So if God could pre-empt our favorite television show to say a few words, what would they be? If He could do a public service announcement, pen a rock opera, give a speech, write a letter, txt message 160 words from on high or preach a sermon, what would He say? He said it all in a word...the word. Sometimes the best form of communication isn't spoken. It's body language and just being there. God sent His son.
And most of His son's teaching, it seems, was delivered in small bites served up in poignant moments on the road, in a boat, along the way. You'd think God would have put together a slew of sermons, a series, a baker's dozen, at least. But all we have is this one and it's not even recorded in all four gospels. A sermon shorter than most delivered on Sundays. A meandering cavalcade of admonitions and advice, wisdom and warnings, poetry and promise, tips and wishes for our brightest future. Words on how to pray and how to live and how to stay married and how to be salt and light and life and how to ask, seek, knock and keep dust out of your eyes and how to take a punch and how to handle worry and what to consider a treasure. All of the stuff we really, really, really need. I am struck by how straightforward and honest it all is. And so were they, astonished by its authority.
If we were God is this what we would have said and how we would have said it? It's brevity, it's simplicity, its focus and subject are remarkable and surprising considering this is God's word to us.
It's interesting that on the same day our reading was the sermon on the mount our church had us go out into the community and minister to our neighbors as part of a program called W.A.T.S. -- We Are The Sermon. Jesus Is the Word and We Are The Sermon.
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