21 Sermon Illustrations on Sermon on the Mount

Anundo was admitted a pupil in the General Assembly's school, on its opening in August, 1830. In accordance with the system of tuition pursued in the school, he, together with his class-fellows, soon commenced the study of the New Testament. It was not long before his mind became arrested by the Sermon on the Mount. The ideas, the prospects, the images, the illustrations, all were so peculiar, seemed so apposite and so true, that glimpses of light flashed through his soul, and he was often heard to exclaim, 'How beautiful, how tender, how kind, how full of love and goodness! Oh, how unlike the spirit and maxims of Hindooism! Surely this is the truth!' Never was there a more striking exemplification of what Owen calls 'the self-evidencing power of the Bible.' As the young man advanced in his acquaintance with its contents, he constantly contrasted its statements with those which the Brahmins rehearsed from their Shasters; and he appeared as it were internally to see and feel that here was truth in the former, and error in the latter. He demanded no external evidence to authenticate the divine authority of the Christian Scriptures. To him the reading of them seemed like the presence of the light of day exposing surrounding objects in their true colors: or rather like the sudden admission of the solar rays into a dreary cavern, bringing to view the hideous and loathsome objects with which it had been stored. Not that he disparaged miracles and prophecies; but he declared that these were not necessary for his conviction; there was something in the whole spirit, and plan, and announcements of the Gospel, that came home to his soul in the light of truth, independent of external proofs. Anundo voluntarily applied to Mr. Duff for baptism. His address on the occasion was, in substance, 'What shall I do? I feel that I am a sinner, a great sinner, a sinner that deserves to be eternally punished. What shall become of me? If I die this night, I fear I shall be lost forever, and I know I deserve such a fate. What shall I do? I am troubled, much troubled, day and night I am troubled. But in the Bible I read of God's mercy. May I not trust in it? I sometimes feel that I may, and so try to think and do what is good, when all at once I feel that I am sinning more. Then I read the Bible; I cannot help reading it; and there I find something that catches me in a way which I cannot explain. I feel that Christ is the only true Saviour. Last night I could not sleep, and so arose and lighted my lamp, and read the Bible, and it caught me; and I am convinced that here is the only way of salvation. May I not then publicly profess my faith in Christ by baptism?'

JUBILEE is the first clue for recovering the Sermon on the Mount for preaching, teaching, and living.

The Sermon on the Mount really does need to be recovered. It is the largest block of Jesus' teachings in the New Testament. In the first century of Christian churches, it was the most cited part of the New Testament. It was how early churches taught what it means to be a Christian. It is Jesus' teaching of the commands we are to teach and obey that Jesus refers to in the Great Commission ("Make disciples of all nations, baptize them, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you"). The attitude people take to the Sermon on the Mount affects the attitude they take to Jesus' teachings as a whole, and to Jesus as Lord and Savior. Yet the Sermon on the Mount is distressingly absent from Christian preaching, teaching, and living. One big reason for that evasion is the hermeneutic of idealism, which interprets the Sermon on the Mount as high ideals to be reached by human moral effort, but impossible to live in the real world. Preaching or teaching it as high ideals tires people out and causes evasion. Praising Jesus for teaching impossible ideals, and then living some other ethic, makes Jesus the captive of 19th-century idealism; and it makes us unfaithful disciples.

Instead we need a hermeneutic of Hebraic context.(1) The Jubilee in the Hebrew Scriptures is key to understanding the Beatitudes -- the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount that sets the tone for the whole Sermon. If they are interpreted as high ideals, it sets that tone for the remaining teachings. But the beatitudes are based largely on Isaiah 61, which is the passage on which Jesus preached his inaugural sermon in Luke 4:16: good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, liberty for the oppressed.(2) Notice how the Beatitudes echo Isaiah 61, the Jubilee passage of deliverance.

ISAIAH 61

61:1 The LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor...

61:2 to proclaim the year of the LORD'S favor ... to comfort all who

mourn,

61:1 To bind up the brokenhearted; (61:7) ... they will inherit a

double portion in their land.

61:3 They will be called oaks of righteousness.

61:11 So the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up

before all nations.

MATTHEW 5

5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of

heaven.

5:4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5:5 Blessed are the meek (or the tamed, as Clarence Jordan translated

it) for they will inherit the earth.

