Be Still And Know

Matthew 6:9 So begins the Lord’s Prayer. I find everything about this prayer interesting. First of all, I find it surprising how short it is! When I hear people praying, they often speak for a good few minutes. I’m not criticising that, but the prayer Jesus gave to his disciples is all over in about 30 seconds. I also find it interesting that Jesus only gave his disciples one prayer. I have a number of books on prayer on my shelves and I would have thought that Jesus might have come up with a range of prayers that could be prayed at different times. But he didn’t. That tells me that this prayer is incredibly important, and we would do well to use it as a model that shapes and inspires all our prayers. The prayer begins by addressing God as Father. That was a very significant title to use because it emphasises the fact that Christian faith is all about relationship. We come in our prayers not to a remote celestial being but to someone who looks at us as his children. Human fathers vary in quality and s

Matthew 6:7-8 Having read these verses, the obvious question is: “If God knows everything why bother praying?” The reason for praying is because of the relationship that God wants to have with us. He wants us to spend time with him because that’s what friends do! Jesus made it clear that the nature of the relationship that he wanted with his disciples was one of friendship and not of a master relating to his servants. When Jesus spoke about babbling “on and on as the Gentiles do” he was talking about a form of prayer that is found in many religions. When the prophets of Baal were up against Elijah on Mount Carmel we are told that they spent half a day crying out: “O Baal, answer us!” (1 Kings 18:26). They were wasting their breath and Elijah mocked them, helpfully suggesting that their god might be daydreaming, relieving himself, away on a day trip or fast asleep. And then in Acts 19 we read how the Ephesian mob spent two hours crying out: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:34). Constant re

Matthew 6:1-2 Every Jew knew that giving to the poor was one of their key responsibilities. Jesus confirmed that this would continue to be a major duty for his followers too. However, his main concern was the way in which it was done. It needed to be done secretly because gifts were, first of all, to be given to God. Those who were trying to impress other people and win their praise had totally missed the point. There is no evidence that anyone actually commissioned trumpeters to accompany their giving, but the point that Jesus was making is clear enough. Don’t do anything to draw other people’s attention to your giving. We give our gifts because of our love for God and our desire to please him. If we do it to win the praise of other people, then the focus is completely wrong and our giving is clearly not an act of worship at all. It’s just a pathetic act of showing off. Jesus was harsh in his criticism of the religious people because their play acting was giving the Jewish religion a bad name. Th

Matthew 5:21-22 Far from scrapping the Jewish law, Jesus had come to intensify it, and here’s the first example. Everybody knows that it is wrong to murder, but Jesus dug much, much deeper by stating that it is wrong merely to be angry. What he was saying was that if you could solve the problem of anger there would never be another murder. We need to address the roots of the problem, and that’s precisely why Jesus came into the world. In the rest of the chapter Jesus talked about five other areas of the law – lust, divorce, making vows, taking revenge and our relationship with our enemies. In each case he stated the law of Moses and then went on to intensify the command. For example, everyone knew that it was wrong to commit adultery, but Jesus pointed out that what was really wrong was what was going on in people’s minds long before they took any action (v28). This radical teaching challenges every part of our lives because Jesus is saying that our thinking needs to be totally renewed. It isn’t e

Matthew 5:17 Throughout his ministry, Jesus seemed to be in constant conflict with the teachers of the Jewish law. So it isn’t surprising that there were those who assumed that his intention was to scrap it. Look at the way in which he failed to observe the regulations about handwashing, or the fact that
he healed people on the Sabbath even though the law clearly forbade any kind of work on that day. Jesus didn’t object to the law but rather the way in which it was being applied. Take the law of the Sabbath for example. Jesus completely upheld Moses’ command to keep the Sabbath holy, but he objected to the ridiculous layers of complicated regulations that the Jews had added to that vital law. The Jewish lawyers delighted in giving everything a precise definition, so a word like work had to be very precisely defined. All kinds of things were defined as work, such as carrying a burden. This meant that the word burden had to be defined. The lawyers argued endlessly on such issues as to whether a person c

Matthew 5:15-16 There are two words for good in Greek. One is agathos, which simply defines a thing as good in quality. The other is kalos – that refers to things that are not merely good but also beautiful and attractive. The word used here to describe the good deeds that we must do is kalos. This is a really important point. God doesn’t simply want us to do correct things but things that are beautiful and which are attractive to those around us. I often see Christians doing beautiful things and I have no doubt that it brings God enormous pleasure. I think of people who care for the dying. One of the most wonderful developments over the past 50 years has been the growth of hospices. Dame Cicely Saunders was at the heart of this development. She was a strong Christian and this was her conviction: “You matter because you are you, and you matter to the end of your life. We will do all we can not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.” Thank God for those who have poured out the

Matthew 5:14 One of the most famous of Jesus’ I am sayings was: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). Those words don’t come as any surprise to us. He was the Son of God and was without sin. He was clearly able to claim that his perfect life radiated light for all to see. But in today’s verse we are told that we are the light of the world, despite being far from perfect. Jesus’ challenging words have some very practical implications. First of all, to be of any use, light must be put in a prominent position. Just as you cannot hide a city on a hilltop so too Christians need to shine their light for all to see. These days you will often hear people say that religious faith is a private matter, as if it is something that you can do quietly at home without affecting anyone else. That is precisely not the case with Christian faith. It must be shared. Most of the time the influence we will have will not be with our words but with our actions. As people see the sacrificial love of Christians for one ano

