The Sermon on the Mount--good news for today

In his book The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard spends time discussing the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus. He sees this as a concise statement of Jesus's teachings on how to actually live in the reality of God's kingdom, which is available to all Christians right here and now. He had a new take on the sermon which made me rethink how I had to interpreted it.

For example, there are the famous words of Jesus: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." I had always thought and heard that this was a reference to people who realize their spiritual needs. They would be blessed because they would be driven to the arms of Jesus due to their spiritual poverty.

However, the author points out something interesting. Jesus did not say, "Blessed are the poor in spirit because they are poor in spirit." According to Willard, Jesus was not saying it was a good thing to be destitute of every spiritual attainment.

Instead, he says people who are poor in spirit are called blessed for another reason. It's not because they are in a meritorious condition, but because the rule of God has moved upon and through them by the grace of Christ. We who are spiritually impoverished are blessed because of the gracious touch of God in heaven which has fallen upon us. So we all can benefit from the reality of God in our lives, even the poorest among us.

This goes back to the bigger picture that Willard has developed in the book. His overall point is that our lives should be better right now as Christians rather than struggling along just waiting for a blessed afterlife. Willard says God can make a huge difference in the life we have here on earth. So, the Sermon on the Mount tells all of us that we are blessed right now because of God's intervention in our lives.

In summary, he says the Sermon on the Mount does not involve teachings on how to be blessed. No one is actually being told that they are better off for being poor, for mourning, for being persecuted, and so on. Nor are people told the negative conditions are recommended ways to well-being before God or man. They are, in Willard's words, "explanations and illustrations, drawn from the immediate setting, of the present availability of the kingdom through personal relationship to Jesus. "

So the author focuses on something hugely important to all Christians. We can live a life far more abundant than we have now. I know in my life it's easy to get caught up in all the things I have to do, with the result that my Christianity seems dry and distant. Sure, it's good to know I have a future with God based on Christ's ultimate sacrifice for me two thousand years ago. But Willard wants me to realize I can have so much more now than I can imagine. I've heard this before, of course, but Willard drives it home so that it becomes fresh and real. I hope that in this Christmas season, where we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we think about the coming of the kingdom to our own lives right now in December 2010.

The Divine Conspiracy

I'm currently rereading The Divine Conspiracy, a book by Dallas Willard. His overall point is that belief in Jesus is far more than the key to everlasting life after our time on earth. Instead, he argues God is relevant for every aspect of our existence. We need him now for our life on earth, rather than only as a part of the hereafter. I want to hit a few highlights of this book.

Since I am part of higher education, I found some of his opening comments intriguing. Teachers have been told over the past fifty years that there is no recognized moral knowledge to be used to develop moral understandings among students. Teachers have been told they are not to impose their views on students.

So what has been the outcome of this attitude? Well, if it's true there is now no body of moral knowledge in our culture, then we shouldn't be surprised at what has come about. Listen to what Robert Coles discovered.

Coles is professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at Harvard University. He's also a well-known researcher and commentator on moral and social matters. In 1995 he published an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education called "The Disparity between Intellect and Character."

He came up with this essay due to an encounter he had with one of his students over moral insensitivity of other students. Remember, this is at Harvard, home of some of the best and brightest in our society. The student was a young woman of shaky economic means who had to clean student rooms to help pay her way through the university. She discovered quickly that people who were in classes with her treated her ungraciously because her lower economic position, without simple courtesy and respect, and often were rude and crude to her. One man, for example, repeatedly propositioned her for sex. What was ironic was that he was in two classes with her which focused on moral reasoning. He excelled in these classes and receive the highest grades.

This young woman quit her job and left school. When she talked to Coles, she concluded by saying to him, "I've been taking all these philosophy courses, and we talk about what's true, what's important, what's good. Well, how do you teach people to be good? What's the point of knowing good if you don't keep trying to become a good person?"

So this is the world of intellectuals. They can fill in the blanks, they can answer essay questions, they can discuss ethical issues. But, of course, this seems to have no bearing on their character or behavior.

That's where we are today -- we have a culture that has accepted the view that what is good and right is not a subject of knowledge that can guide action and for which individuals can be held responsible. As Willard says, we are flying upside down and don't know that. We are clever; we are not good.

This is true in so many other fields besides education. But universities have become authority centers of world culture, so this attitude is conveyed to the rest of our society. Notice that The Divine Conspiracy is covering the same ground that Nancy Pearcey covered in her powerful book Total Truth.

I want to cover a few additional points that Dallas Willard makes, so I plan a few more blogs on his book.