A Jesus-Centered Community

as Jesus passed on from there he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth and he said to him follow me and he rose and followed him and as Jesus reclined at table in the house behold many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and His disciples and when the Pharisees saw this they said to his disciples why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners but when he heard it he said well those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick go and learn what this means I hid desire mercy and not sacrifice for I came not to call the righteous but sinners then the disciples of John came to him saying why do we and the Pharisees fast but your disciples do not fast and Jesus said to them can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them the day will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment for the patch wears away tears away from the garment and worst air is made neither is new wine put into old wineskins for if it is the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed but new wine is put into fresh wine skins and so both are preserved all right we have been crawling through the Gospel of Matthew the Gospel according to Matthew as a community every week we're getting a new teaching a new story about who Jesus is put in front of us and these stories that are amazing they just Jesus is awesome and he's so so amazing and this story here we go again just another punch in the gut and mess with everything you thought you believed you know and that's what the story does today's Palm Sunday so Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the donkey there's all these crowds with him from Galilee and they're excited they're thrilled that Jesus is showing up in Jerusalem for Passover week there are a number of people in the city of Jerusalem that are not thrilled they actually really scandalized by Jesus sewer these folks in Jerusalem it's pretty small crew actually but it's it's the religious leaders and in that group are people who feature in our story here today the the Pharisees who are kind of they're both religious and political leaders among Jesus's culture the people of Israel but also the leaders of Jerusalem and over the temple and they know about Jesus they know about the movement that he started and Palm Sunday begins a heated debate between Jesus and those leaders in Jerusalem that lead up to his arrest and crucifixion and so on how did that all get started where did that conflict begin and where it began was way back in these earlier stories right here where Jesus he's on his mission he's announcing the kingdom of God this is the story of how God is is has come to us in Jesus and he's taking back his world so to speak from what we've done to the place and he's beginning a new family of people around Jesus Jesus is forming a new family around himself people who are responding to his grace to his call to repent and to become new humans but by following him and and they are scandalized the leaders are scandalized by this and so here's yet one more tension and conflict that Jesus has with the current leadership of his own people and last week it was about if you were here with us it was about Jesus forgiving this guy sins which was blasphemous to them because only the God of Israel can forgive somebody's sins so there it was about Jesus making these exalted claims about himself and what he had the authority to do and who he was and today if you're following as Tom read the story the conflicts different isn't it today it's not so much about a claim of who Jesus is it involves that but it's more of about the result Jesus is going around starting a movement of people and the religious leaders are really uncomfortable about who Jesus is including in his circle of followers did you see that right there who's Jesus hanging out with so tack collectors and sinners from the point of view of these Pharisees and for them this is deeply scandalous that somebody who has so much momentum and reputation and like leadership momentum would begin attracting these really questionable kinds of people and so what they're offended at is not just who Jesus claims to be but also they're offended at the kind of community that he's creating because he says it's the kingdom of God but then it includes all the wrong people right from their point of view and so really what this story's about is about how that the community the Jesus forms around himself doesn't fit their categories and how they think about what it means to be the people of God Jesus is introducing a whole new way of thinking about who's in and who's out and what it means to be a part of his family and is deeply scandalous and just sharing personally this story has really messed with me over the last number of years and it has forced me to continue to just keep asking again again again what what are we doing right here what's happening right now what is this event and what is this community and not just what we're doing on Sundays but like what we're doing all throughout the week cuz people gather in homes all over the city and people are meeting up and you know that's hundreds and thousands of little connections of cups of coffee and do and sharing their lives together what are we doing and what's happening and this story it seems to me is is about that it's about challenging and redefining our perceptions of what it means to be a church community around the person of Jesus and so but before we kind of go back and work through the story a little more slowly want to give us a new framework give us some questions for asking this story and I think seeing the really powerful implications of what comes out of a story like this first let me show you a picture of a guy wearing a sweet tweed jacket Paul Paul Hebert you've almost certainly never heard of him and that's okay there's no particular reason to why why you would he passed away as you can see a number of years ago Paul Hebert a super interesting guy he grew up in India in a pretty small town in northern India whose parents were missionaries there and he was a part of