A Year-Long Journey Through the Sermon on the Mount: Week 1

One of the challenges I’ve decided to put on myself this year is to write blog posts that go beyond book reviews and sermons. To help me do so, I’ve picked up a book called “Following the Call”. This book is a collection of 52 essays by various theologians and prophetic voices, creating a year-long exploration of Jesus’ most famous teaching, the Sermon on the Mount. My goal is to read the essay at the beginning of the week, ponder what I’ve read, and then reflect on it on my blog. I hope that you will join me on this journey. Time to take that first step!

 

Chapter 1 – Master Teacher

 

“The whole message of the gospel is this: become like Jesus.” ~Henri Nouwen

 

Well, isn’t that the whole thing summed up quite nicely? Become like Jesus. What would Jesus do? Be more like Jesus.

 

As we read through the gospels, we are meant to take away lessons from Jesus’ journey. Throughout his ministry, Jesus is trying to teach us all how to be better human beings, both to ourselves and to each other. The Sermon on the Mount contains some of those biggest lessons.

 

In the first portion of this week’s essay, E Stanley Jones talks about a “beyondness” found in the Sermon on the Mount, as in Jesus goes “above and beyond.” If someone needs a coat and you have a coat, give up your coat. Love your friends and your enemies. If you can go one mile, go two. Jesus teaches that it is our duty to do more than the bare minimum for our fellow human beings. But sometimes these requests seem impossible, as if they are hard commands rather than pieces of good news. However, we can find comfort in the words that through God, all things are possible.

 

Henri Nouwen contributes this week and gives us a warning – “When we want to become more like Jesus, we cannot expect always to be like and admired. We have to be prepared to be rejected.” The “beyondness” that Stanly discusses goes against the grain of society; it goes against everything that we know to be important for people today – status, money, material things, individualism, etc. Putting another person ahead of yourself is not the default reaction. It is for this reason that the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount are so important. And we need to be aware that if we are going to live in the ways of Jesus’ teachings, we will be a threat to societal norms, we will be the voices that stick out in the din, and people aren’t going to like it.

 

But we know that we have God’s strength at our backs, Jesus’ faith on our side and, and the Holy Spirit’s support behind our words and actions. With all that in mind, there isn’t anything we can’t do.

 

So get out there and become like Jesus!