Is the Sermon on the Mount too Unrealistic to Serve as a Resource for Healthy Discipleship and Spiritual Formation? Joshua T. Searle* Abstract This essay considers the role of the Sermon on the Mount as a practical vision for Christian discipleship. Using the notion of 'morality as embodied spirituality', this essay combines Glen Stassen’s insights into the normative value of kingdom practices with James Wm. McClendon’s thinking into the transformative impact of the kingdom vision into which such practices cohere. The result is a synthesis that provides a vision of the kingdom of God as the basis for a contemporary application of the teachings of the Sermon as a realistic resource for the practice of Christian discipleship today. * This article was published in the peer-review theology journal, Journal of European Baptist Studies 9 (January, 2009), 80-91. I. INTRODUCTION From the earliest origins of the Church to the present day, the Sermon on the Mount has continually challenged and inspired generations of Christ's followers to live out the kind of life which Jesus sets forth. As well as being “one of the most lofty and powerful expressions of the essence of moral life” 1 , the Sermon is a challenging call to follow Jesus by participating in the vision of the kingdom of God, which, as Christ declares, is now a present reality and accessible to all who receive his message (Matt. 4:17). Such are the ethical standards demanded by Christ in the Sermon that it is hardly surprising that the history of its interpretation has been dominated by attempts to downplay its significance or to undermine its authenticity. 2 “The interpretation of the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount”, as David Garland aptly observes, “has been marked by a tendency throughout history to attempt to moderate its radical demands.” 3 Such tendencies were present in the scholastic tradition originating in the writings of Thomas Aquinas, who posited a double standard for the laity and the clergy by distinguishing between Jesus' “commandments” and “counsels”. 1 W. Kissinger, The Sermon on the Mount: A History of Interpretation and Bibliography (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1975), xi. 2 For example, H. Betz's book, The Sermon on the Mount (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), whose publication was regarded as a landmark in the history of the interpretation of the Sermon, claims that the Sermon is not a Christian text but is, rather, a compilation of pre-existing literature, which was incorporated by Matthew and Luke and added to their gospels as a foreign body in these otherwise coherent accounts of Jesus' life. 3 D. Garland, in, Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, edited by W. Mills (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1997), 810.