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“When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions.” – Matthew 5:1-2 (MSG)
Luke Skywalker. The mention of his name conjures up so many thoughts and memories from decades of films. A lot of humanity was showcased in his character. Naivete. Innocence. Heartache. Love. Weird love. Daddy issues. Courage. Suffering. Honor. Discipline. Faith. There is a lot to resonate with in the transformation of a nobody into Jedi. A young man who sensed something more and pursued it, moving from immaturity to growing maturity.
I love the slowly unfolding chapter about his getting mentored by Yoda, a Jedi Master. Luke judges the book by the cover at first, not seeing the little green creature for much more than that. Eventually, however, Luke accepted the fact that Yoda was legit after witnessing his work with the Force. Luke was impressed. Luke wanted as much of that as he could get – who wouldn’t want to be able to levitate stuff? How much easier it would be to vacuum under sofas and beds! Yoda patiently mentored Luke, who was trying to “do” Yoda’s moves rather than become like Yoda in terms of being immersed in the Force.
We are a lot like Luke. Especially in the Western world, we focus a lot on the doing, and struggle with the being. The doing isn’t bad, of course. If we all simply followed the Judeo-Christian ethic (and similar ethics from other enduring religions), the world would be a much better place. Yet rule following didn’t get Luke very far with the Force. Mainly, he became frustrated as he could sense (and see in Yoda) that there was more to experience than “doing” alone could yield. Luke needed to work on being like Yoda.
We need to work on being, too, should we ever want to experience what Jesus really came to offer, which, as Henri Nouwen noted, Peace is shalom – “well-being of mind, heart, and body, individually and communally (7).” This well-being is not born from rule following alone (although it helps to eliminate those things which prohibit shalom and adopt things that promote it). We need to become like Jesus, immersed in the Spirit, one who lived in God.
Nouwen goes on to say:
“The whole message of the gospel is this: become like Jesus. We have his self-portrait. When we keep that in front of our eyes, we will soon learn what it means to follow Jesus and become like him... Jesus, the Blessed One, is poor. The poverty of Jesus is much more than an economic or social poverty. Jesus is poor because he freely chose powerlessness over power, vulnerability over defensiveness, dependency over self-sufficiency (6).”
The choice is more than what to do with our resources. The choice is one of choosing and living within a different paradigm of life entirely. That’s why it’s impossible to “do” – it is a matter of becoming, of maturing in our “being.”
E. Stanley Jones, a Methodist writer and missionary to India, noted that “the Sermon on the Mount is practicable, for the man who first spoke these words practiced them, and the practicing of them produced a character so beautiful, so symmetrical, so compelling, so just what life ought to be, that his is as inescapable in the moral realm as the force of gravity is in the physical (4).” Jesus came to teach, for sure, but what he was trying to teach was a new way of being, not a new set of laws to follow.
Jones continues:
“You may point to parallel sayings in the past, and yet when you do, you miss the central thing here, for the central thing was the aroma about the words, the contagion of his moral person, the sense of depth that came from the fact that he spoke them – and illustrated them. He was not presenting a new set of laws but demanding a new loyalty to his person. The loyalty to his person was to be expressed in carrying out the things he embodied. He was the embodiment of the Sermon on the Mount, and to be loyal to him meant to be loyal to his way of life (4).”
That Apostle Paul bragged about being the best Jewish rule-follower on the planet yet was stopped in his tracks when he saw the Light of Christ, which changed how he approached faith and life. He encouraged the church in Philippi to take heed:
On the difference between living a rules-based faith versus being like Jesus: “The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for (rule-keeping). And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness.
“I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.” – Philippians 3:7-11 (MSG)
The author of the First Letter of John echoed the same sentiment:
“Here’s how we can be sure that we know God in the right way: Keep his commandments. If someone claims, ‘I know him well!’ but doesn’t keep his commandments, he’s obviously a liar. His life doesn’t match his words. But the one who keeps God’s word is the person in whom we see God’s mature love. This is the only way to be sure we’re in God. Anyone who claims to be intimate with God ought to live the same kind of life Jesus lived.” – 1 John 2:3-6 (MSG)
Perhaps at first, Luke wanted to be like Yoda in order to be able to do the cool things Yoda did (but without living a swamp). Over the rest of his life, however, becoming like Yoda meant being shaped by the Force. That shaping was not always easy, requiring humility and self-sacrifice.
