The beatitudes ... tough start to the year Matthew 5:1-12

Matthew 5:1-12 Gospel Reading for Sunday 30th January 2011

Welcome back to regular browsers of GOSPEL REFLECTIONS and to those who may be accessing these for the first time, welcome aboard.

My aim in this weekly communication is to attempt to provide a few threads of thought to challenge our thinking both for what Jesus was getting at when the situation unfolded back in his time, but especially in relation to what the reading has to say to us right now for our own personal spiritual journey as well as for our leadership roles in Lutheran Schools.

Well I'm not sure what the start of the school year has in store for us all, but I can tell you that if we are going to seriously reflect on the Gospel readings for the next few weeks we are in for a tough time. We are about to embark on a four-part exploration of the rather long 5th chapter of Matthew. That will involve getting our head around what is usually referred to as The Sermon on the Mount, which includes the opening section known as The Beatitudes (or loosely translated the "blessing sayings") of Jesus.

After that warning of what lies ahead, on a lighter note I can't resist commenting on verse 9 ... "blessed are the peacemakers". In the movie "Life of Brian" ... standing far from the action at the back of the crowd ... the message comes through for Brian as "blessed are the Cheese makers". I think there are actually a couple of very profound things in that line!

1. Maybe we are not drawing close enough to Jesus to be able to hear what He is saying to us.
2. In our attempts to communicate the Jesus story to others, we need to use language that our audience is going to understand.

I'm going to leave it at that as an intro to chapter 5 ... we'll get into it in greater depth over the next few weeks. In the meantime, in the busyness of a new school year, I would like to encourage everyone to find a little slice of time to sit down and read all of Matthew chapter 5 to prepare for the "mountain climb" that lies ahead.

Nev

P.S I also encourage you to have a look at the other recent post "putting the BIG rocks in place" ... especially the concluding comments relating to Mark chapter 1.