Currently I am on a journey through the Gospel of Matthew, a book that was so very influential on my path toward deconstruction so many years ago in Honduras. Back then, in our fledgling church, I taught the Sermon on the Mount to our small congregation. At the time, I was troubled by how poorly our Evangelical churches were doing at living out the Sermon. I saw outward concern for rules, but love, forgiveness, and peacemaking were often hard to find.
When I read through Matthew, especially then, I could only read it from my Fundamentalist Evangelical paradigm and mindset. Reading about the two roads in Matthew 7 was obviously about receiving Christ as your personal savior or not. The two houses, one on the rocks, and one on the sand, were similarly about the eternal state.
Still today, as then, the passage haunts me where Jesus says that not everyone who calls him “Lord” and does “spiritual” works will be counted among those known by Jesus.
However, as I considered these passages again this month, to my surprise, my first thought about these passages was not about eternal salvation, but about current life in the world, as we seek to work out the kingdom here and now. I saw these passages as “Wisdom”, much as I now read Proverbs. I don’t see hard and fast “promises” for life from God, but general guidelines, where exceptions can always be found, as they were in the days of the prophets who complained bitterly that the wicked were thriving while the just perished. We could discuss that in much more detail.
The point of this reflection, however, is not what these passages actually mean, but that my default reference point has now changed. The process of change has been gradual, over time. But this may be the first time I can clearly recognize the new primary point of view I know sit in. My Fundamentalist Evangelical baggage is still there, for sure, but it is not the first bag I open on my journey any longer!
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