October 08, 2008

And reproofs for discipline are the way of life, Pr. 6

First, I want to acknowledge that the Sermon on the Mount is not easy to grasp; perhaps that is why it is seldom studied seriously. It is not just theological difficulties with Reformation Christianity that are the problem; the word pictures themselves are usually difficult. You had mentioned that the issues of salt and light were challenging for the group. I think I may not have understood how difficult much of this is.

The particular issue we talked about is a good example of the difficulty of the wording in Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said that the lamp of the body is the eye. Using a metaphor of a lamp in a house, Jesus points out a mechanism at work in man. "If therefore your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness." The image is simple at first, but becomes more difficult when we try to understand it. The word "clear" is more literally "without folds". Somehow the way we look at the world around us can result in light filling our body, or can result in great darkness throughout. The consequences of what Jesus described are profound, but we may not understand what a clear eye is.

It is perhaps easier to understand what John says in I John 2. "The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes." This great darkness within will be like physical blindness; all aspects of the Christian walk will be like a blind man stumbling over obstacles he cannot see. Hatred of a brother will make progress impossible.

What John said is perhaps a good illustration of the difficult statement of Jesus. The eye is meant to be clear, single, literally without folds. Yet often we have are layers of perception. We want to consider truth at an abstract level, but deal with individuals at another level. We want to hold that God is our Father, but at the same time hate one who is just as much a child of the Father as us. The consequences of this layered perception of reality are overwhelming.

Discipleship is costly: it costs the soul. To make Jesus Lord is to submit to His commandment: love one another as I have loved you. Everything else is only a game, a pretense. Christianity without obedience to this new commandment is role-playing by blind men.

The Sermon on the Mount deals with three areas: outward, inward, and evil; there is a structure in what is taught. One third deals with evil; Jesus concludes this structured teaching with a warning to beware of false prophets. This is a significant aspect of Christianity; appropriately finding a way in this world of sheepskins is challenging. But the particular issue for false prophets, lawlessness, can become the particular point of stumbling for those who oppose them. If we lawlessly hate, we will just as much be false prophets as the ones with nice sheepskins.

How we deal with "posers" is vital; it is not separate from the rest of discipleship. If we fail at it, great darkness will fill us. We need to be able to pray for evil dictators in Africa; we need to be able to pray for evil impostors in America. We are priests not mockers.

Greg