The Spirit of God calls us to the same. Yet humility and self-sacrifice go against our lizard brains that are meant to protect us, not to make us more vulnerable. Humility and self-sacrifice go against the grain of an achievement culture that rewards pride and sacrificing others (in various ways) for personal gain. The Force called Luke, and Spirit calls us, to a paradigm for life that is both counter-intuitive and counter-cultural.
There are parts of the paradigm, the Way of Jesus, that are very appealing. And yet there are parts that may not be welcome at all. Henri Nouwen notes:
“The Blessed One of God is a threat to the established order and a source of constant irritation to those who consider themselves the rulers of this world. Without accusing anyone he is considered and accuser, without condemning anyone he makes people feel guilty and ashamed, without his judging anyone those who see him feel judged. In their eyes, he cannot be tolerated and needs to be destroyed, because letting him be seems like a confession of guilt. When we want to become like Jesus, we cannot expect always to be liked and admired. We have to be prepared to be rejected (7).”
Rejected. Rejected? Rejected! Ouch. Yet the more we sit with what Nouwen is saying, the more we must admit its veracity. The Apostle Peter surely would agree, as would the Apostle Paul. As would every sincere person who has ever pursued “being” like Jesus instead of settling for “doing” like Jesus. The Spirit of God is Shalom, is the source of Shalom, the energy of Shalom, the Force of Shalom, and it invites us ever deeper into our becoming.
I have loved Shalom’s invitation when it has clearly benefitted me, especially immediately. When I have felt vindicated after being wronged. When I have felt loved after being rejected. When I have been saved from some really bad decisions because I followed a rule here and there. But I have been reluctant and even obstinate to accept the invitation of Shalom when it has challenged my pride or called me at times to selfless sacrifice. Or when Shalom has acted for me like the Syrophoenician woman toward Jesus, holding a mirror to my face so I could recognize my own prejudice.
Our beloved United States loves Shalom when we feel like we’re being Christian, yet we are not so inclined to embrace the invitation when we hear that slavery in all forms should be eradicated, even if it might mean less porn to watch or more expensive T-Shirts, household goods, or tech equipment. As a nation we struggle to accept Shalom’s loving beacon guiding us to see all people as equally loved human beings worthy of dignity and human treatment. We’re not so thrilled with Shalom when we want our leaders to be the epitome of Capitalistic success more than Jesus. Pray tell, what would happen if we had such a wimpy leader like Jesus?!
Scholar Andrew M. Davis sums a tenet of Process Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead thusly: “Becoming is foundation; being is byproduct.” Our being like Jesus follows our willingness to become like Jesus every day, every moment of our lives. Becoming is an eternal process that Jesus engaged intentionally, which led to his being who he was. Like Yoda, Jesus invites all Lukas into the process as well, not as a mandate with a threat, but an invitation. Jones reminds us that “We mistake it entirely if we look on it as the chart of Christian’s duty; rather, it is the charter of the Christian’s liberty – his liberty to go beyond, to do the thing that love impels and not merely the thing that duty compels. The fact is that this is not a law at all, but a lyre (4).”
May you find yourself impelled by love to join in the everlasting song that ushers in exquisite, elegant harmony, beauty, and healing for all.
Reflection Prompts (337)
· Think of examples of how Jesus lived out the Sermon on the Mount.
· Why is it important to not separate Jesus’ teachings from who he is and why he came? How is following a teaching different from following a teacher?
· Do you see Jesus’ teaching, by and large, as “good news” or “hard commands”? Why?
This post is informed by, and references noted are sourced from (unless otherwise noted) Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount Together, which will provide guidance to CrossWalkNapa teachings throughout 2025.