Reading: Matthew 7-8, Psalm 84

Have you ever said something you thought you understood, only to have it explained to you that it means something totally different? I have a number of examples myself, but my all time favorite I am going to lift from a comedian I once heard talking about confusing idioms. The well used phrase “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” is referring to the practice of checking a horse’s health and age by looking at their teeth before purchasing them. A horse that is a gift should not be subject to such scrutiny, because doing so would be rude. However, this comedian was not a native speaker of English, and heard “Don’t lick a gift horse in the mouth.” While this sounds funny, it requires no additional explanation- not licking a horse’s mouth just seems like common sense.

I sometimes feel that reading the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is like trying to understand a foreign idiom. It is not really all that complicated, and it is good advice even when you don’t quite get it right, but when I finally realize what it is actually saying I feel awkward, like I would if I was talking about licking horse mouths.

Jesus has just spent a couple chapter pulling his people’s understanding of God’s law from their actions into their hearts. He has told them to put their treasure in the Kingdom of Heaven- the place where God’s will is done- rather than in their own riches. He has told them when they live this way they need be anxious for nothing, because the world is abundant with God’s blessing. Next we come to a series of well known phrases from Jesus: Judge not, that you not be judged. There is the plank and the speck. Ask, and it will be given to you, seek, and you will find, knock, and it will be opened to you. There is the warning about the broad and narrow gates. Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. The story about the houses built on sand and rock. You will know them by their fruit. These don’t require a lot of explanation or context to be good advice, but if we don’t bother with those things we might talking about licking horse’s mouths. I think Jesus, and Matthew, are doing more than give the reader good advice.

Let’s try it this way: everything Jesus is saying is about the heart. Do not judge because you are not who you think you are. You have a plank in your eye and don’t even know it. Get your new heart from the one who knows you as you really are before worrying about telling other people about their problems. Ask, seek, knock… in the right place. Because God makes all things new. God knows what you need. Look to him for it. Treat others how you want to be treated. This is shockingly difficult because of the human problem. It’s like trying to find and enter a narrow, lonely gate when a crowded wide road is available. Living from a new heart has consequences. Old hearted people will show up and try to deceive you- you’ll know what kind they are by what comes from them. Just because they say “Jesus is Lord,” or even because they did amazing things using his name, doesn’t mean they have a new heart. It doesn’t mean they belong in the Kingdom of Heaven. So build your lives on the solid ground of the new heart God gives when you ask. Avoid building your life on hearing about a new heart but never using it. These are more than pithy statements or good advice. They are the continuation of an argument that goes back to the beginning of the Hebrew Scriptures.

When he’s done speaking, everyone is astonished at his authority. Then he goes out and acts like he’s in charge of everything. Really. Reading the miracles of Jesus I think we sometimes lose the thread of authority that Matthew has laid down. He’s already told us Jesus is the son of David, son of Abraham. He is clearly being set up as the King of God’s people. Now he goes out and demonstrates that he is King of God’s world. A leper is made clean because Jesus will it. A centurion’s servant is made well at Jesus command. He touches Peter’s sick mother-in-law, and she is well. He tells a storm to shut up and it obeys him. He tells demons that are possessing two men to get lost, and they go. Matthew is telling us that this guy is In Charge. In charge in a way that no one else has ever been.

And yet he is different that the powerful people with old hearts. Right in the middle of this string of miracles we get a story about how foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head. He has all the authority, but has no home. Let the dead bury their own dead. He has all the authority, but following him will cause division from even the closest relationships. He is not the King that rules by imposing his authority. He is unexpected, and more difficult that his people imagined he would be. He does not look and act like the Kings they have had before, because man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. And everything Jesus does and says is about the heart.