A New Way of Living

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. - Luke 6:38

The crowds that Jesus addressed were largely peasants, day laborers, and blue-collar types. They were not largely what we would call “middle-class.” And on top of that, they lived in an occupied land that was ruled harshly by the one superpower in the world (Rome). And yet Jesus had the audacity to call them to a life of radical generosity.

Perhaps he was on to something.

Jesus was inviting the crowds into a new way of life, into a level of human flourishing that no kingdom on earth - whether the occupied or the occupier - had ever seen before. His kingdom was an everlasting kingdom full of human goodness and contentment and joy and relational wholeness and God’s provision.

These words in his great Sermon on the Plain cast vision for a new way to be human that doesn’t rest so much on outward markers (while neither denying the reality of injustice nor settling for the status quo). Spend some time today just thinking and meditating on the words of Jesus and how radical they are: Do not judge, forgive, give.

Take a few deep breaths and listen for his invitation to a new way of living.