More Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount expects that we will live out our Christianity in a hostile world. When it speaks of us being reviled and persecuted, it is not talking about the person who complains that the music is always too loud. At the time of the sermon, Jesus was talking about situations where Roman soldiers or religious authorities could and did actually inflict physical punishment (torture, really) on Christ followers.

Let's make no mistake, here. The message of the Cross is offensive to the unbelieving world. That fact does not change just because we insulate ourselves from people who find us intolerant and ignorant. In fact, I would posit that we are not fullfilling our proper roles of "salt and light" unless we are placing ourselves in the path of those who would hate us, exclude us, insult us, and reject our names as evil because of our alignment with Christ. (Luke 6:22)

The community of faith is critical to our continued growth, learning and support, but finding a body of believers that we enjoy hanging out with is not the purpose of Christianity. Going into all the world and making disciples is. I'm talking about the world that doesn't like us and laughs at us. The world that would like to discredit and abuse us. The world that would like for us to hide ourselves away and not bother them. In other words, the world Christ died to save.