This is the fifth in our
Fall Series
FOLLOW THROUGH
living out
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
******
HEADS UP!
We're in for a real workout
in what follows.
Dear All of Us,
All right!
In fact,
"Radical Right"
it is
and that for sure.
"Radical Right"
here
has nothing
to do with political
persuasion/position.
It has everything
to do with spiritual
persuasion/position,
with being
"Soul Right."
Get
the center
and
the start
radically right
and our spiritual lives
will be
"ALL" Right
from there on out.
That's how Jesus
steers us right
in this next part of
The Sermon
On The Mount.
Matthew 5:27-30
What he says here is strong.
He speaks as an ancient Jew -
blunt, pushing the point.
What we moderns would take
as exaggeration,
as excessive,
was their way of
emphasizing importance.
These were regular
literary forms of speech
understood for emphasis
not for factuality
nor literal interpretation.
Jesus uses the temptation
to adultery as a launch
on how to be real and right
about any and everything
that would draw us off center,
that would tempt us to be
unreal, foiled and fouled in life:
"You know the next
commandment pretty
well, too:
'Don't go to bed
with another's spouse.'
But don't think
you've preserved
your virtue simply by
staying out of bed.
Your heart can
be corrupted
by lust even quicker
than your body.
Those leering looks
you think nobody notices-
they also corrupt.
Let's not pretend
this is easier
than it really is.
If you want to live
a morally pure life,
here's what you have to do:
You have to blind
your right eye the moment
you catch it in a lustful leer.
You have to choose
to live one-eyed
or else be dumped
on a moral trash pile.
And you have to chop off
your right hand
the moment you notice it
raised threateningly.
Better a bloody stump than
your entire being discarded
for good in the dump.
The Message Translation
PHEW!!!
Tough talk.
Let's scope this out.
In these three short verses
Jesus speaks volumes
to our souls on
radical
(L."root")
rightness
and
its flow forth
from there.
Get
the sentiment,
the intention,
the attitude
at
Soul Center
pure, clear
right and real,
and so it will be
in all the particulars
of lived out practice.
From the get go,
Jesus tells us,
cut off and out
any and everything
that fouls soul center
and thus all that
flows from it.
In this section
of the sermon
Jesus insists
we be
Radical Right
about the
temptation
to
adultery
in particular,
as well as about
all temptation
in its multiple
moments,
modes
manners.
Jew Jesus spits it out
hard, loud and clear.
Having a lustful
focus/fantasy
is adultery before ever
bed and deed.
So, clean it up inside
and all the way out.
That goes for all,
any and every
occasion of sin, e.g.
"And you have to
chop off
your right hand
the moment
you notice it raised
threateningly..."
Matthew 5:30).
So it is with
every temptation,
any sort of pull toward
"missing the mark",
of
being off center,
of loosing our balance
when it comes to being
genuine and real.
So, in all sectors of life,
not just adultery,
we excise any relationship,
activity, habit, disposition,
preference, passion, pattern,
value system, life style,
systemic structure
that is an occasion of foul up,
that draws us off being
Radial Right,
Heart Right,
Soul Center
clean and clear.
That means all and
every one of them,
be they as much a part
of us and our way of living
as our right hand, our eye.
They must go if we are
to go on in life
Real and Right.
Better to be restricted than
lost, deadened, off the rails.
Yep, tough stuff.
Strongly put.
No two ways about it.
No two ways to be
Radical Right
So, what, who's
gotta go
in us and our living
so we can "go"
spiritually, really,
so we can actually live,
free and full,
Radical Right
from center on outward?
Let's take ten with that
for starters - how about
ten hours?
No causal, comfy Christianity here.
Excising for clarity's freedom -
sexual and all otherwise - costs.
It may cost a relationship,
job, wealth, position,
prerogative, pleasure -
you name it
- and we must -
then cut free
- and we must.
I'll spare you and me
the details,
but I know all this
from my own painful liberation.
