Readings for Week 7 / discussion notes for Week 6

 Week 7:  July 26:  The Sermon on the Mount of the Kingdom of God

In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays out the Kingdom of God in more thoroughness than anywhere else in Scripture.

Reading:  Matthew 5:3-12 (The Beatitudes), (chapters 5-7 for entire sermon)

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Discussion notes from Week 6 on the Kingdom and healing.

The usual rollicking group arrived, more than a few new faces, and an anonymous co-facilitator to help aid and abet our discussion on the Kingdom of God and the healing of a paralyzed man.

When we did the 26 healing miracles as our bible discussion last summer, we looked at them like we did with the parables:  the physical plane that the miracle took place, the details of the miracle itself (who spoke, who was there, did anybody touch anybody, etc.), the spiritual meaning, and finally, what did it mean to us as healing ministers.  But we didn’t talk “bigger” than that, like what does this mean in the Kingdom of God? What do Jesus’ healings mean in the Kingdom of God?

When the bystanders say, We have never seen anything like this at the end of the reading, was it new to the bystanders, never saw?  Others did healings, cast out demons, but Jesus first says, Your sins are forgiven — that’s what they have never seen.  Had Jesus just healed the man’s paralysis, He takes the part of another miracle worker.  Physical healing is the easier; spiritual healing is the greater.  Really?  Do we believe that when we’re in the chapel doing healing prayer?  (We don’t say, Your sins are forgiven.)

Sins aren’t forgiven by the priest.  God alone does.  This is why these words of forgiveness from Jesus are scandalous.  This story is not about the healing:   let’s heal people and be done. The healing He came to do was against death itself.  He is identifying Himself as God, and the healing is almost an afterthought.

We can lose sight of the grand scheme.  We are supposed to ask for healing; the Lord invites us to ask.  We see people healed, their lives transformed by healing.  We see many more who we pray for who do not seem to be healed in a way we understand or want healing.  We experience hurt and God allows it for a greater good we may not ever understand, because God loves us.  

In this particular healing, the paralytic is carried by his friends.  Is that part of the Kingdom of God?  Not the only door, but one of the doors to the Kingdom of God is that you are brought by your friends?  There is an icon of this healing, and its focus is on carrying the paralytic. 

Giving others the opportunity to help is part of the healing.  Discussion of the love felt when others carry your illness or loss to healing prayer, send cards, outreach others, “intercession incarnate”.  Studies have shown that people heal better when they are prayed for, whether they know they are being prayed for or not.  Reminded us of when, first week, we asked “what is the kingdom”? one answer was:  LOVE.

Everything God does is for our good and our redemption.  That good does not end at our death—it is an eternal end.  (Thank you, Father Kraft, for this teaching.).  God does not allow anything to prevent the ultimate salvation of humanity, which comes in the sending of His Son.

(Side discussions on whether or not we will see our beloved dead in the afterlife, including pets, etc, what will our resurrected bodies look like, what age is our perfected resurrected bodies, etc.  You had to be there.)

Our bodies will not be infirm in the Kingdom - in this way, we came back to the paralytic and healing and the Kingdom.  So, why Jesus healed the paralytic physically after forgiving his sins is because the Kingdom is where we are united in wholeness—whatever our wholeness looks like to God, not necessarily what it looks like to us.  Humanity is redeemed through the word of God who took on the flesh.

The healing miracle was chosen as a way of looking at the Kingdom of God—so different from the parables of Jesus or the dreams in the Hebrew scripture, and there are other ways of looking at the Kingdom, and we will be discussing these in the coming four weeks.