The Tao of Christ

During the summer when the weather is good, we attend an outdoor worship service held by a Congregational church in a neighboring town. In her sermon last Sunday the pastor talked about her ordination exam five years ago. In preparation for the ordination council she invited some clergy friends to send her the most challenging questions that might be asked during the oral examination. One asked, “Is Gandhi in heaven?” He followed up with the question, “Is Hitler in Heaven?” Finally he asked a third one: “How about child abusers? How about a person who abused your child?” The questions were designed to test the limits of salvation, grace and justice. The scripture text for her message was John 3:17 “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” The pastor did a very good job addressing the questions, coming down strongly on the grace of God and coming close to universalism. Throughout the sermon I kept thinking about how I would preach that sermon and approach those questions. This episode is how I would answer those questions.View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

This episode explores the idea that Jesus was not a Christian and why that matters today. It discusses the central teachings of Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad, highlighting their differences. It also examines different interpretations of Christianity and the role of doctrine. The episode challenges traditional beliefs and explores the message of Jesus as one that transcends doctrines and church hierarchy.

This episode explores the final section of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus ends his longest and most famous teaching by warning us to be careful of those who would misinterpret his teachings to promote their own agenda. In other words he advises us to use discernment when it comes to spiritual teachers.  View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

In the last part of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus focuses on how to enter the Kingdom of God. From a Buddhist perspective this question would be expressed as how to enter Nirvana or how to be enlightened. The Hindu might ask how to be liberated. Different spiritual traditions have different terms for this, but it is the same spiritual reality. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

The section of the Sermon on the Mount that I am looking at today has to be one of the best, as well as the most neglected and misused portions of the teachings of Jesus. It is about not judging. “Judge not, that you be not judged.” I will show how it has its roots in Jesus’ teaching of nonduality.  View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

I am continuing my journey through the Sermon on the Mount, interpreting it from a nondual perspective. Today I look at one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible in my opinion, sometimes known as the “lilies of the field” passage. The topic of the section is worry or anxiety. I did an episode entitled “Beyond Anxiety and Fear” immediately before I started this series about the Sermon on the Mount. So I do not want to repeat myself. I will talk about worry, since that is the subject Jesus is addressing. But I am more interested in what Jesus points to in order to help us overcome worry and anxiety. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God, which is his term for the awareness of the Presence of the Divine. His message was the omnipresence of God, not as a doctrine to be believed but a reality to be experienced. That was the gospel of Jesus. But that is not the gospel that has been historically proclaimed by the Christian church. When one looks for evidence of this message throughout church history it is difficult to find. One only spots glimpses of it sticking up like flowers growing between the cracks in a sidewalk, but it is rare.Christianity could have been a movement that preached and lived the firsthand direct awareness of the presence of God. Instead it became a religion of doctrines, a legalistic and hierarchical institution that replaced experience with dogma and replaced direct awareness of God with faith in the authority of the Church. The gospel of the historical Jesus very quickly became a gospel about the Christ of faith, invented by men who did not know Jesus, did not hear him preach and did not experience or understand what Jesus was talking about. Christianity lost its way. How did this happen? View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

Today I will finish the section of the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus dedicates to nondual spiritual practices. Here he deals with fasting and possessions. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

Last time I started the section of the Sermon on the Mount that deals with Spiritual Practices, but I only got as far as almsgiving and prayer. I did not even get all the way through what Jesus says about prayer. I wanted to devote a whole episode to the Lord’s Prayer, because it holds such an important place in Christian tradition. So today I am giving a nondual interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer.View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

Today I continue the interpretation of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from a nondual perspective. Last time it was the nondual ethics of Jesus. From there Jesus goes on to talk about spiritual practices. So I am calling this episode “the nondual spiritual practices of Jesus.”View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU