Blessings, Woes, Love & Hate
An Open Call for Training in God’s Real World
In Luke, the Sermon on the Plain is the substantial beginning of Jesus’
teaching of the Kingdom of God in a way that challenges the minds,
imaginations, hearts, hopes, life aims, ambitions, ethical relations, and
self-identity of his disciples. The great reward is the we gain ourselves
as the children of God that God created us to be. Not shortsighted and
distorted.
It helps us begin to envision how God can do the grace-filled, loving
things God does in Jesus and how we fit into that. Jesus is beginning to
lead his disciples including us into the central mystery, the meeting place
of God and us in Jesus.
It follows the event of healing the withered hand on the Sabbath, which
becomes a clear break with those recognized as the primary teachers in most
of Israel – the Pharisees and instructors in the Law called scribes. They
were calling Israel to a rigorous commitment to obedience to the Law. They
argued that all Jews following practices that were originally intended for
the priests, because the Jews were supposed to be a kingdom of priests, a
holy nation (Ex 19:6).