5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...

5:10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for

theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

That's not about high ideals and impossible effort; it's good news about

God's grace-based deliverance. In Talmudic lectionaries, Isaiah 61 was

linked with the Jubilee in Leviticus 25. When Jesus said that today this

Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing, "for rabbinic Judaism and thus for

the listeners of Jesus it most likely meant ... the Jubilee year, the time

when the inequities accumulated through the years are to be crossed off and

all God's people will begin again at the same point."(3)

Once we see this, we see that the Beatitudes are set in the prophetic context

of God's deliverance. They are not about hard teachings and impossible

ideals, but about God delivering us. They are about joy, happiness,

blessedness, because we are being given the opportunity to participate in

God's deliverance. They are beatitudes or blessings, not exhortations or pep

talks. Jesus is announcing the kingdom is at hand and we get to participate!

The focus is on the joy of participation in God's deliverance, on God's

grace, not our perfection.

A second clue is like the first: when Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God,

he is teaching in line with the Hebrew Scriptures, and especially Isaiah.

(As a good Jew, Matthew was reluctant to use the holy name of God, so he

wrote Kingdom of Heaven, but like Mark and Luke, he meant Kingdom of God.)

The shape of the reign of God was not an unknown for Jesus' hearers. The

theme of the coming reign of God or Kingdom of God recurs often in Isaiah.

Besides Isaiah 61, see also Isaiah 9:6-7; 52:7; 60:1ff., etc. The

characteristics of the coming Reign of God in Isaiah are fourfold: salvation,

justice/righteousness, peace, and God's presence (often symbolized by light).

Notice how much Jesus emphasized these four themes in the beatitudes: peace

(peacemakers), justice (righteousness), salvation (mercy), and presence (the

pure in heart will see God). Jesus continues these four themes in the rest

of the Sermon on the Mount. These four characteristics of the reign of God

already began in Jesus' teachings, deeds, and community. We can begin to

experience them as mustard seeds now, in Christ; they will come in fullness

in God's future.

The third clue for recovering the Sermon on the Mount for preaching and

living is to understand the central theme of righteousness (Matthew 5:6, 10,

20; 6:1, 33). Again, we find the meaning by studying the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jesus taught not in English or Greek, but in Aramaic, citing the Scriptures

in Hebrew. The Hebrew for righteousness is TSEDAQAH, which is very often

used as synonymous with MISHPAT, justice. It means the kind of justice that

delivers from bondage and exclusion and restores community. It means

delivering, community-restoring justice. That is why Jesus speaks so often

of giving alms to the poor, giving to the one who begs, investing our money

in God's reign and righteousness rather than hoarding it. It is, again, a

Jubilee theme -- a theme of deliverance. It is not impossible ideals, but

realistic attention to the kind of justice that restores people to community.

The fourth clue is that the structure of the Sermon is not twofold

antitheses, but threefold triads. The first member of each triad is always a

traditional piety whose verb is either a subjunctive or future, like "thou

shalt not kill," or "when you pray." The second member is always a diagnosis

of a vicious cycle with a continuous action verb like "being angry with your

brother," or praying to be seen by others. The third member is where the

emphasis comes, and is in an imperative, like "go and be reconciled to your

brother," or "go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who

is in secret." The command is always a practical, doable transforming

initiative, based on grace, and is the way of deliverance from the vicious

cycle. Jesus does not teach the impossible ideal of never being angry, but

the realistic transforming initiative of going to make peace with the person

who is separated from us by anger. He does not teach the impossible ideal of

praying, giving alms, and fasting in public while thinking only of God and

not of whether other people are noticing us, but the transforming initiative

of doing these practices secretly so you can think of God singly. He does

not teach the impossible ideal of hoarding money but keeping your eye and

heart fixed on God, but the transforming initiative of investing your money

in God's reign and justice. This threefold structure, with the emphasis on

the imperative in the third member, is consistent from Matthew 5:21 through

7:11.(4)

There were fourteen such triads, just as Matthew's gospel begins with three

sets of fourteen generations from Abraham to Jesus. Matthew loved numbers

like this, and has about 75 triads in his Gospel. Once we study this pattern

of fourteen transforming initiatives carefully, we see that each is a

transforming initiative, each is grace-based, realistic, practical, doable,

and the way of deliverance from the vicious cycles that we get stuck in.'

