Date: 14 Febru­ary 2021 | Pre­a­cher:
Series: | Bible text: Psalm 1–3
Hint: This ser­mon has been machi­ne trans­la­ted. Plea­se note that we can­not accept any respon­si­bi­li­ty for the accu­ra­cy of the content.

The audi­ence heard the Ser­mon on the Mount with Jewish ears. The­re are many images in it that set the head cine­ma of tho­se pre­sent in moti­on. We approach the Ser­mon on the Mount from the Old Tes­ta­ment. In the Psalms we dis­co­ver the three-step pro­cess: buil­ding vir­tue and cha­rac­ter, rea­li­sing God’s reign, and trus­ting God and pray­ing. The meta­mor­pho­sis should lead us to learn to dance to the music of God.


Once upon a time the­re was a litt­le boy. His father sat in the same room and wan­ted to read the news­pa­per. Impos­si­ble. Too much noi­se. Then the father had a saving thought: he took an old book from the shelf, ope­ned it and tore out a page with a pic­tu­re of a map of the world. He cuts it up and calls out to the boy: «Hey Tim, I have an inte­res­t­ing game for you! Put the pie­ces of this world map tog­e­ther cor­rect­ly. If you suc­ceed, you get a franc.«And Tim is alre­a­dy sit­ting in a cor­ner and working quiet­ly. The father is hap­py about the quiet. It will last a long time with this dif­fi­cult task. Far from it! In a few minu­tes, the litt­le boy is hol­ding up his flaw­less work to his asto­nis­hed father. Shaking his head, he asks: «How could you put tog­e­ther the world map, which you don’t even know, in such a short time?» – «Very simp­le!«Tim shows his father the other side of the page, whe­re a lar­ge human face is depic­ted. «I sim­ply put the human image tog­e­ther and then it was right with the world on the other side!«The father is silent for a long time. Then he says thoughtful­ly: «Yes, it’s real­ly true: If it’s right with the per­son, it’s right with the world.»

 

In this world, many things are wrong becau­se they are wrong with the human being. Meta­mor­pho­sis is to trans­form our being into the strength of cha­rac­ter ori­gi­nal­ly inten­ded by God. The Ser­mon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) con­ta­ins the cor­re­spon­ding cha­rac­ter buil­ding, that someone beco­mes a flou­ris­hing per­son and can make an important con­tri­bu­ti­on that all is right with the world again.

The first infor­ma­ti­on we get from the New Tes­ta­ment is: «This is the book of the histo­ry of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abra­ham»(Matthew 1:1 Lut). This hea­ding for all that is to come points to Jesus» fami­ly. With this we know that Jesus is com­ple­te­ly Jewish. His disci­ples are also Jewish and hear with Jewish ears. They hear that Jesus is whol­ly con­nec­ted to Abra­ham and David. Paul says in Romans 10 that Jesus is the goal of the Torah (5 books of Moses). Why is the Torah given? So that peo­p­le may beco­me like God and dance to his music. This means being hum­ble, suf­fe­ring, meek, just, mer­ciful, pure of heart and peaceable – all things we know from the Ser­mon on the Mount.

We have to under­stand the Ser­mon on the Mount from the Old Tes­ta­ment. The who­le bibli­cal nar­ra­ti­ve can be con­side­red under the hea­ding «King­dom of God» or «Reign of God». God’s reign means that he makes the music, and his king­dom is rea­li­sed to the ext­ent that we humans dance to that music. Or in the words of Peter Kuz­mic: «Hope means lis­tening to the music of the future. Faith means dancing to it in the pre­sent.» From the begin­ning, God’s plan was for Him to reign with man over crea­ti­on. «Thus God crea­ted man in his own image, in the image of God he crea­ted them, male and fema­le he crea­ted them»(Gene­sis 1:27 NL). Man is crea­ted to ori­en­ta­te hims­elf to the Crea­tor, to take up the rhythm of the Crea­tor in the sha­ping of one’s life. In this way, God exer­ci­s­es his domi­ni­on over his crea­ti­on. He crea­ted ever­y­thing from not­hing. He has assi­gned man the role of God’s gover­nor. Just as a gre­at king places his sta­tue in the regi­ons to docu­ment his cla­im to rule, so the Crea­tor places man in his crea­ti­on. He is to «rule» by orde­ring, naming, cul­ti­vat­ing, pre­ser­ving, more and fil­ling the earth. He is, so to speak, «world administrator».

