Following the Call, August 11
First the foundation. More than words. A prayer. Your turn.
Could we put into practice the Sermon on the Mount, all the problems of our poor tortured universe would be solved, all the difficulties, apparently insuperable, which confront mankind would melt like mist before the rising sun. Of one thing I am convinced: nothing, no philosophy, no power on earth will restore our shocked and shattered world except the teaching of Him who bore to Golgotha the burden of all mankind.
— A. J. Cronin, Adventures in Two Worlds
First the Foundation
The Sermon on the Mount is arguably the best-known portion of scripture in the Bible. It is, as Harvey Cox states, “the most luminous, most quoted, most analyzed, most contested, and most influential moral and religious discourse in all of human history.” It was Jesus’ “Fifth Symphony, his Mona Lisa, his masterpiece.” No wonder the Sermon has been coined in such majestic terms: the Christian’s Magna Carta, God’s Kingdom Manifesto, the Design for Life, the Directory for the Devout, Christianity’s Constitution.
The Sermon on the Mount possesses an irresistible, compelling quality. In the Book of James alone, there are over twenty references to it. Who isn’t familiar with the Beatitudes? The Lord’s Prayer? The Golden Rule? The command to love one’s enemy? Jesus’ uncompromising “but I say unto you…”? Or such vivid expressions as “If your right eyes causes you to sin, gouge it out” and “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find”?
And yet, despite A. J. Cronin’s exalted view of Jesus’ sermon, who hasn’t felt uneasy after reading Jesus’ words? “By all means,” Gandhi once wrote, “drink deep of the fountains that are given to you in the Sermon on the Mount, but then you will have to take sackcloth and ashes. Perhaps this is why Nietzsche criticized it and why Walter Kaufmann, in his book, The Faith of a Heretic, argues that organized Christianity is simply “the ever renewed effort to get around [the Sermon on the Mount] without repudiating Jesus.”
Two very different responses: On the one hand, there is something about the Sermon on the Mount that it is all but impossible to ignore. Something inside us wants desperately to be an echo to its immortal sound. On the other hand, our tendency is to distance ourselves from it, treating it, in the words of Friedrich Foerster, “as if it were a playground for batting around ethical ideals.” We hardly ever let Christ’s word sink deep. Constantly repeating Jesus’ teachings is of no use, as Albert Schweitzer once said, nor is espousing them, as does Cronin, as though they were bound to win universal acceptance. That, Schweitzer says “is like trying to paint a wet wall with pretty colors. We first have to create a foundation for understanding.”
That foundation is Christ himself! His teachings, as profound as they are, will not in themselves solve all our problems, nor will they liberate us to do what Jesus says. Jesus was not a Galilean Socrates, neither was he a better Moses. Matthew’s Gospel is about Jesus himself—about who he is, and responding to him by becoming like him. His words have authority not because he utters truths that enlighten us, but because his person transform us.
“If only we could put the Sermon on the Mount into practice,” Cronin and so many others exclaim. That is our problem. We can’t put Jesus’ teachings into practice, at least not without first attaching ourselves to him. Our problem with the Sermon on the Mount is not that we lack wisdom but that we refuse to let Jesus be our master. Jesus’ teachings are both captivating and alarming precisely because he himself embodies his own words. He alone helps us to imagine what the life created by God’s saving presence could be like. Jesus did not ask, “Do you understand me?” He simply said, “Come follow me.” “It is enough,” Jesus says, “for the disciple to be like the teacher” (Matt. 10:25). Listening to him, following him, is the only foundation on which to put his Sermon into practice. Then the difficulties that confront us will melt like mist before the rising sun.
More than Words
In the following account from E. Stanley Jones, an early twentieth-century missionary to India, we’re reminded of why Jesus is more important than his words.
If, as it has been suggested, all great literature is autobiographical, then all great appeals to the non-believing must be a witness. When I was called to the ministry I had a vague notion that I was to be God’s lawyer—I was to argue his case for him. When I told my pastor of my call he surprised me by asking me to preach my first sermon on a certain Sunday night. I prepared very thoroughly, for I was anxious to make a good impression and argue God’s case acceptably. There was a huge crowd there full of expectancy, wishing me well.
I began on a rather high key. I had not gone a half dozen sentences when I used a word I had never used before (nor have I used it since!)— “indifferentism.” I saw a college girl in the audience put down her head and smile. It so upset me that when I came back to the thread of my discourse, it was gone—absolutely. I do not know how long I stood there rubbing my hands, hoping that something would come back. It seemed like forever. Finally, I blurted out, “Friends, I am very sorry, but I have forgotten my sermon!”
I started down the steps leading from the pulpit in shame and confusion. This was the beginning of my ministry, I thought—a total failure. As I was about to leave the pulpit a Voice seemed to say to me, “Haven’t I done anything for you?”
“Yes,” I replied, “You have done everything for me.”
“Well,” said the Voice, “couldn’t you tell them about that?”
“Yes, I suppose I could,” I eagerly replied. So instead of going to my seat I came around in front of the pulpit below (I felt very lowly by this time and was persuaded I did not belong up there!) and said: “Friends, I see I cannot preach, but I love Jesus. You know what my life was in this community—that of a wild, reckless young man—and you know what it now is. You know he has made life new for me, and though I cannot preach I am determined to love and serve him.”
At the close a lad came up and said, “Stanley, I wish I could find what you have found.” He did find it then and there. The Lord let me down with a terrible thump, but I got the lesson never to be forgotten: In my ministry I was to be, not God’s lawyer, but his witness.
We cannot merely talk about Christ and what he taught—we must bring him. He must be a living, vital reality—closer than breathing and nearer than hands and feet. We must be “God-bearers.”
— from The Christ of the Indian Road
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, there are so many things that attract us, and each one of us has his or her own particular attraction. But your attraction is eternally the strongest! Draw us, therefore, the more powerfully to you.
— Søren Kierkegaard (from Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard)
Your Turn
What do you find most impossible to ignore in the Sermon on the Mount? Are Jesus’ teachings true regardless of who he is? What role do you think Jesus himself plays when it comes to the Sermon on the Mount? I welcome your comments, opinions, questions, and personal experiences, and will share a selection with readers each week.