a missionary community that was reaching out to the towns and villages in northern India and as you can see I mean he was born there and grew up there his formative years so this was in the 30s and in the 40s and Paul Hebert had a deep love and devotion to Jesus from his childhood you can see it come out in his writings but as he as he moved to the States to go to college and to go to school and he was brilliant he was a math and a physics geek but then he got degrees and anthropology and he became a cultural anthropologist and he taught at lots of colleges he was just one of those type of people right brilliant and encyclopedia mind but as he as he reflected on his experience growing up and as he reflected on the type of community that was created as he grew up in that missionary community he began to become a little self-critical quite self-critical actually not about Jesus he was the loved Jesus but about the way that this missionary community went about presenting Jesus and forming a community and essentially he he looked back on lots of different people that he knew who you know we're not you know Americans living there but people who like we're from their Indians and people who he knew that Jesus was interesting and attractive to them but the idea of becoming a Christian was totally repulsive to them and he talks about how it actually had very little to do with Jesus it had to do with the community and that for them becoming a Christian from a primarily Hindu culture and again all their calendar and religious holidays are shaped according to honoring different gods and so on and and so for Indians coming from that culture to become a Christian not just to follow Jesus but actually like ditching all of that cultural heritage not celebrating those holidays anymore maybe even dressing differently coming into the Christian community and like dressing in ways or singing types of music that Westerners like imported you know that hold you guys with me here it's kind of this critique of the Western missionary movement that it was just importing Western version of Christianity as much as Jesus right and so he became kind of self-critical about this and he never ditched his faith but what he started to do was to write about what are their different ways of forming Christian communities around Jesus that have a different relationship to the culture around them then instead of fully merging Jesus with a certain cultural expression of it to really just make sure it's Jesus that people are being presented with and he okay here's where this is gonna be abstract for like five minutes hang work with me I swear if you work with me it'll pay off you guys with me okay all right so he he was a math geek and he used an analogy from math theory that I don't get it all oh man I've tried they've gone to Wikipedia and and like I've I barely made it through Algebra one so I really have no I have no idea I know I understand how he applied the analogies there a few of you who will get what he talked about but apparently in math theory there are different ways to top of talking about the identity of a number or in an equation that's the last time I'm going to say that word equation okay but it he was asking the question of how do you know what something is how do you how do you define identity so just think about the stuff thing about number of start thing about you as a human being how do you know who you are who are you we all have very different ways of answering that question well from what perspective were from what aspect of my identity and he talks about how there's two very different ways of answering the question Who am I what group do I belong to and so one way that's derived from a theory is you define something by a bounded set he called it a bounded set and a bounded set is a group of somethings that all have a very clear set of attributes or character traits that make them all the same in that way and that make them all belong to this category so the easiest one you know you have a family reunion who gets invited to the family reunion right okay wasn't it the fan so what does that mean what that means a couple things so it could mean that by blood right lineage ancestry you'd belong to that family and you shared the last name or it could be that you are somebody who's married into that family and that could go a number of different ways there's actually a few different ways that people could end up in the family but once you're in the circle that's the defining trait is through marriage or through bloodline you you have the attribute of belonging to this group of people or whatever and you know nothing nothing against people who don't write outside they're just not in the family your neighbors great person they're not getting invited to the family reunion you know and it's not it just is so the this line is very clear who's in and who's not who's who's in who's out and it's it's what he called static character traits it's just like you're just you have you married in blood you're just in the family doesn't require you to do anything really and he said as he began to reflect on his growing up he realized that this was a great description of the kind of Christian community that he grew up in many people's perception of a church community or their idea about what's going on is that I maybe I was born into it my parents were followers of Jesus or from a very early age and then what how do you define who you are and what most church were many church communities do and Hebert was reflecting on his own experience growing up is that this set of boundary lines was a really kind of clear list that everyone agreed on so it was about having had some memorable personal encounter where you realized your own flaws and sin and failures and that you needed Jesus and that you said a certain kind of prayer that reflected that need for Jesus and then after that event there's kind of a lifestyle of habits or practices and that's connected to a certain kind of moral calling or behavior there's there's prayer and reading your Bible and attending the gatherings and so on and so those form very