Jesus' Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount

by Richard Rohr

When Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God, he was talking about an utterly different way of relating to human society as we know it. He lays out a blueprint for this new life in his best-known teaching, the Sermon on the Mount. From the Beatitudes onward, the Sermon on the Mount overturns conventional wisdom and traditional power structures, offering a plan for an alternative way of being. Acclaimed spiritual leader and Franciscan priest Richard Rohr explores the implications of this vision in Jesus’ Alternative Plan. Rohr goes through the teachings of the sermon, explaining the historical and cultural context of each verse and offering guidance for what it means for Christians today. The result is a clear, yet challenging look at the alternative plan laid out by Jesus for all to see. This updated edition of Jesus’ Plan for a New World will inspire Christians desiring a transformative understanding of Jesus’ teachings and seeking the true heart of their faith.

Genres: Religion, Spirituality, Theology, Christianity, Nonfiction, Christian, Faith

214 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 6, 2022

About the author

Fr. Richard Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition. He is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Richard's teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy—practices of contemplation and expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized.

Fr. Richard is author of numerous books, including Everything Belongs, Adam’s Return, The Naked Now, Breathing Under Water, Falling Upward, Immortal Diamond, Eager to Love, and The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (with Mike Morrell).

Fr. Richard is academic Dean of the Living School for Action and Contemplation. Drawing upon Christianity's place within the Perennial Tradition, the mission of the Living School is to produce compassionate and powerfully learned individuals who will work for positive change in the world based on awareness of our common union with God and all beings. Visit cac.org for more information.

Reviews

[Lydia Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had no idea what an amazing book this was when I started it. I like Richard Rohr so I thought ‘why not?’
But wow. Rohr brings so much historical and cultural context to Jesus’ teaching that I feel like I’ve never heard Jesus’ thoughts until now. (I’ve read some other books that were supposed to help bring cultural context into the picture but they never really got there, this is actually accomplishing that in such an accessible way.) It’s centered on the Sermon on the Mount but covers so much ground outside of that, in order for it to actually say what Jesus is saying. And I feel like it truly is revolutionary (and not like in a Sunday school way.)
Quite frankly it’s the first time I actually see the value of it. I’ve been burning out on the varieties of Christianity I’ve experienced —tons of denominations, many churches, my whole life (honestly to a detriment since after all that all I wound up seeing is tons of “us vs. them” inside of the Christian faith, as well as the many different ways of using the Bible which usually require that it be deeply massaged in order to make it work. So I was running out of ways to care anymore…. And this feels like the first time anyone actually told me about Jesus. Not “church Jesus”, the actual revolutionary person. And the actual person had some things to say.
And it’s really very beautiful. I’m so happy I read this book. Definitely wish this information was available to me so much earlier in my life. But maybe I wasn’t ready until now anyway. Definitely one of my most treasured reads.

[Angie Miale · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of this book was a bit dry for me, but part two was very inspiring and thought provoking.

[Barb Middleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like how the author uses cultural, literary, theology, and history to explore and challenge Christian norms.

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not expect this to be as good as it was. So much richness packed into such a short book. Important read for all Christians.

[Abigail Klapatauskas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve never highlighted so many verses in a book.

[Thomas J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great thoughtful, insightful book

A huge fan of Fr. Richard Rohr, as always clear easy read with lots of great passages to savor, remember and come back frequently!!

[Ragan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rohr is a good teacher, making plain and concrete what can seem so abstract in the spiritual life. For that reason, I often recommend his work for lay people interested in deepening their life of Christian practice and prayer. "Jesus' Alternative Plan" continues in that strain, offering a helpful guide to the Gospel of Matthew and its central message. The best part of this book is its emphasis on the lived reality of what Jesus is calling us toward--a life that trusts in God and seeks to love our neighbors in the particulars of justice. My primary complaint is that Rohr cites debatable scholarship as though it is the majority opinion, when in fact it is not. While much of what he offers is sound, he offers claims such as that all of the Gospels were written after 70 CE (when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed) when in fact many if not most historical-critical scholars place Mark well before that. Since Rohr's book doesn't focus on the scholarly aspects of Matthew, this is just fine and there's still plenty of useful insight to be offered, but I often find it annoying, both here and elsewhere ("The Divine Dance" and "Universal Christ," for instance) when Rohr offers broad theological claims to a general audience unaware of the vast scholarly dialogues that Rohr is simply summarizing. That said, I plan to teach this book (and fill in its gaps) in my church and was spiritually enriched in my own reading of it.

[Jeff Reynolds · Rating 3 out of 5]

I checked this book out when a Bible study I'm involved with was about to start on the Sermon on the Mount. He gives background information. For seven chapters - Rohr doesn't start dealing with the Sermon on the Mount until chapter 8. There are 9 chapters. No, it wasn't much help.
There were other things that bothered me about this book. It came across as a cross of mystical and liberal. For example, he does not believe that the Gospels were written by the person they're attributed to. He regularly states Jesus was killed. Traditional churches usually say "Jesus died," which is consistent with the Biblical view Jesus gave up His life for our sins; Rohr's method sounds like it was the Religious Leaders in control, not Christ. Shortly after reading this, I heard him referred to on podcasts I listen to as being progressive and new thought.

