Brian and Kathy Emmet
The Sermon on the Mount
We’ve already spent several weeks listening to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, through Alex and Jaime’s preaching, small group discussions, our personal Bible reading and even these Connect devotionals, with a few weeks left to go.
Feeling overwhelmed yet?
If we’re not feeling overwhelmed, we haven’t been paying attention.
This week, we’re attending to a good-sized chunk of the Sermon, Matthew 6:19 – 7:14. As we continue to listen to Jesus, we continue to feel overwhelmed: you cannot serve God and money; do not worry about your life, don’t worry about tomorrow, don’t judge; broad is the way that leads to destruction and many enter through it. And this on top of love your enemies; if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; don’t resist one who is evil, and so much more.
So today, rather than zooming in on a particular passage, let’s zoom out for a minute. If we try to take a “helicopter view” of the Sermon on the Mount, what do we see? What is Jesus after?
One thing Jesus is after is our imagination. By imagination, I don’t mean “making things up” or “living in fantasy,” I mean how we see the world, how we try to understand and make sense of the world within us and the world around us. Which strikes you as a better way of seeing, the way of Jesus or the way of our upside-down world?
Jesus is also after our loves, what we love and how we love. You are not what you think; you are what you love. As we listen to Jesus, we find ourselves drawn to the kingdom he proclaims. It is truly lovely, beautiful, and good. “If only the world really worked like this, I would be in with both feet and my whole heart!” “Well,” says Jesus,” I am in fact describing how the world really does work. Are you willing to learn to trust me, to learn to love what I love? If so, let’s keep walking together.”
Finally, Jesus is after you. And me. And each one of us. I am invited into discipleship, into a life of following Jesus. How will I respond? I am invited to learn how to become a child of our Father in heaven. How will I respond? I am invited into an often painful and dislocating process of learning to live right side up in an upside-down world. How will I respond?
Feeling overwhelmed by all of this is actually a great place to start! It’s where Jesus began the Sermon, by blessing the poor in spirit, the unqualified, even the disqualified. The poor in spirit are those who don’t have what it takes, who are overwhelmed by the kingdom of God … but who somehow find within themselves the desire, the hope, the prayer that they might somehow get in on it …
… the kind of people Jesus seems happy to go to work on.
As you have been listening to the Sermon on the Mount, at what particular points do you feel overwhelmed? What if that feeling was not something you had to “fix” but an invitation from God? |
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