clear identifiable attributes here's someone here's how I know I'm in the community here's how I know I'm out of the community but he said if you look at church history it's never this simple it's never that simple what church communities almost always do in any given culture is we add we make the line thicker and we keep adding things to it and what we tend to add are things that are very unique to that specific culture and place and so for some communities you know for example in Europe or whatever consuming alcohol not about getting drunk just enjoying a great you know glass of scotch or something like that it has that has that doesn't like determine whether you are in or out of the community but in some American Christian communities absolutely don't drink smoke or chew or hang with people who do right right and that and that and that becomes just as important and just as central to identifying who you are how do I know that I'm a follower of Jesus well I don't do that right and so and he said some of those things might be based in a teaching of Jesus the problem is we tend to add things that aren't did Jesus ever talk about smoking you know like what do you do about but for some people smoking is really how you is one of one of those borderline issues are you with me here you guys know what I'm talking about so he believed that this had great strengths it's clear you know what to do you know who's in you know who's out Hebert believed however that this way of thinking about Who am I as a Christian me essentially his point was that it's actually I think Jesus would be bummed and if you read the stories about Jesus it actually doesn't seem like this is how Jesus thought about what he was starting seems like Jesus intended something different and as Jesus met as he Burt meditated on these stories about Jesus he used another analogy from math theory that and things don't find their identity from having a list of attributes that they've accomplished that mark them as being in or out instead a centered set is where you have a very clear center in this case it's the person of Jesus JC and in a centered set how how how do you know who you are how do you know I'm a Christian I'm a follower of Jesus and in centered sets it's not about a static list of I have accomplished these or my life exhibits these attributes he says is very simple if the question is not are you in or are you out the question is about movement am i moving towards the center or am i moving away from the center so think about another example if like the family reunion is a good one here so how many of you how many of you play a musical instrument quite a number of us how many of you would adopt the identity musician far fewer far fewer now what's that about that's interesting isn't it so how do you define who's a musician do you have to make money on it do you have to play a certain amount of hours you have to play Wregget do you have to perform what if you perform but never get paid what if you were really good in your 20s and you're living off the fumes in your 50s you like of what like wow how do you define and so in Hebert's mind how being I am a guitar player what does what does that mean that the community of guitar players is really revolves around just to two questions am i moving towards the center which means I keep pursuing it I keep growing and changing I would never say that I've arrived or I may never play a concert in my life but I love it and I do it and I keep I keep moving at it or am i moving away from the center yeah I hardly ever play I don't not used to I was actually played in a band you know in my twenties like everybody did you know and then not anymore so and you may you may be super talented guitar player but you haven't picked it up in ten years and so in reality like you're not pursuing it you're totally moving away but you may have just picked one up a guitar and you're so into it and you're like you're horrible what what he wants to listen to you play but whatever you're moving you're moving towards the center and then this kind of community you find your identity you have people who have all kinds of relationships to the center and it's not static about have you arrived and do you have this list of attributes that's true about you it's just a simple question are you moving towards the center are you moving away from the center and that defines one's identity and so applied to a church community you can have people who were born into it and who they they're just so raised in it as a culture the behaviors and the way you live as a Christian and so on in that particular church setting like it's not hard for them it's just what you do it's just how they grew up but actually in their hearts like they don't actually care about Jesus and they're not moving towards him with intention and commitment but you could have somebody who is really far away like it and they totally get invited and they're like forget Jesus he's lame but then you could also have somebody who gets invited or attracted to Jesus and and they they may actually may not even be part of a church community and want to be but they're on they're on the way right they're on a journey and there's something that maybe they don't even tell anybody because they're kind of embarrassed about it but they're stoked on Jesus and when they hear about him they they love him and they want to move towards him and there's some that Jesus is doing inside of them is that a person a Christian like when did you see what you see the complexity here the the strength of this is this clear who's in and who's out how do you know who's in and who's out here you drop a line like around this I did that at the last service and it was a mess so I'm not gonna do it again but it's it's messy in terms of its social reality this is messy Hebert believed that this way of thinking about things is more true to the kind of community Jesus was trying to create why did he think that because of stories like this one you guys with me let's go back to the story and just ask the question if you were to play out the implications of what Jesus is doing in