Be perfect?

Many people get a buzz out of hate and find solidarity (communion) in hating common enemies. It can shape national and ethnic identities, as it can denominations, and ideological and theological movements. To live with all people with respect, accepting the need for difficult negotiations and for courageous conflict resolution is demanding. Short-cuts through complexity do violence not only to the truth but also to people."Perfect" is not flawless, unstained purity, but integrity and truth. For the young man, later in 19:21, where Matthew introduces "perfect" again, it means, in a fine play on words, grown-up, mature faith which shows itself in a deep commitment to the poor. The same word means "perfect' and "mature". It is about grown-up faith. It is not about partial or part-time religiosity. There is for Matthew only one way for all - being completely open to love, to receive it and give it. In his own and sometimes controversial way Matthew makes this a theme through every main speech of Jesus and in the end makes it the sole criterion of judgement
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtEpiphany7.htm

perhaps not the right motivation

Jesus Said

I hope not

Love your enemies

I think we have a great sermon illustration this week with the events in Egypt. Massive change came about, not through violence, but through peaceful means.
Maybe the event that stood out to me most strongly was what happened when the Moslim protesters stopped for prayers. They were then surrounded by Egyptian Christians who circled them and faced the crowd to stop any possible violence against them from other protesters. 

Ghandi

Mahatma Gandhi, addressing a Christian group in 1927, said: 
“If I had to face only the Sermon on the Mount and my own interpretation of it, I should not hesitate to say, ‘Oh yes, I am a Christian.... But negatively I can tell you that much of what passes as Christianity is a negation of the Sermon on the Mount.” 

on enemies

C. S. Lewis on enemies:

"If we really want to learn how to forgive, perhaps we had better

start with something easier than the Gestapo."

... but i say to you, love your enemies

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness;

only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate;

only love can do that.”

—Martin Luther King Jr.

The Joy of Metaphors

The Joy of Metaphors

1 Corinthians 3:1 - 9

Knowing a good metaphor

when he saw one, the apostle

managed to cram two of them

into a fairly small space. He fed his

infant children, (is that a third?)

on milk rather than solid meat,

because that is as far as they had reached

in their journeyings of faith. (There,

I’ve introduced one of my own;

making a total of four.)

Even now, presumably some years

after the apostle’s Corinthian sojourn,

the children are still not ready

for the meat of discipleship.

You will be ready

when you learn to live in harmony,

he tells them. He then takes up

the gardening image, ever-popular

and much-employed by his own master.

Planting and watering

and growing to maturity;

his readers are purposed to bear the fruits

of which he is wont to write:

love, joy, peace, faith and hope,

but mostly love.

Unable to restrain himself, the apostle

grabs hold of few more metaphors;

and enthusiastically throws them into the mix

to drive the point home, (sorry!)

or else for the sheer joy of it.

© 2011 Ken Rookes

Our deepest fear

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” (Marianne Williamson)(often attributed to nelson Mandela) 

You are the light of the world

Until now the following has been a little safe. It is safe to follow a messiah and to let him do all the work, hold all the responsibility, but when he turns and names you, that’s a whole different and scary matter.The key word here is “you!”Can you picture here what is happening? Jesus followers have gathered to hear his sermonThey have realised that he is the light of the world, he iss the messiah, they have decided to follow him, at lest for now. And then he turns to them and shockingly declares “You are the salt of the earth, You are the light of the world.”