Matthew 5

So here I am happily blogging along in that off-hand seat-of-the-pants spur-of-the-moment way that we bloggers often do--and then I come to Matthew 5, for crying out loud. The so-called "sermon on the mount," about which so much has been said, for so long, by so many. Here are some of the most disturbing--and silencing--words ever spoken.

So, I'll just say this: note the virtues that Jesus extolls here. Poverty of spirit, mournfulness(!), meekness, hunger and thirst for righteousness, merciful, purity or cleanness of heart, peacemaking, and a commitment to what is right so stubborn and true that it draws down enmity and persecution (how's that for interpretive license!).

I am struck once again at how antithetical these values are to what we would call a happy well-adjusted person. This is either complete hogwash (as many believe it to be), or the deepest truths ever spoken.

Ask yourself: how well do our leaders in the church display these characteristics? How well do we? My God, how well do I?