A Strong Road

Reading today followed a new thread:  Jesus' Sermon on the Mount to Leo Tolstoy to Ghandi.  Tolstoy's treatment of the Golden Rule is powerful, and true to the sources.  As a professor once said to a young seminarian (me):  "to follow and attempt to live out the Sermon on the Mount is a vastly humbling experience."

Is it possible?  Probably.  Has it been done often?  No.  Francis of Assisi, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, some lesser saints known only to their contemporaries and companions, perhaps.

But what do we do with it when we cannot actually do it?  Even with prayer?  Do we walk away from it and consider it no more?  Or do we hold its ideals in tension with whoever and whatever we are?

In the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us that the house that survived the storm did not survive by superior construction or by the builder's skill.  It survived because it had been founded on the rock.  Maybe that is good enough to live by;  good enough to lay aside the tension long enough to sleep well;  good enough to thank the crafter of that Sermon for the generosity of His love, which maintains the foundation which he lays, while forgiving the clumsiness of the builder of a life/house upon it.

We all make conclusions.......... that's mine.

B