Matthew 5:17-20

It - is - a - beautiful day - in the neighborhood; a wonderful day - in the neighborhood; would you be my, could you be my, please won't you be my neighbor?

And with gentle words like these, Fred Rogers made his way into the hearts of my children and yours. He bonded so deeply with them that we used to marvel at how our son Peter would come home from football practice in the afternoon - bruised and battered - and make his way into his bedroom where he would collapse in agony upon the bed. And in a matter of minutes we would hear his television bring forth the catchy song…"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood…"

He was watching his friend Rogey, as he used to call him.

Philip Yancey, the editor of Christianity Today says it was while reading a Charles Dickens book written to help his own children understand the life of Jesus - a book in which Jesus emerges as a sweet Victorian nanny who constantly expresses love and gentle advice like, "Remember, you must be nice to your mummy and daddy" - that Yancey realized the Sunday School image of Jesus he'd grown up with was much the same. A sweet Jesus who was kind and reassuring. No sharp edges at all. A Mister Rogers even before the days of children's television.

And yet, Yancey observes, this image of Jesus does not at all square with the Jesus of the Gospels - a man who once used a whip to drive profiteers from the Temple; who once turned to his best friend and said, "Satan, get behind me!"; who had uncompromising views on rich people and once even intimated that those who are not poor will find it extremely difficult to find their way to heaven; a man who ultimately was rejected, betrayed, arrested, convicted and murdered.

I do not believe Jesus was crucified because he was nice. Or because he wanted to be our neighbor. I don't know of many people who've put out a contract on Mr. Rogers, but two thousand years ago, they put out a contract on Jesus.

The great theologian Carl Barth once used an analogy of a man standing by a window, gazing into the street below. There, people are shading their eyes, looking up to the sky. But because of the overhang of the building, the man looking out the window cannot see what they're pointing to.

And in much the same way, we who live two thousand years after Jesus lived face the same dilemma. Jesus is obscured to us by the years, and by erroneous pictures painted for us by historians, scholars, preachers, and even Sunday School teachers.

You see, most of us desperately want Jesus to be like ourselves. A person we can understand.

But who is Jesus, really?

Its only when we are willing to lay down our preconceived notions about Jesus, and go into the Gospels themselves, that we can begin to find answers to that question.

So come with me today a step further into Jesus' life and teachings. Let him shock you with his words. Let him shake you with his attitudes. Let him break down the concrete walls of your life so that you can see the doorway God has made for you to enter the Kingdom.

Our search begins in the Sermon on the Mount. And it is in this body of teaching that we discover a Jesus who is not who we thought he was. In fact, when the sermon on the mount was finished, Matthew tells us the crowds were astonished. And the rest of the Gospel tells us there were basically two responses to what Jesus taught. Some decided to follow Jesus. Others began to plot his death.

But what was it that drew some people to Jesus and that drove others away?

Moments ago, we heard the words that stirred up the crowd. For some, they are words of hope. For others, they are words of horror. And interestingly enough, the ones who found hope in Jesus' words were the sinners, the despised ones, the poor, the lepers, the prostitutes, the criminals, the hungry.

And the people who were horrified were the nice people. Maybe they were people like us.

You know, there is a raging debate in our society about morality. Is there such a thing as right and wrong? And who's to say which is what? Are there universal moral principles that form the foundation of society? Or are we simply on our own to decide what's right and what's wrong - for me? This is not a new debate. It was going on in Jesus' time. There were those, represented by the Pharisees who believed there must be a moral structure to life. They taught and practiced the ten commandments. Not only that, but to provide guidance for specific issues, they'd atomized God's law into 613 precise rules, comprised of 248 commands and 365 prohibitions. And then, to bolster all this, they created 1,521 "emendations" as they were called to provide even more guidance around the law. These were hard-working, God-loving people who were meticulous in their moral behavior.

On the other side of the coin, there were people who believed this way: God is love, God is forgiving, and even though God gave us a law, he doesn't really expect us to keep it because we're human beings, after all. And Jesus, of course, came to tell us that God loves us - no matter what.

Now, I dare say, both groups of people are probably represented in our congregation today. And you know who you are!

Some of us think of ourselves as moral people. Maybe even classify ourselves as belonging to the moral majority. We believe that the moral underpinnings of society have been removed, and must be restored.

Others of us cringe when we hear that. We ask, "Who are THEY to say they're either moral OR a majority? And who are THEY to dictate what's right or wrong, because what's right or wrong for YOU may not be what's right or wrong for ME!"

And Jesus, our Lord and Savior, somehow managed to infuriate both groups.

Listen to verse 17. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill." Now can't you see all the moral people out there in the crowd puffing out their chests? "Way to go, Jesus. You tell 'em!"

Verse 18. "For I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished." "Amen! Tell it like it is!"

Verse 19. "Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven." "Jesus, you got my vote!"

And by the time Jesus was thirty seconds into this sermon, the Moralists were ecstatic with joy! And the others - who thought morality was something bendable and changeable - were furious! Jesus had just told them they were wrong. Dead wrong. Disqualified from the kingdom of heaven wrong!

And then, not just to dump on the liberals in the group, Jesus turned on the moral majority people.

Verse 20. "For I tell you, unless your righteousness EXCEEDS that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

Do you hear what Jesus is saying? Even the moralists aren't moral enough!

Why, you've got to be as righteous as the most righteous Pharisee…and then some! You've got to be as righteous as Billy Graham…and then some! You've got to be as righteous as Mother Theresa was…and then some!