this story which one of these visions is more consistent with what Jesus is doing let's just dive right back in Matthew chapter 9 verse 9 so Jesus he went on from there he had just healed and forgiven the sins of the paralyzed man that was what we explored last week so he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collectors booth follow me he told him and so Matthew got up and followed him any questions it's just so matter-of-fact right so what so that's cool this is not the first time this has happened this but though it is unique Jesus on only one other occasion intentionally moves towards somebody like moves into their world and addresses them and tells them to follow him and that was the fisherman all the way back and at the beginning in Chapter two other that Jesus has hasn't done anything like this before so this raises questions of like who is this guy why would Jesus intentionally move towards and bring this guy into the community of disciples that's one thing this is by the way the matthew connected to the authorship in the composition of the book of Matthew the Gospel according to Matthew is it sitting in your lap right now it also raises a question of like what was going on inside of Matthew but clearly there's some as we're gonna see here's somebody who's like way on the margins of the of consider who's a part of would ever be a part of Jesus community we're gonna see from the Pharisees point of view he's on the bad list like he's way out here so even though he's far away there's something that we're not told that was stirring and going on in him he had surely been hearing stories and reports about Jesus everybody had and Jesus was so compelling to him the moment he has a personal connection to Jesus it just overwhelms him and he's just I'm all-in you know and it doesn't say he leaped over the table you know but you kind of imagine you kind of imagined something like that what so who is this guy and what was going on inside of him and this is awesome holy cow you guys this is so awesome so what does Matthew do for a living by sitting at a tax collectors booth because he is a tax collector so what does that mean and some of you might have some familiarity at least to know this you know this is not a compliment to call somebody this in Jesus's day so he's a tax collector which means he he represents as he sits in that little booth he's a Jewish man sitting in a tax collectors booth and that itself is a little picture painting from most Jewish people's point of view of everything that's wrong with their world right then so because what Matthew represents is he represents the presence of a military occupation of an empire whose capital city is way way way WAY far away distant but yet they have full military strategic control over over the land the Jewish people view is their ancestral land right and in the Land of Israel and so so who so yep the Romans and how are they viewed among most like religious devout Jews well they build good roads have you ever seen the wife of Brian Monty Python the debate well they gave us roads you know and clean water and they get into this whole debate or whatever because they benefited in some ways but how did they benefit they benefited because the Roman tax system was grinding Israelites into poverty and what's why giasses parables are filled with people's stories about debts and land and so on because this was the day-to-day reality the taxation system was such a heavy burden who was grinding these people into poverty so here's what the Romans did this really it's why the Empire lasted so long they knew that they could keep subject people's pacified if instead of em constantly importing like people with different skin colour or speak a different language to come rule directly what if you just buy off Jewish people and you make them puppet rulers in their own lands and it's like you know hey it's our own people you know but really they're just they're just puppets and so their King Herod puppet of the Romans they have Roman soldiers everywhere but they hire Jewish mercenary armies and then they hire people like Matthew Matthew so I you know there's not I've tried to think of other ways to describe he's mafia that's what he is let's just say it the way they would prezi's mafia he's a first-century mafia because he's he's he sold out to the powers that be where might makes right and instead of trying to resist and keep the traditions of his people and in too late themselves against Greek and Roman influence he just sold the farm right and he here's what he gets to do he works for the Romans so like there's some fishermen coming up the road and they caught 500 fish or whatever and so he gets to lay down a big tax on that here's what Caesar Augustus is gonna take from that oh and there's also a service charge for my services right it's like the ATM thing 350 that you get when you use the what's that about it's the service charge that's what it is tax collectors anyway so they so that's what he gets to do and here was the thing is that the tax collectors like they regulated how much profit they skim off the top is that 5% 7% whatever it was it was a deeply corrupt system that's my point he's rich and he's corrupt nobody likes did the Romans like this guy yeah he just what do we know about this guy money talks for him like that chooses where his values go his money talks and how did Jewish people view somebody like Matthew I mean I still here let me just let's get very concrete let me show you a picture let's go to the next one real quick here let me show you a picture of the kind of currency Matthew do you think we're really geeking out here this morning but but this is really fascinating so these are coins being used in in the Land of Israel in the first century they actually post-date Jesus by a little bit but they make the point they make the point on the left is the face and coined and that's there you go Caesar the spacian the imperial lord of the world right and then on the right side you see a picture that says the victory of augustus augustus is another way of referring to caesar and who's the guy on the top