The fifth clue is that Jesus does not teach us "do not resist evil." He

himself certainly resisted evil. He confronted evil directly. The Greek in

Matthew 5:39 is ME ANTISTENAI TO PONERO. ANTISTENAI in the rest of the New

Testament does not mean simply "resist," but "resist with vengeance and

violence."(6)

TO PONERO has the grammatical ending that means it is either dative -- "do

not resist evil" -- or instrumental -- "do not resist by evil means." The

grammatical rule is that you determine which it is by what makes sense in the

context. If it means "do not resist evil," it makes no sense in the context;

it contradicts Jesus' direct and consistent resistance of evil. But if it

means "do not resist by evil means," it is thoroughly consistent with Jesus'

actions.(7)

Clearly it should be translated "do not resist revengefully by evil means."

Furthermore, it is decisively confirmed by Paul when he reports Jesus'

teaching in Romans 12:19-21 exactly as we have seen: "Do not take revenge....

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." How much reading

of Jesus as teaching impossible ideals could have been avoided if Matthew

5:39 had not been translated in this impossible way!

As Romans 12 reports it, Jesus is not teaching the impossible ideal of not

resisting evil, but the practical initiatives of transforming your enemy into

a friend by feeding your enemy if she is hungry and giving her something to

drink if she is thirsty. In Matthew 5:38ff., the initiatives that Jesus

teaches are to turn the left cheek, go the second mile, give your shirt, and

give to the one who begs. None of these is a doormat strategy, as they are

usually taken in our culture. To understand them, we need to see that in

Jesus' Jewish culture they each mean not simply to do what the other demands,

but to seize the initiative, stand up for your dignity, and ask for justice

and reconciliation, as Martin Luther King did. I do not have the space to

explain the meaning in context further here, and have to refer to my book or

Walter Wink's book in the footnotes. There you can see a more extensive

explanation of this and the other clues that I am presenting in a very small

space here.

The sixth clue is to see that Matthew 5:48 doesn't mean "be perfect" in the

sense of morally ideal, but "be merciful," as Luke 6:36 says. "Nowhere in

the Old Testament or in the Dead Sea Scrolls is God called" perfect; you

can't measure God by ideals of moral perfection. Rather it means "be all-

inclusive" as God is all-inclusive in giving sun and rain to the just and

unjust alike.(8)

That is a more accurate translation for three reasons: unlike "be perfect" in

the sense of morally ideal; it makes sense in Aramaic and Hebrew; it makes

sense in the context of Matt. 5:45; and it agrees with Luke 6:36.

The seventh clue to recovering the Sermon on the Mount is to pray and

practice: Pray, puffing our trust not in what Jesus' compatriots called the

"dogs" and "pigs" (the powers and authorities of the status quo), but in God.

God knows our needs even before we ask, and unlike the Roman authorities

knows how to give good gifts far more than we do (Matt. 5:44; 6:5-15; 7:6-

11). So pray, relying on God's grace. And practice Jesus' words (Matt.

7:16, 22, 24). If we don't start practicing what Jesus commands, then we

will surely rationalize self-defensively by teaching that the Sermon on the

Mount is high ideals that we cannot live. We will praise Jesus as idealistic

without listening to his way of discipleship, and we will follow some other

way.

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End Notes:

1. See Pinchas Lapide, "The Sermon on the Mount: Utopia or Program for

Action?" (Orbis, 1986).

2. Robert Guelich, "The Matthean Beatitudes: Entrance Requirements or

Eschatological Blessings?" Journal of Biblical Literature 95 (1976),

415-34; Guelich, "The Sermon on the Mount" (Dallas: Word, 1982) 62ff.

3. John H. Yoder, "Politics of Jesus," 2nd edition (Eerdmans, 1994) pp. 29-

30.

4. The one exception is the teaching on divorce in Matt. 4:31-32, where the

transforming initiative is missing. But Paul reports the initiative

that Jesus taught in I Cor. 7:11 -- "be reconciled."

5. I develop this insight and its implications for recovering the Sermon on

the Mount for realistic living more fully in "Just Peacemaking:

Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace" (Westminster/John Knox

Press, 1992), and the forthcoming "Christian Ethics as Following Jesus"

with David Gushee (InterVarsity Press).

6. Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers (Augsburg Fortress Press, 1992), chapter

9.

7. Clarence Jordan, "The Substance of Faith and other Cotton Patch Sermons"

(Association Press, 1972), 69.

8. W. D. Davies and Dale Allison, "A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on

The Gospel According to St. Matthew" (T&T Clark, 1988), Vol. 1, 561-563.

Glen Harold Stassen is the Lewis Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary and the author of "Authentic Transformation: A New Vision of Christ and Culture and Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace."

#4426

*

We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.

-- Omar Bradley, General, USA (Retired)

The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis is a very creative approach to Christian psychology. The Letters are an imaginary correspondence between Screwtape, an experienced demon tempter, and his nephew, Wormwood, a novice demon recently assigned to tempt a man in order to win him over to the devil. Frequently Screwtape suggests subtle temptations to subtle sins. Screwtape also suggests that a certain amount religious practice is not bad for the devil's cause, as long as it is done in an outwardly way with little or no influence over the man's will. At one point Screwtape writes to Wormwood about moderation:

Talk to him about “moderation in all things”. If you can once

get him to the point of thinking that “religion is all very well

up to a point”, you can feel quite happy about his soul. A

moderated religion is as good for us [devils] as no religion at

all and more amusing.

If Jesus had taught a religion of “moderation in all things,” he would have been welcomed by the Sadduccees and could have avoided the cross. Not only were the claims of Jesus about himself extravagant, but also the demands he laid upon others were pervasive.

Every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to

judgment...every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already

committed adultery...If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck

it out and throw it away...If your right hand causes you to sin,

cut it off and throw it away...Do not swear at all...Do not

resist one who is evil...Love your enemies...You must be perfect,

as your heavenly Father is perfect...Judge not...Enter by the

narrow gate...whoever would save his life will lose it...Whoever

does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my

disciple.

This does not sound much like “moderation in all things.”

(additional note)

In the King James Version (AV) of Philippians 4:5 the apostle Paul supposedly writes: “Let your moderation be known unto all men.” When the above article was first published, one person objected to its content based on this verse in Paul's epistle. A modern translation, though, gives a very different sense of Paul's thought: “Let your gentleness be known to everyone” (NRSV). The NIV has “gentleness.” The NASV has “forbearing spirit.” The RSV has “forbearance.” The Greek word “signifies a humble, patient stedfastness, which is able to submit to injustice, disgrace, and maltreatment without hatred and malice, trusting in God in spite of all of it” (Fritz Reinecker and Cleon Rogers, Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament, p. 560). The Greek word Paul uses is epieikes which means “seemly, suitable, equitable, fair, mild, gentle” (Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon, p. 238). This is a good example of the importance of checking more than one translation to make sure one has gotten the correct sense of the original and, if one is able, to study the meaning further of the original Greek word. Only a moment of checking confirms that Paul is not encouraging half-hearted, lukewarm commitment, the sense in which C. S. Lewis and I were using “moderation”.

*

Jesus is the model of sacrifice. He was certainly no one’s doormat, but yet, he was hated, excluded and called evil. Through it all he was God-controlled and not self-controlled.

When I think of making sacrifices I also think of E. Stanley Jones, perhaps United Methodism’s most famous foreign missionary. He authored over a dozen books and converted hundreds of Hindus in Indiana to Christianity. He is the only person of which I am aware who was voted in abstentia to become a bishop. When he received the news, he turned it down. One day E. Stanley Jones came to Emory University and spoke to a Systematic Theology class. One of the students asked him why he turned down the episcopacy. He laughingly replied that if he became a bishop he would have to retire at age 70. “I am now 82,” he said, “and I am still going strong.”

Then someone asked him: what do you think of the Beatitudes? Several students picked up their pens expecting something profound and they got it. Here’s what he said: “At first sight, you felt they turned everything upside down. At second sight, you understand that they turn everything right side up. The first time you read them they are impossible. The second time you read them, nothing else is possible. The beatitudes are not a chart for Christian duty. They are a charter for Christian liberty.”

Anti-religious comedian Bill Maher, speaking to Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on a television show:

“In your new book you make a very interesting point about how the Republican right is always wanting to post the Ten Commandments in public places, which of course is from the Old Testament, but they never, ever seem to want to post the sayings of Jesus, like the Beatitudes: Blessed are the meek, Blessed are the merciful, Blessed are the peacemakers. They’re such Christians but they never want to put up what Jesus said.”

