March 2024
Years ago, a church I was a part of did a small group study of a book called, The Question of God. It was written by a Harvard professor named Dr. Armand Nicoli Jr. and in it he compares C.S. Lewis’s and Sigmund Freud’s visions of the world. If I remember correctly, each chapter was a specific question about God and Dr. Nicoli would present Lewis’s answer to the question and then Freud’s answer to the question. Freud was an atheist. Lewis was a Christian.
Along with the book there was a video series. The producers had gathered a group of Christians and a group of atheists to talk about each question in the book. I don’t remember if the book was any good. But I vividly remember one of the video conversations. The question had to do with how do we live a moral life? Dr. Nicoli asked the group of atheists a question, “If there is no God, what basis does anyone have for moral behavior? Why should we treat people kindly if there is no overarching standard? Without God how do we determine what is good or bad?”
I remember one of the atheists in the discussion made the comment, “I think, for me, the overarching way of understanding morality is ‘do unto others as you want them to do unto you.’” And Dr. Nicoli said to him, “you know where that saying comes from don’t you? Jesus said it, in the Sermon on the Mount.” Even the atheist had to acknowledge that the best basis for behavior the world has ever seen - what has become known as the golden rule - comes from Jesus.
In my personal devotions this year, I am doing a long, slow study of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Next year, I plan to do a sermon series on these incredible chapters.
The Bible Project is doing a study of the Sermon this year and so I am using their material to help structure my study. In their opening podcast, they listed the profound impact Jesus’ Sermon has had on the larger culture in just the past 100 years. People from Ghandi to Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Corrie ten Boom to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, to musicians like Bono from U2 and Bob Marley have all quoted or been inspired by this teaching of Jesus.
Even people who have nothing to do with the Church are familiar with sayings like, “Do not judge lest you be judged,” or, “You have heard that it was said ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say to you: Do not resist an evil person. But if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”
The way I like to describe the Sermon on the Mount is: “This is what it looks like to participate in God’s kingdom here on earth right now.”
These are the values of Jesus’ kingdom.
This is the type of life you begin to live when Jesus grabs a hold of you. So, for most of the year, my newsletter articles will likely be reflections on the Sermon.
It is easy to think of these sayings of Jesus as impossible to attain. But the more you study Jesus' sermon the more you come to realize he expects that his followers can begin moving into these ways of living.
Darrell Johnson says that when you first read the Sermon on the Mount it feels like there is no possible way you can live this out. But then he says, the more you enter into the Sermon the more you realize that there actually is no other possible way to live than this - this describes how humans can participate in what God is up to.
The Sermon begins with this unexpected list of people who are considered blessed - these are the people God is using in the world. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, the peacemakers and the persecuted. It is not a list of the movers and shakers of the world. I think that is the point. God is up to something different in the world.
The ways of the world, the ways of power and influence, are not the ways of Jesus. And so Jesus uses different kinds of people. I believe he still does.
I believe the people and values described in the Sermon on the mount are the people and values the world still needs.