I recommend this for those who know the Bible well enough to realize what's off base and then read it so you can respond to what doesn't fit. As a book on the Sermon on the Mount, I do not recommend it.

[Gary Gomes · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who has read at least one of the other works of the author and numerous quotes attributed to the same I was excited to get into another book by him. Unfortunately while the conclusions of the book and much of the theology written about the Sermon on the mount was quite sound I was a bit dissapointed to learn how much of a Catholic apologist the author came off as in much of the book. Glossing over the horrors of the the Catholic church through the renaissance years and claiming all splits were political (I would argue all were theological except for the Anglican split). That being said I still consider the author a contempary of my theology and chalk the rest up to the difficulty of seeing the fault of what we are closest to. I imagine if I wrote of Luther I would not be as critical of his faults as I should be even though I credit his action with saving the Catholic church by eventually forcing it to look inward.

[steven pennington · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Good News: The Reign of God is Here NOW

Brother Richard Rohr walks us through Yeshua’s/Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and explains how it was heard then and how it speaks to us now. We are all One with each other and in his home we call Terra/Earth. Our job is to Love one another and let Love “redeem” us and our relations and our world.

Great words from the final paragraphs of the book:

Fortunately, “Wisdom has built herself a house” (Proverbs 9:1). To live in this house of Wisdom is to let go of the past—and allow the future. To live in this house is to shake the dust from our feet—and live in a truly new way: the way of justice and mercy. It is all about forgiveness. Nothing new happens without forgiveness: the unmerited, the unnecessary, the totally gratuitous inbreaking of God into our systems of logic and culture. Isn’t that what God would likely do? Isn’t that what we all need and desire? If this is not good news, what would be good news?

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always enjoyed Rohr's insights and understanding of the spiritual life and journey, and so I was intrigued to read what he had to say on one of the most famous passages of the gospels. Three-quarters of the book was actually spent on concepts of biblical interpretation and how we need to understand the words of Jesus. This was all good stuff. However, it was written as if this way of reading the text was fairly new; and perhaps it was for Rohr, as the Catholic tradition hasn't been strong on biblical study. Many of the insights he shared about how we interpret the biblical text has been the mainstay in Protestant seminarys for quite some time. Regardless, it was solid material. Finally, at the end of the book, he used all of this background to walk through the Sermon on the Mount to give excellent insight into the text and what it means for the spiritual life today. A very good read.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book because he talks about the fact that Jesus doesn’t want us to worry about whether or not there’s a God Jesus just wants us to be grateful for what we have. I totally agree with this theory, and as someone who has recently based his worldview off science, there is no scientific evidence of a higher power, so I am just grateful for the world and the universe He also recite a scripture that says remove the lock from your eye before you remove a splinter from your neighbors eye. This is proof that Jesus would want us to research things like church, history for family members who are going through a faith crisis. He would want us to support them and let them give us information that we may not have.

[Joe Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book in preparation for a sermon series on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Rather than being a merely intellectual excercise as was expecting, reading this book was incredibly lifegiving to me as I reflected on Jesus' words to his followers in the fifth to seventh chapters of Matthew's Gospel.

As a renowned theologian and biblical scholar, Rohr does an incredible job at explaining the cultural background and context behind the text while providing helpful reflections on Jesus' words for our post-modern context today.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to dig into the Sermon on the Mount and gain a greater understanding into some of Jesus' most famous words recorded in Scripture.

[Kristina Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. I love Rohr's vision of the gospel as outlined in this book. I think it's challenging, intellectually/biblically sound, and downright beautiful. I highlighted lines from nearly every page. However...I'm docking this down to 3.5 stars because the title is quite misleading. I read this book to help prepare for a Bible study I was leading on the Sermon on the Mount, but the Sermon on the Mount is not explicitly discussed until the book is more than 75% over. By the time Rohr got to Matthew 5, I had already read 150 pages. Those 150 pages set up Rohr's framework really well and persuasively, but I was disappointed that the Sermon felt more like an obligatory tack-on to the end of a book that simply could've been titled something else.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jesus walked the earth as Son of God with a radical view of what life should be. The Reign of God has nothing to do with politics, economics, or even the Jewish religion of Jesus, day. It is rather a world view based on simplicity, love, compassion, forgiveness, and service to others.

Rohr believes that we are living in the gap where the Reign of God is both now and not yet. Every- thing, he says, passes away; all is impermanent, illusory. But many of us to not come to this point of conversion until near the end of our lives. Our society is based on racism, sexism, class, power, money - all the things Jesus told us not to build on.

There is a great deal to think about in Rohr's book and much to hope for.

