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Matthew 56

Matthew 56 The second half of the Beatitudes focuses on our relationships with each other. The first three of these deal with how to live like Christ. Verses 10 through 12 show what results from that kind of living. The second half of the Beatitudes also reflects the spiritual growth that is produced by the first half. When we are poor in spirit and place our trust in God’s mercy (verse 3), the next step is to give His mercy to others, and this results in the blessing of receiving even more of God’s mercy (verse 7). When we’ve wanted to sin but we’ve chosen instead to live God’s way even though it makes our flesh-nature mourn (verse 4), we become pure in our hearts and we can see God more fully, i.e., we dwell in the presence of God (verse 8). This purity allows the light of Christ in us to shine more brightly onto others, and they are brought closer to God through the witness of our lives. When we are meek (verse 5), we become peacemakers (verse 9), because we no longer fight and argue with others. Consider how God deals with us when we choose the path of sin. Does He fight against us? Sometimes it seems like we’re wrestling with Him, but it’s not God who’s arguing: We’re the ones who do all the complaining and yelling and struggling. Being peacemakers means we live as His children by handling conflicts the same way He does. We love our “enemies” unconditionally. We turn the other cheek. Read 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. It tells us that God wants us to handle conflicts by being patient instead of demanding, by showing kindness and serving the person who fights against us, by not being rude, by not seeking our own interests or defending our own causes, by not being quick-tempered or brooding over our injuries, by bearing whatever our “enemy” does to us, by never giving up hope and by always enduring. When we live this way, we become more like Christ than those who don’t, and for this reason they persecute us. They convince themselves that they are better than we are, to avoid realizing that they should give up their old ways and be converted. If we’re not experiencing persecution, we’re not really living the Beatitudes. Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. Name some of the contrasts between the world and Christianity; for example, lying versus honesty. How does the Christian way show purity of heart? 2. Tell the story of a time when you served as a peacemaker. (No names, please!) How did it reveal Jesus to the people with whom you dealt? If you saw that it made a difference in their spiritual lives, tell about that, too. 3. Describe a time when you were persecuted because of your relationship with God. Perhaps someone misunderstood your faith, or rejected you, or deliberately caused problems for you. Did you feel blessed by it? Did you feel closer or further from Jesus when it happened? Did you grow spiritually or did you loose some faith because of it? Why? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “You are the salt of the earth.” The word “you” refers to any Christian—including you. What does it mean to be salt? Think about what salt does. It adds flavor to something that lacks sufficient taste. Jesus also says in verse 13, if someone loses his flavor, “with what can it be seasoned?” Reread that as “by whom can it be seasoned?” Only God can renew a flavor that has been lost. The Christian is someone who has been made flavorful—alive in holiness— by Christ. The useful Christian is one who evangelizes by adding the seasoning of Jesus’ love to another person’s life. But beware of trying too hard! What happens when food is over-salted? It tastes terrible; people don’t want to eat it. No matter how good our intentions may be, if we come on too strong, we do more harm than help. Maybe we’re trying to bring an unwilling spouse to church or to convince a neighbor to trust God, but they don’t want a Jesus who seems condemning or forceful. They’re much more likely to turn to a Jesus who loves them just the way they are, who is gentle, who serves them in their needs. Verses 14 - 16 tell us to be a light that others cannot help but notice. What kind of light? One that blinds? Of course not. In John 8:12, Jesus says “I am the light of the world.” Jesus is within us; His glow should be what others see when they look at us. We are not to hide our relationship with Him. An effective Christian is one whose faith is visible, whose glow is the love that comes from Christ, and whose good deeds glorify the Father because they are accomplished through the love of Christ. Notice in verse 14 that Jesus calls us a “city.” We are not to evangelize alone. A city is a group of people: a parish, a family, a church organization. Being Christian means being in community. When our light is joined to the lights of others, our collective glow is much brighter, much more effective in revealing the love of Christ to the world. Why? Because nonbelievers become convinced that the love of Christ is real when they see us living out that love with each other: unconditionally, generously, with a servant’s heart (see Acts 2:42-47). Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. How can you identify people whose lives are lacking the full flavor of Jesus’ love? And how can you season their lives with the love of Jesus that is in you? 2. In what ways have you over-salted someone by trying too hard or too often to evangelize? What were the results? 