Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 9, Number 2, January 2009

textbooks in Christian ethics they were ‘amazed to find that almost none learned anything constructive from the Sermon on the Mount’ ( Kingdom Ethics, xii). This essay is offered as a contribution to the wider ongoing attempt being made to rediscover the moral relevance of the Sermon on the Mount. 41 Is the Sermon on the Mount too unrealistic to serve as a resource for Christian Discipleship and Spiritual Formation? Stassen, these teachings are a realistic resource for discipleship because they can be hermeneutically reappropriated into the language of moral norms which can guide human conduct in the present-day context. With David Gushee, Stassen argues that the Sermon’s teaching consists of ‘fourteen triads’, each of which contains a teaching on: (1) traditional righteousness; (2) a vicious cycle; and (3) a transforming initiative. 13 Stassen argues that Jesus’ teachings are not about prohibitions but about imparting life through a vision of the kingdom of God, which, as Jesus announced, is already ‘at hand’ (Matt. 4:17). Thus Stassen maintains that the Sermon is ‘first of all about what God is already doing. It is about God’s grace, God’s loving deliverance from various kinds of bondage.’ 14 It is through the third part of the triad, the ‘transforming initiatives’, that Jesus’ life-giving teaching is made accessible to his disciples. A transforming initiative is ‘a way of deliverance based on grace’ 15 , which involves Christians ‘participating in God’s active presence and God’s grace’. 16 Therefore, Jesus first diagnoses a problem and then explains the harmful consequences that result from it. Only then does he offer specific guidance about how to transform the situation with practices characteristic of life in God’s kingdom. As Stassen and Gushee point out from their linguistic analysis of the Greek text of the Sermon, Jesus’ transforming initiatives are permeated throughout with imperatives. For instance, in Matthew 5:24-25, they identify five specific words or expressions which are given in the imperative: ‘leave’, ‘go’, ‘be reconciled’, ‘offer’, ‘make friends’. These are exactly the kind of transforming initiatives which, Stassen argues, form the crux of Jesus’ ethical teachings. Most importantly in terms of discipleship and spiritual formation is Stassen’s conception of these initiatives as ‘practices’, as actions that people deliberately do in order to achieve the desired outcome which leads to individual and social transformation. What, more specifically, do these initiatives aim to achieve? To answer this question, Stassen reverts to the prophet Isaiah, who depicts the coming reign of God and the characteristics of God’s kingdom. Stassen identifies ‘seventeen deliverance passages’ in Isaiah, each of which speaks of one or more of the following characteristics: ‘deliverance or salvation’; ‘righteousness or justice’; ‘God’s presence as Spirit or Light’; ‘healing’; and ‘return from exile’.