BE-attitudes: Part 2

Matthew 5:3-12

Living out the Sermon on the Mount can be costly, just ask the guy with the bloodstained donkey saddle!

Preachers have to preach sermons. They must begin on Sunday evenings reading the scriptures, noting the settings and the contexts, noticing the unique details and narrative twists. They have to start the preparation process early because, after all, Sunday IS a-comin’! But in a providential manner, God will often ask the preacher of sermons to “live a sermon” rather than preach one! Let me explain…

A certain man, obviously a follower of the true and living God, was headed home from another meaningful experience of worship. However, his Google Maps™ navigation system directed him to take a rather unsavory route. Suddenly on the way down from Jerusalem toward Jericho, he gets jumped and rolled. Stripped of everything that had value, he is left to die alone on the side of the road.

Next comes the seemingly good news. Along comes a pastor! After a good weekend of ministry, you would think that the pastor’s soul is full of the wonders of grace and his eyes would immediately assess the troubling circumstances, his mind would reason a proper act of intervention, and his heart would stir him to meet the desperate need. However, somewhere in the dark recesses of his unseen person, he rationalizes away any sense of obligation or duty. He carefully skirts the broken and bleeding, rushes on home so as not to be late for dinner.

There is still a whisper of hope for the dying man, an associate pastor happens upon the tragic scene. Certainly THIS man is a “gift from God” to the broken brother. But no, he too finds justification for dismissing himself from the circumstance and he too, moves quickly by so as to not get home late for dinner.

Then, just before it was too late to save the now three-times victimized soul, along comes a businessman with no skin in the game at all. He has no “ministry” credentials, has no claim to the privileges of the “clergy” and quite honestly, a whole messenger-bag full of acceptable excuses for simply looking the other way and passing by. While Priests and Levites had their “spiritual duties” to attend to—i.e. sermons to preach—this foreigner lives out a sermon, a sermon that has been preached and re-preached longer than any message delivered by eloquent, great orators. The acted-out sermon of the Good Samaritan still rings loud with conviction. The stunning “take-away” from this masterpiece message is simply this: Not who is your neighbor, but rather, what kind of neighbor are YOU?!

Living out the Sermon on the Mount can be costly, just ask the guy with the bloodstained donkey saddle! “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

See you Sunday, Church!
Pastor Tom