3. What obstructs the light of Christ that glows within us? It should shine through us so brightly that others are converted just by being near us. Why aren’t they seeing Christ in us? What blocks their view of Him? What needs to be changed in us so that they can see Him clearly? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Jewish hierarchy of Jesus’ day were often literalists in their interpretation of the Law of God, which had been given to them through Moses. Jesus, however, gave a deeper meaning to the Law. He placed His focus on the goal of the Law: perfect love. He taught it through His words and in the ways He treated people. His non-literal view caused some confusion, so Jesus clarified His meaning. In effect, He said, “The interpretation that I give to the Law does not mean that the laws are invalid. Rather, it shows that you are not even fulfilling the Law if your so-called obedience isn’t motivated by love for God and love for neighbor (see Matt. 22:35-40).” When Jesus spoke of heaven and earth passing away (verse 18), He was not referring to a literal end of the universe. Astute Jewish listeners understood the connection to the well-known prophecy in Isaiah 65:17, where God promised to create a new heaven and a new earth by sending the Messiah. They didn’t know it yet, but the passing away of the old heaven and earth was going to happen at the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection. And this was not going to happen until Jesus had finished His work by fulfilling the true meaning of each and every law. As our true Messiah, He had to make up for every failure, fill in every gap, and restore everything that was lacking in the way mankind had obeyed God. In this way, He gave His absolute, complete love to each of us. Therefore (verse 19), as His followers, we also are to be generous with love. Obeying all the commandments—truly obeying them—requires loving God with our whole heart and our whole soul and our whole mind, and loving our neighbors as ourselves. For example, consider the Church law that says we must attend Mass every weekend, and missing Mass (except when incapacitated) is a sin. Does this mean that we are obeying God if we sit in church without missing a Sunday? No, not really—not if, while we sit there, we do nothing to experience a genuine relationship with God. Attending Mass should result in a growth of loving God and neighbor. Encountering Jesus in the Word and in the Eucharist should make a difference in how we love. The bottom line is always love. Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. Were you ever treated unlovingly because of another person’s legalism? How did that experience hide the true nature of Jesus? 2. Name common ways that Catholics fail to obey God. What might Jesus have done to make up for those failures? For example, how do you suppose Jesus treats unborn babies who’ve been aborted? How does He treat the mothers and the abortionists? 3. Imagine that you’ve met a young couple who are inactive Catholics, and you find out that they’re living together unmarried. What’s the best way to invite them to partake of the Sacrament of Marriage? With other group members, do some role playing to try different approaches. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jesus continues the Sermon by giving specific examples of how to transform the literal interpretations of Mosaic laws into the Law of Love. In each case He presents, He explains that true believers take the more demanding, more loving approach. His first topic is anger, and He makes us aware of the increasing dangers of anger by referring to increasingly disasterous results in the angry person’s soul. At the lowest level, anger in the heart results in “judgment,” which is represented by the Jewish local court, where the least of the three punishments are meted out. Then, He names one of the initial ways that anger in the heart becomes anger that kills: To shout “raqa” at someone is to call them a nitwit or imbecile. It destroys their self-esteem. It belittles them. The abuser must now face a trial before the Sanhredin, the highest judicial body. Finally, Jesus warns that calling someone a fool is even worse. No longer an “imbecile,” the person under attack is “worthless” (the direct meaning of the Greek word). The Jews understood the word to be filled with contempt. To hate someone so much as to see no value in them is to condemn oneself to Gehenna. Gehenna was a name given to a nearby valley that was the center of a cult that killed children by fire as a sacrifice to the gods. The Jews used the name to illustrated the concept of punishment by fire; today we call it “hell.” This theme of anger being equal to murder is easier to understand in light of 1 John 4:7-21, which says that God is love, and when we have anger, we have hatred, we don’t have love, so we don’t have God, and we therefore don’t have eternal life. The rest of this passage is God’s remedy for the times we feel anger. In essence, Jesus says: Go and do whatever is necessary to be reconciled with the one who’s made you angry. This, He points out, is even more important than worshiping God. How genuine can your worship really be if anger has replaced love in your heart, since God is love. Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. Jesus used name-calling as an example of how we treat others unlovingly. What are some other ways that we belittle people or kill their self-esteem? Why is that harmful to them? 2. Can you recall an incident in which someone treated you unfairly, but you responded with an act of love? How difficult was it to give that love? What were the results? 