Jesus' Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount

by Richard Rohr

But the good side of an honor/shame system is that it makes communities much more possible. It creates a world of interdependent people who rely upon one another, who stick together, who understand loyalty and commitment. We don’t have that anymore because we’re all largely trying to define our image through media images not really tied up with our identification as brother, sister, family.

We cannot build a community of values unless we are a part of something more solid and enduring—where appropriate honor and shame reflect perennial human qualities to which we are locally accountable. As we will see in the next chapter, the meal became Jesus’ model for such teaching.

They share a miracle and a kingdom and they receive in return a table and a house. Here I think is the heart of the original “Jesus Movement.”

Whom you eat with defines whom you don’t eat with.

Indeed, those Gospel instructions are the only directives Jesus gave us. He didn’t tell missionaries to teach the Creed or the Trinity. He simply said don’t take any traveling bag, don’t take any money in your belt. That’s why Francis wore a rope.

It is necessary to calculate very carefully what was lost and what was gained as Christianity developed. The Church moved from Jesus’ real meal with open table fellowship to its continuance in the relatively safe ritual meal that became the Christian Eucharist. Unfortunately, the meal itself came to redefine social reality in a negative way, in terms of worthiness and unworthiness. That is almost exactly the opposite of Jesus’ intention!

In light of that softness, Matthew’s Gospel is probably well suited for most of us. Middle-class people can hear Matthew more quickly than they can hear Luke.

The law at this period of Jewish history is being interpreted almost exclusively through the Book of Leviticus, particularly 17—24, the Law of Holiness. That interpretation is characterized by: (1) obeying the law literally, (2) ritual observance of cult and (3) keeping one’s group and group symbols pure. Holiness is thought of as a separatist purity. Such an emphasis continually reemerges in right-wing movements in every age: correct code, cult and community.

He refuses to interpret the Mosaic law in terms of Leviticus’s Law of Holiness, in terms of inclusion/exclusion, the symbolic self-identification of Judaism as the righteous, pure, elite group.

Jesus continually interprets the Law of Holiness in terms of the God whom he has met—and that God is always compassion and mercy.

When the law gets in the way of human compassion Jesus simply disregards the law. He has found its meaning.

The reason Christianity has the power to be a universal religion is precisely because of this doctrine of open table fellowship (which the other monotheistic religions do not teach so clearly, except at the mystical level. For us, it should be first-level teaching.).

(The call to the gospel life is not really a call to be moral, law-abiding and “good,” although many seem to think so. It is, rather, to follow Jesus—who keeps us on the path of letting go and rediscovering, which is very different from just “being good.”

If I wanted to say what killed Jesus, it was not bad people; it was good people following conventional wisdom.

Religion is all the things you normally go through to meet God. The gospel is the way you will see and think after you have met God! The gospel is the effect of the God-encounter; religion, though it often stirs desire, is also the most common and disguised way of avoiding the encounter! The parable ends on an ominous note: “…[N]ot one of those who were invited shall have a taste of my banquet” (Luke 14:24). Religion is the invite; the gospel is the banquet.

In those days, you were either a sinner or not a sinner, and everybody knew which one you were. If you were not able to follow the purification rules, the debt codes and the purity codes, you knew you were a sinner, and others did too. It was an objective category more than a subjective accusation.