Yes, it hurts like hell
but it opens to
some heavenlike living.
Jew Jesus is blunt, stark,
unambiguous, forthright,
uncompromising.
His is a prophet's push.
What he insists on for a person
goes for us as a people.
What societal operating systems
are radically wrong from the start
and thus they horribly wrong
people and planet in practice?
What fouls and foils?
What needs excising?
Right now here in The States
some are beginning to more fully
and painfully address
the genocide and slavery
foundational and unresolved
to us as a people
and the continuing evil
they reek.
We are hardly dealing with,
much less excising,
the discounted valuation
on human life that is
pervasively operative
among us from
separating migrant children
from their parents,
to unsafe working conditions,
to excessive and
non restorative incarceration,
to the death penalty,
to the militarization of
local "peace" officers.
Then there is capitalism.
A great read here is
Pope Francis' new letter,
Fratelli tutti
(October 3, 2020)
Capitalism rewards
an elite few,
favors some,
impoverishes masses
worldwide -
a cultural, constricting
caste system,
a dirty rotten shame,
an impurity
that is a cheating on
our bonded unity as humanity
(social and economic adultery).
Add to the list of concerns,
living in uncensored, soft,
selfish sensuality -
forty some varieties
of breakfast cereals
to choose from,
extravagant spending
on adult toys and vacations,
luxuries taken as staples
of daily living -
soul dulling superficial sensations.
Example: endless hours
in front of the tube
hazed over by
too many Doritos
and too much beer.
In the mean time -
and it sure is "mean" -
two million people
right now are literally, actually
starving to death worldwide -
statistic from
UN WORLD FOOD PROGRAM
the folks who
just received the
Nobel Peace Prize.
One more for not at all
good measure.
Too often domesticated,
bleached, pale, wimpy,
self serving institutional religion
in bed with structures of
preference, preferment and power,
clerical domination and privilege,
watered down Gospel,
ritual, rubrics, polity, dogmas
crowding out vibrant community
and deep spirituality.
OK, OK, I hear you!
So, yes I did have three cups
of coffee this morning!
Admittedly intense today.
But, hey, we really need to
hear and head Jesus
about being centered right
and freed from invites to peril.
What may initially register
as restrictive and stern is,
in happy and holy fact,
liberating and energizing.
A hokey, humble metaphor:
A race car needs
clean, clear, pure fuel
to fire its engines,
to power them
to excellence and victory.
So do we and our society
need clear, clean energy
to power us
RADICAL RIGHT
in our living and
its freedom to fulness.
All the above is just a start
at unpacking the power
and the wisdom of Jesus
compacted in these
three short verses.
As already noted,
he uses the temptation
to adultery for starters
- sure to get our attention -
and then presses the need
to free up by cutting loose
from whatever else,
such as raising a hand threateningly,
would draw us off center,
trip us up and thus down,
foiled and failed in life.
"Enough already!"
I need to go
pray for purity,
for rightness
at my center point
and all the way out
in my life practices.
I need to pray the same
for all of us as a people.
I need to pray for us all
the grace and courage
to let God make us
personally and as a people,
RADICAL RIGHT
In God's Dear Love,
Your exhausted
and
exhausting
brother,
John Frank
******
As always, a hearty
WELCOME
to all joining us
for the first time
here at
"frankly speaking"
spirituality for the street
- posted by mid-day Thursdays
east coast USA time
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
- arrives by automatic
email delivery every Friday
the sign up is above top
- Blog Archive hosts all past postings
right column above.
******
SUGGESTION
As we seek to
FOLLOW THROUGH
on living out
The Sermon On The Mount,
please let me recommend
Jesus' Plan For A New World
The Sermon On The Mount,
Richard Rohr with John Feister,
Franciscan Media, 1996
ISBN 978-0-86716-203-5
******
Have a heck of a week,
freed and happy to be
RADICAL RIGHT
******
