Jesus Who? September 23, 24, 27, 2007
Jesus the Teacher
I think that most people, when asked who Jesus is/was they say that Jesus was a great teacher. Some people feel the need to insert the word “just” into their sentence – that he was “Just a great teacher.” I think that it is the only time I get to hear the words “just” and “great” in the same sentence. Of course these people mean that they want to accept Jesus as a human teacher and nothing more –not messiah, not divine, just a great teacher.
Teacher, or rabbi is one of the ways that he is most referred to by others in the Gospels
What did Jesus teach? Can anyone think of what he said?
In Jesus’ day there was other groups of teachers: one such group was called the Pharisees. The Pharisees taught the people how to keep the Jewish religious law. They thought that the Ten Commandments were too vague for your everyday person, so they expanded on them to make them easier to understand and harder to keep. To avoid breaking the third commandment, “You shall not mis-use the name of the LORD,” they refused to pronounce God’s name at all. To avoid sexual temptation they had a practice of lowering their heads and not even looking at women (the most scrupulous of these were known as “bleeding Pharisees” because of frequent collisions with walls and other obstacles). To avoid defiling the Sabbath they outlawed thirty-nine activities that might be construed as “work.”
They had broken down God’s law into 613 rules—248 commands and 365 prohibitions—and bolstered these rules with 1,521 auxiliary rules and explanations of the rules. It was pretty much impossible to be seen as righteous in the eyes of the Pharisees unless you quit work and dedicated your life to religion.
In many ways Jesus was the anti-Pharisee – he healed people on the Sabbath, his disciples gleaned grain to eat on the Sabbath, his disciples did not follow the ritual code of washings very closely. Jesus opposed their rule-oriented religion to their faces.
Luke 11
Woes on the Pharisees and the Experts in the Law
37 When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. 38 But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal.
39 Then the Lord said to him, "Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
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45 One of the experts in the law answered him, "Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also."
46 Jesus replied, "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.
You may have met people who see religion as a list of rules that you need to obey – they may even be Christians!
Bono video http://youtube.com/watch?v=XE5w6IW7Yo8
Jesus teachings cannot be put in the box of being anti-Pharisee. What we call the “Sermon on the Mount” is Jesus’ Manifesto. It is the longest public teaching that we have of Jesus. It is often times the passage that people refer to when they are talking about Jesus’ great teaching. Of course, there is a great deal more to Jesus teaching than the Sermon, - parables, illustrations, demonstrations, other sayings… - but it is a good place to start as we try to get a picture of Jesus the teacher.
It has almost all of the favorite sayings of Jesus in it: Blessed are…, The Lord’s Prayer, “Judge not, lest you be judged,” “do to others what you would have them do to you”… Some people who aren’t too sure about anything else about Jesus will say that we should all live by the teachings in the Sermon on the mount. I think that some people praise the Sermon on the Mount without ever reading it!
Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it – you can read it for yourself in Matthew 5-7. Pick up any Bible, find the New Testament, Matthew is the first book, the chapters are short – one page or so, and the sermon is chapters 5-7
Now in his premier teaching, you would think that in order to free the people from the tyranny of the Pharisees he would teach against all their rules, but what he says is that unless you righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, there is no place for you in his kingdom!
These are some of the things he teaches in the Sermon on the Mount:
21 "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ’You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ’Raca, ’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. And anyone who says, ’You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
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27 "You have heard that it was said, ’You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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Eye for Eye
38 "You have heard that it was said, ’Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
43 "You have heard that it was said, ’Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Here are some responses to this sermon by university students from Texas A&M University when they were assigned to comment on it in composition class:
“The stuff the churches preach is extremely strict and allows for almost no fun without thinking it is a sin or not.”
“I did not like the essay “Sermon on the Mount.” It was hard to read and made me feel like I had to be perfect and no one is.”
“The things asked in this sermon are absurd. To look at a woman is adultery. That is the most extreme, stupid, inhuman statement that I have ever heard.”
You might agree with the students, “More of the same old, judgmental, suffocating, legalistic garbage. How can anyone call this guy a “Great Teacher?”
People have tried to deal with Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon in different ways down trough the ages. Some have made it into a new set of rules like the Pharisees had. Following a set of rules always leads to a dead spirit, and often leads to the judgementalism and pride that Bono say he saw in some Christians.
Leo Tolstoy was one of these people who tried to use the Sermon as law: he tried to live at least a portion of his life with strict adherence to the law as he saw it laid out in the sermon. It may have ruined him. He was not so bad at treating the poor and hopeless with mercy and generosity, not so good with his own family: His wife, Sonya, wrote, “There is so little genuine warmth about him; his kindness does not come from his heart, but merely from his principles. His biographies will tell of how he helped the laborers to carry buckets of water, but no one will ever know that he never gave his wife a rest and never – in all these thirty-two years – gave his child a drink of water or spent five minutes by his bedside to give me a chance to rest a little from all my labors.”
