Reflection: Trust me: this passage does relate to our journey into the Sermon on the Mount!

The genius of Ikea is built into the furniture product itself, and it is expressed in the instructions that come with it. When you follow that genius—obey the instructions—you are sharing in the mind of the Manufacturer and following the purpose for which the thing was made. This idea helps us to understand two important biblical concepts: wisdom and blessing. The concluding idea of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is ‘wisdom’: “everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock …” (Matt 7:24). The opening idea of the Sermon is ‘blessing’: “Blessed are the poor in spirit … Blessed are those who mourn …” etc. These two ideas are intimately connected in Proverbs 8 (and elsewhere). The passage (beginning at v.12) is a hymn to God’s ‘wisdom’. Wisdom—God’s genius—fashioned the creation, like a master builder (verses 27-31). And that same wisdom is present in God’s moral commands to us (verse 32). Following God’s commands, then, is participating in the genius, or wisdom, of the Creator; it is living according to the deep structure of creation. This is why Prov 8:32 says “Blessed are those who keep my [i.e., wisdom’s] ways.”

In the same way, the Sermon on the Mount is the genius (wisdom) of the Creator. We are “blessed” when we obey Christ’s teaching, not in the sense that we get a reward for good behaviour, but in the profound sense that we are sharing in the mind of the Creator and living according to our true purpose as creatures.

Question: Do you think of God’s commands as burdensome, or as the path of blessing, sharing in God’s own genius? Why / Why not?