Matthew 5:13 I love it when I hear people being described as the salt of the earth. I wonder who you think about when that expression is used. Let me tell you about three people who spring to my mind. Some years ago I went to stay with an elderly couple who lived in a small community and on my first morning with them they invited me to go for a walk with them. They lived in the middle of the town and within moments the wife popped into the butcher’s shop to hand in a birthday card for one of the staff. And then every few yards they stopped to catch up on the news of different people, asking about how job interviews and hospital visits had gone. They kept apologising to me for bumping in to so many people, but I was being given a stunning picture of the salty influence that they had on their community. I also think of an aunt of mine who had a senior role in social services. She then retired but her caring continued. She was forever trying to spot the vulnerable and needy people in her community. It wa

Matthew 5:10-12 This is the last of Jesus’ Beatitudes. They are all amazing statements, and they give us the best possible introduction to Jesus’ teaching. He was introducing his disciples to an upside-down kingdom. When you see things from Jesus’ point of view, everything looks different; this final Beatitude makes that clearest of all. In these few words Jesus sums up what all of us would try very carefully to avoid. Being mocked, persecuted, lied about and having all sorts of evil things said about you is surely as bad as life gets. But Jesus affirms that the person who experiences these things should be incredibly happy. This sounds so completely contrary to normal thinking that we need to handle Jesus’ words very carefully. Jesus was clearly saying that living in tune with God’s will is the best that life can be, however fierce the opposition. To be part of God’s eternal kingdom of love, joy and peace is better in every way than anything that this world can offer. What Jesus was doing was equippi

Matthew 5:9 There is apparently an unofficial United Nations motto that says: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will take flak from both sides.” Any suggestion that the making of peace is easy will only come from those who haven’t started making any. Making peace involves getting alongside people who are angry and hurt. It involves bringing people together who hate and mistrust one another. It calls us to step courageously into the middle of disputes with the hope that we can bring peace. It’s not surprising that Jesus said that peacemakers are called the children of God, because God is the supreme peacemaker. That is precisely why he sent his son Jesus into the world. The apostle Paul wrote: “Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us” (Ephesians 2:14). The hatred that existed between Jews and Gentiles was so intense that any thought of peace seemed impossible. But Je

Matthew 5:8 God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God. One of the greatest privileges of my life in recent years has been to spend a good deal of time with people who are blind or partially sighted. I am constantly blessed by them and am conscious that they are often far more aware of what is going on than those of us with sight. We get distracted by the visual clues and don’t listen nearly as hard as they do. This Beatitude naturally causes me to think of my blind friends and forces me to ask what Jesus meant when he talked about seeing God. In his Gospel, John makes it clear that no one has seen God. So what did Jesus mean? I believe that Jesus is saying that the person whose heart is purely focused on him has uninterrupted closeness to God. There is nothing in the way. It is describing life at its best, when we have a complete awareness of God. Having a pure heart is an important theme in the psalms. In Psalm 24, David asks the question: “Who may climb the mountain of the Lord? Wh

Matthew 5:7 God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy. The simple fact is that we rely totally on the truth that God is merciful. We have sinned against him and those around us and if he were to insist on being just then we wouldn’t stand a chance. However, God is ‘rich in mercy’, to use Paul’s wonderful expression in Ephesians 2:4. God has chosen to set us free from our sin because of his love for us. That all sounds wonderful, but we need to realise that God doesn’t merely ask us to show mercy but demands that we do. Receiving his mercy and hugging it to ourselves is not an option. Since we have received mercy, we are required to be merciful to others. Showing mercy sounds easy and straightforward right up to the moment when we need to put it into practice. When people have been rude to us or gone out of their way to hurt us, we all instinctively want to hit back. We want justice because we shouldn’t be treated like this. It isn’t right. Jesus isn’t denying the reality of our suffe

God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied. For us, hunger and thirst will normally be very brief experiences, easily satiated by going to the fridge or turning on a tap. But many Jesus was speaking to originally would have had a very different experience because they were poor and therefore extremely vulnerable. If they had a bad harvest they would most likely go hungry. And because water would often be drawn from a well or a river they might have had a long journey to get more of it. Hungering and thirsting would have been common experiences. Let’s remind ourselves too that our New Testament is a translation from Greek. In our verse today the translators have chosen to use the word ‘justice’ as being the thing for which people hunger and thirst. Justice is certainly part of it, but the Greek word has a much broader meaning than that. It is basically everything good and right that characterises the kingdom of God. The word is often translated by the word ‘righteousness’

