Matthew 6:5-15

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Post by Amy Whiting

Prayer - something all Christians are meant to do..."without ceasing" - these two words enough to create instant performance anxiety!
But I read this passage in 'The Message' version and there were two phrases that really connected with me that I think bring us back to the heart of what prayer is meant to be about.
6:6 "Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage."

So you won't be tempted to role-play before God...

We can be so easily tempted to pray with words, phrases, formulas & tones that sound impressive but don't reflect the actual nature of our heart - God isn't interested in our best "spiritual" front, what gets God's ear is us expressing our thoughts, fears, feelings and hopes with simplicity and honesty. C.S. Lewis counsels us to “lay before him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.”

Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage...

The invitation to relax & be - not perform.

Richard Foster captures this in his thought that “Prayer is an enduring, continuing, growing relationship with the great God of the universe.”

That as we talk with Him - simply and honestly "the focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense His grace." Grace that enables us to position our hearts and genuinely be able to say "Your kingdom come", Your way - in and through me.

Matthew 5:1-12

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Post by Bevan Whiting

I was recently unfortunately privy to a message by a loud, boof headed, power preacher entitled “Mixed Life, Mixed Blessing!” The underlying theme inferring that a life not lived strictly by the black and white religious rules of Christiandom (if there are such things) would result in us not having everything go smoothly and sweetly in our lives. I have seen less dribble on one of Levi’s (my 2 year old son) T-shirts than in this message.

In fact the complete opposite would seem true from scripture.

The Apostle Paul, who lived a life totally devoted to the Gospel, lists his ‘mixed blessings’ in 2 Corinthians 11. Most extraordinary lives endure more than their fair share of hardships. The Beatitudes are an uncomfortable series of Scriptures that are probably best overlooked by us westerners who have increasingly confused money, power, position and wellbeing as ‘blessing’ (although they sometimes are). The product of ‘blessing’ is harder to sell when packaged in mourning, insults, persecution and false accusations.

I guess God is challenging me on what I consider a ‘blessing’

The end goal of the beatitudes is Heaven, Paradise, the ultimate blessing, the Kingdom of God and I suppose anything that moves our heart and character closer to that destination is a blessing – no matter how ‘mixed’ it may seem.

Psalm 32

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This poem is an illustration of the burden of sin that is not confessed.

My wife Jo told me this story from her childhood the other day that perfectly captures the sense of pain that un-confessed guilt brings. I asked her if I could share this…

When Jo was a young child she had a love of chocolate (and still does). One day she decided she needed a sweet treat and stealthily snuck to the pantry to discover only a packet of chocolate chippies for baking. “This will do,” she thought as she snuck the packet into her lunchbox for school.

At lunchtime that day Jo proudly displayed the packet of chocolate chips that she had been ‘given’ by her Mum for lunch. The other children were in awe as Jo exclaimed “My mum always gives me this kind of thing for lunch.” To Jo’s credit she did share her treat with her friends.

But when Jo got home a conversation happened she could never of predicted. Her mum suggested that maybe they could spend some time together and bake some delicious chocolate chip muffins. “Of all days, why today!” Jo thought to herself. Precisely in that moment a sinking feeling swept over her small being. Guilt invaded her consciousness like an unwelcome visitor. What could she do? If she didn’t say anything surely she would get away with it. Her mum started gathering the ingredients. But the chocolate chips were nowhere to be seen.

“I am sure I bought chocolate chips!” exclaimed Jo’s mother with a hint of suspicion. “Hmmm that’s strange”. Jo bit her lip. There was no evidence, she would never be found out but this strange indescribable feeling was welling up inside and it hurt so bad. “Ummm, It was me, I took them” Jo feebly muttered.

This story is perhaps a story we can all identify with one way or another. Tom Wright reflects on Psalm 32 and its significance for Lent and he says this:

“Lent is a time for discipline, for confession, for honesty, not because God is mean or fault-finding or finger-pointing but because he wants us to know the joy of being cleaned out ready for all the good things he now has in store.”

(Excerpt from Tom Wright, Lent For Everyone: Matthew, Year A. London: SPCK, 2011, 13)

So may we confess our sin before God. He desires to transform us, to make us new.

Matthew 4:1-11

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Post by John Cadigan

I have always found rugby an engaging sport, physically fit men employing their strength, skills and tactics in a way calculated to bring them to the victory podium.

The international “test match” between nations being the opportunity for deciding which nation’s team has the supremecy over the other.

In Matthew 4:1 we see the Spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted by the devil. It’s almost like God was inviting the devil to have a crack at Christ to test his strength, his strength of character, his moral strength and the strength of his relationship with God.

In so many points Jesus was tested and failed in nothing, not like Adam and Eve in Eden, who so quickly capitulated under very little pressure and traded the eternal for the temporary, the important for that of little value or worth.

