'Do not .... ' instructions of Jesus

'Do not .... ' instructions of Jesus direct us against the hypocrisies we might fall into under the disguise of religion. Do not pray like the pharisees, Do not be like the hypocrites, ... The sermon is over after announcing the beatitudes, and teaching on the essence of the law. Now every disciple or listener must test what they produce. Knowledge of the law, performance of worship do not guarantee the joy of the kingdom. Coming down to our daily realities, the lessons are necessary even to witness the events going to happen in the plane, the healings, miracles, even the encounter with the religious leaders. 

Our Father - Life of liberation

The prayer 'Our Father' is not a prayer, it is a how about prayer-content. It is an attitude which we need to have in prayer. The basic platform for this attitude is to come together as the children of God. It is in the freedom of the children of God we must pray. To stand before God as children, and  ask him to provide, forgive, and protect, the beatitudes is the affirmation and confidence. The beatitudes opens the kingdom for all, it also bring us all hand in in hand for nourishing one another. So, Our Father is also a pattern of life, of liberation, peace and justice.

unbearable burden and the seed of the Gospel

Perhaps due to the hardness they had to undergo, the Jewish traditions (biblical) maintained a hostility in their worldview. It was justified by their theology and cherished by spirituality. Nature was hostile, people of other nations were hostile. The other people are not of God, and so, our god hates them. God allows them to overpower Israel because of sins. These 'sins' were often the projection of unbearable hostility to one's own self. Women were unclean, inimical, and evil because they were seducers, and men were lured by foreign women. This suspicious closure was well maintained by a retributive ethics and theology. Even the salvation brought by Christ underwent an interpretative frame based on this hostility, ransom, and retribution.

Jesus did not proclaim this hostility. Instead, he showed human brokenness and vulnerability as a sacramental possibility in our everyday life. Those condemned and unclean were raised to hold the joy of the kingdom. The kingdom would sprout like a seed. Touch of grace will give new streams to our inner richness. Vulnerabilities and tears were seen as matters of condemnation and signs of God's curse. Now in the light of the gospel, they are time and space of an embrace of God, the holy ground.

Lessons for Discipleship

The base for discipleship is the reality of being the children of God. Children's trust spreads from being innocent reliance to a responsible commitment to the values of the Gospel. So, the faith aspect we speak of involves these dimensions and influences our personal, social, political, and religious aspects of life. It teaches us to be joyful in struggles, and walk ahead with hope. Gradually it takes us deeper into a lifegiving nature that is of self-emptying.

The lifegiving-selfemptying connection is the 'ransom' that Christ was, and that Christ asks us to be for one another. Something may be paid and remission may be given does not contain the lesson Jesus taught about the love of the Father. God wants all to be fully alive and flourishing. Grace is given to us that we can live a life that is according to God's will. Where we are weak, the same grace makes us to take these weaknesses into an experience of salvation. Gospel is the guiding light for a life of grace and for taking our weaknesses without fear or shame to the abundance of life.