Last week I received from Netflix one of those high-brow videos, Weird Al Yankovic’s greatest videos. I enjoy Weird Al’s sense of humor and wanted to watch the videos, but not enough to actually buy the DVD.

One of those songs was meant to be a parody of the 80s techno bands, like Devo. The song is called “Dare To Be Stupid,” and is filled with admonitions to do stupid things: take wooden nickels, bite off more than you can chew, etc.

In the middle of the song, there was a line that really caught my ear: “You can turn the other cheek.” For most of the famous aphorisms, the “stupid” advice was to do the opposite of what common wisdom advised. So why did Jesus’ teaching become an exception to the rule?

Because for most people, it sounds stupid. Turn the other cheek? How ridiculous is that?

Over the next few days, I want to share some things that I read last year on a blog by Michael L. Westmoreland-White. I want to spend time discussing how Christians typically deal with the Sermon on the Mount, because, as Westmoreland-White says, “Since the Sermon on the Mount is the largest block of Jesus’ teaching we have recorded in the Gospels, how we treat it is a strong indication of how we’ll treat Jesus altogether.”

Just to let you know where we’re headed, Westmoreland-White names five “dodges” to get around the Sermon on the Mount (and he acknowledges both John Howard Yoder and Glen Stassen as sources):

• The Dispensationalist Dodge
• The “Preterist” Dodge
• The Public/Private Split
• The “Inner Attitudes” Dodge
• The “All That Matters Is The Atonement” Dodge

For now, I’d like to hear your thoughts on how most Christians react to the Sermon on the Mount. Do you think they see it as applying to them? Do you think they think the teachings are hyperbolic, reflecting things beyond our reach? Do most people pick and choose which parts to cling to? Or do they join the “Dare To Be Stupid” song and condemn Jesus’ teachings as foolish?