Jesus' Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount

This book offers hope and practical spiritual guidance for living in painful and chaotic times. Rohr calls out our blindness and describes how we unwittingly participate in supporting economic and political systems that create our further ruin. Best, though, he offers Jesus' Way and perspective for lovingly living change into our world. His explanation of apocalyptic scripture is helpful and encouraging. He leads us ever deeper into the Presence. Thoughtful, challenging, lifting.

I am reading this book for the third time. Thus, it pains me to read the one-star reviews below. These prove the points that Richard makes in this book:"The human need for clarity and certitude leads fundamentalists to use sacred writings in a mechanical, closed-ended and authoritarian manner. This invariably leaves them trapped in their own cultural moment in history, and they often totally miss the real message along with the deepest challenges and consolations of Scripture."And,"Unless you're willing to let go of your self-created ego worlds, you will not see the Kingdom in your midst. The ego, by nature, is conservative. It strives to conserve, to maintain itself. That translates into seeking a comfort zone to live within and staying there. Once we find that place where we feel secure, we may do [and say] anything to maintain it!"Rohr is a much-needed voice, one that counters the suffocating, and spiritless/heartless religious atmosphere that prevails in this country. This book offers fresh, clean, invigorating air; it will spur you on!

I've read a lot of Rohr's books, but somehow I've only now gotten around to this one. Immersing myself in it was like jumping into an icy mountain pond: stunning, bracing, invigorating, renewing. It's a courageous book that dares to challenge "religious culture," that institutionalization of Christ's gospel that renders it meek and mild and safe, and to persuasively defend instead the original subversive character of Christ's life and teaching. Jesus, according to Rohr, was much more of a threat to the social and moral status quo than he's usually reckoned to be. In challenging the cultures of money, power, and religionism, he offered a radically counter-cultural model of right relationship that he called "God's Kingdom." This Kingdom grows not by the sword or by power (that would be to fall into the trap the prevailing cultures), but by love and powerlessness. It subverts the established order by simply ignoring it and building the shell of the new within the old. That's one of the reasons Jesus so favored the poor, the marginalized, and disenfranchised: because they fell outside the "system," they hadn't been corrupted by it and were capable of working with God to build the Kingdom.Richard Rohr's reminder of God's great vision of justice, peace, and fulfillment, a vision preached and died for by Jesus, is a challenge to all of us who call ourselves Christians but have fallen into the habit of "loving Jesus" without acting accordingly. Highly recommended as a tonic to laypersons and clergy alike. Would that Christians would take its message to heart. Then the world might once again marvel at "how these Christians love!"

Fundamentalists like the last reviewer may not like the fact that Jesus was as much a social as a spiritual revolutionary, but Rohr forces the reader to confront this fact. It is truly bizarre that so many modern day conservatives proclaim Jesus as "Savior" while discounting or ignoring almost everything he ever said. The Sermon on the Mount is a political and spiritual discourse that undercuts almost everything that right wing Evangelicals and Catholics stand for; todays "conservative Christian" was yesterday's Pharisee. Rohr is a gifted teacher who knows how to get at the heart of Christ's teaching. The last time I checked he was not a member of the Jesus Seminar, but was a member and leader of several congregations that were devoted to taking Jesus at his word and living out his truth in thought and deed. As Rohr himself has pointed out, Jesus was murdered for his teaching, and anyone who dares to take up His cross and pass that teaching on will be slandered and opposed at every turn. If you just talk about being "born again" (like the current president) people will think of you as a nice religious person; if you dare to preach what Jesus actually preached you we be attacked as a "liberal". I am a teacher and preacher and have found Rohr's work to be invaluable in putting together sermons and lessons. It is unfortunate that this sort of serious Bible teaching is not as widely available in Christian bookstores and over the airwaves as is the cultic nonsense of Tim LaHaye and Pat Robertson.

Richard Rohr is one of the foremost spiritual writers of ourtimes. His extensive theological background and his many years ofinterpersonal experience with many different peoples (from teenagers to Native Americans) and his vast retreat master experiences gives him the wisdom to speak with authority about the Sermon on the Mount...Jesus' plan for our lives. Rohr cuts through political, cultural and religious structural facades and unmasks them for what they are...self serving units which need 'us' to keep them afloat. He shows where the core message of Jesus 'hides' within the Universal religions of the world and sometimes gets missed because of ego serving humans. Just the ones Jesus is looking for to show his compassionate mercy to. Fr. Rohr tells us that Jesus came to be with and encourage those who are suffering, those who have not, those who are regarded as marginal and not accepted in todays society. His liberal bible references helped me to see the deeper meaning in many of the Gospel pasages. He also gives the Jewish background to help me understand why Jesus said what he said and what it meant for the people of 2,000 years ago AND for all of us today in the year 2,000.I have been with Fr. Rohr on retreats and days of prayer. I've followed his spiritual growth for some 20 years and have read his books on the Enneagram. His clear insight is pure gift from God. And he would be the first to tell you so.

Richard Rohr has a wonderful gift of bringing the truth of the Gospel out in this work.Every word is well chosen & relevant to our human situation.For example the section on the "Three World Views" is so simply expressed & yet so profound in depth.It is a book I have recommended to many of my colleagues in the faith.It's refeshing & challenging theology.