Genghis Khan or Jesus Christ?  - (Palm Sunday - Matthew 21:1–11)

In a press conference last week, Benjamin Netanyahu remarked, “History proves that… Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan… if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good.” The words sparked an immediate reaction, with some hearing in them a hard realism about the world, others troubled by his dismissal of the way of Christ.

Netanyahu later clarified that no offence was intended, but that he was arguing that moral strength alone is not enough without military power in today’s security environment.

And yet, even with that clarification, the question still remains: Does history ultimately belong to Genghis Khan or to the crucified Christ? 

And it is precisely into that question that the story of Palm Sunday speaks.

There is something both joyful and deeply unsettling about Palm Sunday and Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Cloaks are thrown on the road, branches are waved, voices cry out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” It feels like a coronation ceremony.

And yet, within days, the mood will shift. The same city that welcomes Jesus will reject him. The same voices that praise will fall silent or even turn on him.

But Matthew is not simply recounting an event here. He is shaping a vision of discipleship. Writing to a largely Jewish Christian community, he draws deeply on the Scriptures of Israel to help them, and us, see what kind of king Jesus is, and what it means to follow him.

Jesus approaches Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives and sends two disciples to fetch a donkey and a colt. This is no small detail. It is a planned, deliberate, prophetic act.

Matthew tells us this happens to fulfil the words of Book of Zechariah:

“See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,

Now in the ancient world, kings rode warhorses into battle. A donkey was something else entirely, a sign of humility, of peace, of a different kind of authority. And so Matthew again, as he has done from from the very beginning of his gospel, shows that Jesus is redefining kingship.

He does not come as the conqueror many expected or longed for. Not as a military liberator. Not as one who will meet violence with greater violence (as many of us, if we are honest, secretly desire in our own hearts), but as a king whose power is expressed through gentleness, integrity, humility, courage and love.

And Matthew’s Gospel is written to create and shape disciples of Jesus, and so he wants his readers to understand: if this is your king, then this is also your way.

The crowd, of course, has its own expectations. They cry out words from Book of Psalms: “Hosanna… Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”  They call him “Son of David”, a title rich with hope for national restoration, for deliverance, for the fulfilment of God’s promises…. And they are not completely wrong. But they do not yet see the whole picture.

Because the king they welcome will not overthrow Rome in the way they are hoping for.
He will not secure victory through force and violence. He will not become Genghis Khan in order to defeat Genghis Khan.

Instead, he will walk a path that looks, to the logic of the world, like weakness, but in truth, it carries a power that can change the course of history. Jesus is planting small seeds, mustard seeds, of transformation. Seeds that, over time, begin to challenge the very values upon which the Roman Empire itself was built: power, spectacle, domination, and violence.

And in time, those seeds begin to bear fruit. For example, in the year 391 AD, Christian monk named Telemachus travelled to Rome and entered the great Roman Colosseum where crowds had gathered to watch gladiators fight to the death.

As the spectacle unfolded, Telemachus ran into the arena and stood between the fighters, and is said to have cried out: “In the name of God, stop!” The crowd roared in anger. And in the chaos, one of the gladiators struck him down, killing him there in front of them all. And yet… something shifted, 

The story tells that the crowd fell silent. One by one, people began to leave. Something in that moment, something in that act of costly, self-giving courage, pierced through the hunger for violence… a quiet turning of hearts in the crowd.  And from that time on, the games began to lose their hold. The tide had turned.  It is a small story, almost hidden in the vast sweep of history. And yet it points to a deeper truth: that the way of Jesus can, in time, overturn even the most brutal systems. But it is a way that is not without cost.

And here, quietly but profoundly, the image of Isaiah’s Servant of God or Suffering Servant passages come into play. Though not quoted directly in this passage, the echoes of Book of Isaiah are unmistakable.

The one who comes gently, riding on a donkey, is the one who in Isaiah 42 does not cry out or raise his voice in the streets (Isaiah 42)… the one who according to Isaiah 53 will be despised and rejected, a man of sorrows.

Matthew has already linked Jesus with Isaiah’s Servant of God passages earlier in the Gospel. Now, as Jesus enters Jerusalem, that identity comes into sharper focus: The king is the servant. The one who is acclaimed will be the one who suffers. The one who is hailed as Son of David will reveal his kingship not through domination, but through self-giving love. This is the paradox at the heart of Matthew’s Gospel.

