To have been there..

On the hillside where the barriers broke down and the crowds gathered together with a mix of curiosity and hope;
There were people like me, knowing from the inner aching that there was more to life than we had ever been told.

And here it was.
Not shrouded in mystery or clouded with ritual.

Here was wisdom, gentle, teasing and shining with life,
So different from the cynics
And so different from the priests.

Just being there made you feel clean and fresh inside.
He spoke of seeds, harvest, the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.
It seemed so obvious. So right.

And everything he said was underpinned by the
Bouyant expectation of a father's love
Brimming over.

I had never thought of God like that before.

I have been to that hillside many times in imagination.
But I often long to have been there on that day,
To feel the sun kiss my face,
To scent the dry grasses and the flower-confettied meadow while his words
Hung like a rainbow over us all;
Making it all so simple, so obvious,
So beautiful
And so true.

(c) A McN

The Sermon on the Mount (Gospel of Matthew chapter 5-7) neatly summarises the radical, revolutionary nature of Jesus' teaching. Our society is more complex than 1st century Palestine yet human nature is remarkably unchanged and these precepts still resonate with a reality that is as true as it is unattainable by human effort. Which is where the grace of God comes in.
Oh to live more deeply in that grace...