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As a child in Sunday School we lustily sang the always boisterous song, "The Wise Man Built His House on the Rock and the Foolish Man ...". The song was acted out, and our favorite part was falling onto the floor. And we had no question which side we were on. I have no truck with the song; I do have to say, though, that the song made play out of what has to be seen as nightmare or celebration. The subject is so serious one has to think that the profundity of it all is extinguished in playful song. Allison calls the ending of the Sermon an "ominous parable."

The Sermon on the Mount closes with a summons to follow Jesus and a warning of the consequences. The "wise" person hears the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (all of them) and practices them; the "foolish" person hears the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (all of them) and does not practice them. Wisdom, according to Jesus, is to follow him. The Ego of it all is revealing: either Jesus is the Lord who alters BC into AD, or he is (what CS Lewis called) a lunatic or a liar. The "I am the Bread" and "I am the Way, the truth and the life" is all here in the Sermon on the Mount.

Let me return to Kevin Vanhoozer's The Drama of Doctrine: theological truths are not simply propositions to believe but a "script" to be "dramatized" by God's good people. In other words, the gospel is both proclamation and performance: in fact, the gospel's proclamation is only fully accomplished in performance. Jesus is saying the same thing: "doers" is his word.

Sin, for Jesus, is not like that of the gnostics or the Platonists of his day: sin cannot be reduced to ideas nor can wisdom be reduced to ideas. Sin is hyper-relational, and that means wisdom is also hyper-relational. We are summoned by Jesus to live his words, not just to learn them and love them -- but to live them by loving God and loving others as missional people.

This summons of Jesus however is not law: it is relationship. We are to live with Jesus, and living with him embraces us with God's grace, and that grace transforms us, and it empowers us to be agents of grace in this world. We live out embracing grace, gracious Christianity, and a generous orthodoxy. "Live out" is the point.

This has been a good series for me; a big thank you to all you readers.

My next series will be two parts: the Muslim view of Jesus and the Mormon view of Jesus.

Very few sermons close off as forcibly as the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus summons people to follow him, and the way he does this is to clarify the sort of followers he has in mind (beatitudes), the salt and light vocation, the surpassing righteousness he expects, and the simplicity of doing things with integrity and trusting God for provisions, and then a series of comments about discernment -- and then Jesus simply calls people to follow.

Jesus is here not trying to frighten folks; he's warning the arrogant possessors of gifts who think they've got a claim on God because of their service, their success, and their supernatural works. Jesus summons those who hear his words to follow him.

And for Jesus following him cannot ever be reduced to what one says. One can say "Lord, Lord" to Jesus but calling Jesus "Lord" is nothing if it does not mean following Jesus. And here is perhaps the shocker -- following Jesus also does not mean ministry experience or giftedness. For Jesus is setting his teeth against those who (1) call Jesus "Lord," (2) exercise gifts of significance, but who (3) can be called "doers of lawlessness."

Giftedness does not equal redemption.

Allison suggests that what counts with Jesus is not supernatural giftedness but the gifts of charity and mercy and compassion -- and there is good reason to think Matthew 25:31-46 can be brought into play here because it too is a judgment scene.

Finally, a point simply cries out for attention: anyone who thinks final redemption is secure because one has "received Christ" will not find support in the Sermon on the Mount. Redemption comes to those whose lives reveal the presence of God's redemptive grace. Someone, I think John Calvin, said that we are neither saved by works nor without works. Jesus would utter a hearty "Amen!" to that one.

How can you tell if a prophet is true or false? Jesus has a very simple solution: "By their fruits you can recognize them" (Matthew 7:15-20). False prophets deceive in appearance but inwardly are ferocious wolves. Fruit, Jesus says, is what enables us to discern them. And fruit has to do with behaviors.

Thornbushes don't produce grapes; thistles don't produce figs. Bad people don't produce good works -- so Jesus is saying. Good trees produce good fruit; bad trees produce bad fruit. So says Jesus. There is a correlation between heart and behavior.

Jesus is speaking here about folks who claim to be his followers, who are known for prophetic gifts and behaviors, but are frauds. And the way to know the fraud from the follower is by fruit. Plain and simple (and not that this solves everything), how one behaves tells alot.