there that's the roman soldier and who who does he have his boot on a jewish man so just stop - stop these are the coins that matthew demands from you that you pay your taxes with these are the coins that matthew gives you your change and says have a nice day right I mean do you see how heated this is this and this is not just about religion and spirituality what Jesus is doing there are real social realities and political social implications to what Jesus is doing when he walks up to the tax collectors booth and he addresses Matthew he just says follow me and Matthew it doesn't say he leaps over the table something's going on inside of him where he's a part of this system and he's participating in the extortion of his own kinsmen right his own Jewish people and there's something going on inside of him that he may be as far to the edge right of a devout religious Jew as possible but there's something going on inside of him that Jesus moves right towards him tells him follow me and he just immediately he's moving towards Jesus and he actually becomes a part of the closest circle of people around Jesus let's back up and let me if you just flip your page to the beginning of chapter 10 or just read it right here on the screen so this is this even gets even more interesting hold account so here Jesus had a huge huge circle of disciples but he chose 12 specifically as a symbol of the renewed restored Israel that his kingdom of God movement was was beginning and were given a list of their names right here at the beginning of chapter 10 and you might think oh great a list of names no dude this is this is where the action is right here so here are the names of the Twelve Apostles they became the core leaders of the Jesus Movement after his death and resurrection so first you got Simon who is called Peter his brother Andrew you have James the son of Zebedee his brother John Philip and Bartholomew Thomas and Matthew the tax collector is the stories about James the son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus Simon the zealot and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him there's 12 people named here three get additional information about their background of things that they did do you see that there just three enough so I've highlighted them in yellow and what and actually all three of those are relevant to this whole deal right here so Matthew the tax collector good guy bad guy he's a bad guy right in terms of from everybody else's point of view but there's something so radical happens in him when he hears the call of Jesus and when Jesus initiates inviting him to become a part he just totally surrenders himself also in the circle of Jesus's closest followers look at the the guy on the bottom line there's Simon the zealot do you see that now zealot that's not a word that we really use or maybe if we do use it we I think use it in a way similarly that they did which means a religious fanatic but in their day it wasn't just a religious fanatic it was a religious fanatic with a sword who's ready to spill Roman blood so a part of being devout to the Torah and to the traditions of the people of Israel and to the food laws and Sabbath is the dedication to the freedom and liberation of the Covenant people of God from foreign oppression and so they're formed a movement that was totally steaming in Jesus's day and just a few decades after Jesus death and resurrection it formed into a full-on guerrilla war there was a movement marah band hood just think Robin Hood and you got it - the tights probably but just think Robin Hood and they called themselves the zealots because they had zeal just like the ancient priests Phineas from the Book of Numbers remember that story he had zeal and used violence as a way of defending the boundary lines against God's people it's an interesting story and so here you have Simon who Matthew's former life is mafia working with the Romans Simon's former life before Jesus called him and he followed Jesus before his life beforehand is about killing Romans and people who associate themselves with Romans and people who are pawns and of the Romans now just stop and ask yourself the question who is gonna have a really hard time getting along into the circle are you with me here do you think this was unintentional that Jesus invited both of these people to be a part of his closest circle nothing Jesus did was unintentional it was all symbolic and intentional everything he did had meaning and significance so what what's he doing according to devout devout committed Jews committed to the freedom and of their people and devotion to the tour and the God of Israel of those two guys there who's on the inside Simon who's on the outside so what does Jesus doing he's picking specifically to people who according to their way of organizing identity their way of discerning who is in and who is out of Jesus's covenant family Jesus deliberately picks two people on who couldn't be more opposite ends of the spectrum and he calls them both to follow him do you see that do you see what Jesus is doing he's so awesome ray he's so awesome what what he's saying he's redefining what it means to be a part of the family of God it doesn't have to do with traits that you're born with it doesn't have to do with your list of religious accomplishments it actually doesn't even have to do with how horrible of a person you've been in the past all that matters is the fact that right now in this moment Jesus offers you the invitation to follow him and to become a part of his family not because of anything that you've done but just because he's that kind of person because he just exudes grace and welcomed an invitation and this is connected to his mission to announce the forgiveness of sins and to defeat evil and hold all the stories are kind of starting to come together but here's another facet of who Jesus is he's inviting and look at the third guy Judas how how close to Jesus is Judas once he's in that circle I mean he's like as close as you could get and we find out the nobody even knew what direction is Jeep as Judas really headed he's booking it away from Jesus he