A Lost Mandate

The book was not a real page turner, but I was plodding along page by page when I came to one of those "stop and read it again" moments.  The book was written by Charles Foster and bore the title, "The Sacred Journey."  What stopped me in the midst of my read for a moment of pondering was near about midway through and it said, "By and large the Sermon on the Mount is utterly irrelevant in most modern churches.  It might as well not be there.  Our lives, our businesses, and our mission strategies are constructed very specifically according to precisely the principles so clearly denounced by Jesus."     

Of course, what Foster was pointing out was the way the church of our day has become so mindful of operating like a successful profit making business instead of a faithful spiritual community that seeks to serve even at the expense of sacrificing self to do so.  To the degree that the Sermon on the Mount does not fit within the mandate of the church, it can be said that it has lost its way.    

It is sad that the church has allowed itself to be compromised by the mores of culture and a leadership model that is more secular than spiritual because the world still needs the church.  It may seem to be relegated to some back street not frequented by many, but it remains an essential community for the larger communities around it.  Part of its importance is found in its uniqueness.  There is no community like the one called into existence by the Kingdom message of Jesus and the wind and fire of Pentecost.  A culture without a powerful spiritual community that exists only to point people to God is a poor and diminished community.