Daily Readings

On Sunday mornings this fall, we will be studying the Sermon on the Mount. The primary resource book that we will be using is Living the Sermon on the Mount by Glen Stassen. Dr. Stassen believes that these teachings from Jesus can make our lives much more integrated, more reconciled with God, and less frantic and contentious. But for that to happen, we must be willing to look at the Sermon in a new way –the revolutionary way of deliverance that Jesus invited us to follow.

Stassen writes that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives a way of deliverance just as much as God did for the Israelites when Moses led them out of Egypt. On the mountain (like Moses went up Mt. Sinai), Jesus brings the message that God is once more present in a special way. He announces that the kingdom of God (the reign of God) is at hand – becoming present. What Jesus means is that God is speaking again, coming to be present again and to deliver us again. And the way it is happening is that God is coming through Jesus’ teachings to deliver us from those things that are harmful to our relationship to God and others – what Stassen refers to as vicious cycles. Examples would include: anger and violence, unfaithfulness and adultery, manipulation and deceit, materialism and greed.

Stassen writes … let us not interpret the Sermon on the Mount as it has been interpreted so often: part of the story of Greek idealism which is dependent upon our human effort to live up to impossibly high ideals of overcoming the aforementioned vicious cycles. Matthew shows as clearly as possible that the Sermon on the Mount needs to be interpreted as the good news of God becoming present in Jesus, doing something new – providing the way that delivers us from vicious cycles of destructive behavior. Our invitation is to participate in what He is already doing –in that way of deliverance. For example, it is not as some have interpreted Jesus’ teaching about anger … a matter of (the lofty ideal of) “never getting angry,” but instead actually following Jesus’ practical way to deal with anger that delivers us before it becomes a vicious cycle.

The question is: will we stand at a distance and scratch our heads at Jesus’ teachings – believing them to be standards of perfection which must be striven toward by extraordinary effort, therefore never to be actually achieved in our daily lives? Or, will we look anew at these teachings as the way God is bringing His reign into the world and that we may actually participate with God by following Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount? To do that we must be willing to look again at what Jesus taught and open ourselves to the possibility that they are not lofty ideals that cannot be fully practiced, but are instead a practical way of living.

When Jesus’ first disciples heard His teachings, they did not admire them from a distance. Nor did they see them as high ideals to be striven for by extraordinary effort. They dropped their fishing nets and followed – opening themselves to His way of deliverance. We invite you to follow as well – the journey begins each Sunday morning this fall. Please read Matthew 5-7 to prepare for this journey on Jesus’ way of deliverance.

John Harp

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