Spiritual Awareness: The Sermon on the Mount

I was visiting with Evan Howard, the married evangelical monk/scholar from Montrose, CO, and he challenged me to ask my children, “What did you notice today?” instead of “What did you do today?” or, “What did you learn today?” Doing and learning are caught up in noticing. It reminded me of one of my favorite phrases from Philip Yancey, who said that spirituality is paying attention. Spirituality is all about noticing, seeing "God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – clearly seen, being understood from what has been made".

Spiritual space is carved out by intentional disciplines or practices. Spiritual practices do not make God love us more – he cannot; but spiritual practices help us to love God more. An element of love is paying attention to what you love. Stopping and listening, living intentionally, and carefully considering God’s way in the world will teach us to love God. Here, I’d like to suggest seven practices, since there are seven days in this week.

The Sermon on the Mount, so called because Jesus is said to have delivered it from a mountain, is recorded in Matthew 5-7. There's a similar bit of sermonizing in Luke; interestingly, it's remembered as spoken on a plain. It was in the sermon that Jesus laid out his path for living in the world. The Sermon is hard stuff. This is not "7 Highly Effective Habits For Triumphant Christians Living Their Best Life Now". There is no guarantee that life will be easier if you follow Jesus in the way of the Sermon. It might get harder.

There is no word, though, that these are optional practices for special Christians. It’s how we live into the Kingdom of God, which is just another way of saying “God’s way in the world”.

I've delineated six or seven observations from the Sermon which seem most significant to me. There's no magic to the seven; they are not "The Seven Principles For Christian Living", or even very astute. You'll have an easier time following my thinking if you read the Sermon first. I'd suggest www.biblecrosswalk.com. It's pretty easy to use.

1) The kingdom of God is to be lived.
What does it look like when people live as though God is real? Jesus’s hearers must have laughed at his insistence that the meek (humble, landless, poor) would inherit the earth. They’d have been more skeptical that the peacemakers (makers is an active noun) are to be called sons of God. Here’s the full list of blessed realities: the poor in spirit, sorrow-bearers, the humble, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure-hearted, peacemakers, the persecuted.

I’ve been becoming more sure that the list of characteristics are not separate attributes, but contours of the skin of Jesus living.

2) Fasting is not for others to see and marvel over.
Fasting can make us more aware of our dependence on God’s mercy. Hunger serves as a reminder that we do not feed ourselves, and gives guts to the plea, Give us this day our daily bread. It’s also a kind of sacrifice. We surrender to God, not to win God’s affection, but so God can win ours.

Remember this, though, fasting is not a means of mastering the evil body in favor of the spirit. We are created as physical beings. Fasting is self-control, always in the interest of learning to taste again the joys of physical existence, which is God’s gift to us.

Some Christians, notably the Eastern Orthodox, have a really nuanced take on this discipline. Some scholars believe that their understanding of fasting is closely related to the general fasting practices of the ancient Near East and more specifically to biblical fasting. Various kinds of fasts require abstinence from meat or cheese, or wine. Some fasts are more stringent, avoiding all foods except bread, water, juices, honey, and nuts. Some people notice that this diet is the same as that of John the Baptizer, and wonder if maybe this is the kind of fast Jesus observed during his forty days.

If you have never fasted before, consider a fast from specific things, or fast for one or two meals. Then begin to fast longer. It’s important to remember, though, that fasting is not an endurance contest, nor is it a weight loss program. Allow the strangeness of forgoing the experience of eating, along with the hunger, to remind you of your need for God’s provision.

3) Giving to the poor is giving to Jesus.
Someone told me once that a person must be specifically called to serve the poor, otherwise, they might be disobeying God. That person was wrong. Jesus called. He said to serve the poor. We cannot live the Jesus life apart from serving. More than that, in serving others, we serve Jesus: whatever you’ve done for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you’ve done for me. Giving money, food, and clothing, visiting the elderly, the imprisoned, and the sick, and providing shelter for the homeless are real and concrete means of connecting with God.

Today we have very clean and neat means of giving like offering baskets and tax-deductible charitable donations. But there was a time when giving was much more direct. A Lenten practice could include recapturing this older way, and actually helping a destitute person.

How can we, as a diminishing faith community, directly serve the poor near us and away from us?

4) Prayer is essential to the Christian life.
But what does prayer look like? Most prayer seminars leave me feeling inadequate to the task. I get the sense that if I don’t pray like the leader, at his or her set times, I’m not doing it right.

