The World Turned Upon Its Head!

The Sermon on the Mount (or St. Luke’s version, on the plain) is arguably the most important body of Christian teaching in the entire New Testament.   And it has baffled those who have heard it for 2,000 years!  Jesus often prefaces these radical teachings by giving the former teaching and then saying, “But I say to you…”

Love your enemies.  Do good to those who hate you.  Bless those who curse you.  Pray for those who mistreat you.  If someone steals your cloak, give him also your tunic.  

These are teachings with which every Christian must wrestle, and ponder, and pray about…asking “Jesus, how do You want me to deal with this person, in this situation at this time?  I am a Christian but they have treated me badly, unjustly; or they have hurt someone I love, and I am also responsible to protect and provide for my family.”  There is no one size-fits all answer to these prayers.  The struggle to follow Jesus in a sinful world, and to obey these teachings will only become clear in the silence of prayer.  The Blessed Virgin Mary, when she was assigned her vocation to be the Mother of God, had many unanswered questions.  But she obeyed, and she “pondered these things in her heart.”

A Christian is never to hate.  I have just finished reviewing a new movie about St. Maximillian Kolbe, the Franciscan priest who died in a starvation bunker at Auschwitz.  He was sent to Auschwitz because he was a Catholic priest and because he printed papers criticizing the evil.  Someone escaped from his block and the Nazi rule was applied:   If anyone escapes, ten others are randomly selected to die in the starvation bunker.  St. Maximilian Kolbe was not selected, but another man was, who fell on his knees and begged: “Please do not take me.  I have a wife and children back home.”  The Nazis did not care.  But St. Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward and said: “I am a Catholic priest.  I do not have a wife and children.  I volunteer to take his place.”  The two-week period of starvation and dehydration, and the cruelty of the guards, was very hard to watch.  But St. Maximillian Kolbe continued to pray, to love and to forgive.  He refused to hate his enemies.  

Jesus asks most of us for so little and He has done so much for us.  To forgive a snide comment and not to tell ten people about it with anger and resentment, is the kind of thing He asks us to do.  Some of us have much harder things to forgive than others.  To forgive the people who have hurt you, to pray for them and to continue to love them may be the single most important thing you ever do as a Christian!  

Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount turns the world upon its head. 

Fr. Brett Brannen

Pastor