The Sermon on the Mount: Every Day for 40 days

Open Democracy Gandhi

 Have you ever let the words change you? Mahatma Gandhi was invited by Christians to read the bible when he was in school in England. He started reading the old testament, but the continued violence of the passages didn’t speak to him. But when he started reading the New Testament he recognized words that were the words he had been taught as a child. His favorite part was the Sermon on the Mount. As he says “The Sermon on the Mount went straight to my heart.”¹ And “The Sermon on the Mount left a deep impression on my mind when I read it.”² “When I read in the Sermon on the Mount such passages as 'Resist not him that is evil but whosoever smiteth thee on the right cheek turn to him the other also,- and 'love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you, that he may be sons of your father which is in heaven.' I was simply overjoyed, and found my own opinion confirmed where I least expected it.”³ The sermon on the Mount became foundational in his practice of nonviolent resistance because he decided that these words of overcoming evil with good could be practiced in our public life as a way to deal with each other. He started the largest non-violent struggle for freedom from British rule based on these principals of non-violence. For Gandhi, The Sermon on the Mount and the Bhagavad Gita were the text that he read continually to sustain and encourage him, to inspire and comfort hm. These text spoke to his soul and changed how he lived in the world. He read the Sermon on the Mount daily for decades. 

      Can you imagine immersing yourselves in these words daily for years? 

              blessed are you poor, mourning, meek, hungry and thirsty, merciful, pure in heart, persecuted

              you are salt and light

              reconcile with your brother or sister

              don't look at another with lust, don't divorce, don't swear oaths, don't be a hypocrite

             turn the other cheek

             love your enemies

             forgive

             don't worry, don't judge

             you can't serve God and wealth

             do to others as you would have them do to you

             ask, search, and knock

             bee hearers and doers of the word        

      This lent I will be immersing myself in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7.  I want to challenge each of us to take on a Lenten practice. I want us to read the Sermon on the Mount Daily for 40 days and see how it will change us. Can you imagine the conversations we will have with each other about how we see God, how we see ourselves, and how we walk through the world. Join me in this 40 day Lenten challenge.

Citations:

1. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, (New Delhi: Publication Division, Ministry of Broadcasting, Government of India, 1956 -1994), 15:305.

2. M.K. Gandhi, What Jesus Means to Me (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 2009), 39.

3. Cited by Madhuri Wadhwa, Gandhi Between Tradition and Modernity (New Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications, 1997), 98-99.

4.  The idea for this challenge was inspired by the challenge on Patheos blog.