Jesus himself prayed early in the morning and late at might. He prayed with others, and he prayed alone. He took time away to pray, but was willing to be interrupted by the needs of the day.

Jesus’s teaching involved the Lord’s Prayer. Such a prayer takes our entire lives to master, yet most of us can breeze through it without thinking, mouthing archaic words which have lost any immediacy for us. One of the most profound insights into the Lord’s Prayer I’ve ever heard was my grandmother’s comment that she didn’t much like it; she wanted to be forgiven better than she was able to forgive. Then she winked, but I knew she meant that the Prayer is much harder than most of us realize. I suggest re-reading the prayer in several translations, in order to grasp the meaning of each request. Read it in Matthew and in Luke. Note the differences. What could that mean?

Prayer is talking. And singing. But it’s also about listening. And being comfortable with silence. And showing, not saying.

Try memorizing the Lord’s Prayer in another translation. Memorize other prayers. Make prayer beads. Learn to dance your prayers. Listen.

5) Lectio divina is a term that means, “sacred reading”.
It’s a practice of reading the Scriptures for depth. This is one of those areas that makes me laugh at the overlap between high church and low church Christians. I learned from high church people the words and “methods” of lectio divina. One needs to open one’s mind and spirit to the Holy Spirit using one or two words, perhaps a sentence, to draw one into God’s presence. I learned from low church people to think of the fingers of a hand when it comes to approaching Scripture. Beginning with the pinkie, think hear, read, study, memorize, memorize, and meditate. With that kind of approach, one might come before another, but all five parts are necessary.

In the Sermon Jesus taught his followers something of how to read Scripture. He went through a number of texts, saying, You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times . . . But I say to you . . . His instructions are midrash, commentary on the older Scriptures. And the rule he used to interpret was love. In fact, later in the Sermon he called doing to others as you’d have done to you the narrow gate that leads to life.

Lectio divina requires deep concentration, but you can concentrate in ways other than sitting on a mat, staring at your belly (although that might work for you). Read a passage of Scripture, then go for a walk, a ski, or a bike ride. Hold the words in yourself, in your mouth and your head and your chest. Let the meaning swish around in you, and swirl about you. Read the thoughts of others, study the context of your passage. Become intimate with it, so you recognize its contours and geography like you do the terrain around your house. Ask God to draw you through this passage into the divine presence. Then rest there.

6) Simplicity isn't complicated.
We sometimes overlook it, in part because we live in a greed saturated culture. 2,000 years ago, Jesus told the rich to drop their wealth for the sake of following him. Don’t worry about treasures on earth. Gather instead treasures in heaven. Don’t worry about food and clothes. God feeds and dresses birds and flowers; surely he’ll meet your needs. Today, even the lower middle class live in ways kings and queens of past centuries could only dream of. Leaving all for the sake of Jesus seems more and more impractical to us, forgetting so easily that leaving all, no matter how little “all” might be, is impractical in every age.

Promoting simplicity in an age of abundance seems sketchy, at best. It’s sometimes perceived as unrealistic, hyper-spiritual, or sadly misguided. Couple that with a strain of Christian religion that believes wealth to be a sign of God’s favor, and the recipe for greed is almost unstoppable. But the discipline of simplicity does just that. It seeks to curb our appetites for the sake of God’s way in the world.

Simplicity is not frugality, which is just another way of hoarding possessions. Simplicity gives to others. I hesitate to say that simplicity is as much an attitude as anything, not because it isn’t true, but because it becomes an easy excuse for inaction. It is simple enough to claim we are not materialistic when our possessions are secure. It’s different to willingly divest oneself of things for the sake of God’s way in the world. In Mark, a rich young man went away very sad, because he had many things.

The simple person has enough. St. Paul said, I have learned to be content with much and with little.

Sabbath is a little habit of simplicity that sometimes gets left behind. It should be #7, but instead of doing, it’s for being. A friend once pointed out that all the Ten Commandments are reiterated in the New Testament save one: Sabbath keeping. Therefore, my friend said, Sabbath isn’t important. But rest and refreshment are key for our enjoyment of God’s goodness, which is one reason for all these disciplines in the first place.

For Jews, Sabbath began (and begins) on sundown Friday and lasts until sundown Saturday. Celtic Christians retained this way, eating the bread and wine on Sunday morning and then going about the work of the day. However we observe it, Sabbath matters. Sabbath, the cessation of money making and other activities for an entire day, says to God, “You are enough.” Taking time off forces us to be more disciplined and structured in the other six days.