And so the question raised at the beginning begins to take on a different light. If the world says that only ruthless power prevails… if history seems to favour the strong…then what are we to make of a king who chooses this path?

Is this naïve? Is it impractical? Or is it, in fact, the deepest truth about the nature of God and the shape of reality? Is it the way that brings the Way of Heaven to the Earth? 

Because here is the quiet challenge of Palm Sunday:Jesus does not simply reject violence when he tells one of his companions in the Garden of Gethsemane to put away his sword. He refuses to become what he opposes. He embodies a way of being in the world that does not mirror evil, even in the act of confronting it.

At the end of the passage, the whole city is stirred and asks:  “Who is this?” And the answer comes: “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.” It is a true answer, but not yet a complete one, because Matthew leaves the question open, not just for Jerusalem, but for us.

Who is this?
Is he a prophet?
A teacher?
A symbol of goodness?
A the king who redefines power…?
the servant who reveals the heart of God…?
the one who shows us that true life is found not in grasping, and controlling but in doing justly and walking humbly with one’s God.

Often, like the crowd, we want a God who will fix things quickly, triumph visibly, and confirm our assumptions. But the Way of God revealed in Jesus comes gently, quietly, subversively, riding not on a warhorse, but on a donkey.

And so we too stand where the crowds once stood: caught between two visions of how the world works: One says that history is ultimately shaped by those who are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough to prevail. The other is revealed in the quiet, unsettling figure who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, who refuses the sword, who walks the path of self-giving love even to the cross.  And this way of Jesus can be seen to be echoed in other religious traditions as well, most notably in the Buddhist concept of the Bodhisattva, those who practice not just for their own spiritual awakening, but who dedicated themselves to the spiritual awakening of others, even when it is costly to do so. 

As we enter this Holy Week, we are not asked to settle that question in theory, but to live it in practice, in the choices we make, the spirit we embody, the way we interact with both friend and enemy.

For in the end, the question is not only about empires or nations, but about the very shape of our own ordinary lives:

Does history ultimately belong to Genghis Khan… or to the crucified Christ?

And perhaps just as importantly: which one are we becoming?

Can these Bones Live?  - John 11:1–45 & Romans 8:6–11 & Ezekiel 37:1-14 

In this week where we have just passed the Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere, our Gospel reading from the Gospel of John the raising of Lazarus  interestingly, symbolically reflects themes related to the season of Spring… new life where before the darkness of winter had seemingly prevailed. 

As we have seen in recent weeks, John’s stories tend to be much longer and more involved than the shorter stories of Matthew, Mark and Luke. And so he story unfolds slowly and dramatically. Jesus receives word that his friend Lazarus is ill, yet he delays his journey. By the time he arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has already been in the tomb for four days. Martha and Mary come out to meet him with words that echo the grief many people have felt: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Even the names in this story invite us to look a little deeper. The name Lazarus comes from the Hebrew Eleazar, which means “God has helped.” And the village of Bethany is often understood to mean “house of the poor” or “house of affliction.”

If John’s Gospel is speaking symbolically, as it so often does, then already the story is hinting at something deeper. In the house of affliction, in the place where human vulnerability and suffering are most visible, we meet the one whose name means “God has helped.”

Jesus is deeply moved when he encounters the grief of Mary and Martha and the sorrow of the crowd. In the shortest verse in the Bible we read simply: “Jesus wept.”

These two words reveal something profound about the heart of Christ. His heart is moved wherever he sees humanity bound in the tombs of suffering, wherever people are wrapped in the grave cloths of grief, fear, injustice, or despair. The tears of Jesus remind us that divine compassion is not distant or detached. It enters fully into the sorrow of the human condition.

Then Jesus walks to the tomb and asks that the stone be rolled away. Standing before the grave, he cries out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus emerges, still wrapped in the grave cloths. Jesus then says to those standing nearby, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

It is a story that has stirred faith and imagination for centuries.

Yet many thoughtful readers naturally find themselves asking a question: Did this literally happen? Did Jesus physically raise a man who had been dead for four days? Or might this story be meant to point beyond itself, to convey a deeper spiritual truth?

