I've been reading the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, and many of my preconceived notions of what this sermon really is have been blown out of the water. On so many levels I didn't know existed, this traditionally praised and sacred sermon isn't that much of a sermon at all. If you look at the beginning of chapter 5, you see Jesus isn't speaking to the multitudes. He's speaking right to his passionate followers. So right then and there I realized that the infamous sermon may not be the list of do's and don't's I've always imagined it to be.
Most people assume that Jesus is preaching on how we should act, how we should run our lives, but I don't think that's the case. Now, I could be wrong (can't we all???) and these are just musings, but I actually think Jesus is telling his followers how to spot a true disciple. A real disciple of Jesus will embody all the qualities, atttitudes, and behaviors Jesus mentions. The Sermon on the Mount flows from a genuine heart of a person running after God.
I'm drugged up, so my back is fine. I just feel like puking. Oh well. I'm just glad my back isn't sweltering in pain anymore.
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1 comment:
I agree with you! It IS frustrating how Christians have treated other people, how Christians have been bigoted and brainwashing and conditional in their love. Jesus is all about unconditional love, and so many Christians have said, "Join us, and we'll love you... If you don't, you're burning in Hell." It's really sad, because that's not like Jesus at all! Jesus liked everybody! He liked the whores, he liked the gays and lesbians, he liked the government officials and the foreign soldiers inhabiting what was known as God's nation; he loved the misfits and social pariahs, and he didn't do it because God told him - he loved them because his heart loved him. He loved them just because. (he also loves the strict fundamentalists)
So I really don't think Jesus appreciates it when we parade as condemning, hostile, and arrogant, because Jesus isn't that way. He didn't raise his voice or lecture people about right and wrong. A lot of times Christians make the mistake of doing very un-Jesus things in the very name of Jesus. When we see people like this, we need to realize that often their heart is good, they've just got a skewed view of reality, of what it's all about. We need to pray for them and love them almost as much as we love others :-).
A postmodern church really gets away from the CEO, business-like model our everyday mega-church has become. A postmodern church goes back to the basics, the early church, found in the book of Acts (hence post-modern). It's about building relationships and loving one another and just living for the Kingdom here and now. You don't have to be a postmodern church to be really loving and effective (my home church, Southwest Church, isn't postmodern, though it is slowly becoming that way). The postmodern church really appeals to those who are tired of the watered-down and analyzed methods of modern Christianity. Postmodernism acknowledges that God is mythical, that we don't know all there is, and we can never figure him out. We're all on a journey.
I am very thankful for my public school upbringing; though I DID go to a private school for sixth grade :-).
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