How could a person living under military occupation, experiencing first-hand suffering and humiliation, even think about loving the enemy, let alone urge family, friends and neighbors to do the same? This challenging message came from a young rabbi named Jesus in his “Sermon on the Mount.”

Of course, Jesus could have suggested we make peace with our enemies or negotiate peace agreements or peacefully resolve conflict; those statements would have been as shocking to the suffering Jews of that time. Instead, he entreated them to go further: to “love” them. This was the word he chose -- a command to all those who seek to follow him.

I studied history to better understand what life in my homeland was like under Roman occupation. The Jewish people had been displaced and lost their property. Many had been tortured, enslaved and imprisoned. Numerous had died at the hands of their oppressors. Sadly, many Jewish religious and political leaders even compromised and corrupted themselves by their Roman superiors.

In a way, my own history seems to parallel what happened more than 2,000 years ago. Like those hearing Jesus’ words for the first time, I too have grown up living under military occupation. I have witnessed suffering and the loss it brings. As a Palestinian, I could share countless stories of brutality and abuse. I could explain how fear and grief can quickly turn into anger and resentment.

However, it may surprise some in the West that I am an Arab who was born into an evangelical Christian family. I expect that my family’s “conversion” to Christianity happened thousands of years ago on the day of Pentecost, not through mission work. As a boy growing up in Bethlehem, I went to church every Sunday and to Sunday school every Friday, fully immersed in a faith-based culture no different than a Christian family in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, or Palestine, Texas.

As I was learning Bible stories, my day-to-day reality and experiences were teaching me to become bitter and hateful of Israeli soldiers and all they represented. I knew this was not what my faith, schooling or my family had instructed, but these were the life lessons I was learning. Everything changed for me in the early 1980s when my uncle returned from the United States to establish the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence in Bethlehem. Now I found a place to address my resentment and vent my anger. I began participating in many nonviolent activities to protest the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands -- from planting olive trees in threatened areas to participating in children’s street festivals with balloons colored like the Palestinian flag. When the Israeli government deported my uncle for his nonviolence efforts, I committed myself to engaging in this important work. I was 16 at the time.

For more than 20 years, I have been studying, practicing and teaching nonviolence both inside and outside of Palestine. I started Holy Land Trust in 1998 to promote the idea that nonviolence can be a path toward peace and a greater humanity in this land we all call Holy. Our organization is made up of Palestinians -- both Christians and Muslims -- who work together to develop awareness campaigns, provide training, organize demonstrations, etc. Our efforts often receive the support of internationals, including a growing number of Israeli Jews.

So while I had grown up knowing about the Sermon on the Mount, living it creates a different meaning and purpose. The first step in loving the enemy is to love and honor myself as a person loved by God, to break free from the fear and hatred within me, and to no longer claim victimization and seek pity as a result of the oppressive forces around me. This takes creating a deep distinction between those who stand before me and their behaviors and recognizing that every human being is created in the image of God. It requires acknowledging that conditions, traditions, experiences, traumas and assumptions can shape who we have become but are not who we truly are and, more importantly, who we can be. It’s understanding that our core common identity is in our humanity and not in political, ideological or even religious associations.

As a follower of Jesus, I am compelled to promote a process of healing and liberation for those being oppressed as well as for their oppressors. Loving the enemy means you ultimately eliminate the label of “enemy” and engage in loving action to help them recognize and acknowledge your humanity. This is how to love your enemy, to really love them.

Christianity really is different. It doesn’t take long to figure that out. It comes in many different ways and many different teachings.

You can certainly see it in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

Jesus told His disciples that He did not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets (the Old Testament). Nor did He come to accept the status quo of Judaism.

He came to fulfill the teachings of Scripture, giving His disciples a number of illustrations.

One of those has to do with “an eye for an eye” (Matthew 5:38-39). Jesus took this teaching (from Exodus 21:23-25) that had escalated violence and revenge to new heights. He called on His followers to respond to violence with kindness and love.

