Today I come upon the Sermon on the Mount. Who ever came up with that name anyways? I have preached here and there, no one ever called any of my sermons, “Sermon at 700 Feet Above Sea Level”!
Anyways, Jesus’ mount may not have been much of a mount, because Luke called it “a plain.” Yeah, go figure.
Actually it’s not too hard to figure… probably Jesus once said a bunch of stuff on a mount, and another time repeated some of the very same concepts in a different location, where the rain in Spain mostly falls.
I am challenged right smack in the face with Jesus’ teaching here. He’s simply tell me how I, as a citizen of the Kingdom of God, should be living my life here on earth. He does more of the same in Mt 25…He was hungry and thirsty, cold and homeless, sick and in jail. He is looking for Marcos to (a) care and (b) do something.
Jesus’s brother’s teaching in his simple five chapters is more of the same. You got to figure that James saw it up close not for three years, like some of the guys, but for thirty… he caught its gist.
I have seen it up close for 48 years, yet I am yet self-centered and lazy.
There’s work to be done, not just out there, but right here, in me.