Or you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

And then Jesus did something even more amazing. He took some of the main points of the ten commandments, and EXPANDED them until EVERYBODY was exposed for who they were!

"You know the commandment 'Do not kill'? I say to you, if you hate another person you've killed already. In fact, if you call another person a fool, you've broken this commandment." No place to hide. No room to wiggle. We've ALL broken that commandment.

"You know the commandment 'Don't commit adultery.' I say to you, if you've ever looked at another person lustfully, you've committed adultery already in your heart." No place to hide. No room to wiggle. We've broken THAT commandment too.

And on and on he went, that day on the mountain, taking each point of the moral law - about divorce, about swearing oaths, about revenge, about our relationships with our enemies - and expanding their scope until it was clear that NO ONE can live up to the standards of God.

And Jesus ended the sermon with the words of verse 48. "You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."

And when the sermon on the mount was over, as Philip Yancey says, the crowds were not only astonished, they were INFURIATED!

How do you feel about this Jesus who is not at all like gentle, good old Mr. Rogers?

A professor by the name of Virginia Stem Owens once assigned the sermon on the mount to her composition class at Texas A&M. She asked them to read it and then write an essay expressing their reaction to the words. Here are some of the results:

Professor Owens says that when she read the essays, she found it rather refreshing that her students didn't seem too fazed to call Jesus a real jerk and his teachings pure malarkey. The professor says, "They express what the CROWD expressed that day on the mountain."

They were astonished. Some walked away and never came back. Some launched a plot to kill the Lord. But others…gave their lives to Jesus, and took up his cause!

And who were they? Not the moralists. Not the liberals.

But the lost!

You see, it is only through the eyes of the poor, the broken, the lonely, the failures that you can even begin to grasp the liberating beauty of Jesus' words from the mountain that day. While the sermon sounds harsh to us, to them it broke down barriers. Let's take a look at some of these barriers.

For one thing, Jesus broke down the walls that divide people, and in so doing, made us one.

The great Russian philosopher Alexander Solzenitsyn , a devoted Christian, says that the line dividing good and evil does not really run between people and groups of people and nations. Rather, the line dividing good and evil runs down the middle of our own hearts.

And what Solzenitsyn is getting at is that our human nature wrongly divides us by assuming that some people really are better than others. There is us, and then there are the Iraquis. There is us and then there are people with AIDS. There is us, and then there are the people who won't get up and go to work, and want the rest of us to support them. Do you know what I'm saying?

And on the day when Jesus said its not only wrong to kill, but that murder includes insulting your brother, he broke down all the walls behind which we might try to hide.

We are ALL in need of salvation! You have more in common with the people you hate, the people you despise, the people you see as pitiful derelicts, the people you see as life's losers than you realize. You see, Jesus broke down the walls dividing good people and bad people, and made us one people and told us to love one another!

And not only did he break down the dividing walls, but Jesus also raised the ceiling!

You see, he calls us to be the best. "Perfect" is the word he uses. If the way you deal with anger is simply by not killing the other person, its surely not such a great accomplishment. But if, on the other hand, you channel your anger not only away from murder, but also away from hating others, and also away from insulting others, you'll become more highly skilled in dealing successfully with people you don't get along with. You'll become a champion at your relationships!

If you approach your marriage from the point of view that, as long as everything is going along okay, you'll stick with it, your marriage will probably not survive the tough times. But if your commitment is to love your spouse and to allow no choice of your own to destroy the marriage, you'll build a strong marriage and give your husband or wife the best gift there can be - a mate who loves them and believes in them not only when they are at their best, but most especially when at their worst. You'll be a champion at marriage.

And its here that the comments of those students at Texas A&M take on their true meaning. They are really very foolish statements. For the goals the students are comfortable with are the lowest goals of all. And I ask you, "What kind of life will you build if you aim not for the best, but for the least?"

You see, Jesus breaks down walls, but he also raises the ceiling.

And finally, Jesus opens a window.

I think the most important result of the sermon on the mount, if we will listen to it and accept it, is that it turns us away from the mirror in which we can only see ourselves, and turns us toward a window through which we can see God's purposes.

You see, what the Gospel is all about is that God is building a world - a kingdom - in which there will no longer be any division. There will be no disunity. No hatred. No racism. No sexism. No looking down on each other.

God is building a kingdom where people love - where children are fed - where the last become first - where losers become winners - where families are whole - where tears are wiped away from every eye. And in this sermon on the mount, Jesus tries to show us that we can't build that kingdom if we continually toss in its way hatred and bigotry and broken promises and selfishness and revenge. To build the kingdom, we must stay focused upon the Godly purpose of our lives.

And so Jesus puts the challenge to us. Will we let our walls be broken down, and become sisters and brothers to the people of the world? Will we let our ceilings raised, and aim at the highest and best goals of life? Will we let our self-adoring mirrors be turned into windows through which we home in on God's will and not our own?

And the thrilling hope is that we can do these things! If we trust in God, and obey him.

Now, some of the people, when they found out he was not quite like Mr. Rogers, turned away from Jesus that day.

But others accepted Christ and his word. For although he shook the foundations of their lives, they knew he spoke the God's-honest-truth about how to find true life and how to build a better world..

How about you? Will you take up the sermon on the mount this week? Each day, ask Christ to help break down the walls that divide you from others, to give you strength to rise up to the highest goals and standards of life, to show you how his will can be done - in you - in every situation.

May this be a crossroads time for each of us to move beyond the Mr. Rogers syndrome…to the Jesus syndrome.