Another illustration involved going the extra mile (Matthew 5:41). Jesus wanted His followers to seek behaviors which de-escalate wrongful actions or power plays. A Roman soldier had the right to demand that a Jew carry his pack for up to a mile. Most Jewish citizens counted out the steps and stopped immediately at the mile mark. Jesus encouraged His followers to look for ways to show love and compassion while seeking to go beyond strict requirements.

This is certainly different teaching. Jesus called us to look at life and people differently. Instead of only loving those who love you, look for people to treat with empathy and respect.

Instead of getting even or living in anger and resentment, love (a positive, active verb) your enemies and pray for those who persecute and use you. Doing so makes you like your Father in heaven. In the same way God reacts, He wants us to react as well.

Would this teaching change the world? Would it change your life?

Seek good and not evil. Find ways to bless others. Living in this way will change you and will witness to the power of Christ to the people around you.

________

Waylon Bailey is senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Covington, Louisiana. This column first appeared at his website, www.waylonbailey.com.

The cross is shock therapy for a world addicted to solving its problems through violence. The cross shocks us into the devastating realization that our system of violence murdered God! The things hidden from the foundation of the world have now been revealed. The cross shames our ancient foundation of violence. The cross strips naked the principalities and powers. The cross tears down the façade of glory that we use to hide the bodies of slain victims.

In the light of the cross, we are to realize that if what we have built on Cain’s foundation is capable of murdering the Son of God, then whole edifice needs to come down. In the light of the cross, our war anthems lose their luster. But this throws us into a crisis. What other alternatives are there? How else are we to arrange the world? The alternative is what Jesus is offering us when he told us that the kingdom of God is at hand. God’s way of arranging the world around love and forgiveness is within reach. If we only dare to reach out for it, we can have it. But we are so afraid. We’re not sure we can risk it. It’s so hard for us to let go of the sword and take the hand of the Crucified One. It’s so hard for us to really believe in Jesus.

The crowd never believes in Jesus. Only the little flock that accepts its vulnerability can believe in Jesus. If you tell those rushing to war that their hatred of enemies and their plan for the organized killing of enemies is evil, the crowd will hate you. War is sacred. It lies beyond critique. To critique it is blasphemy. The crowd hates blasphemy. The crowd wants to kill blasphemers. The crowd knows that the criticism of their violence is blasphemy because they know their cause is just. They believe it. And from their perspective their cause is just. They can prove it. Both sides can prove it. Always.

Achilles knew his cause was just and that it was perfectly legitimate to drag Hector’s body from his chariot in front of the gates of Troy in a show of grotesque triumphalism. It’s the same grotesque impulse that causes modern soldiers to pose for gruesome photos with the bodies of dead enemies. It’s literally the way of the world. But it’s not the way of the new world founded by Jesus. Jesus is not the warrior king the world is accustomed to. Jesus is not the Jewish Achilles. Jesus refused to be the violent Messiah Israel longed for. Jesus did not kill Pilate and drag the governor’s body behind his chariot. Jesus did not pose triumphantly over the dead bodies of slain Roman soldiers. Instead it was Jesus who hung naked on a tree after being put to death through a state-sponsored execution. Jesus founded his kingdom in solidarity with brutalized victims. This is the gospel, but it’s hard for us to believe in a Jesus who would rather die than kill his enemies. It’s harder yet to believe in a Jesus who calls us to take up our own cross, follow him, and be willing to die rather than kill our enemies.

Many American Christians are fond of describing the United States as a “Christian nation” — which would mean a Christlike nation. With that in mind, here’s a wild thought experiment. Imagine if Jesus went to Washington D.C. Imagine that he is invited to give a speech to a joint session of Congress. (He’s Jesus after all, and I’m sure the senators and congressmen would be delighted to hear a speech from the founder of the world’s largest religion — if nothing else it would confer some dignity upon their institution.) Imagine that the speech Jesus gave was his most famous sermon — the Sermon on the Mount. Can you imagine that?

Jesus is introduced. (Standing ovation.) He stands before Congress and begins to deliver his speech. “Blessed are the poor ... the mourners ... the meek.” “Love your enemies.” “Turn the other cheek.” After a few perfunctory applauses early on, I’m pretty sure there would be a lot of squirming senators and uncomfortable congressmen. The room would sink into a tense silence. And when Jesus concluded his speech with a prophecy of the inevitable fall of the house that would not act upon his words, what would Congress do? Nothing. They would not act. They could not act. To act on Jesus’ words would undo their system. The Sermon on the Mount doesn’t work in Cain’s system — no matter how noble or sophisticated. In the end, the U.S. Congress would no more adopt the policies Jesus set out in the Sermon on the Mount than they were adopted by the Jewish Sanhedrin or the Roman Senate.