Matthew 5:5 God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth. It’s impossible to exaggerate the revolutionary nature of Jesus’ words. He was introducing his disciples to a totally new upside-down kingdom. This Beatitude reminds me of the words of Mary’s song of praise when she was pregnant with Jesus. She sang: “His mighty arm has done tremendous things! He has scattered the proud and haughty ones. He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.” (Luke 1:51-52) The kingdom of God that Jesus ushered in was going to be shaped by obedience to God’s will, not by earthly power, prestige and influence. The key to God’s kingdom is humility. Martin Luther wrote: “Until a man is nothing, God can make nothing of him.” It is when we recognise our frailty and weakness that God is able to make something of us. Humility is a vital quality in every part of life. For example, the person who pretends that they know everything is unteachable. But the person who recognises that t

Matthew 5:4 God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted. If you listen to the news regularly you will be well aware that a lot of mourning goes on in our world. It always has. Today there will be people experiencing the agony of losing a loved one. Their world has suddenly been turned upside down. There are also millions of people mourning because they have been forced to leave their homeland. There are said to be nearly 300 million migrants across our world, forced to leave their homes because of war, famine or persecution. I cannot begin to imagine how horrifying it must be to live with such complete insecurity. This Beatitude does not claim that God will suddenly make all sadness disappear. But he is the God who meets with us and transforms all our experiences. Through the years I have visited many homes just after a terrible accident has happened or a relative has suddenly died. It’s very difficult to find words to say on such occasions, but I have always found incredible peace in being abl

Matthew 5:3 Jesus said: “God blesses those who are poor and realise their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.” This is the first of Jesus’ famous sayings at the start of his Sermon on the Mount, popularly known as the Beatitudes. It takes us right to heart of Jesus’ Good News. It’s vital that we understand what Jesus was actually saying, and also what he was not saying. He was definitely not saying that poverty is a wonderful thing, because it isn’t. Poverty is a tragic state that limits life and opportunity and causes real suffering to those who experience it. Jesus was talking about people who realise that they are unable to cope without God. They recognise that they can only be helped by God reaching out to and blessing them. The truth is that God longs to bless everyone, but he is unable to do so until we realise our need. All the time we imagine that we can cope by ourselves, God cannot get close to us. The wonderful thing about this saying of Jesus is that he is not promising his ble

Deuteronomy 31:7-8 Moses said to Joshua: “Be strong and courageous!...Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.” Forty years before Moses spoke these words, Joshua had been one of twelve spies who had been sent into the promised land. Moses had asked them to make an assessment of Canaan and ten of the spies brought back an overwhelmingly negative report. They drew attention to the great height of the people who lived in the land and the size of their walls which, they claimed, even reached up to the sky! The people were, not surprisingly, thoroughly demoralised and concluded that the best thing to do would be to race back to slavery in Egypt. Only two of the spies brought a positive report - Joshua and Caleb. As a result, the people were condemned to 40 years in the desert and only Joshua and Caleb were eventually allowed to enter the promised land. Although Joshua had 40 years to prepare for this moment, i

Deuteronomy 30:11-12, 14 Moses said: “This command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you, and it is not beyond your reach. It is not kept in heaven, so distant that you must ask, ‘Who will go up to heaven and bring it down so we can hear it and obey?’ No, the message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it.” We are all sinners and are very conscious of our failings. So it is very easy for us to feel overwhelmed by the invitation to live for God. Just like Isaiah, we feel utterly unqualified for such a role. But here Moses encourages the people to believe that they could do it. It wasn’t too difficult for them. God’s commands were not out of reach. They wouldn’t need to make a special visit to heaven or cross the seas to discover it. It was immediately available to them. This is a really important message. So often, people put off the challenge to obey God today because they feel it’s too difficult to take on at the moment. They want to give it more t

Deuteronomy 14:22-23 Moses declared: “You must set aside a tithe of your crops—one-tenth of all the crops you harvest each year. Bring this tithe to the designated place of worship—the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honoured—and eat it there in his presence.” Giving one tenth of your income to the Lord was a principle established from the earliest days. In Genesis 14:20, Abram offers a tithe to Melchizedek, the king of Salem. Moses was concerned that this should now be the basis of the people of Israel’s life in the promised land. There are two main reasons why it was important. Firstly, it was a fundamental part of their worship. As they brought a tithe of their corn, wine, oil, cattle or sheep to God, they were recognising that everything had come from his hands in the first place. Secondly, the tithe was intensely practical. The Levites were not to be given land because their responsibilities were to serve the Lord. So they were completely dependent on the support of others, and the

Deuteronomy 13:1-3 Moses declared: “Suppose there are prophets among you or those who dream dreams about the future, and they promise you signs or miracles, and the predicted signs or miracles occur. If they then say, ‘Come, let us worship other gods’—gods you have not known before— do not listen to them.” As Moses prepared the people of Israel to enter the promised land, he was deeply concerned that they might be led astray from God. He knew their security and prosperity depended on them staying faithful to the God who had brought them out of Egypt and through the wilderness. But he also knew they would hear other voices. There would be people who would set themselves up as prophets and who would try to lure the people away to worship other gods. He wasn’t wrong! The Old Testament tells us about frequent occasions when the people were persuaded to follow other gods. They lurched from one god to another with sickening regularity. The situation wasn’t so very different in the New Testament. The gods might h