It is an honest question, and it is worth asking.

One thing we notice when reading the Gospel of John is that it often speaks in a deliberately symbolic way. Again and again people misunderstand Jesus because they take his words too literally.

When Jesus tells Nicodemus that one must be born again, Nicodemus imagines a literal second birth. When Jesus tells the woman at the well about living water, she imagines a magical water that would remove the need to draw from the well ever again.

In both cases Jesus gently leads them away from literalism toward a deeper meaning.

And the stories in John’s Gospel often work in the same way. They carry layers of symbolic significance.

Some readers have also noticed that if the raising of Lazarus were simply a historical miracle, it seems curious that it does not appear in the other Gospels, the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, or the Gospel of Luke. One might expect such a dramatic event to appear in all the early accounts.

This has led some scholars to wonder whether Lazarus in John’s Gospel may function symbolically.

If that is the case, the question becomes fascinating: what, or who, might Lazarus represent?

Some have noticed a possible connection with a story in the Gospel of Luke: the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In that parable, Lazarus represents the poor of the world, the forgotten ones lying outside the gates of wealth and comfort.

Seen in that light, the setting of Bethany, the house of the poor, becomes even more suggestive. The story may be pointing us toward those places in the world where suffering and exclusion are most visible. In such places the voice of Christ calls life out of what the world has written off as hopeless.

But the symbolism may reach even further than that.

Perhaps Lazarus represents all those who feel entombed in some way.

People who feel trapped by fear, addiction, grief, anger, resentment, or despair. People whose lives feel stuck, whose spirits feel numb, whose sense of purpose has faded.

And sometimes this can include people who appear outwardly successful. Even wealth or status cannot answer the deeper question of meaning. Anxiety about preserving what we have can itself become a kind of tomb.

In that sense Lazarus may represent the human condition itself, the way we can become bound up and confined in ways that slowly drain the life out of us.

The Hebrew Scriptures often speak about this kind of spiritual death using vivid imagery. One of the most powerful examples is the vision of the valley of dry bones in the Book of Ezekiel, described in Ezekiel 37.

In that vision the prophet sees a valley filled with dry bones, lifeless, scattered bones. When the breath of God moves over them, they come together and rise into living beings again.

No one imagines this was meant to describe a literal resurrection of skeletons. It is a symbolic vision of a people who felt spiritually dead being restored to life by the Spirit of God.

And this brings us to today’s lectionary reading from the Epistle to the Romans.

In Romans 8, the apostle Paul the speaks about death and life in a way that clearly points beyond physical death. He writes:

“To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

Paul is not talking here about people physically dying and rising again. He is speaking about a spiritual condition that exists even in the present moment.  

A life dominated by fear, ego, anxiety, or self-absorption can feel like a kind of death. But when the Spirit awakens within us, something new begins to emerge, life, freedom, peace.

Paul even says that the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is already dwelling within believers, giving life here and now, giving life to our mortal bodies through the divine breath breathed into us.

Seen in that light, the story of Lazarus in the Gospel of John begins to look very much like a story-shaped illustration of the same spiritual truth Paul describes.

Lazarus lies bound in the tomb.

Then the voice of Christ calls him out into life.

But notice something very important in the story: the community around Lazarus has a role to play.

Jesus tells them, “Take away the stone.”

They must roll back the barrier that seals the tomb.

And when Lazarus emerges, Jesus tells them again: “Unbind him, and let him go.”

The people gathered there become participants in the miracle. They help remove the things that bind Lazarus to death.

Seen symbolically, this becomes a powerful picture of spiritual awakening, not just for individuals but for communities.

The voice of Christ calls people out of the tombs in which they have become trapped. But others help remove the stones. Others help loosen the grave cloths.

Communities of compassion, understanding, and support help people rediscover life.

And perhaps that is why the tears of Jesus matter so much in this story. They reveal a love that refuses to walk past human suffering. Wherever humanity is trapped in tombs of despair or wrapped in the grave cloths of fear, the heart of Christ is moved with compassion.

Perhaps that is what the Spirit of God is always doing, calling life out of death, hope out of despair, freedom out of whatever binds us.

The voice that called Lazarus from the tomb still speaks today.

It speaks into the quiet tombs we inhabit: fear, regret, bitterness, exhaustion, the loss of meaning.

