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| The four Rest Stops for the month of November revolve around Matthew’s famous sermon, found in chapters 5-7. These chapters are typically viewed as great scripture for discipleship training, but rarely do they find their way into many spiritual disciplines or rituals. Why? Perhaps because the Sermon can make us feel … overwhelmed. Guilty. How can Christians do what the Sermon calls us to do? One of the gifts of the Anabaptist spirituality stream is its insistence that Christians can follow the Sermon on the Mount, and even more, that Christ calls us to this obedience. It is possible, without watering down the words, to live by such standards as loving our enemies and refraining from worry and praying and fasting for the right reasons. The Sermon is not for some far-off dispensation or the rules for our lives together in heaven. The Sermon is our calling—and good news—right now. Perhaps that is the secret—seeing the Sermon on the Mount as good news. In the middle of all those “You have heard that it was said,” and “do not store up for yourselves treasures,” are words of grace like, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you shall find.” When Jesus tells us not to worry about our lives, we can apply that not only to our physical needs, but our spiritual ones as well. “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children … how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him.” Continued... |
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