The greatest sermon ever?
Today in church I was not supposed to preach. We had planned to have a guest give a narration of the sermon on the mount. That person did not arrive. I pray everything is okay but until I find out I only know I had to give a sermon that was fully relying on God because I had nothing.
As a result, I had mere minutes to come up with “plan B.” I had no notes, nothing ready and no idea what I was going to say. All I had was my Bible (Matthew 5:1-10) and God to speak through me.
It was very interesting and you can hear the entire sermon here or on iTunes under Tanoma UMC.
The first thing I did was pray. Then I opened my Bible to the sermon on the Mount and I started reading. I read the Beatitudes and started talking.
When we think of the sermon on the mount we think of a system of rules and Jesus setting forth a systematic theology or a ladder system on how to get into heaven. That simply cannot be true because if that is the case then two things happen.
1. We wouldn’t need Jesus to save us because we could do it ourselves. This just isn’t going to fly because if we could do it ourselves, I would have by now. I would be taking this list and simply followed this checklist to make sure it is completed perfectly.
2. It would only prove that Jesus and Christianity are only for those who are rich, powerful, and already have it all together. This is exactly what the religious system of the time was already teaching and this is what the world of Jesus’ time was already teaching and this is what our world teaches us, that God blesses the pretty and the rich.
However, with the sermon on the mount Jesus says something totally different. To quote Rob Bell, Jesus is saying
“Blessed are you, for God is with you, God is on your side, God meets you in that place.
Blessed are those who on a regular basis have a dark day in which despair seems to be a step behind them wherever they go.
Blessed are those stumble, trip, and fall in the same place again and again.
Blessed are those who ache because of how severely out of whack the world is.
Blessed are those who have run out of strength, ideas, will power, resolve, or energy.
Blessed are those who don’t have it all together.”
Of course when I tried to say this quote without any notes I butchered it.
This whole idea of speaking without notes or preparation was exhilarating and frightening at the same time but not something I would like to do again. There was so much more I would have loved to put in this sermon, some stories and some illustration, and some other things that would have made it better, but it was clear that nothing that happened came from me it all came from God. It also seemed that the people liked it which is always a plus.
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