Joplin Community of Christ

Seek First the Kingdom

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Today’s Prayer for Peace – Georgia

Direct link to download today’s audio message http://jcoc.no-ip.org/media/JoplinCOC-02-27-2011.mp3
http://jcoc.no-ip.org/media/JoplinCOC-02-27-2011.mp3

Announcements        
Wednesday, March 2
Mid-Week Renewal of the Spirit – 6:00 PM

Sunday, March 6
Theme:  Do Not Be Afraid
Presider:  Steve Hicks
Speaker:  Ben Peterson
Musician:  Diana Martin
Morning Devotions:  Mildred Burgess
Deacon in Charge: Geneva Reed
Pre-Communion Worship, 9:00 AM

Saturday, April 9
Intentional Ministries of Welcome – Greeter Training
Workshop, 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM
To register or for more information please see the Outreach Steering Team: Shane, Barbara, James, Wade, or Steve. We are
counting on everyone to attend in this next phase of transformational Hospitality.  To be held at the church.                       

Birthdays & Anniversaries, Feb. 27 – March 5
27        Jeff Burgess

Administration Teams, Feb. 27 – March 12
Daytime:   Ben and Margo Peterson
Evenings:  Lester Lay and Ben Jones

Volunteers Needed!
Anyone interested in helping out with Vacation Bible School this
summer is welcomed and invited to share in this fun event. 
Contact Wade Caswell for more information or to offer your help.

Exploring the Scriptures

This passage from the middle of the Sermon on the Mount might be the best known of Jesus’ teachings about wealth and worry. It is about both of these things and the link between them. The irony found is that in today’s culture—and probably equally so in Jesus’ culture—the acquisition of wealth is expected to be a relief from worry. In the Western world, the success of lotteries depends on that belief.

As in so much else of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is turning the hearer’s expectations upside down. Wealth will not serve you; you will serve wealth. Laying up wealth in order to prevent future worry will bring you future worry.

Preaching from this viewpoint is both easy and difficult. It is easy because your hearers are more likely to recognize these lines than other texts: “Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap” and “Consider the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin.” The images in this text are meant to be dramatic; as in a good drama, it takes a jolt to turn your hearers upside down. It is difficult, though, because we congregants always assume we are on Jesus’ side. We assume the slave to wealth is someone else, and at best we feel a little sorry for them. Breaking the assumptions your hearers may not know they have is difficult to do.

So, to induce your hearers to see that Jesus has everything upside down, you have to stand them right side up. Let us recognize that none of us, ever, act this way. Have you ever not given thought to food, drink, or what you are wearing? Is it true that animals and plants are always well taken care of by God, with no harm coming to them? Would we tell our children to give no thought to tomorrow if there is a test at school to be taken?

Maybe this Sermon on the Mount is for someone else, after all. Could it be intended only for those who have taken a monastic vow of poverty or for those living at the end of time? Or maybe it is only for Jesus’ inner ring of disciples who has gathered around him as he is beginning to speak (Matthew 5:1). But the text has a crowd listening in, and Jesus does not whisper. And Matthew reports on the events for a reason. We are meant to listen in, along with the crowd.

Understanding this text means accepting that Jesus has a vision that turns the world upside down, and it is in fact his radical overturning that has made the vision endure. In the vision of Jesus, God is personal, close-by, attentive, forgiving, and gracious. God calls any one of us who will listen to act differently than we have, to change our assumptions, to take a new look at the world God has made and is making.

The two verbs “look” and “consider” are powerful action verbs in Greek, not meant to be taken casually, as in a glance. Consider a world where God is generous and alive and inviting you. What would that look like? In this new world, the peaceable kingdom of God is already here and now—surprise! You join it by acting as if you are already part of it.

Central Ideas

1. You serve wealth, rather than it serving you.
2. Hearers in the congregation today need to find their place in the crowd around Jesus, listening in.
3. It is necessary to face the contradictions and extremes of the text in order to feel the surprise of the truth about the kingdom it points to.

© 2011, Joplin Community of Christ. All rights reserved.