Jim and I were at a church retreat over the weekend. Jim co-pastors LifeSpring Church here in Merced
and 12 of us went to Pacific Grove for a weekend together. It was a beautiful setting with a short walk to the ocean and a B&B that created the perfect setting to relax, engage, learn and enjoy community.
The topic was the Sermon on the Mount, the famous teaching of Jesus where he sets our worldview right. The 'be attitudes' is about accepting the things that in our path but responding to them in a more godly way. The second part is about living a life worthy of God's calling, about living well with ourselves
and with other people. It is talking against murder, but then Jesus explains that he considers even a demeaning word to another person equal to murder. He talks about adultery, and that even a look at another person in lust is already adultery, because we do not see the other person as God's image bearer. Jesus tells us that our words should count for something and we should not take an oath that we
cannot keep. He also talked about our behavior towards one another, that we should not only love our friends, but also our enemies.
How contrary all this is to our world right now, where we are about our self-glorification, how we expect
the easy way to succeed, where we don't care who we hurt in the process, where our words and actions kill people, and where we are less concerned for the well-being of others than our own success.
Jesus' teaching is so different. According to the Bible, we cannot buy into a worldview that demeans people, that creates division between who is 'worthy' and who is not. We cannot sit by when fellow human beings suffer, cannot be silent when people are mistreated. We should not stand with lies and
false promises. We are all God's image bearers, and no matter what part of another person's life story
we walk into, we cannot make them 'less than'. We know better. Let's do better.
The retreat was insightful. Now I need to live it out in my daily interactions with people.