God’s pro­ject to rea­li­se his king­ship over his crea­ti­on tog­e­ther with a human being as his gover­nor is ris­ky. If God had crea­ted a robot, he could have saved hims­elf a lot of grief and trou­ble. But God has crea­ted a coun­ter­part for hims­elf. A being with whom he can enter into a per­so­nal rela­ti­onship. A being whom he loves and who can love him. Man can deci­de for hims­elf to who­se music he wants to dance. And – the dancer of God beca­me a stumb­ling block and drag­ged the who­le crea­ti­on with him into mise­ry. One speaks of the fall of man. Sin means: Man no lon­ger lis­tens to the music of hea­ven. The result is repre­hen­si­ble and des­truc­ti­ve actions. Wit­hout the Crea­tor the crea­tu­re is soon exhaus­ted. God takes the initia­ti­ve. He does not give up on the stumb­ling man. He longs for res­to­ra­ti­on. This basic music resounds through the who­le bibli­cal nar­ra­ti­ve. Someone has aptly put it: «God is sear­ching for us – that is the dra­ma of the Bible». The who­le Bible is about the ques­ti­on of how man can beco­me a God-dancer again – also in the Ser­mon on the Mount!

The Psalms are the cent­re of the Old Tes­ta­ment school of dance. This is about how peo­p­le can find their way back into the rhythm of God’s music, so that things are right again with Him and then also with the world.

Psalm 1: Basic decision

Psalm 1 is the gate­way into wis­dom-spi­ri­tu­al cha­rac­ter formation:

«Hap­py to prai­se is he who does not fol­low the advice of god­less men, who does not fol­low the same path as tho­se who reject God, who does not asso­cia­te with scof­fers. Hap­py is he who desi­res the law of the Lord and thinks about it day and night. He is like a tree plan­ted among streams of water: at har­ve­st time it bears fruit, and its lea­ves do not wither. What such a man under­ta­kes, he suc­ceeds. It is quite dif­fe­rent with the wicked: they are like the chaff that the wind blows away. That is why they can­not stand when God holds court. Tho­se who reject God have no place in the con­gre­ga­ti­on of tho­se who live accor­ding to His will! The Lord wat­ches pro­tec­tively over the way of tho­se who do His will. But the path taken by the wicked leads to des­truc­tion.»(Psalm 1 NGÜ).

Human life is depic­ted here in the image of the tree and the­re are pre­sen­ted two deve­lo­p­ment pos­si­bi­li­ties: blos­som and bear fruit or wither and be blown away by the wind. Man must deci­de whe­re he wants to «loca­te» his life. Hap­py are the peo­p­le who long for God’s ins­truc­tions, medi­ta­te on them and want to ali­gn their who­le life with them. Every per­son is con­fron­ted with a basic decis­i­on at the ent­rance por­tal: Who­se music do you want to dance to? Into which com­mu­ni­ty do you want to be «plan­ted»? Only after this decis­i­on does the meta­mor­pho­sis fol­low – dancing to God’s music. The image of the tree makes the pro­cess clear. Vir­tu­es and cha­rac­ter traits that do jus­ti­ce to God’s liken­ess to God ripen like fruit on a tree. This pro­cess of trans­for­ma­ti­on can­not be done by man hims­elf. But – we deci­de whe­re we let our life be planted.

Psalm 1 con­gra­tu­la­tes tho­se who make a good basic decis­i­on and pro­mi­ses: Tho­se who live their lives far from God’s music will stumb­le and fail. But whoe­ver plants his life in the com­mu­ni­ty of tho­se who lis­ten to God’s music will dance into hap­pi­ness. At the latest in Psalm 73, it then beco­mes appa­rent that this cal­cu­la­ti­on does not quite add up – at least not in every peri­od of time. The beati­tu­des in Psalm 1 are later taken up again in the ope­ning words of the Ser­mon on the Mount.

Psalm 2: Kingship of God

Psalm 2 is about the king­ship of God: «Why are the nati­ons in turm­oil? Why are the nati­ons making plans that are doo­med to fail? The kings of this world are rea­dy to attack and the rulers are uniting to fight against the Lord and against the King he has anoin­ted.»(v.1f NGÜ). «He says: «I mys­elf have appoin­ted my king here on Zion, my holy moun­tain!» Then the king says: «I decla­re the decree of the Lord; he has said to me: You are my son, today I have begot­ten you» ».»(v.6f NGÜ).