And it calls gently but firmly:

Come out.

And then the community hears another command:

“Unbind him, and let him go.”

Amen.

​Seeing Clearly and Living Freely - John 9:1–41 & Matthew 6:24–34

Our Gospel reading today from John tells one of the most vivid and dramatic stories in the New Testament – the healing of the man born blind.

Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who has never seen – born blind we are told. Immediately the disciples ask a theological question: “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” It is the kind of question religious people often ask, trying to find blame, trying to explain suffering through moral accounting.

But Jesus refuses that framework. He says neither this man nor his parents sinned. Instead, he shifts the focus entirely: the situation will become an opportunity for the works of God to be revealed.

Jesus then does something unusual. He makes mud with saliva, places it on the man’s eyes, and tells him to wash in the pool of Siloam. The man obeys and when he washes, he receives his sight.

At first this seems like a simple miracle story. But John’s Gospel rarely tells simple stories. There are always layers of meaning beneath the surface. What follows is almost like a spiritual drama unfolding in stages.

The neighbours are puzzled. Some say, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Others say it only looks like him. The man simply says, “I am the one.”

Then the religious authorities begin to investigate like the Taliban. The problem is not the miracle itself, the problem is that it happened on the Sabbath. The focus shifts from compassion to rule-keeping. The man is questioned, his parents are questioned, and the pressure grows.

The Pharisees insist Jesus must be a sinner because he healed on the Sabbath. The man responds with beautiful simplicity: “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, though I was blind, now I see.”

As the questioning continues, something remarkable happens. The man who was once blind begins to see more and more clearly – not just physically, but spiritually. Meanwhile the religious authorities, who believe they see clearly, become increasingly blind.

Eventually the man who has been healed is expelled from the synagogue.

When Jesus hears this, he seeks him out again and asks: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” When the man asks who that is, Jesus says, “You have seen him.” And the man responds with faith.

Then Jesus speaks the paradox at the heart of the story: “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who think they see may become blind.”

This is interesting because earlier in John’s Gospel we hear that Jesus did not come to judge the world but to save it. The judgment here is not something Jesus imposes. The religious authorities have judged themselves by believing they can see when in fact they are blind.

Now alongside this story today we hear words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel.

Jesus says: “No one can serve two masters… You cannot serve God and wealth. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life… Look at the birds of the air… Consider the lilies of the field… Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”

To understand these words, it helps to remember the larger vision of Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew presents Jesus as a teacher who reveals the deeper meaning of the Kingdom of God. Much of his teaching is gathered in the Sermon on the Mount – a vision of life shaped by trust in God. Again and again Matthew raises the same question: Where is your heart oriented? What master governs your life?

In that context Jesus warns that the human heart cannot serve two masters. It cannot be divided between trust in God and the pursuit of security, control, and status. The word often translated “wealth” is mammon. It represents the whole system of anxiety-driven accumulation – the belief that our ultimate safety lies in possessing and controlling.

And beneath that system lies a deeper issue: worry. Why do we cling so tightly to security and control? Because we are afraid. Because we struggle to trust that life itself is held within the care of God – within a deeper wisdom and compassion that ultimately holds our lives. So Jesus invites his listeners to look at the world around them: the birds of the air, the lilies of the field. They are not anxious about tomorrow, yet life unfolds within a larger providence.

The call of Jesus is not irresponsibility. It is freedom from anxiety. Freedom from the illusion that we must secure life entirely by our own grasping. Instead, he says: Seek first the Kingdom of God.
In Matthew’s Gospel the Kingdom is not simply a place we go after death. It is a new way of seeing and living – a life aligned with divine reality rather than with fear.

And perhaps on this Mothering Sunday that invitation takes on a very human shape.

One of the quiet things that mothers do for us – and indeed all who nurture children – is that they help us learn how to see the world. A mother teaches a child to notice things: the beauty of a bird in the garden, the wonder of flowers opening in spring, the small signs that life is good.

And mothers also teach something even deeper: they teach trust. A small child begins life vulnerable and fragile. But through being held, fed, comforted, and reassured, that child slowly learns something very important – that life can be trusted. That there is a greater love that holds us.

