As humans, we tend to live from our identity. It shapes what we do. Shapes the direction we move. The family we come from or a thing someone has said about us or a group we are part of, all shaping how we live. Both negatively and positively. We move from our identities to our actions.

In the first part we looked at how Jesus changes the identity of a person or a space by moving into it. One who would be seen as poor, seen as depressed, as weak, as passive, as spiritually bankrupt is all of a sudden now seen as Blessed. Jesus has rocked up and it has changed everything.

The interesting thing is that this is the starting place for the Sermon on the Mount. The sick and broken have followed him and gathered around and he begins to give them a sermon. A sermon that will include stuff on morality, good works, spiritual practices, false teachers and ultimately obedience. But the starting place of all of this is the shift of identity from unwanted, unwelcomed, nuisance to blessed.

How important this is to know. Because the journey of discipleship from following to obedience starts with the identity change from disregarded to blessed. The Christian life is always a move from identity to activity. From grace to obedience.

Identity to Action. Grace to Obedience.

If we can extrapolate this from people to neighbourhoods. From people to spaces. And yes, I know, in doing so we do so with much licence and risk. But if you will allow me to do this then one would say that there are two movements that bring the ultimate change to a space. The first is the movement of Jesus into a space. The gospel coming. Christians moving into a community. The community is blessed because Jesus has rocked up through his people, his church, the preaching of the gospel. This changes the very nature and identity of the space. All of a sudden light has shined into the darkness and the kingdom is at hand. This identity shift triggers the next movement. The movement of transformation in action. The transformation from identity to action. From Blessed to obey.

The promise of the upwardly mobile life is the promise of a space waiting for us that provides everything we hope for. The greener grass, the quiet life, the comfort and peace we long for. The problem is that it is often deceptive. Not giving what it has promised. It is deceptive because it promises that one can change one’s identity if one just changes how they live or where they live. It is the promise of action to identity. Of obedience to grace.

Action to Identity. Obedience to Grace.

The incredible thing about the gospel is that it changes the view of a space before that space actually changes. We are seen as a child of God before we act like one. A community can begin to see hope before there is any reality to their hope. The disregarded are called the Blessed before they look like they are blessed. Could it be that the catalysts to change is the movement of the church into the very spaces that need change? It is after all the movement of Christ towards people that changes their identities to blessed. And so like Christ, the church moves into difficult spaces seeing things not as they are but as they will be when Christ changes them.

Yes, Pinetown may be called Crimetown now, or Durban Dirtbin or South Africa a place beyond hope. Yes, these may be spaces in which people are leaving or hoping to leave. Having identities shaped by despair. By the broken dreams of the failed rainbow nation. And yes the times may feel dark. But when I read the gospels these things don’t put off Jesus. It is in the hopeless situations that Jesus moves into. And it is this movement of Jesus into a space that catalyses the movement of transformation within that space.

David Brooks tells the story of Aiesha Butler. She is about to move out of a troubled community and sees a young girl in an empty parking lot with broken bottles and tells her husband that they cannot leave. Over time, deeply rooting herself in that community, she begins to slowly change the identity of that space.

Movement. Presence. Identity. Transformation.

Jesus starts the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the poor in spirit… Blessed are the meek… Blessed are those who mourn” and on he goes. An unexpected and surprising list of blessed people. One would almost think he has lost his mind. I mean, doesn’t Jesus know that Blessed are the Happy, the Beautiful, The Rich and the Confident. Dallas Willard tells us something of their purpose.

First there is the question of which life is the good life. What is genuinely in my interest, and how may I enter true well-being? Of course we already know that life in the life of God will be the good life, and Jesus’ continual reassertion of the direct availability of the kingdom always kept that basic truth before his students and his hearers. But exactly who is and who is not assured of such a life was a subject of much confusion in his day, as it is today. What came to be called the Beatitudes were given by him to help clarify this matter.

Dallas Willard (The Divine Conspiracy)

Dallas Willard highlights that the beatitudes tell us more about who Jesus has come to bless than about what character traits are blessed. I.e. Blessed are the poor, the downtrodden, the forgotten, the samaritans and tax collectors, not because they are tax collectors or poor or downtrodden but because the Kingdom has come to them. The Kingdom has become available to unexpected people in unexpected places. The beatitudes highlights something of Jesus’ movement. He moves towards people and into spaces that we would not normally regard as valuable.

“The Word became flesh and moved into the neighbourhood” says John¹. Jesus has moved, changed neighbourhoods, and descended from the luxury and comfort of heaven into a neighbourhood of need and pain and discomfort. He is present in uncomfortable spaces, moving in an uncomfortable direction. It is the goal of the upwardly mobile, the aim of the west, to flee the poor, to flee places that don’t promise security, to flee places of discomfort. Not Jesus. He chose a counter-cultural way. The way of downward mobility.

The thing that Willard highlights is that a neighbourhood becomes blessed precisely and only because Jesus has come to it. This is the reason for the blessing. The transformation in understanding of the state of person or a place is not because anything about that place has changed per se, but rather that one of its residents has changed. Jesus has become present. The kingdom is at hand. And that change brings blessing. Think of Aiesha at that moment seeing the community with new eyes. The community took on a new identity. An identity shift changes the value of the space. A place disregarded, a person unwanted, Jesus moves into the neighbourhood and now all of a sudden it is Blessed!

Jesus’ downward mobility challenges me as a South African Christian. The places that come as perceived places of comfort and security are few and far between. We scramble in our upward mobility to get to those places as soon as possible. We work hard, we over extend ourselves. We move away from the poor into our islands of exclusion and then complain about the areas we have left behind and what they have become.

Movement. Absence. Identity. Decay.

Jesus did the opposite. He moved from a place of luxury and comfort into the pain. He moved into the neighbourhood.

Earlier in the chapter John says that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it. Christ comes into the darkness. This movement of Christ is powerful, in fact it is unshakeably powerful. The darkness cannot defeat it. The prevalence of darkness is overcome by the arrival of light. Could it be that transformation will come through the movement of people into those spaces. A light shining in the darkness. A new resident in the neighbourhood. Christ arriving through his people, through a church plant, through the gospel.

Movement. Presence. Blessed.

A place once disregarded. A community one wants to flee. An Aiesha who gets impacted by the brokenness and moves in. The gospel is preached. The kingdom comes. Blessed.

In part two we will look at how the Sermon on the Mount starts with blessed and ends with obey. The progression of transformation starts with the underserved change of identity. From scorned, disregarded, and unwanted to blessed. An identity shift that becomes a catalyst for real transformation.

1. John 1:14 ↩