Jesus' point is that we are to recognize when leaders are not genuine and when they are "ferocious wolves" -- that is, leaders who are intent on devouring others, using others, consuming others for their own advantage, for their own benefit -- the picture seems clear to me. And Jesus is dealing here with clear stereotypes. Just wait, he says, the ravenous will soon be eating and devouring other folk.

It may take time; and we may find ourselves committed to them and listening to them and learning them but, eventually so it seems, character will win out and we will see them for who they are by the way they behave. As Dale Allison says, "False face cannot hide false heart forever."

The text encourages two things: first, it exhorts to inspect ourselves and, second, it exhorts to watch and discern the ravenous from the shepherd who feeds his or her flock with God's embracing grace.

There are, the famous opening lines of the Didache state, "two paths: one of life and one of death, and the difference between the two is great." These were some of the lines I was asked to translate when I entered seminary, and we were slotted into an Exegesis class on the basis of such testing. Jokes abound about "there are two kinds of...". Jesus absorbed the same way of discerning humans, and he sees two sorts of humans: the few who enter the narrow gate and the many who enter the wide gate.

Probably no text is more directly offensive to the postmodern (or modern) pluralistic sensibility. One path, so Jesus states, leads to destruction; the other path leads to life. You can monkey with these words, but their implication is clear: a choice needs to be made to follow Jesus or not.

And let this be observed before we get to quick to announce that is we, and not the others, who have entered the narrow gate: the narrow gate is entered by those who hear the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and do them; the wide gate by those who hear those words and do not do them. So there, each of us, we need to hear that. This isn't about a simple "I accepted Jesus at five and I've lived the devil's life every since but I'm safe and secure." There is no reason to talk of the gate or the narrow way without thinking of the Sermon on the Mount.

So what is the "gate"? For a long time I've taught that the gate is Jesus himself, or Jesus as he is known through his teachings. To enter that gate is to answer the summons to follow Jesus (you can see why I think the Sermon on the Mount is an evangelistic sermon).

A summary is in order: to enter the narrow gate involves being with the blessed ones (poor, peacemakers, persecuted, etc), being salt and light consistently, following Jesus' radical way about murder/anger, adultery/lust, divorce, truth-telling, mercy over revenge, loving enemies. And it involves doing good deeds for the right reasons; it involves pursuing the kingdom and God's justice instead of fortunes and fame; and it involves not damning the others and trusting that God is good.

That's the narrow gate about which Jesus teaches.

What about numbers here? Is this a calculation of how many will make it and how many won't? Maybe. It is more likely, as Allison and others have argued, that it is Semitic over-statement in a potent exhortation.

The point is clear: there are severe alternatives when we hear the words of Jesus. To do them or not to do them -- and that makes all the difference.

All of the Torah and all of the Prophets, Jesus says, are summed up in this simple golden rule: "do to others what you want them to do to you." Allison says no one called this the "golden rule" before the 18th Century, but what I would call it is the Jesus Creed Lite: it is a variant of the second half of the Jesus Creed (loving God, loving others). To do to others what you want them to do you is to love them as yourself.

What is perhaps indicative of the importance of this saying is that Jesus says living according to the golden rule is to live the whole Torah and the whole Prophets. This is nothing short of amazing. What is also amazing is that it is this very idea that is found in the early Church on the "love your neighbor as yourself." Paul (Rom 13:8-10; Gal 5:14) and James (2:8-10) both say the second half of the Jesus Creed fulfills the whole Law. So, we have to connect Matthew 7:12 to 22:34-40.

Shammai, according to tradition a contemporary of Jesus, said that the whole Law is summed up (said while standing on one foot, an image for reducing to short summary) in "do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you." Allison gives a basketful of other references, from Judaism and the whole world where such a moral axiom is used. Because it is inherently house-wisdom, learned at the knees of wise fathers and mothers, we would do well to avoid thinking Jesus has one-upped the Judaism of his day by saying this in the positive form ("do" rather than "don't do"). The positive form is more consistent with his focus on loving others (a positive directive).

Finally, I see no reason to think the golden rule is self-serving. The golden rule assumes that Jesus' followers will be thinking of themselves, caring for themselves, etc., and just builds on it: as we care for ourselves, so we should care for others. Self-centeredness is not assumed; nor does this kind of saying cover so much that those who struggle with self-image are somehow ruled right off the map.

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