In a sense, mothers are often the first people who help us learn the very lesson Jesus speaks about in the Sermon on the Mount: not to live our lives consumed by fear and worry, but to trust that there is a deeper love and wisdom that sustains life.

If we return now to the story of the man born blind in John’s Gospel, we can see this teaching from Matthew in a new light. The story in John is really about two ways of seeing the world.

On one side are the religious authorities. They believe they see clearly. They have knowledge, status, and institutional authority. But beneath it lies fear – fear of losing control, fear of losing their system. And because they are bound by that fear, they cannot recognise what God is doing right in front of them. So when grace appears before them – a man receiving sight – they cannot celebrate it. They can only interrogate it.

Meanwhile the man who was blind begins the story with almost nothing. No status. No authority. No theological credentials. All he has is his experience of grace.

Yet as the story unfolds, he becomes freer and freer. At first he simply calls Jesus “the man called Jesus.” Then he calls him “a prophet.” Finally he recognises him as one sent from God. His physical sight becomes a symbol of deeper spiritual sight.

And notice something else: he is no longer afraid. When the authorities threaten him, he speaks boldly. When they try to silence him, he answers with clarity. Even when he is cast out, he stands in the truth of what he has experienced. The man who was once blind is now living the freedom Jesus describes in Matthew’s Gospel. He is no longer serving the master of fear. He is living from trust.

Perhaps this is why Jesus ends the story with that paradox: Those who do not see may see, and those who think they see may become blind.

Spiritual sight does not begin with certainty. It begins with humility. The Pharisees are trapped because they believe they already see perfectly. But the man who was blind is open enough to receive a new vision of reality.

And perhaps this is also where the words of Jesus in Matthew become deeply practical for us: “Do not worry about your life.” This does not mean life will always be easy. It means anxiety does not have to be the master of our hearts.

When fear and worry govern our lives, our vision becomes narrow. We begin to see the world only through the lens of threat and scarcity. But when we seek first the Kingdom of God – when we trust that life is held within a deeper wisdom and compassion – something changes in the way we see. We begin to notice grace where we had not seen it before. We begin to notice beauty where anxiety had blinded us. In other words, light begins to shine into our once anxious lives.

The story of the man born blind turns out not simply to be about physical sight restored, but about the eyes of the heart being opened. In the story, the opening of his eyes becomes the opening of his soul.

And perhaps that brings us back once more to the invitation of Mothering Sunday.

One of the deepest hopes of every loving mother is not simply to protect a child forever, but to help that child grow into someone who can live freely and courageously in the world. To see clearly. To trust deeply. To live without being ruled by fear. In that sense, motherhood itself reflects something of the heart of God – nurturing life, opening eyes, and encouraging trust.

And perhaps that is also the invitation of these Gospel readings today. Not simply to admire a miracle long ago, but to ask ourselves:

What might God be trying to show us that our fears prevent us from seeing?

What if the Kingdom of God is already present all around us – like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field – waiting for us simply to trust enough to open our eyes?

I realise I am preaching to myself here… because I often live with an anxiety that robs me of joy.

In the end we have two options:
to live with a deeper trust that there is a greater wisdom and compassion at work in the universe that undergirds our lives…
or to believe that everything ultimately depends on us alone.

And if that were the case, anxiety really would be our only option.

And so on this Mothering Sunday, may we begin to let go and trust, that the eyes of our hearts might be opened to see the signs of God’s nurturing love and grace around us, and that in place of anxiety we might know the gift of joy. 

​Living Water & Love-Beyond-Limits  (John 4:5–42 & Matthew 5:38–48)

Today the lectionary takes us to one of the most loved stories of John’s Gospel, the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:5–42).

As we enter the story, Jesus is tired. It is midday. He sits beside Jacob’s well in Samaria. Already the story is charged.  Jews and Samaritans did not get along. They disagreed about worship.
They distrusted one another. The history between them was a long and painful one.

And then something unexpected happens. A woman comes alone, to draw water at noon, a strange time, perhaps suggesting she is isolated or excluded from her own community. And Jesus does the unthinkable. He not only speaks to her, but he asks her for a drink.  For Jews and Samaritans, this would have been a jaw-dropping moment. 

