Gospel
according to St Matthew 7: 21-27
This
is the conclusion of sermon of mount of Jesus Christ. A sermon on or about the Sermon on the Mount
is a difficult task. However, for our
ministry let us take some re-reading with all its seriousness. Always preaching
changes people. It transforms
people. Thus we could take the sermon on
mount as the model sermon of Jesus that throws light on various things.
On
Aug 28th 1963 Martin Luther King Junior in America gave his famous
inspiring speech- “I have a dream”. This made the people to get together with a
vision. A collective consciousness was
created among them. Who is a man? How
should a society be? And how to be reformed? According to Aristotle, Man is a
rational being. But Descartes goes on to
say that it is not rationality it is the mind that defines human being. Later, Heidegger said that it is language
that makes man. After all these, we see Derrida coming forward with man as a
text.
According
to Edward Said, in order to capture or enslave a society, its sacred text has to
be enslaved and corrupted first. Here Christ says that we need to give freedom
or freely place the text. How a text should be and how it is to be received? In chapter 5, Jesus speaks of state of the
blessed. In chapter 6 Jesus speaks about practice. This text covers religious
and socio-economic. Chapter 7 starts with the exhortation do not judge. It also points out who God is, or ‘God consciousness’.
1. Spelling the God of the emperor
2. The God consciousness of Jews
3. Cultic God concept
With
all these, Jesus says what makes you enter kingdom of heaven is doing father’s
will. Kingdom of “heaven” is a gift of Matthew to us. Christ speaks of heaven,
a much better reality than the earth. One is the extension of the other. When Plato
says one ideal and other the form, Jesus says do here or create kingdom of
heaven here where you are placed. Reformation is to create a creation from
scripture. Jeremiah speaks about remove or demolish and rebuild an engulfing
seen here.
SPACING
SCRIPTURE TEXTING
Verse
21 of above passage starts with the address, “lord, lord…” They continued, “all in your name we
prophesied.” It means that they were teaching in his name. They added, “We rebuked demons.” Through
these words they claimed that they were doing some normative, powerful works. It means that here they say we represent you. Thus we created ourselves through structure
creation. The world is to be for us. In the
words of Mar Chrysostom this expresses “ninte
peril njangal cheyum velaghal”. We see a projection of self-domestication,
you are domesticating the other. Thus
the language of Jesus becomes tougher. In
verse 23 it is said that he will profess ‘I do not know you’. According to Levinas
“One society that goes ethical in it will land up in anarchy” thus no one is
able to guide anybody. To those preaches alone, Jesus calls them as ‘you evil
doers’. Evil doers are architecting. Oikos
means house, the whole inhabited earth etc.
Oikos is used to capture the world.
It is used to create boundary during the time of Jesus. We need to
rebuild this institution- oikos. There are
three houses (alayam) that need to be re-built.
1.
House
of education: as place of information, a place of formation of the self, in
Paulo Friere’s work pedagogy of the
oppressed, he says that the
consciousness of men is built by the pedagogy”. The self to be the built on
the likeness of the signs from above (uyiradayallangal).
2.
House
of treatment: when the patient comes with an ailment, the doctor changes according
to each of the patients for the treatment and starts a journey with him. Purpose is a re-ordering. The doctor is the host of patient who is the
guest, we also need to see that there is a lot of similarity between the
vaidyan and vaideekan and they are related
3.
House
of God: Matthew chapter 23 has a call to rebuild the temple of god. Thus we see man himself is to be rebuilt.
Christ tried to say architecting is shepherding and kingdom of god is through
formation and rebuilding. This is the
purpose of god.
Liturgy
is to find God. It is an order. A
returning back to the liturgy is needed to have an order. It needs spacing, scripting
and texting of kingdom of God. It also
demands the death of the author; God consciousness. Jesus says to Nicodimos
“you need to be born again” this birth signifies the understanding of God we
have and a newer understanding of God.
Karen
Armstrong says that, as Moses stood at the burning bush we need to be excited in
the same way each time with the word of God.
There needs to be a rebuilding of ‘Oikos’. Thus the reformation needed
of the self that rebuilds three places
·
House/space
of knowledge
·
House/space
of treatments
·
House/space
of God
Let
us live a new life through rebuilding the oikos ‘self’, we need to stand with
the same excitement that Moses had on seeing the burning bush, so should our experiences
each time be with the word of God.
Rev. Shibi Varghese
Rev. Shibi Varghese