such a way that someone would say to us, “Oh my, you guys are from another world.” And we would shrug and answer, “Oh, that’s just the way we live.”
In Matthew 5:20-48 there is an opening phrase, six illustrations and a conclustion. Most of the time people focus on the illustrations. But I would tell you that the key is focusing on the very last phrase: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Our goal is to be like God, by being with Jesus. Jesus didn't come to bring new teaching, he came to be the new TEACHER. ("But I say to you...")
And being with Jesus as our teacher will make us into people who are like God...from another world.
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