The boundaries and divisions in this encounter are large and thick: 

- Jewish vs Samaritan
-Male vs Female
-Religious insider vs Religious outsider
-Respected  Rabbi/Teacher vs Morally compromised and compliciated woman

And yet Jesus crosses these boundaries calmly and without hesitation as though what he was doing was perfectly normal and perfectly acceptable. 

In the encounter between them, He speaks of “living water” in response to her inner thirst for love and meaning. He speaks of living a life of worship “in spirit and in truth,” not bound by a building or place in response to her question about Jews and Samaritans having different places of worship. 
He reveals knowledge of her past without any sense of condemnation. He remains engaged in conversation with her even when the disciples urge him otherwise.

And in response the woman becomes a witness to her own village, bringing them out of the town to see Jesus. And by the end of the story, these Samaritan outsiders confess: “Truly, this is the Saviour of the world.”

We’ll come back to John 4. But now we turn the words from Matthew 5:38–48 where we hear Jesus saying: 

“You have heard… An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…
But I say to you… 
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
“Turn the other cheek”
“Be perfect or whole, as your heavenly Father is perfect or whole, who makes his sun shine on the righteous and the unrighteous alike, who sends his rain on the just and the unjust. 

Again, as we saw last week in Matthew 5:21-37 we hear the repeated pattern:“You have heard that it was said… but I say to you…”

Firstly: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This teaching was not in fact meant to be barbaric. It was merciful. It was meant to limit revenge, to limit retaliation. It prevented escalation. It prevented doing more harm to another than they had done to you. Retaliate yes, was the old teaching, but no more than was done to you. 

But Jesus says:  “Do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” And then:  “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

These verses have often been misunderstood. They are not instructions for passivity. They are not commands to remain in abusive situations. They are invitations into a radically different way of being human.

Matthew’s Jesus is not abolishing justice. He is transforming the logic of retaliation. The old pattern said: harm must be answered with harm. But Jesus introduces a new pattern: harm can be turned around and transformed by love, wisdom and courage.

Last week we saw that anger fractures communion long before violence erupts. Now Jesus shows what it looks like when anger no longer governs us. To turn the other cheek is not to pretend evil is good. It is to refuse to let evil dictate who you become. 

And part of Jesus concluding challenge in Matthew 5:38-48 is that it is incomplete and insufficient to love only those who love us in return… for even sinners and tax-collectors love those who love them in return.  But disciples of Jesus are called to a love that is not transactional or limited. 

And then Jesus gives the reason: “So that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

This is an important Matthean perspective. For Matthew, discipleship is not about following laws and rules but about about growing more and more  to resemble the nature of the One Jesus calls Abba. 

At the end of this section we hear these words:  “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

“Perfect” as I said last week is a poor translation of the Greek word ‘Teleio” which actually means something closer to being whole, complete, mature.

And what is the Father like? “He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” Matthew’s Jesus tells us that God’s generosity is indiscriminate.  God’s love is not reactive. Gods love is not determined by the worthiness or the recipient. And according to Jesus in Mathews Gospel, our love for others is meant to resemble God’s love for us and all humanity. 

And as we turn back to Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan women at the well we see these teachings of Jesus being lived out by Jesus in John 4.  What if the story in John 4 is not only about spiritual thirst and living water. What if it is also about boundary breaking love lived out and embodied by Jesus? 

The old pattern in the ancient world was simple: injury for injury, tribe for tribe, loyalty to insiders and suspicion towards outsiders. Even without violence, there were the invisible lines. Jews did not even share eating or drinking vessels with Samaritans. They did not linger in conversation. 

Yet Jesus does not abide by these invisible lines of hostility and enmity taught to him by the culture of his day. Instead he initiates relationship across the lines of hostility.  He asks for water from someone who represents the “other.” He allows himself to be vulnerable.

In John 4, Jesus does not wait for hostility from the woman or the Samaritan townsfolk — he pre-empts it with openness.  His is a pre-emptive strike, not of violence or aggression but of openness and friendship

And so the boundary breaking love which Jesus teaches in Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount
is quietly acted out by Jesus beside the well. 

From a Jewish perspective, Samaritans were religiously compromised, historically suspect. They were the enemies and religious heretics. Yet Jesus does not approach this woman as an enemy to defeat in theological debate.

