The key idea about the Morality of Jesus presented in this section is that the best path to the Kingdom of Heaven is to live a moral life, love, and forgive everyone unconditionally. We looked into how extremely radical His teachings were especially for His time period and even by today's standards. For His time, through the Sermon on the Mount, He basically told all of his followers to forget about Mosaic Law because He was teaching them a better way to live. He did this by saying "You have heard the Law you shall not commit murder and whoever commits murder is liable to the court. But I say to you, whoever becomes angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court." He revised several other old teachings, such as on adultery, divorce, and false vows. In His actions too He defies the old way of doing things, like when the known prostitute washes His feet in the prophet Simon's house. Simon condemns her but Jesus forgives her sin because of her great love. This is why He is put to death, for allegedly blaspheming agaisnt Mosaic Law, God, and all the other prophets.
The most radical of his teachings though was to love your enemies as your neighbors, and love those who persecute you. It was hard for the people of His time because they were under Roman control and constantly persecuted, but it is still hard today for all of us.
2. Three Key Ideas
~First, the Story of the Rich Young Man
When asked by the rich young man how to gain entry into God's Kingdom, Jesus first replies to follow the Commandments, then He lists them, but He only lists the social ones that have to do with morality. He doesn't state the first three. That's very interesting and memorable to me because it seems that Jesus is saying the surest way to get into Heaven is to be a good person. It's more important to live a moral life, than to just believe in God and somewhat practice the religion. I like this because it means that it is not a requirement to be a part of the Jewish or Christian Faith to enter Heaven, as long as the person is morally sound.
~Second, Jesus' social group
I'd like to remember that Jesus accepted adulterers, thieves, and other sinners into his company and He easily forgave them their sins. But the people that made Jesus most upset for the hypocrites and the Pharisees and scribes who acted like they were better than everyone else and did not truly follow God's teachings. This is also like Fr. Harrison's homily, "There is a difference between looking good, feeling good, and actually being good."
~Law of Human Nature
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis defines the Law of Human Nature, which is basically the universal standard for what is right and wrong for all humans that they can choose to follow, but often do not. Lewis makes a completely intellectual argument and it all makes sense to me and goes together logically. He claims there has to be a set morality for humans and he successfully defends against what seem to be any reasonable argument stating there isn't. It makes sense now that there is a universal way for me to behave not just a Christian way and I should try to behave by both.
2. Picture
A Christian is someone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah, who knows all of his teachings, and puts them into practice in their everyday life. My survey showed that I do not appear completely Christian in my everyday life. I do follow some of His teachings, and that may be just because they coinicde with the Law of Human Nature so I naturally feel compelled to act that way. But in these last two years at SLUH especially, I've been trying to shape my life into a more Christian one. Christ's teachings may not affect my actions or thoughts right away, but when I look back at a lot of them, I reflect if it was the Christian thing to do or not and I make note of it so I can try to do the Christian thing next time in the future.
5. What can I do to become a better Christian?
Something I can do is to do more work for people less fortunate than me, mainly through CSP. This spring break I am going down to Mexico with some other guys to build houses for people in the town of Reynosa. I am also trying to gain a spot in the group of six guys selected to go down to Honduras for my Senior Project. Those are kind of things on a large scale and I could focus on smaller things in my community, but I've always personally felt more compelled to help those less fortunte on the global scale, I'm not really sure why. So I could also try to do more CSP in St. Louis because right now I am involved in none. It's easy to talk about and think about helping the less fortunate, but the hard thing is going out and doing it. Again I bring back Fr. Harrison's homily and call to us to actually " be good" and do good, not just feel or look good. I need to try harder to actually be good and do good, instead of feeling good and just talking about it.