Did Jesus really mean...?

The real question about the Sermon on the Mount, for me, is “Did Jesus actually mean what He said?” Put another way, are we to spiritualize the principles Jesus sets forth in this message, or are we really to live lives that reflect these kingdom ideals?

The SM brings to mind many specific questions about our lives as kingdom citizens, but one especially has been bugging me lately. Before I get to that question, I need to relate a couple events that will provide background. For some time now, I have been following David Fitch (www.reclaimingthemission.com) as he has shared his thoughts about his local fellowship (Life on the Vine) and the state of the church today. David is a C&MA pastor from the Chicago area and author of “The Great Giveaway.” In a number of his posts, David talked about his alignment with Anabaptist beliefs. I was interested, but knew very little about the movement from my seminary church history classes. On one of his posts, David suggested a paper written by William McGrath in the 1950’s titled “The Anabaptists: Neither Catholic nor Protestant” as a primer on Anabaptism. I found it at www.cbc4me.org/articles/Baptist/04-McGrath.pdf, and it was a fascinating read. Again, more questions than answers, but stimulating just the same.

The second event could only have been orchestrated by God. Penny and I decided to visit Behalt in Berlin before we left Ohio. For those unfamiliar, it is a large mural-in-the-round that depicts Amish and Mennonite history. I love history, especially church history, and I was sure I’d get more insight into the Anabaptist tradition there, since the Amish and Mennonite traditions come out of the Anabaptist movement. We took the 30-minute tour with two other men who seemed to know about the events and characters highlighted throughout the tour. When the tour ended, and we were all standing with the tour guide talking about the presentation, I asked one of the men if he was Mennonite. He acknowledged that he was, and it became clear that he could easily have led the tour himself. We parted after a half hour or so of conversation.

During that conversation, I felt compelled to ask him about his views on pacifism. For some reason, to me the whole of the SM kept coming down to Jesus’ comments on turning the other cheek and not resisting an evil person. Not that that issue is the most important that Jesus addressed in this sermon, but it seems to hit home to me as a prime example of my failure to measure up to the standards of a kingdom citizen. And the tour just amplified that feeling, as it pointed out the thousands of people who had been martyred during the early years of the Anabaptist tradition, burned at the stake and tortured in every imaginable way because they felt that neither Catholicism nor the Protestant Reformation of their day accurately reflected biblical principles. For the most part, they had stood silent before their accusers and, though treated mercilessly, refused to defend themselves, retaliate or even harbor hatred in their hearts for their persecutors.

In my next post, I want to share with you some of the contradictions from my own life between the principles of the SM and my own attitudes and behavior. And you will hear how this fellow tourist and devout Mennonite answered my question about pacifism. Thanks for joining me in this personal journey. And don’t hesitate to comment on any of these thoughts.

Heavenly Father, continue to teach me what it means to be a kingdom citizen. Show me how to live in this broken world with the spark of divine presence that will offer Your hope of final restoration to all who I meet. Amen.

Next installment: Identifying the problem