It wasn’t just his family that suffered from Tolstoy’s attempt at following this law – he was wracked by guilt for not meeting the standard he had set. It was said that they had to hide the ropes and guns around his estate to take away the opportunity for suicide.
On the other side, there have been many Christians down through the ages and today that have found some theological reason to write the Sermon off as not applying to them. This has also led to disastrous results, such as many German Christians following the leadership of the Nazis because “Jesus teaching did not apply to the State.” Today there are a large number of American Christians who believe that the Sermon on the Mount’s teaching does not apply to them.
Gandhi once said that everybody in the world knows what Jesus was teaching in those verses--except Christians!
Others lift up the sermon as “beautiful teaching” to be appreciated and then ignored.
Oliver Wendell Holmes says “Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer.”
So if Jesus was the great teacher, what are we to do with his teaching? Do we write him of as being self-contradictory: first being anti-law, and the declaring a new harder law?
Do we fall back into the judgmental legalism that he preached against?
Do we write off the teaching as insanely hard and impossible to keep?
Do we ipod him and download the pieces we like and leave the other songs for the old folks who still buy full CDs?
A new way
Legalism is actually the easy way – no thinking involved - you can know if you are in or out – and you can look down your nose on everyone who doesn’t measure up.
Rejecting the teaching and the teacher because you don’t think it makes sense is also the easy way – you can just make up you own rules as you go
What Jesus does not do is add a bunch of exterior rules to what the Pharisees already had so that his disciples could be better than them. What he does is move the people’s minds from an exterior religion, to an interior life.
The life Jesus calls his disciples to is not spiritualized either: Jesus does not say, “now don’t worry about the 2,000 exterior rules of the Pharisees: it’s the thought that counts, so as long as you intend well, go right ahead and do as you like.”
No, he doesn’t reduce the standard; he ups it by internalizing it.
Nor does Jesus teach an inner peace, or “enlightenment” type of religion where as long as our inner life is good, we are good – he is teaching a faith where the exterior reality is connected to the interior reality.
Grace
Teaching from compassion:
The people he was teaching were not questioning God’s existence, or his morality, they were just want to know how to be on his side. His teaching is not meant to load us down, but in order to lift the burden. His compassion on the crowd was because they were either left out of the religious system, or they were burdened down with a dead legalism
His moral teaching sets the standard for life – He sets a standard that is higher than the Pharisees’, not more rules than the Pharisees. But that does not make it any less overwhelming!
I believe that we are supposed to look at the moral teaching and be overwhelmed – this is a standard to high to reach. But we are not to be overwhelmed with guilt or shame for not reaching it.
I think that in the end there should be a yes in our spirit with these standards – I don’t want to just not murder anyone, I want to banish hatred from my heart; I don’t want to just not sleep around on my wife – I want to be able to see the beauty in everyone without ever needing to possess them, I don’t want to just do the right thing, I want to be the right person.
The standard is set, not to make us feel like worms for not reaching it, the standard is set as something to shoot for.
The standard that Jesus sets calls us into relationship with God – it is not about pleasing an angry and vindictive God, it is about being like God. Jesus says we should love our enemies so “that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” He says that we should “Be perfect, just like your heavenly Father is perfect.”
The standard is also set to show us our need for grace.
He begins the sermon with this beautiful piece of poetry:
3 “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
4 God blesses those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 God blesses those who are humble,
for they will inherit the whole earth.
6 God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice,
for they will be satisfied.
7 God blesses those who are merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 God blesses those whose hearts are pure,
for they will see God.
9 God blesses those who work for peace,
for they will be called the children of God.
10 God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
“God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him,” I can’t read the standards in the Sermon without recognizing my need for God. I might be able to stop myself from killing the guy who cuts me off on the highway, but if I am to not have hatred in my heart for him, If I’m not going to say “idiot” under my breath, for that, I need God. Jesus says I’m blessed – he says the kingdom belongs to me!
It is in this sermon that he teaches us the prayer that we call the “Lord’s Prayer” & it is in the middle of that prayer that he tells us to pray, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” The word sin means, “to miss the mark.”
Jesus sets the mark – the standard, and he calls us to live by it, but then he says, when you miss the mark, God forgives you, so when the people around you miss the mark, you forgive them too.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sets an amazingly high standard for personal behavior, but he invites us into that standard in a relationship of grace with God. He has two hands – one a calls us to a high standard of behavior, the other invites us into grace that is why it is such a beautiful teaching.
Questions for Groups
Coming into the session, would you have called Jesus a great teacher? Why
After hearing some of his teaching, do you still think so? Why?
Do the two hands of the sermon, the high standard to aim for, and the grace by which we are judged fit together in your mind?