The Jesus way and conventional power politics don’t mix. So we tell Jesus to mind his own business — to go back to church and to “saving souls” and not to meddle in the real affairs of running the world. We sequester Jesus in a stained glass quarantine and appropriate a trillion dollars for the war machine. This begs the question of why Christians get so worked up over which side has the most representatives in Congress when the entire system is incapable of implementing what Jesus taught. Do you see what I mean? It’s hard to believe in Jesus! To believe in Jesus fully, to believe in Jesus as more than a personal savior, to believe in Jesus without qualifications, to believe in Jesus as God’s way to run the world, to believe in Jesus and his Sermon on the Mount, to believe in Jesus as the unimagined solution for a world gone wrong and not as merely chaplain or cheerleader for our favorite version of the status quo is very hard to do. It’s also very controversial.

If believing in Jesus were as easy as we pretend, it would have been easy for me to pass my 9/11 test. But it wasn’t easy. And I didn’t pass the test. I didn’t wrestle with what Jesus calls his followers to do in the Sermon on the Mount. It didn’t even cross my mind! I didn’t pray about what it means to love my enemies. I prayed a war prayer. I preached war sermons. Sermons like “The Road to Armageddon” and “Jesus, Jerusalem, and Jihad” — sermons in which I actually said, “We are at war with Islam.” I’m ashamed of it now; I can barely stand to look at those sermon notes. But I preached those sermons. And they were popular sermons! People loved them. The crowd told me those sermons were anointed. When I was preaching my war sermons, I never once received any criticism for them. Never once! Telling the crowd that God is on our side is never a bad career move.

But a few years later, when I encountered Jesus in a fresh and new way, when I began to take the “words in red” seriously, when I repented for my war prayers and war sermons, when I started preaching peace sermons, then criticism came. Oh, believe me, it came! People left the church over my “new direction.” My new direction was that I began to take the Sermon on the Mount seriously. My new direction was that I began to see the kingdom of Christ as God’s alternative society. My new direction was to believe that peacemakers are the children of God. And I learned a bitter lesson. I learned that it is much easier to unite people around a Jesus who hates our enemies and blesses our wars than it is to unite people around a Jesus who calls us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. It broke my heart to learn that people are not as easily drawn to a gospel of peace as they are to a rally for war.

But I couldn’t blame them. I had been the same way. I had endorsed war in the name of the Lord. I had prayed war prayers. I had preached war sermons. And if people became angry when I started praying peace prayers and preaching peace sermons, I couldn’t be surprised. I had been the same way. Believing in a Mars-like Messiah is easy. Believing in the Prince of Peace is hard.

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This is an adapted excerpt from Zahnd’s book, A Farewell To Mars.

Jesus is the model of sacrifice. He was certainly no one’s doormat, but yet, he was hated, excluded and called evil. Through it all he was God-controlled and not self-controlled.

When I think of making sacrifices I also think of E. Stanley Jones, perhaps United Methodism’s most famous foreign missionary. He authored over a dozen books and converted hundreds of Hindus in Indiana to Christianity. He is the only person of which I am aware who was voted in abstentia to become a bishop. When he received the news, he turned it down. One day E. Stanley Jones came to Emory University and spoke to a Systematic Theology class. One of the students asked him why he turned down the episcopacy. He laughingly replied that if he became a bishop he would have to retire at age 70. “I am now 82,” he said, “and I am still going strong.”

Then someone asked him: what do you think of the Beatitudes? Several students picked up their pens expecting something profound and they got it. Here’s what he said: “At first sight, you felt they turned everything upside down. At second sight, you understand that they turn everything right side up. The first time you read them they are impossible. The second time you read them, nothing else is possible. The beatitudes are not a chart for Christian duty. They are a charter for Christian liberty.”

