Mosaic Study Guide

For Personal Reflection or Smaller Group Encounters

Matthew 5.13-20
“Making a Life Together in the Kingdom of Heaven (2)”
The Week of 12 October 08

Our Common Confession

Everyone is broken and is in need of healing.
Everyone is lost and in need of a home.
Everyone is tempted to fake it and needs to become real.

Jesus offers us healing for our brokenness.
Jesus offers us a home in the heart of God surrounded by a faith family.
Jesus invites us to face the truth about everything.

Questions for Everyone: What’s your favorite way to waste time at work?  Share something about yourself that few people in the group know.

¹³“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. ¹⁴“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. ¹⁵No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

It was noted on Sunday that Jesus’ teaching seems to presume failure.  The people of God have failed, in Jesus opinion, to be salt and light.  His teaching uses the absurd notion of salt losing its saltiness and light losing its luminosity to describe what it is like when the people of God no longer serve as a means of blessing in the world through their good works.
 
Questions: What does this look like?  What does it look like when a Christian community is no longer a means of blessing in their neighborhoods?  As a community let us wrestle with this question: What good work should we embrace in order to be a blessing to our neighborhood?
 
More Questions: Of our six common practices of worship, hospitality, compassion, basin and towel service, play, and learning, which are most likely to help us be a blessing to our neighborhood?  If our church were to disappear tomorrow how would our neighborhood respond?  What kinds of things should we do to be a blessing to our neighborhood?

¹⁷“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. ¹⁸For truly 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. ¹⁹Therefore, 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; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

We learned some things on Sunday about the scribes and Pharisees.  Although they were both relatively small segments of Jewish society in the region of Galilee, they were held in high esteem.  The scribes might be likened unto modern day religious educators at a Bible college or Seminary and the Pharisees might be compared to a very pious, Bible-believing lay person with means and good standing in their community.  And yet Jesus says “you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.  Wow!  It was suggested that we need to hear the first beatitude, (“blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”) in order to understand what Jesus is saying.   A reading of Matthew 23 will also help.

Question: How do we heed Jesus’ teaching?  Read Matthew 23 and reflect on this question: What must we do in order to not become modern day Pharisees?

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