Day 35

I love the Gospels. I’ve read them countless times, so, these reflections will be a little different. In undergrad, my focus was in Patristics (early church history) and the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke). I had a rather ruthless professor, whom I adored, that threw us into graduate level studies of the Gospels.

My memories of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are in dictionaries, concordances, commentaries, parallel translations, grammars, and painstakingly slow reading. Term papers would focus on a single verse — or maybe just a partial verse from the Gospels or Letters of Paul (in another class). It’s something I would continue in classes I took during seminary.

Anyway, rereading them and trying to let go of that close history with the Gospels is hard. But enough time has passed that it’s doable. Since I’ll be reading a similar story four times over, I’ll instead lift up a unique story from each Gospel. I think it’s important to know that even the Synoptics vary. These are writings that early Christians wrote down decades after Jesus’ death.

My passion for these books goes deep. They are books that often cause immense reaction. Though like most of the Bible, I suspect people haven’t really read them. Reading them without an agenda allows the core teachings of Jesus of Nazareth to shine through, at least for me.

The Gospel of Matthew is the classic Gospel in many ways. It lacks the extensive birth narrative of Luke, but offers readers another lightning rod moment in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth: The Sermon on the Mount. Yeah, that’s right. That only happens in Matthew. (You get a Sermon on the Plain in Luke. Not the same ring to it.)

Mohandas Gandhi once remarked that if the entirety of Hebrew and Christian scripture was lost except the Sermon on the Mount, the heart of Christianity would be preserved. I happen to agree. It’s a sublime set of teachings that continue to impact movements for social justice today. It’s also a set of teachings that conservative and evangelical Christians continue to ignore.

In many ways, the Sermon on the Mount makes me a “Christian” in some way. I find nothing disagreeable here. It’s a glimpse into a Kingdom of Heaven that is right here, in this world — not some distant ethereal realm we have no assurance of. It’s a kingdom (or ‘kindom’) that I want to see realized. I see it in the Poor People’s Campaign, in interfaith justice initiatives in Lexington and beyond, in people of all faiths and no faith committing to the cause of justice. All the while, those who do this work are encouraged to let go of piety and public praise for their work. Too often I see clergy soaking up praise, sniffing around for television cameras, or climbing ridiculous clerical ladders. The Sermon on the Mount turns all those ambitions to dust and asks us to be present to the suffering of the world and to be living expressions of justice.

You often hear people yearn to know more about the religion *of* Jesus instead of the religion *about* Jesus. Well, read the Gospels and pay special attention to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. It’s a crash course in justice, mercy, and compassion. Study it well.

This post is part of a lager series where I read the entirety of Hebrew & Christian scriptures in 45 days. Take a look a the original post for more info, as well as links to other reflections on this journey.