3. Anger is a normal human feeling. In itself, it is neither right nor wrong. Jesus even felt angry. At what point does anger become sinful? Why does expressing anger hurt the people who experience our anger? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What parts of our lives do we still cling to, even though they lead us to sin? That’s what Jesus is asking us to discover now. In verse 27, we see a widely accepted definition of sin: commiting an unloving deed (such as adultery). But many people stop there; they assume that it is a sin only when the deed is actually committed. However, Jesus is challenging us to look beyond the deed. It’s what’s in our heart that counts. If, to use Jesus’ example in verse 28, we wish we could have an affair, we are sinning. Why? The heart is where love dwells, and if thoughts of adultery dwell there, too, love is pushed out. When we forsake the spouse by turning to another for sexual intimacy, we are being unloving toward the spouse. So too, if we only dream of turning to another. It is still unloving toward our spouse. Verses 29 and 30 extend the teaching to include every area of our lives that is lacking the expression of love. Perhaps our eyes cause us to sin because we enjoy watching movies with sex or violence or other unloving actions. If so, we also commit sin with our hands by picking up the movie from the video store shelf. Perhaps our sin comes from the part of us that expects perfection from others because perfection was expected from us while we grew up. Is it okay to excuse our behavior because it’s so ingrained is us? Or is it better to identify and overcome our childhood training? What about the habits and addictions that are hard to break? Do we excuse them, or do we overcome them to make more room for love? There are many areas of our lives that need to be “cut out and thrown away.” In verses 31 and 32, Jesus makes an even higher point using adultery. Since a valid marriage is a commitment, and breaking commitments is unloving, then divorce is a sin. Making promises (verses 33-37) is another form of commitment. Breaking an oath is unloving. Lying and never intending to keep the commitment is also unloving. Jesus is asking us: “What’s in your heart? How much room is left for love?” Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. What habits or addictions do you have that are unloving toward yourself? Why are they so unloving? 2. What is the most common way you treat others unlovingly? It might be impatience, or unkind words, or turning your back on the needs of others, for example. Identify from what area of your life this comes. (Eg., impatience might come from a superiority complex.) 3. Describe a time when you overcame a sinful tendency. How did you recognize it as a sin? What made you decide to change? How did the change affect others? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mercy is the key to understanding why we should love others the way Jesus tells us to in this difficult-to-live passage. Think of love as the front door to people’s hearts. When they close it, mercy is the love that sneaks in the back door. In early Old Testament times, hatred was rampant. If someone got angry and punched out another’s eye, the victim would gather his clan and retaliate by wiping out his aggressor’s clan. So God gave them a law that would bring them closer to love: If someone hurts your eye, you may do nothing more than the same to him. It was still unloving, but at least it was fair. When Jesus came, however, He raised the standards: If someone hurts your eye, love him. When people hurt us, they don’t understand that they’re actually hurting themselves. They don’t know that they’re clogging up their hearts with hatred. They don’t know that while their hearts are closed, they can’t experience God and His love. But if we give them love despite what they do to us, God is presenting His love to them through us (the back door). If we refuse to give them love, we are refusing to give them God, and we are closing our own doors to God and His love. If someone strikes you on one cheek (verse 39), don’t give him an angry fist; give him love. If someone wants to take from you a valued possession (verse 40), you can’t stop his greed but you can stop him from sinning against you: give it to him freely and cheerfully. And to prove your willingness to love him, give him another of your possessions. If someone asks you to do a chore for him that’s not fair (verse 41), prevent it from being a sin of cruelty by gladly doing what he asks and volunteering to do more. If you’re approached by a “bum” who can’t keep a job and he wants you to give him money (verse 42), keep him from sinning by giving him no opportunity to hate you. This is what it means to be perfect (verse 48). Perfection in the Bible means love—complete, full, unlimited, merciful love. Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. Think of a time when God showed you mercy, a time when you didn’t deserve His love. What did it feel like when He gave you His love anyway? How did it change you? 2. What is an enemy? Give a definition that includes everyone you know, including yourself. How often do you experience enemies affecting your life? 3. When was the last time you did a good deed to an enemy? What kind of an impact did your good deed make on him or her? 4. List some ideas for good deeds that can be simply and easily done while someone is hurting you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jesus turns His attention to three tools of spiritual growth —almsgiving, prayer and fasting—and explains the right attitude we must have toward each of them, while He contrasts them to the wrong attitude held be many Pharisees. First, Jesus deals with almsgiving, i.e., generosity. Generosity is a normal, expected result of believing in God, because He is generous toward us. In Malachi 3:8-9, God tells us that we rob Him when we don’t give Him tithes and offerings. A tithe means ten percent of everything we receive; offerings are gifts above and beyond the tithe. This seems like much more than we can afford, especially when we’re not used to giving back to God that amount, but we can never out-do God in generosity. He promises in Malachi 3:10 that if we bring Him the whole tithe, He will replace it with such an abundance, we won’t have room to hold it all. Unable to hold it all, we distribute more of what we have to help those who have less. Some Christians believe in a “prosperity gospel,” a here’s-how-to-use- God-to-get-rich-quick scheme: If I want $100, I’ll donate $10 to the Church. However, the purpose for this kind of generosity is to reward ourselves, rather than to be God’s servant as a distributor of His graces. It’s not true generosity. It’s no better than the Pharisees’ sin of “blowing their own horns.” When the focus is on ourselves and what we’ve done or what we can get out of it, our generosity is not born out of love for God and love for people. When Matthew wrote down this teaching of Jesus, he used two different Greek words for the “reward” received by the Pharisees and the “reward” given to those whose generosity is based on love. The Pharisees were “paid” for their good deeds like someone who is merely a hireling. Those who give lovingly are “re-paid” over and over again as friends of God, and friends share freely with each other. What we sow is what we reap. Our love for God and people opens us to receive love. If we are generous with our money or time or patience, we avail ourselves of God’s infinite generosity. If we treat others with mercy or forgiveness, we likewise receive mercy and forgiveness—again and again. Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. Name some of the many, different ways we can be generous. What do we have that we can share with others (materially, emotionally, spiritually, etc.)? 2. Tell the story of a time when you were lacking something that you needed. How did God reveal His generosity to you? Did you get what you needed? Through what person or people did God deliver this help? Was it hard or easy to accept this help? 3. Describe an incident when you decided to give away something but had a difficult time letting go of it. How did you know you should give it away? What process did you go through in learning to let go? How has it changed your life? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The second tool of spiritual growth discussed by Jesus is prayer. There is a right way to pray and a wrong way, a right attitude and a wrong attitude. Do we pray with pious words and appropriate gestures to get people’s approval? Do we turn our attention to God in prayer because we want Him to grant us favors? Do we recite formula prayers over and over to convince God to pay us heed? Or is prayer simply communication with the One we love? Jesus said (verse 8): “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” If this is true, then why bother asking? God already loves us and wants to help us, so what’s the purpose of prayer? It is this: Praying means we recognize God’s value and our inability to live without Him. Prayer means that we love God and trust Him. When we ask for help, we can tell Him how we’d like Him to answer our prayer, but if we trust Him, we add: “Father, You handle this the way You know is best with the timing You know is best.” When Jesus gave us the “Our Father” as an example of how to pray, He showed us that our communication with God should include praise, submission, petition, penance, forgiveness, and warfare against temptation and Satan. “Our Father in heaven” means God is majestic, universal, eternal and infinite. “Hallowed be Your Name” means we realize that only God is holy. “Your kingdom come, Your will be done” means we want God’s holiness in our lives. “Give us this day our daily bread” means we want God to feed us with anything that will help us become more like Him today. “Forgive us as we forgive others” helps us get rid of the hindrances to holiness. “Do not subject us to the final test” refers to the final judgment experienced by those who have rejected a life of holiness. “Deliver us from the evil one” means we want Christ’s victory over the interference of demons, and we need Him to overcome their influence of unholiness. Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. How has your prayer life changed over the years? How did each phase help you with what you needed at the time? 2. How do you know God is listening when you pray? How do you know He cares about you and the other people for whom you pray? 3. Tell about a time when God answered a prayer in a wondrous, timely or even miraculous fashion? Did this incident bring you or anyone else closer to Him? Did it solve a problem of that time, or did it change a life forever? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The third tool of spiritual growth discussed by Jesus is fasting (verses 16 - 18). Again, Jesus makes the point that it is better to do something because it helps your spiritual life rather than because others will be impressed by it. He then explains why it is better. The rewards we receive from the Father are treasures (verses 19 - 21) that will belong to us for all of eternity. What are these treasures that cannot be destroyed by moths or decay or thieves or anything else of this world? We have a hard time understanding what they are and why they are the “choice” treasures because we’re so used to owning the “stuff” of this world. And we’re constantly seeking more money so we can accumulate more “stuff.” We want heaven to be a place where we can own huge mansions filled with our favorite “stuff.” What kid has not imagined heaven to be a place where he can play the best video games all day? What’s your favorite possession? Can you imagine heaven being fun without it? Fasting originated in Jewish history as a personal sacrifice for the Day of Atonement. Today, fasting is recommended by the Church as a means of acquiring “mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart” (Catechism paragraph 2043). In other words, fasting helps us experience greater conversion. All three spiritual tools are instruments of conversion: almsgiving converts our hearts because we sacrifice our love of “stuff” for the love of others; prayer converts our hearts because we sacrifice our love of time for the love of God, and fasting converts our hearts because we sacrifice our love of self (and our enjoyment of food) so that we can become free to love God and others. What we gain in return for these sacrifices are better relationships, i.e., we improve our ability to enjoy close, intimate, fulfilling relationships with God and with people. These are the treasures we can carry to heaven. And we don’t have to wait to get there to enjoy them. We live in the kingdom of God right now! Are you stockpiling your treasures? Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. Consider the ashes you receive on your forehead on Ash Wednesday. Why do you wear the ashes after you leave church? How long do you keep it on? Why? In light of what Jesus said in verses 16 - 18, is it better to wash off the ashes as soon as you can? What other outward signs of your spiritual deeds do you exhibit? Should they be kept hidden? 2. Share what it was like to fast during a difficult time in your life. Why did you choose to fast? What affect did it have on you? 3. Besides having good relationships, what are other treasures that you’ll enjoy in heaven? What is good in your life now that comes from your heart? How will that be useful when you’re living in eternity? (Be creative when you imagine what you’ll do in heaven!) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The rest of the Sermon is advice on how to live out the holiness Jesus has been teaching. Interestingly, it follows the pattern Jesus set in the “Our Father” prayer, starting with “give us this day our daily bread” as reflected in today’s verses, which say: Trust in God for your daily needs. To be able to trust in God, we have to rely on good spiritual vision (verses 22 - 23). Our eyes must be focused on God and His ways of responding to our world. If we are obedient to Him, we are filled with His light, His truth, and His love. However, when we turn away from Him and look instead at the world’s values, our lives our plunged into darkness. And if the only “light” with which we fill ourselves is the way of the world, how great will the darkness within us be! Jesus is making the choice clear: Either we choose God or we choose the world. We cannot serve both (verse 24). If we serve the world, we are not at the same time serving God, although we might fool ourselves into believing that the religious things we do keep one foot in heaven while the other foot walks the paths of the world. The word “mammon” comes from the Aramaic word for “wealth” or “property.” It’s been said that someone once prayed, “Give us this day our daily bread” and God replied, “You already have your bread and other people’s bread, too.” How much do we have stored up that could have been shared with others? In our society, we’ve been convinced to trust more in our retirement savings than in God. We store up for the future while there are people in our communities who can’t make it through today due to the lack of what we have in abundance. And yet it seems terribly dangerous to give away what we have stored up as proof that we trust in God. That’s why Jesus went on to say, “You worry too much! Don’t worry if you’ll have enough of what you need” (verses 25 - 34). “God loves you so much, He’ll take care of you! If you seek first God’s kingdom and do things God’s way, you’ll have everything you need. Stop worrying!” Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. In what ways do people “straddle the fence”? What are some of the compromises we make, convincing ourselves that the Bible or the Church didn’t really mean what it sounds like it means, so that we can feel okay about disobeying God? 2. How attached are we to our property? What are your favorite possessions? If you knew someone needed them, could you part with them? Could you buy a less expensive car in order to use the left-over cash to help someone else buy a car so he can get a job? What else do we hang onto that we could survive without? How are we serving the world instead of God by hanging onto these? 3. Why is this part of the Sermon on the Mount so difficult to accept and live? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bibliography:

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