The Way - The Ordinary Path

Part 1 of 5 concluding a look at the Sermon on the Mount

So earlier this year I was writing twice weekly reflections based on the Sermon on the Mount series we are doing at the congregation I serve.  It was going great until it wasn’t. A lot of things were stirring in life, church, etc and a lot of things from earlier in the year felt like there were catching up to me. It felt like I was getting to a place of forcing the writings and I’ve learned enough about myself to recognize when that’s what is happening inside me. So I haven’t gotten back to writing about it until now (sort of).

After this week, we have four weeks left in our exploration of this teaching which is such a beautiful unfolding of he way of Jesus.  Recently, what has stirred in me are some reflections upon this Way as a whole rather than the specifics. Over the course of the series we have used several different photographs of paths I’ve seen for our congregational bulletin covers and I want to revisit those images over the next few weeks beginning with this one.

It is probably the most “ordinary” of all of them. It is just one of the paved paths on the golf course near our house.  I could literally walk there in five minutes as I write this.  I just happened to be in the right place on an ordinary weekday morning as the rising sun illuminated the path wet from an overnight rain.

What speaks to me from this photo with the Sermon on the Mount is that these teachings of Jesus are not teachings for exceptional circumstances or out-of-the-ordinary times.  They are teachings for everyday life right where we are.  These teachings paint a picture of what the community Jesus envisioned would look like where mourners, meek, poor, hungering and thirsting (for righteousness and for literal food and water), peacemakers, and so forth were all welcome.  In other words, you don’t have to feel that everything is perfect to be a part of this - come as you are.  There are teachings about dealing with conflict, relationships, honesty, peace and violence, and loving those who are considered enemies.  There is simple guidance of how to pray and practice other spiritual disciplines, guides to how to center yourself on that which will last, and so much more.

This teaching is every day stuff to be lived out in everyday life by everyday, normal people in community and in relationship with one another.  And much of these teachings can be lived regardless of whether one holds to all the tenets of Christian theology.  These are some of the most practical teachings on how to live life that have ever been spoken.  Harvard Divinity School professor Harvey Cox called this teaching “the most luminous, most quoted, most analyzed, most contested, and most influential moral and religious discourse in all of human history.”¹

So, just as this path in the photograph is a pretty every day place, so this teaching is for the every day of our lives.  So even if you don’t hold to the way of Jesus in your life, take some time to listen to or read this teaching and see where it speaks into your everyday life.

1. Referenced in Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount Together. Edited by Charles Moore, page x, Kindle version.