He listens. He engages. He speaks truth - but without humiliation or condemnation. When he names her past, but not to shame her.  He sees her fully and still treats her with dignity and respect despite her past. This is love beyond transaction or reciprocity.  He is not loving someone who already belongs. He is loving someone across divide.

He is reflecting the love of the Father “who sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
In John 4, Jesus is completely aligned with the heart of the Divine.  There is no trace of tribal superiority. No defensive identity. No narrowing of compassion. When the disciples return they are bewildered that he is speaking to her. But Jesus’s wholeness allows him to remain steady. His identity is not threatened by crossing boundaries.

And that wholeness in Jesus becomes contagious. The woman leaves her water jar and becomes a bearer of living water to her community.  The village that might once have been considered “enemy territory” becomes a place of ‘harvest’.

And the story ends with the townsfolk saying of Jesus: “Surely this is the Saviour of the World.”  
Saviour of the world... Augustus Caesar had once used that title to refer to himself.  With all his military might, he was exalted as the benefactor and bringer of peace to the world. But in this passage it is not Caesar who is proclaimed as the Saviour of the World, it is Jesus. They see in Jesus something remarkable, a wisdom, a presence, an inner strength and composure, a love that has the power to heal the brokenness and divisions of this world.  And so in this simple story in John’s Gospel we see a widening of the horizon beyond tribe and human made boundaries. We see the kind of love that can save and heal the world. 

And what about us?  Who are the Samaritans in our own lives?  Who are the people we instinctively keep at arm’s length?  Whose story do we assume we already understand without truly listening to them? Who are those we consider ‘other’. 

John 4 shows us that enemy-love does not always look dramatic.  Sometimes it looks like sitting beside a well and asking for a drink of water.

For God so Loved the Cosmos- John 3:1-17 & Matthew 5:21–37

On this 2nd Sunday of Lent, the lectionary gives us words from John’s Gospel: the mysterious nighttime conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.

We read well-know words: “Unless one is born from above/anew, one cannot see the kingdom of God.”  And then those words so often quoted: “For God so loved the world…”

But we’ll come back to these words from John’s Gospel.

In addition to the Lectionary readings over Lent that come from John’s Gospel, I would also during this Lenten season like to reflect intentionally on the Sermon on the Mount from Gospel of Matthew. And at first glance, John and Matthew feel very different. John speaks of new birth, Spirit, eternal life, cosmic love. Matthew gives us teachings on anger, lust, divorce, and taking oaths.

But what if they are describing the same transformation from two different angles? John tells us where transformation begins. Matthew shows us what transformation looks like. To be “born from above” or “being born again” is not a religious slogan. It is the awakening of the inner life. And in Matthew 5, Jesus shows us what that awakened life looks like in practice.

Importantly, when we open Matthew’s Gospel, we are not simply reading a biography of Jesus. We are entering a school of discipleship. Matthew’s Gospel functions almost like the earliest catechism of the Church, a manual for forming people in the way of Christ. And this becomes unmistakably clear at the very end of the Gospel, when the risen Jesus says:

“Go therefore and make disciples… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”  That final sentence tells us why Matthew wrote. This Gospel is not merely to inform us about Jesus. It is to form us by Jesus. And at the heart of this formation stands the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew structures his Gospel around five great teaching blocks, five great discourses (see below), echoing the five books of Moses. And Matthew is deliberately telling us something through that structure. Just as Moses gave Torah to Israel, Jesus now gives teaching, a new Torah to a renewed people.

So when we come to Matthew 5:21–37, we are not just picking up a handful of moral sayings about anger and divorce and oaths. We are stepping into Matthew’s curriculum for discipleship.

But whereas Moses says, “Thus says the Lord,” In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus says, “But I say to you.” This is breathtaking. Jesus talks with greater authority than Moses. Matthew’s Jesus is not rejecting Judaism. He is portraying Jesus as revealing the deepest intention of Torah. And what is that deepest intention? Not mere rule-keeping, but transformation of the heart.

In today’s passage we hear six times: “You have heard that it was said… but I say to you…” And as he does so, murder becomes anger, adultery becomes lust, divorce becomes covenant faithfulness and oaths become simple truthfulness.

At first glance it sounds as though Jesus is making the law harsher. But that is not what is happening. This is not intensification. It is interiorisation. Jesus moves righteousness from external compliance to inner transformation.

