Reflections on The Kingdom, by Sam Berg (Days 19 – 24)

Day 19 — Thinking about Life in the Kingdom March 17, 2025

Matthew 5:31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Bible commentators have strained to distill the nuances of divorce vis-à-vis adultery vis-à-vis remarriage, weighing the merits of other texts on the subject and seeking to come up with the best rules about these issues. The problem with that approach is that any further rules developed are only equal at best to the “righteousness of the Pharisees” (v. 20) which simply isn’t good enough. Jesus was not trying to close some loopholes in the Pharisaic legal system. That was not what life in the Kingdom was about.

The important point here is the effect of the husband’s divorce action on the wife. She becomes an adulterer. When we remember that in Jesus’ time on earth, the right to initiate divorce was entirely the husband’s, we realize that Jesus’ intention is really to elevate the status of the woman to that of her husband. They are equal in their capacity to sin. Some grounds for divorce in those days that were available to husbands were quite frivolous. But here Jesus emphasizes that wives had equal standing before God as did husbands.

The literal meaning of the Greek word translated as “divorce” is to throw away. Jesus was asking his hearers to reflect on the real effects of a divorce. Pay attention to the real person you are dealing with!

Reflecting on the account of Jesus conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4, Jesus’ statement to her that she has had five husbands has usually been interpreted as how sinful she was in all of her marrying. And now she was cohabiting with a man she wasn’t married to. However, I think what Jesus was saying was, “You’ve been thrown away five times, and the man you’re with now doesn’t think enough of you to even marry you.” She ran home and told her family and friends, “Come see the One who really understands me!”

Day 20 — Thinking about Life in the Kingdom March 19, 2025

Matthew 5:33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”

Here Jesus recites the Pharisaic warning that one should not swear an oath with the intention of breaking it but recognize that such oaths are sworn in the presence of the Lord.

We have developed practices and customs that are intended to guard against the human tendency to lie, obfuscate, dissemble, perjure, trick, scam, con, pretend, feign, conceal, mask, disguise, or dissimulate. We make vows, we take oaths and we enter into covenants and contracts. We pledge allegiance. These practices are intended to elevate certain of our words to a higher standard of reliability than others.

“But” … and once again Jesus presents a qualitative difference for those who would seek to live a kingdom life. “I say to you….” “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” A way of life that is characterized by the repentance by which one enters the kingdom, that flourishes in the way of the beatitudes and that exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees is marked by something called integrity. Synonyms for integrity are honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility and more.

I would be willing to place my hand on a Bible and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but I would hope to do so even if I wasn’t required to place my hand on the Bible. The person whose yes is yes and no is no demonstrates a personal congruence that contributes to a kind of relationships within one’s communities that build, encourage and indeed contribute to kingdom life. That person is conscious and aware of the personhood of those others participating in the conversation. Such yes is yes and no is no conversation builds community and is characteristic o those communities where we love one another (John 13) and speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4).

Day 21 — Thinking about Life in the Kingdom March 31, 2025

Matthew 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

Jesus commanded his disciples to love one another (John 13:34). He affirmed that the second great commandment is to love our neighbour and that it’s equal to the first, to love God with all our heart and soul and mind (Matthew 22:36-40).

But here he takes this love thing to the next level – several levels up. Love your enemy!

When we are living in the repentance that gives us entrance into the kingdom (4:17) and are flourishing with a life characterized by the beatitudes, we flourish as peacemakers and thus are called children of God. This then is how we live out a righteousness that is greater that that of the Pharisees (5:20),

For our enemies are just like us! The get sun and rain in our Father’s world the same as us.

One of my teachers said, “Love is equal regard.” Love is seeing our enemy as our equal. One of our pastors said in a sermon, every other driver on the road has been created in the image of God.

The great curse in human relations has been the history of “othering” some. They are not like us, the are “other,” the stranger, the foreigner, the persons of other races, other socio-economic situations, other sexual orientations and expressions,

Howard Thurman in his Jesus and the Disinherited writes, “hatred begins in a situation in which there is contact without fellowship.” This results in an “understanding that is strikingly unsympathetic.” This “unsympathetic understanding results in an active functioning of ill will.” And “ill will, when dramatized in a human being, becomes hatred walking on the earth” (pp. 65-68).

