Sledgehammers and Other Good News

Sledgehammers and Other Good News

I found myself sighing with something like relief one day after reading a comment made by C.S. Lewis. He was responding to a statement made by a scholar who noted that he didn't "care for" the Sermon on the Mount but "preferred" the Pauline ethics. As you can imagine, Lewis was bothered at the suggestion of Scripture alternatives between which we freely choose, and it was this that he addressed first. But his response also included a striking remark about the Sermon on the Mount, and this is what caught my attention. Said Lewis, "As to 'caring for' the Sermon on the Mount, if 'caring for' here means liking or enjoying, I suppose no one cares for it. Who can like being knocked flat on his face by a sledgehammer? I can hardly imagine a more deadly spiritual condition than that of the man who can read that passage with tranquil pleasure. This is indeed to be 'at ease in Zion.'"

To be "at ease in Zion" was the deplorable state of existence the prophet Amos spoke of in his harsh words to the Israelites. Reeling in false security and erroneous confidence from their economic affluence and self-indulgent lifestyles, the Israelites, Amos warned, would be the first God would send into exile if they failed to heed his words.

The Sermon on the Mount is as equally shocking as the threat of exile to those whose homeland is far more than an identity. Lewis's comparison of Christ's words to a sledgehammer is not far off. Those potent chapters are not unlike the electric paddles used to shock the heart back to life, back to the rhythm it was intended to have all along.

The Sermon on the Mount is like the keynote address for the kingdom Christ came to introduce, the very kingdom the Father wanted us to see badly enough that He was willing to send his Son to show us. On that mountainside, Jesus points out many of the mountains that blur our vision of this kingdom. He reminds us that we are not seeing as he sees, not grasping reality as it really is. "You have heard that it was so..." he says again and again, "but I tell you..." His words are hard and thorough, and even the simplest of phrases is permeated with the profound glory of a kingdom we see in part but ache to know in fullness:

"Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God" (Matthew 5:8).

Perhaps I have become at ease in Zion if I can read these words without wondering if I am among the blessed. When I lose sight of the kingdom behind the haze of selfish ambition, guilt, or fear, Christ's words become like a foghorn calling me to set my eyes on the one I follow and live up to the hope I embody: "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men" (5:13). When I find myself making demands of God I am shown again just how much God demands of me: "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." (5:29).

For the crowds that gathered that day on the hillside, Jesus's words were equally demanding. If God's commandments were difficult before this sermon, they were now entirely terrifying. Who can stand in this kingdom Jesus describes? And how is this good news? And yet, in all of his wisdom, in his unfathomable love, in the middle of his sermon Jesus proclaims gently but confidently, "Do not worry." It is as if he says to those trembling with the fear of certain failure, "It is my life, truth, and way that make all things possible." This, he says again at the point of the Cross.

The Sermon on the Mount is a concentrated example of how Jesus lays down the law of God, even as he comes to fulfill it. It is clear that he expects us to build the houses of our lives upon his words, and he adds that only those who do so are wise and will be safe. His life cries out to all who are at ease in Zion, weary from self-indulgence, unaware of God at work among us, and in this his role is uncompromisable. He is both Lord to be obeyed and savior who bestows the possibility.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.