was right close with him though I mean he was within the last night right he was one of the clothes from the outside here's somebody closer to Jesus than anybody else but actually he's further away from Jesus than anybody you could imagine Jesus is making a very powerful statement here about what it means to belong to his family and it's scandalous if this is clean and nice right it's liability is that it kind of tends toward legalism and we add on things that aren't really a part of the core identity but it's I mean it's clear at least it's nice neat you know you know who's in and you know who's out this has a crystal clear center are you moving towards Jesus or are you moving away from Jesus but the result of the centered set is social messiness social messiness and which is exactly what happens let's keep going look at what happens verse 10 so while Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house so that's interesting Jesus is is not only not bothered by the fact that Matthew used to be this kind of person from their point of view but now that Matthew has responded to his call he fully associates and identify let's just go to your house which in our day even to offer somebody to come into your house or go to someone else's house for dinner that's that's a statement right that you have you are willing to associate and identify with each other in Jesus culture it's even more so who you have who you eat with is a statement of who you identify and associate yourself with so he goes in this is Craig you guys look he goes to have this dinner party at Matthew's house and then who also comes who comes all of Matthew's friends do you see that right there tax collectors and sinners and they're all coming and eating with him and with the disciples how does how uncomfortable this time in the zealot at this dinner party it's just like.how more of them like what do you do so so really so stop and think about the dynamics of that dinner party really stop and think about it so you have Matthew who he's come to a place he's moving towards Jesus and he's come to a place we're like I can't justify participating in that vocation anymore there's too many compromises that conflict with me responding to Jesus His grace and allowing him to change and transform my life I can't be in that work environment and do this so he's gotta opt out he leaves but he still has all these relationships and all these friends with people who are still in that profession and who knows me who knows where they're at you know maybe some of them are just like cool dinner party with Jesus I haven't seen him up close you know so they want to come and then there's other people who are like Matthew or just like Jude that he's amazing I want to get around him more you have all these different kinds of people and and and from the outside looking in what does this look like it looks like Jesus having a dinner party with the Mafia and the slime are you with me here it just this looks really really unprofessional on Jesus's part but apparently Jesus he sees himself as redefining what it even means to be a part of his family and so Jesus is not threatened by being around people who they they know what Jesus teaches they know that he wouldn't agree with decisions that they're making but at the same time they want to be around him just stop and think stop these are people who know that Jesus disagrees about choices that they're making but they still want to be around Jesus when does that happen looks really when does that happen there's something about Jesus the grace the integrity the generosity but also like the truthfulness that people are compelled to be around him even if they're tax collectors and sinners and they look like they know what his teachings are but they want to be around him and for the Pharisees they they come undone because they Jesus he's like a social deviant he's undermining their sense of social order but by doing this so look at their response verse 11 when the Pharisees see this they they asked his disciples and they're interesting they like don't go to Jesus they have to the disciples what does your teacher doing eating with these tax collectors and sinners and on hearing this Jesus is like you talking to them you're talking to me that's gonna be it so he says listen it's not healthy people who need a doctor it's people who are sick go and learn what this means and he quotes from the Prophet Hosea chapter 6 the God of Israel says look I'm looking for people who were shaped by Mercy not just people who know how to perform religious rituals but people whose hearts are about love and mercy for others and then Jesus says I haven't come to call the righteous but I've come I've come to call sinners so what Jesus is doing something with these pairs he's what he's saying is there are people who because because of the way that the Pharisees have constructed a religious community there's people who they they think of themselves as the righteous they perform the religious rituals of the people of Israel but in reality they don't know the God of Israel because how do you know how do you know if someone really knows the heartbeat of the God of Israel how do they treat people who are really really different from them and who they disagree with the Pharisees create a social environment where those people are very clearly informed that they're on the outside that they're not welcome unless they first change unless they first change Jesus creates an environment where he makes himself the center and movement towards himself or away from himself and this is where the drawing breaks down is because Jesus himself is not static he's new he moves to Matthew he comes to Matthew first castee the Pharisees could say listen we're about mercy come on our arms are open anytime Matthew would want to repent and like leave his job and come become Torah observant and start following the laws and begin praying for the redemption of Jerusalem we would welcome him with open arms and Jesus is saying what your what you're making at the center is is our our willpower that's what you're making the center see in this