[sage chavez · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was an entertaining read but i question the validity of 2 statements in the book

Page 119 , “We really have no eyewitness accounts of the Last Supper. We have the Gospel accounts, but none of the twelve apostles who were at the Last Supper wrote the Gospels. The Gospels were written from the 70s to the 90s CE. Certainly, there was a good oral tradition.” Wasn’t apostle John and apostle Mathew at the last supper?

2nd statement, pg 57, “It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest of shrubs [which isn’t really true] and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches” (Matthew 13:31–32).”

[Kevin Marler · Rating 5 out of 5]

It wasn’t my “favorite” Richard Rohr book but it’s almost like trying to choose a favorite child…they’re all important in their own ways. It was a little different from what I expected from the title…it was more of an alternative deep dive into the Gospel of Matthew…not just the Sermon on the Mount. But if you appreciate Richard Rohr, you’ll get a lot from this book (or if you don’t know or appreciate Rohr, if you’re willing to think differently about some of our “traditional” understandings). As usual I have a lot of highlighted passages to go back and reflect upon.

[Joey · Rating 5 out of 5]

When people say “I’m a Christian” they don’t really know what that means. Rohr has again shown his eloquent and subversive way of shocking even the holiest of Christians into real transformation. The book is one that lays a blueprint for a radical new world. I freely admit that even at my best I fall short of that vision but the important point is that I still seek it. Rohr’s book is the central point of Christianity. For me, this was an affirming book since I have often thought myself crazy or strange for the way I interpreted the Gospel. As it turns out, I wasn’t crazy enough.

[Ted Hinkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always find enlightenment in Father Rohr's works. Occasionally, I sense an editorial side to his teachings and interpretation. In JESUS' ALTERNATIVE PLAN, Father Rohr instills a unique, modern day approach to Matthew's Gospel. It took me a few chapters to become engaged in his interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount. However, he provides valuable lessons for the modern day Catholic Christian and all society to live by. The chapters on the Beatitudes and Lord's prayer and the Epilogue were exceptional well presented. God Bless

[Toby · Rating 5 out of 5]

All of Richard’s books are spot on. As he has aged, he makes his points more clearly and more personally, in my opinion. Don’t expect that this book is one that will make you feel good. It is the Gospel and an alternative reality. The subversive points are aimed at each of us and the alternative approach is outlined. It is a masterful book by one who has given his life and his voice to speaking the good news to anyone willing to hear it. Thanks Richard for your insights

[Stephen Bauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am aware that Richard Rohr is controversial within Catholic communities, and that some conservatives call him a heretic. After reading only the first few pages, which were so refreshingly grounded directly in Jesus and the gospel, I realized that anyone who preaches the gospel as he does in this book is going to be controversial, especially among church-going Catholics–especially among complacent, church-going Catholics, which most of us are.

[Sylvia Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

An upside down world

A clarifying book about thenseemingly irrational mission of Jesus Christ. Father Rohr does an incredible, exemplary job of describing the Reign of God, which is “now, but not yet.” As well, he differentiates our world-view from Christ’s new world view. A must read for all of Christ’s followers.

[Hannah Cernicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Richard Rohr. I am so so so grateful for his wisdom.

I grew up immersed in Christianity. When I got to the point where I was exposed to more in life, and it wasn’t congruent with what I was taught, the hypocrisy I found was overwhelming and intolerable.

Richard Rohr is keeping a window open for me with Jesus. He’s the friend on the roof, making an opening to lower me down.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been wanting to explore the Sermon on the Mount for a while, since I didn't feel I understood it well. This book was so helpul - really set the stage so the reader could look at it from someone in that time. Also there was practical advice on how to enter into this way of life - very inspiring.

[Gary Grimes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wisdom had built herself a house in order to live in this house of Wisdom is to let go of the past and allow the future. (proverbs) Rohr takes a look Jesus' sermon through the lens of a new blueprint that turns conventional wisdom and the power structure on its ear. An alternative plan that looks to bring the reign of God here to earth.

[Marilyn Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

The truth is hard to hear

Richard Rohr identifies how the Church has failed to live the behavior Jesus modeled. If we cannot perceive his “Reign of God” in church, why bother being involved? Because there is always that slice of hope that lives deep within us. Some find what the Gospel is - Good News.

[Art Nicklaus · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is Hope!!

Thank you Richard Rohr for bringing the Reign of God near in this book, making sense of it all, showing us the beauty of it and the sense of it. “May your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth and in my life at it is in Heaven.”

[Laura Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal. A new (or ancient?) look at the teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. A look at what Jesus taught, why Jesus died and what it means for us. Viewing Jesus as an agitator and a rebel defying the religious leaders of the day.

[Sandra Enders · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was excellent, highly inspirational, Christian philosophy, contemplative. I'm writing a book comparing Christs words of the Sermon on the Mount to David Hawkins levels of consciousness. I love the words of Richard Rohr, I can't stop reading it, very uplifting and motivating!

[David Harrold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book giving historical context to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and illuminating how us in Western Christianity distort it. Don’t always agree with all his theology. However, there is so much good content on every page it is not a quick read. Have to stop and consider.