And then will I declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. I never knew you — the relationship was never actually there. The workers of lawlessness did impressive works but without the relational reality of knowing and being known by the Son. The knowing that is missing is not intellectual knowledge about Jesus but the relational intimacy that the Sermon has been building toward: the purity of heart that sees God (5:8), the prayer life that addresses the Father as Father (6:9), the seeking that finds (7:7). Depart from me is the reversal of the kingdom's invitation to come; the one addressed is excluded from the presence that the Beatitudes promised those who mourn and hunger and are pure in heart.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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