kind of community it's about your ability to meet the criteria so that you can be in or your inability to meet the criteria so you're out but in both cases it's your willpower to be a good person that's at the center in this way of thinking about identity it's about what Jesus has done regardless of your ability or inability he moved into your neighborhood he walked up to you sitting at tax collectors booth and he said follow me and Matthew is responding to an invitation that he would never be offered by the Pharisees and they're being naive because they're like listen we could anytime Matthew wants to repent but of course it's not just about like him becoming Torah observant again it's about a whole it's about him adopting a foreign culture the hurdles are so huge and there's probably a lot of really good things that Matthew would benefit from if he would change his life but it makes his willpower the center of the equation here it makes Jesus and his invitation the center of the story he goes with me here I'm starting to preach right but but do you guys get this is so intense like this this has the ability to completely reshape our sense of what it even means to be a community of Jesus as followers and it doesn't end there it gets even more radical Easter starts talking about weddings and shirts and wine okay let's talk about that verse 14 so then John's disciples they hear that he's having these dinner parties with tax collectors and they come and they ask him like well what's this listen Jesus how is it that we and the Pharisees we we fast we don't eat on a regular regular basis but you and your disciples you're like livin it up your holy celebration will although the wrong people what are you doing so who are John's disciples decides on who so John the Baptist and so he featured earlier in the story he's crazy he's cookies I mean gee Jesus and John are on good terms but he's intense right do you remember he's like homeless out in the desert by the Jordan River he wears really uncomfortable you know clothing and he's a scavenger right he's dumpster diver in Portland terms right he like he lives off of grasshoppers and wild honey's that he finds you know I mean that's how he lives and he's calling the people of Israel to recognize how horribly wrong they've misunderstood who the God of Israel is they need to repent and he calls them out this really I mean you got a hike 25 miles into the desert to even come be near this guy and their disciples come to Jesus and there's like Jesus come on you're a religious leader you're announcing the kingdom of God it's like why aren't you more serious you know you kind of come off as being kind of lacks you know what you're having these dinner parties like what are you doing we're about prayer right and religious devotion what's the deal here and in many ways it's just a different version of the same conversation how do you know if you're truly devout well clearly you will be marked by denial of pleasures and you will you know withdraw from everything that's comfortable and good and the worlds in a tragic place and so and and Jesus doesn't deny that he says that there are times when that is appropriate but he says this is not one of those times look at how he responds always in direct with Jesus you're like how is that an answer to the alright why aren't you guys fasting well how can the guests of the bridegroom mourn when the groom is right there with them listen the time will come the groom's gonna be taken away then fasting will be appropriate what's he saying so what he's saying there's something altogether new happening here and the proper response to what Jesus is doing is he creates this new family of God's people is not grief or mourning it's celebration and and the use of a wedding image is intentional everything is intentional with Jesus so so what happens at a wedding it's it's two people making a covenant to each other and out of that covenant commitment a family is created new life is created out of that covenant what does Jesus doing as he calls the Matthew Ana Simon and a Judas he's creating a new family of God's covenant people and he says it's time to celebrate because people like Matthew are finding that they too are invited to be a part of God's family people who would have been excluded on the Pharisees account now find themselves invited personally by Jesus and there's all these people who are coming into contact and they're moving towards the center and their lives are totally getting transformed and turned upside down it's time for a dinner party if you're gonna sex I mean like if you have if you show up at a wedding and you're like at the reception you're like no no thank you you know I'm just gonna fast and pray in the corner that's not it you know what saying like that's not not only inappropriate it's just rude it's silly it's just shows you don't know how to pay attention to the social environment that you're in right so he's saying it's this is the time to celebrate these meals with all you think this is like somehow Jesus compromising from the Pharisees point of view and he's like do you have no idea what's going on in the hearts of these people you've shunned them how would you know what's going on in their story but these dinners I'm telling you people are finding life and repentance and grace it's time to have a party then he goes on and he talks about clothes and wine so let's conclude with that so he goes on he says listen you've got a shirt I'll paraphrase you've got a really great shirt and you get a tear a hole in it and you're like dang it you know this is my favorite color something I'm just making this up but work with me alright so and you're like well I've got this wolf sweater that's the same color I bet if I sewed on the patch like nobody would notice or whatever and it's right here and then you forget and you put it in the dryer and like what is the wolf's patch do shrinks and all its gonna tug at the threads and it's gonna make the hole even worse do you get it guess with me it's always talking about you have two things that you're trying to fit together they're just different and