Murder destroys life, but anger and contempt destroy relationships long before blood is shed. Adultery breaks a relationship. But a gaze that turns another person into an object fractures love at its root. Oaths were designed to guarantee truthfulness. But Jesus calls for a life so integrated that no oath is necessary. Let your “yes” be yes and let you “no” be no.

The movement is always the same: From behaviour, to the heart, to relational wholeness. This is why in John’s Gospel Jesus speaks of a transformation of the heart, a rebirth of our inner life. Because anger, lust and dishonesty cannot ultimately be managed merely by external restraint. Something in us must be made new. Nicodemus knew the Law. But knowing the Law is not the same as being inwardly renewed. And so in Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount assumes rebirth. It assumes a heart being reshaped.

|As we saw 2 weeks ago, just before this passage in Matthew, Jesus says: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  That sounds intimidating, until we understand what Matthew means by righteousness. Righteousness here is not legal precision. It is alignment with the heart of God.

And that alignment culminates later in this chapter: “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” “Perfect” does not mean flawless. It means being made whole, mature, integrated. It is the perfection of a love that shines on good and bad alike.

Matthew’s Jesus is not primarily a miracle worker in this Gospel. He is the teacher of divine wisdom and the revealer of the Father’s character. And he is forming people who reflect the heart of God.

But notice how in Matthew, community is the place of salvation. Notice how relational this passage is: Be reconciled before you bring your gift to the altar. Settle matters quickly. Let your speech be truthful.

For Matthew, salvation is not merely private forgiveness. It is the formation of a reconciled community. In Matthew, worship without reconciliation is incomplete. Discipleship is the formation of a reconciled and a reconciling community. And later on in chapter 18, Matthew will expand this vision: how to deal with conflict, how to forgive, how to live together.  The church is meant to embody a new kind of humanity.

But this vision of a reconciled community is not just limited to individuals or even the church. John’s Gospel speaks of God’s Love for the world. In fact the Greek word is ‘kosmos’. For God so loved the world… for God so loved the Kosmos. God’s saving renewing love according to John’s Gospel includes not just individual human souls but the whole world. A cosmic love that embraces the entire Kosmos. Those who experience a rebirth from within begin to share in the Kosmic love of God. Transformed individuals begins to transform the world because their hearts are aflame with a Love for the whole Ksomos.

And this renewal begins as an inward reality. The “Kingdom of Heaven” in Matthew’s Gospel begins in the heart.. and what does that kingdom look like according to Matthew’s Jesus?

Not simmering resentment. Not objectifying desire. Not manipulative speech. The kingdom is not first a political revolution. It is transformed heart, a transformed, consciousness that leads to healed relationships and then radiates outward. It is what happens when the law moves from tablets of stone to the depths of the heart.

So what does this reveal about Matthew’s perspective on the Jesus story?

It tells us that for Matthew:

• Jesus is the definitive interpreter of Torah.
• Discipleship means obedience to his teaching.
• Obedience means interior transformation.
• Interior transformation creates reconciled community.
• And reconciled community embodies the Kingdom.

The Jesus story according to Matthew is not merely about the cancellation of guilt. It is about the creation of a new humanity.

And so the question for us is not, “Have I avoided murder?” but “What is happening in my heart toward my brother or sister?” Not, “Have I technically kept the rule?”
but “Is my life becoming whole, is my life radiating Divine Love?”

The Sermon on the Mount is not optional spirituality. It is the shape of Christian maturity. It is the slow, patient work of allowing Christ to transform not just our actions, but our perception, our desires, our speech, and our relationships. And in that transformation, the Kingdom comes.

In closing we return to Nicodemus.

He comes to Jesus at night, curious, cautious, not yet seeing clearly. And Jesus speaks to him of birth from above. Inner renewal of the heart.

Perhaps that is what Lent is for. Not moral tightening. Not religious anxiety. But allowing God to bring forth new life at the root of our being.

And why? Because “God so loved the kosmos.” Not just me. Not just you. Not even just this whole tangled, wounded, yet beautiful world, but the whole create order.

The Sermon on the Mount shows us the shape of that love lived out: anger relinquished, contempt healed, desire purified, speech made simple and true

And when that happens, even imperfectly, the kosmos begins to look, in some small way, as God intends it to be. Amen.