It is lin­gu­i­sti­cal­ly and the­ma­ti­cal­ly clo­se­ly lin­ked to Psalm 1. That it is right again with the human being and that it is right again with the world obvious­ly belongs tog­e­ther. The trans­for­ma­ti­on of our being and the king­dom of God are rela­ted to each other. God wants to estab­lish his king­dom and do this with us! In con­cre­te terms, this means that the trans­for­ma­ti­on of our being (cul­ti­va­ti­on of vir­tu­es and cha­rac­ter) and the rea­li­sa­ti­on of God’s reign belong tog­e­ther. Psalm 1 is then not only the gate­way to indi­vi­du­al-pri­va­te pie­ty, but belongs to the basic stu­dy for lea­ders in socie­ty, busi­ness and poli­tics. Not for not­hing did Ben­ja­min Frank­lin, one of the foun­ding fathers of the USA, say: «A Bible and a dai­ly news­pa­per in every home. And if the­se are read pro­per­ly, that is the basis, the foun­da­ti­on of a who­le sta­te.»

From the New Tes­ta­ment it is clear that Psalm 2 also wants to be inter­pre­ted mes­sia­ni­cal­ly. E.G.: «Then Natanaël cried out: «Rab­bi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Isra­el!» » (John 1:49 NGÜ; cf. also Luke 1:32; Matthew 3:17; Luke 3:22). The pro­ject of the king­ship of God will reach its goal in the anoin­ted «Son of God». The­r­e­fo­re, it is not sur­pri­sing that in Matthew’s Gos­pel the insti­tu­ti­on of the Mes­siah King as the «Son of God», the pro­cla­ma­ti­on of the daw­ning king­dom of God and the wis­dom-spi­ri­tu­al cha­rac­ter buil­ding of the Ser­mon on the Mount are clo­se­ly con­nec­ted. The rea­li­sa­ti­on of God’s reign is essen­ti­al­ly lin­ked to the for­ma­ti­on of vir­tu­es and cha­rac­ter. As said: If it is to be right with the world, it must be right with the human being.

Psalm 3: Prayer and trust in God

The third pil­lar of wis­dom cha­rac­ter buil­ding is addres­sed in Psalm 3: Trust in God and pray­er. For peo­p­le who keep stumb­ling in the dance to God’s music, trust in God and pray­er have an important mea­ning. The impe­ra­ti­ve in «Let your being be trans­for­med» can also be inter­pre­ted as acti­ve trust. Trus­ting God that he will also reach the goal with me, that I too will be trans­for­med into his image and can con­tri­bu­te to the rea­li­sa­ti­on of his king­dom on earth.

In pray­er we look at Jesus. In doing so, the mira­cu­lous hap­pens: «The veil has been taken away from all of us so that we can see the glo­ry of the Lord as in a mir­ror. And the Spi­rit of the Lord works in us so that we beco­me more and more like him and reflect his glo­ry more and more.»(2 Corin­thi­ans 3:18 NL). In acti­ve trust in God and in pray­er lies our respon­si­bi­li­ty in the trans­for­ma­ti­on of our being. It is pro­ba­b­ly no coin­ci­dence that pray­er is a the­me in the midd­le of the Ser­mon on the Mount and finds its cli­max in the Our Father.

Final­ly, we look at the pro­to­ty­pe of a fol­lower of Jesus who dances to his music. In Psalm 15, the vir­tu­es are men­tio­ned. They can be sum­ma­ri­sed in today’s lan­guage like this: Straight­for­ward, honest, truthful, con­trol­led in lan­guage, fair, non-vio­lent, cou­ra­ge­ous, truthful­ness-ori­en­ted, pro­mi­se-kee­ping, cor­rup­ti­on-free, stead­fast..

The Ser­mon on the Mount invi­tes us to beco­me peo­p­le who repre­sent God’s reign on this earth by trans­forming our being. What an honour!

 

 

 

 

Possible questions for the small groups

Read the Bible text: Psalm 1

  1. Do you agree with the state­ment: If it is to be right with the world, it must be right with man?
  2. What does the expres­si­on «dancing to God’s music» mean? Whe­re in the Bible do you see invi­ta­ti­ons from God to do this?
  3. The cul­ti­va­ti­on of vir­tue and cha­rac­ter hap­pens through being plan­ted in the com­mu­ni­ty of tho­se who fol­low God’s direc­tion (Psalm 1). How do you expe­ri­ence your implantation?
  4. God will bring about his reign (Psalm 2). How does he do this? What is the role of human beings?
  5. Trust in God and pray­er (Psalm 3) are essen­ti­al­ly our task in meta­mor­pho­sis. How do you live this?