Sermon on the Mount

Class tomorrow will be based on chapter 7 of Yancey The Jesus I Never Knew book – the Sermon on the Mount Chapter.

Have you read it in one big chunk? Do that, and I imagine you will come to understand how difficult it can be to hear, and to attempt to live. I love Yancey’s line, “Jesus made the law impossible for anyone to keep and then charged us to keep it.”

Think about what is said (just a few snippets):

• When you manipulate words to get our own way, you go wrong.
• I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst.
• Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are legal.
• You can’t worship God and money both.
• Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults…
• The way to life – to God! – is vigorous and requires total attention.

The list goes on and on. We look at it, and think, “No way. I cannot meet these expectations.” And Yancey’s right – Jesus never opens up a loophole for us. He never says, “Well, do the best you can.” He never tells us that it is OK for us to be less than this. Why would he? We already are less than this.

There is a line in the United Methodist Ordination service which asks the candidate, “Are you going on to perfection?” and “Do you expect to be perfected in love in this life?” Daunting questions. I think, though, that we can ask them of ourselves as well as candidates for ordination. Think of perfect as meaning, instead of flawless, complete and whole. We can grow toward completeness and wholeness. I think an understanding of this will help us to grasp the Sermon on the Mount. Hold that thought, and I’ll connect it in a minute.

Why did God send Christ? There are lots of answers to that question, and none of them may be complete, but I could list reasons such as to redeem us, to bring us into relationship with Him, to reveal himself to us, to show us what grace is all about.

If Jesus’ purpose (or one of them) was to reveal God to us, and to bring us into relationship with God, then can’t we look at the Sermon on the Mount in that light? Yancey does. He says, “For years I had thought of the Sermon on the Mount as a blue-print for human behavior that no one could possibly follow. Reading it again, I found that Jesus gave these words not to cumber us, but to tell us what God is like.” Jesus – showing us what God is like – telling us what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.

That doesn’t mean Jesus is saying that “You don’t have to do this. You are excused from living this kind of life.” He’s not telling us that it is OK to be less – he’s telling us that there is MORE. He’s showing us what completeness – wholeness – looks like. This is what God is like, and this is what he wants for you.

The Sermon on the Mount is not a list of laws or rules. It’s harder than that. We make a mistake, though, if we ever again try to look at what God is doing in the world without seeing it through grace. God wants more for us that for us to live by a set of laws. He wants us to be whole, and he’s given us grace to get us there. The Sermon on the Mount shows us what perfection in God is all about. If we stand here defeated in its shadow, then we miss the point completely. The point is that God knows we can’t get to wholeness on our own – he wants US to understand that. He wants us to know that he loves us enough to give us Christ – we are made whole through him – through grace.

He doesn’t want us to ignore the Sermon on the Mount because it is too hard. He wants us to know how hard it is, so that we will stop ignoring HIM and the grace he offers.

Images: More from Lisbon. The first one is where the Tagus river meets that Atlantic. Right at the end is the Tower of Belem, which is beautiful (built in 1515). The second picture is also of the river, but a little bit further away from the Atlantic. There are several restaurants sharing building space -- looks like a warehouse -- right on the river. They all have outdoor seating. We were having dinner one evening (outside) and took this picture of the view. Notice the bridge? It is the 25 de Abril bridge. It's similarity to the Golden Gate is not coincidental. Both bridges were built by the same construction company -- in two cities where earthquakes are a major concern. The statue across the river is of Cristo Rei (Christ) -- similar to the one in Rio de Janeiro. The last photo is another one of the Jeronimos Monastery, taken from the top of the Monument to the Discoveries.