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February 6, 2011 Isaiah 58:1-9a Matthew 5:13-20 Not Very User Friendly

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

As a gift to herself, our daughter Laura bought a Blue Ray DVD player for her room. (Blue Ray is the

next to newest phenomenon to hit the home TV market with quality superior to HD, 3D being the

latest.) The problem is that while the Blue Ray player will play regular DVDs, a regular DVD player which my wife and I have wont play Blue Ray DVDs.

I give you this information because a couple of weeks ago I saw a commercial for the movie RED.

Its a comedy about a group of retired CIA agents who get back together to see whos trying to kill

Frank Moses. Moses is played by Bruce Willis. The other retires are Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman,

John Malkovich, and Ernest Borgnine. I mentioned to Laura that Id like to see it sometime so she

put it on her Netflix list and it came in a few days.

Laura, of course, ordered it in Blue Ray which meant that she needed to take her new Blue Ray player

down to our family room and connect her player to our TV system, because she doesnt really have

room for us all in her room. We thought it would be simple to connect. After all, our son Paul had

made the connection when he was here in January. No such luck. Laura and I worked for a half anhour trying to get the BR player connected properly to our TV. We finally managed to get the player

to show the movie, which I found to be really enjoyable by the way, but we never did get it hooked up

100% correctly. Our whole TV set up is anything but user friendly.

Many of you know about non-user friendly electronics because you need to get your children, or

more often than not, your grandchildren to get your electronic stuff to work. The old VCRs used to

flash 12:00, 12:00, 12:00 because we couldnt figure out how to set the time. I confess, we replaced

the digital thermostat in the office, mostly because we didnt think it was working, but in part because

it was so difficult to program. It wasnt as user friendly as we needed it to be.

We want the stuff we buy to be easy to use, dont we? We dont want to have to ask someone else toset our new TV, or replace the battery in our watch. We expect to be able to run the microwave

without having to read the directions every time we want to make popcorn or warm-up last nights

dinner.

And companies do work to accommodate us sometimes. Our microwave has a popcorn button, for

example. I havent seen a clock flashing 12:00 for awhile now. Companies know they need to make

their products more user friendly, because not all of us have an 8 year old around to help us get

something to work.

Sometimes churches try and do the same thing with the message of Jesus Christ. We try and make

that message user friendly. Its natural to do this. After all, the gospel message is Good News forall to hear. Preaching the forgiveness of sins is a great message. Preaching that God gives hope to all

people everywhere is wonderful. Proclaiming that God loves us enough to have sent Jesus to live and

die for us, and then to be raised from the dead so that all people who believe can have life abundantly

on earth, and life everlasting in heaven is the best message that can possibly be preached. Its only

natural for us to believe that this should be a user friendly message.

Trouble is, we in the church sometimes mix up the idea ofproclaiming the message of Gods love in

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a user friendly way with the idea that living out the Gospel is user friendly in and of itself. We

want to make sure that the message is understood by all who hear it. This is why, historically, the

church has been at the forefront of education. Weve wanted people to be able to read the Bible so

they can understand for themselves the Good News. Weve wanted to have an educated clergy to help

people understand what Jesus is teaching. Christians have built hospitals, in part, to live out Gods

love in order that non-believers will be able to see Gods love in action. Weve fed the hungry andclothed the naked because thats the right thing to do, but also because people cant hear about Gods

love if theyre starving to death or if theyre cold or homeless. The church has historically worked to

make the Gospel message understood, has worked to make it user friendly.

But this doesnt mean that the message itself is all that user friendly to follow, at least not as the

world hears the message. Its wonderful to hear that God loves us. Its not easy though to love God in

return, as God wants us to love. Its not easy to obey the teachings, for example, that Jesus gives us in

the Sermon on the Mount, gives us in this mornings sermon text.

Jesus teaches, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to

abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one

stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one ofthe least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the

kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of

heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will

never enter the kingdom of heaven.

When one considers how much difficulty we have had in keeping the ancient laws in fulfilling the

demands of the Ten Commandments, or in aspiring to embody the words of the prophets its rather

amazing that Jesus wants to make the law even more demanding and the words of the prophets even

more stringent. And yet thats what he does.

In fact, he says that anybody who breaks these commandments, or teaches anybody else to relax orslack off on the Commandments, will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. He tells us that

our righteousness must exceed even that of the Scribes and Pharisees. Who were the Scribes and

Pharisees? They were the people who knew scripture backward and forward, people who were

basically full-time students of, and full time observers of, the law.1 We usually look down on the

Pharisees because they were tied to the letter of the Law, but not necessarily the Spirit of the Law.

Jesus is teaching that his followers are to both obey the letter of the Law and the Spirit of the Law.

Trouble is, so often we dont even obey the letter of the Law, let alone the Spirit of the Law. Were to

let [our] light shine before others, so that they may see [our] good works and give glory to [our]

Father in heaven. Thats a difficult message to put into practice, yet thats the message with which

were charged to teach as followers of Jesus Christ.So you say, I cant do that! Im not good enough to say to the world, Look at the light of Jesus that

shines through me. How can I teach someone to turn the other cheek when most of the time I cant

1. Willimon, William H., Teaching (and Doing) What Jesus Commands, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 39, No.1; Year A; January, February, March 2011, p. 26.

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do that myself? How can I teach my neighbors to love one another when most of the time Im angry

with them, or when I dont even know them? How can I teach about being obedient to the Ten

Commandments when I break those Commandments left and right at least as Jesus teaches us to

obey them?

To which Jesus says, Trust in the Lord to enable you to proclaim Gods love. Trust in the Holy Spirit

to enable you to proclaim Gods truth. Its not you alone who accomplishes the will of God. Its thepower of the Holy Spirit working in and through you that gets the message of Gods love across.

The truth of this comes from an e-mail that I received from someone this week. It says: The next

time you feel like GOD cant use YOU, just remember... Noah was a drunk, Abraham was too old,

Isaac was a daydreamer, Jacob was a liar, Leah was ugly, Joseph was abused, Moses had a stuttering

problem, Gideon was afraid, Sampson was a womanizer, Rahab was a prostitute, Jeremiah and

Timothy were too young, David had an affair and was a murderer, Elijah was suicidal, Isaiah preached

naked, Jonah ran from God, Naomi was a widow, Job went bankrupt, John the Baptist ate bugs, Peter

denied Christ, The Disciples fell asleep while praying with Jesus, Martha worried about everything,

The Samaritan woman was divorced more than once, Zaccheus was too small, Paul was too religious,

Timothy had an ulcer... AND Lazarus was dead!2

God used each one of these people imperfect as they were. God used them to teach the world to be

obedient to Gods message. As God used them, God can use us to proclaim a message of love and

forgiveness for all.

As we gather at this Table of our Lord Jesus Christ, we gather to remember that were not alone in this

business of teaching what it means to follow Gods commandments. Yes. Its difficult to be obedient

to God, but the Holy Spirit is always with us. May we recommit ourselves to teaching the wonderful

Good News of Jesus Christ to all the world.

2. From an e-mail received this week. No writer given.