The devil tries to bring the down fall of Christ by offering him all the delusive glory of this worlds kingdoms but in Christ he meets more than his match. This was no fallen man satan was attempting to seduce; it was a sinless Man full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whose penetrating glance pierced the world’s attractive exterior. As A W Tozer insightfully states regarding this passage,( matt. 4:8—10.)

“Beneath its gaudy allurements Christ saw the corruption and decay. He knew its glory was but bait to catch foolish victims. He knew its bright promises were all lies. Our Lord saw what other men could not see. He saw not beauty but death, a garish death that must be purchased at the price of the soul. What He saw revolted him – He would have no part of it.”

Just as when the All Blacks triumph in a hard fought test match and we , who are sometimes thousands of miles away from the field of conquest, yet boldly declare” we won” and share in the delight of victory. So it is with Christ our representative, Christ the power of God ,Christ the wisdom of God.

Matthew 4:18-25

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Fishing for people? Sounds like a crazy sport!

Tom Wright tells a story to make sense of this Scripture in his book Lent For Everyone

“There’s a sense of excitement at the start of the season. The ground is prepared and marked out. The fixture list is printed. Everything is ready. So along you go for the first match. But imagine what it would be like if, just before the game was due to start, the coach came onto the pitch and began to point to people in the stands – people who had come as spectators! ‘All right: you over there, come on; and you in the blue jacket, you too; and you there hiding near the back, I want you in the team…’ You begin to be afraid you might be next. Suddenly the people who’ve been called are hurrying down to the field of play, and the game begins... When God came back at last, coming to establish the rule of heaven here on earth, that seems to be exactly how he went about it. Lots of people who thought they were just spectators suddenly found themselves summoned onto the field of play.”

(Excerpt from Tom Wright, Lent For Everyone: Matthew, Year A. London: SPCK, 2011, 7.)

In Matthew 4 we see Jesus invite Simon and Andrew to follow him. Jesus comes and heals the sick and the crowds gather around him. There are those who are just spectators checking out what is going on. In the same way there are those of us who sit on the sidelines as spectators, interested in the story of the Gospel, wondering whether or not to join in. Here in this passage we see that Jesus invites followers and he continues to do so. The Gospel story, the story of the kingdom of God being established is not a story we are to sit back and watch happen as spectators. Rather, Jesus extends an invitation to his people, “Follow me”. May we heed that invitation to follow this Lent.

Matthew 3: 1-12

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In Matthew 3 we encounter a fascinating character: John the Baptist. This wild prophet calls the people to repentance. He quotes from Isaiah and in doing so he locates us as readers in an ongoing story. What God does in Jesus is not disconnected from the rest of the story. Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets.

John announces that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Stanley Hauerwas comments on this in his commentary on Matthew saying:

“John was not offering a better way to live, though a better way to live was entailed by the kingdom that he proclaimed was near. But it is the proclamation of the “the kingdom of heaven” that creates the urgency of John’s ministry. Such a kingdom does not come through our trying to be better people. Rather, the kingdom comes, making imperative our repentance. John’s call for Israel to repent is not a prophetic call for those who repent to change the world, but rather he calls for repentance because the world is being and will be changed by the one whom John knows is to come. To live differently, moreover, means that the status quo can be challenged because now a people are the difference.”

(Excerpt from Stanley Hauerwas, SCM Theological Commentary on the Bible: Matthew (London: SCM, 2006), 46.

So John is announcing the breaking in of God’s kingdom in the life of Jesus. There is nothing we can do to create this kingdom, it is a kingdom brought about by God. The challenge to the Pharisees and Sadducees reminds us of this. We are to orient our lives in terms of the kingdom of God. So as we celebrate Lent we are reminded that this kingdom is God’s work and our response ought to be repentance, to step in line with what God is doing. How humbling…

Matthew 1:18-25

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In the opening chapters of Matthew we see that God does something miraculous to remedy sin. This is a complete surprise; it seems like a weird way to do things. God’s plan to redeem humanity is found in the birth of a human baby of all things!

And personally I feel sorry for Joseph in this story. Imagine you are in his shoes. Your fiancée whom you haven’t as the Bible so politely puts it “come together” with gets pregnant! What would you do? Initially Joseph is outraged and rightly so! But then as he learns more about the situation Joseph responds with a surprising humility.

A theologian named Tom Wright reflects on this passage and he invites us to be humble this lent as we read Scripture together. Wright says this:

“Reading the Bible without knowing in advance what God is going to say takes humility. Like Joseph, we may have to put our initial reactions on hold and be prepared to hear new words, to think new thoughts, and to live them out. We all come with our own questions, our own sorrows and frustrations, our own longings. God will deal with them in his own way, but he will do so as part of his own much larger and deeper purposes. Who knows what might happen, this year, if even a few of us were prepared to listen to God’s word in scripture in a new way, to share the humility of Joseph, and to find ourselves caught up in God’s rescue operation?”

(Excerpt from Tom Wright, Lent For Everyone: Matthew, Year A. London: SPCK, 2011, 2)

So as we journey through the Gospel of Matthew together let’s come humbly to the Scriptures and seek to hear God’s voice.