If you ask the average 8-year-old boy what they want to be when they grow up, most of them will say something like “I want to be a professional baseball player” or “I want to be the next President of the United States.” I guess you can say I wasn’t the average 8-year-old. When I was 8 years old, I wanted to be one thing, and one thing only, a missionary. More specifically: a missionary to Arab Muslims. Like I said, I wasn’t a typical 8-year-old. Call it crazy or call it divine, but somehow I knew at an early age that I was going to spend a good part of my adult life living in the Middle East and working in the Arab world.

The premonition turned out to be right. When I was 30, my wife and I sold all of our possessions and moved to Beirut, Lebanon, with our two girls, ages 1 and 2. In our minds, God had sent us to Beirut to convert as many Muslims as we could to Christianity. And that’s what we were. Missionaries. Sent to convert the heathen. My entire life and identity was wrapped around being a missionary. Every day I was either passing out gospel tracts, conducting open-air meetings, talking to university students one-on-one, or doing some other type of outreach directed towards converting Muslims to Christianity. In the missionary world, there are two types of workers. The incognito ones and the zealous ones. I was the zealous one.

That was 20 years ago.

Today I can say that I have no desire to convert Muslims, or anyone for that matter, to Christianity. I’m not an evangelist and am no longer a missionary. I would even go so far as to say that I agree with Karl Marx when he says, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” If it sounds like I’m one of those New Atheist guys that sees religion as the toxic that poisons everything, that’s partially correct. I’m not an atheist by a long shot. But I do see religion as toxic, not because I don’t think that religion can sometimes do good (it can, in certain circumstances), but because I’ve discovered something (more specifically ... someone) superior to the religion I spent my life trying to convert others to...

That someone is Jesus.

A funny thing happened when I started to read the four gospels. I mean really read them. I discovered that Jesus was constantly angering the religious leaders of his day by challenging them to recognize the grace of God in “the other.” Jesus’ friends were prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers, demoniacs, and Samaritans -- people who were outsiders and vile sinners. When a Jewish lawyer (a religious insider in Jesus’ day) asked him what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus affirmed the two greatest commandments, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind ... And Love your neighbor as yourself.” When the lawyer challenged him by asking, “Who is my neighbor?”, Jesus told the story of the “Good Samaritan.”

I’m sure you’ve heard the story. A guy gets beat up, left for dead. A priest and a Levite look at him ... and pass on by. A Samaritan picks him up, dresses his wounds, takes him to the hospital, and offers to foot the bill. The Jews thought of the Samaritans as the violent heretics of their day, much like some Christians think of Muslims today. To put it in today’s terms, it would be like Jesus saying to an evangelical Christian, “If you want to be right with God, act like that Muslim down the street that always seems to do the right thing when someone is in need.”

And then there’s the Apostle Paul ...

A lot of my Muslim friends have a problem with Paul, but ironically, it was Paul that challenged me to think of Jesus beyond the narrow confines of the “Christian” box I had always placed him in. As the early church was getting started in the first century, most of the original followers of Jesus came from a Jewish background. The big issue of the day was what to do with all the gentiles that were coming in. Should they “convert to Judaism” by receiving circumcision ... or does God accept them as they are? It was Paul who insisted that it’s faith in Jesus that really matters, not converting to a new religion or a new socio-religious identity. Paul challenged me to think of Jesus not as starting a new religion, but as the central figure of a movement that transcends religious distinctions and identities. Jesus the uniter of humanity; not Jesus the divider of humanity.

Where does that leave me today?

I no longer defend or promote Christianity. I love Jesus, but today Christianity means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For some, Christianity means following the life and teachings of Jesus. But for others, it means the Inquisition, the Crusades, colonialism, imperialism, witch hunts, sex abuse scandals, an abusive parent ... the faith of George W. Bush. I realize that I can’t defend (or promote) something that means so many different things to so many different people.

I still wrestle with the implications of what I see in the New Testament (namely that Jesus seems to be socially inclusive, yet theologically exclusive) ... and what it means to help people follow him. But I’m confident that the same Jesus that made exclusive claims about himself is also the Jesus that liked to turn heretics into heroes. Jesus is enigmatic. I can love him, follow him, obey him, strive to be like him, share him with others the best that I know how. But at the end of the day, I don’t own him. Christians don’t own him. No religion or philosophy owns him. Jesus is bigger than any box a religion or philosophy tries to place him in.

And that’s okay with me.

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Carl Medearis is the author of “Speaking of Jesus: The Art of Not-Evangelism”