An example of contact without fellowship was when a transperson was approached by some Christians who said, “we love you so much that we will help you change.”

Day 22 — Thinking about Life in the Kingdom April 5, 2025

Matthew 5:48 “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

These words from Jesus bring the list of six examples on the righteousness that is superior to the Pharisees’ righteousness to a close.

I think the word “perfect” is an unfortunate choice to translate the Greek. “Perfect” implies that we are to equal the Father’s moral perfection, a standard that is clearly out of reach for anyone who qualifies as a human person. I think that understanding of “perfect” misses the key message of this chapter.

The Greek word translated “perfect” is teleios which can be translated as “mature”. It has the sense of reaching a goal, a desired outcome. In Ephesians 4:13 the word is used to represent the result of spiritual growth – that we might become mature, reaching up to fullness of Christ.

Life in the kingdom, the theme of this chapter, is life in a community that values the personhood of each of us. The flourishing that the beatitudes describe invites us to aspire to a way of life that truly values others – fellow humans, women, even our enemies – as our equals. When we see these others as the Father sees them, and relate to them in that equal way, we are reaching towards that end, the goal, that is life in the Kingdom. This perfection, this greater righteousness is more than a matter of living up to a set of rules. It is a maturity that equals the personhood and regard for persons that offers oneself in relationship to another. We are to be mature as our Father in heaven is mature!

Day 23 — Thinking about Life in the Kingdom April 23, 2025

Matthew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 2 “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

*All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts”
(William Shakespeare in As you Like it).

Performance studies is an area of research that presupposes that our social context is always somewhere in the back of our minds, out of awareness, but that influences our actions. We decide and evaluate our actions always in the context of that matrix. We are part of a culture that specifies what normalcy is and we always monitoring our actions in light of those expectations.

Religious communities are an example of norming communities. We expect that the brothers and sisters of our local churches would share the viewpoints that we have adopted. Or, more likely, we have adopted the points of view of the group that we have joined.

Jesus invites us here to beware of how our community and our social context may be influencing our conduct. There is nothing so affirming as the comment about our generosity, our creativeness, our significant contribution to a project or a cause.

Here, though, Jesus describes the repentant life of the kingdom as one in which the relationship with the Father in heaven is the primary motivation, indeed the only motivation. Not even the satisfaction we may experience by having done a good deed is a motivation: “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

Living before the Father in the kingdom brings awareness of the needy person and the hand responds.

But think of a church full of Jesus-followers living like this!!

Day 24 — Thinking about Life in the Kingdom May 6, 2025

Matthew 6:5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

The original meaning of the word that translates “hypocrite” is actor, someone acting a role on stage. In our circles, the word has taken on a negative tone meaning religious pretense, putting forth impressions of spiritual well-being that aren’t genuine to who we are. Here Jesus uses this common word to describe someone who is play-acting their faith for public view.

We talk funny about prayer. I have made a small collection of “prayer-isms.” For example, we don’t pray for a safe trip, we pray for journeying mercies; we don’t thank God for those who made the food, we ask God to bless the hands that prepared it; we don’t pray that people will come to believe in Jesus, we pray for a harvest of souls We have a prayer vocabulary that we don’t usually use in normal conversation.

Jesus cautions us to not pray as a performance. This can be a temptation for us, to demonstrate how well we can pray. As an antidote, Jesus urges prayer in our closets.

But, how then can we pray together? Last Sunday, I had the privilege of leading the congregation in prayer. I wanted to do it well so I prepared it. I have a friend who admired a particular pastor because of his Sunday morning pastoral prayers. In my first church, my senior pastor advised me not to ad lib when it came to prayer at funerals or weddings but to write out my prayers. It was good advice.

There is a priest-like role in this public prayer – leading the Father’s people to the Father. We pray to “our Father.” I believe that we are able to do this kind of praying well when we also do the closet prayer. Indeed, closet prayer is the prerequisite to praying together. I read of one well-known Jesus-follower who was asked to describe his personal devotional life and the spiritual disciplines he followed. He declined, saying that it was too personal and private a question.

[Further episodes are expected and will be posted as released.]

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