Devotion:
For an audio version of this devotion, click here.
Read Matthew 7:28-29.
These are the concluding verses of “The Sermon On The Mount.” (By the way, it is not a sermon as such but was so labeled by St. Augustine in the fifth century. Rather than a sermon, it is a composed collection of Jesus’ teaching by Matthew.) We find out that the crowds have been listening in as Jesus taught his disciples. It is a reminder that the world is watching and listening to what we say and teach and whether we are living that teaching in our everyday life and relationships.
In The New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, Eugene Boring shares this reflection: “In addressing the difficult ethical issues of our own time, a church that takes Matthew’s model seriously will neither attempt to legislate public morality for people of all religions and none, nor will it withdraw into a sectarian community concerned only about the ethical life of its own members. The text encourages the church to work out its own ethic based on the presuppositions of its own faith, but to do so with an eye on the crowds that share its ethical concerns, even if they do not share its faith or consider it irrelevant. Such ethical concern and action is a mode of evangelism….”
It will always be a challenge to find the balance between the one extreme of forcing our way on the world and on the other extreme, withdrawing from the world. May we never cease in seeking the Spirit to guide us in finding that balance.
Personal Worship Option:
Reflect on what it means to you that the people experienced a different “authority” in Jesus’ teaching than what their “teachers of the law” had taught them.
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