incompatible with one another what does that have to do with anything right what he's talking about this Pharisees you have a way of envisioning how you form a community of God's people how do I know that I am on good terms with God how do I know that I have received God's grace they have their way of defining it Jesus is redefining that around himself and what he's saying is you can't don't try and understand what I'm doing in light of your way of thinking you just gotta keep them separate doing something new and different all together if so it's the same for the wine skins wine skins were made out of leather and when wine is turning from grape juice into wine it ferments and so that's gonna produce gas count it's like a balloon if you have a small balloon I did this with my sons the other day it scared them to death I had this little balloon nose like Oh surely it can get bigger oh it can get bigger and then it popped and august's cried because it startled him inside so anyway it's like that it's the gas if you have a new wineskin it's pliable it can stretch and expand but if you've got a 30 year old wineskin that's brittle and it's hard the gas is gonna make it explode and blah and then boom you lose the wine skin and the wine that's a bum deal so just go with news why is it kids you know let this point do you guys see his point he makes you work for it but do you see his point there's something new here there's an and and your identity as a part of the community of Jesus does not make your ability or inability to be a good person that's not the center of the deal the center of the deal is just very it's not it's also not morally wishy-washy just because Jesus is in a room with people that he disagrees with the choices there they're making does their feet in endorses their decisions but what it does mean is that he loves them and he wants them to be in proximity to the invitation so that one day something's gonna go on inside of them so that they'll actually start moving towards him instead of away from him and he's saying that's the deal that's the kingdom of God and it creates a lot of messiness social messiness but it's crystal clarity when it comes to what is this community about this community is about celebrating the fact that despite our flaws and our failures Jesus doesn't remain distant from us he moves right towards the sick towards the sinners and those who know that they need to be shown forgiveness in mercy and Jesus wants to form those people into a community that celebrates life and that celebrates forgiveness and that celebrates the fact that you're not trapped by your old identity whether it's being religious or irreligious it's totally redefined in a Nuke in a new community of Jesus's people where Jesus is the center in the story of his grace is the center come on now what are you supposed to do about this and that's a real question oh go ahead what are you supposed to do about this and I think there's just let me let me close by kind of putting some questions for how to respond in this time that we have here one response is very personal you can be you can be born into a church community you can be as close to the center from everybody's point of view like a Judas but in reality you don't know Jesus and you're not moving towards him with any kind of intention or passion or commitment and and you don't you're not even making any movement to try and let your lives be conformed to his teaching and letting his presence empower you to become a new and different kind of person and so there's there's lots of us who are a part of door of hope and we're totally here and we find herself in this kind of position and if you're honest with yourself you realize I'm not moving towards Jesus I'm moving away but what does it even mean to move towards Jesus it means to stop thinking about yourself right and just start thinking about Jesus and allow these stories to remind you of his beauty and of His grace and of his wisdom and his integrity and of his offer to show you grace and make you new and and so some of us like you or you're in situations with your families you're in difficult conflicts within family you're you you have decisions in terms of job or work or a project that you're working on you you have issues with your housemates or whatever and you have a choice in the next seven days are you going to move towards Jesus in how you respond in those situations and the kinds of choices that you make in a way that's consistent with the response to his invitation or are you moving away from Jesus it's just very simple but there's also this corporate reality like how do we do this as a community and it's very complicated because what it means is we'll have a Simon and a Matthew you know and we'll have people who disagree about all kinds of things and what matters in a community that's a centered set is not uniformity that we're all the same but what it does matter is that we are unified in this in that a Matthew of Anna Simon they may differ about politics and their view of Rome or whatever but are they becoming more generous are they becoming more loving to people that they don't like right are they becoming more merciful that they're becoming more humble or they're becoming more in love with Jesus and you will find that all of a sudden these differences begin to pale in comparison to the unity that they have in pursuing Jesus what does that look like for us what does it look like for you in your in your community groups if you're in one what does what does this mean for us and that's not a question I can answer that's a question of what Jesus the Spirit is up to in our midst amen but this is what Jesus is up to it seems to me and so let me close in a word of Prayer and let's just respond to to all of this let me pray you

Channel: Door of Hope Southeast

Views: 2,100

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Tim Mackie, Door of Hope, DoH, Church, Portland, PDX, Oregon, Matthew, Book of Matthew, Jesus, Christian community, Jesus community

Id: k6VXvVWdX5o

Length: 54min 51sec (3291 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 13 2019