The Sermon of Mount Analogue from the Gospel of Lawrence

He stood upon the slopes of the mountain, the sun a molten pulse behind him, great and golden, a throbbing fire that knew no mechanism, no dull iron chains of human reason. Beneath, the valleys of men slumbered in the stupor of their engines, their faithless idols of progress, their lifeless temples of steel and electric hum. And they who had climbed after him—those who had torn their souls from the net of wires, who had left behind the gaunt factories, the blackened trees, the smog-choked rivers—they gathered now, weary but hungry, parched but expectant.

And Lawrence, resurrected by the primal flame, spoke: “Blessed are the fierce of blood, for they shall burn forever with the living Fire.”

“Ah, you poor ghosts, you sad, thin-blooded shades! You who have lived in the tomb of the machine, who have let the iron wheels grind your senses to dust, who have made your souls a ledger of dead arithmetic—how you have perished without knowing it! The great pulse of the earth beats on, and you, with your minds like dissected corpses, have not heard it!”

“But I say to you, rise! Rise from this grave of the modern world! Feel, once more, the great breathing of the cosmos, the rhythm of the unseen fire! Let your veins take up the chant of the sap that climbs in the trees! Let your bodies remember what it is to be alive, not as shadows in a diseased civility, but as creatures of sun and wind, of stars and silence, of the terrible, holy darkness.”

“Blessed are the wild, for they shall see the face of the gods.”

“Blessed are they who cast off the yoke of the Machine, who tear the wires from their flesh, for they shall walk again in the eternal garden.”

“Blessed are they who know the earth as sacred and the animals as kindred, for they shall never be alone.”

And the people, hearing this, trembled, for his voice was like the voice of a lion on the wind, like the hiss of a wave against volcanic rock, like the cry of the hawk wheeling over the abyss. And some among them wept, for they had known, once, in childhood, the thing he spoke of—a secret, fleeting knowledge, before the schools had carved it out of them, before the city had drained them dry.

Then Lawrence lifted his hands, and the mountain itself seemed to stir beneath his fingers.

“Ah, but you men of the world—what have you done to yourselves? You have made your cities into coffins and your fields into prisons. You have taken the rhythm of life and shattered it into a million mechanical pieces, then called it progress. You have drowned the sacred in a flood of electrified banality! You have taught yourselves to love that which has no life—your machines, your motors, your dead metals—and scorned the great, breathing, luminous creatures of the earth.”

“But woe unto you who bow to the Machine, for you have made yourselves its slaves! Woe unto you who worship the metal cross of industry, who make idols of engines and statistics, who build great towers of glass but have never walked barefoot in the soil.”

“For I tell you this: the day comes when your towers shall fall, when the Machine shall devour itself, when the dead eyes of your mechanical gods shall dim and crumble into rust. And on that day, those who have not the blood-strength of the old fire shall perish with it!”

“But you, if you would live, must tear out from your soul the disease of modernity! You must tear down the false temples of progress, destroy the golden calf of science without reverence, without hesitation. You must let your limbs grow strong again with labor, let your breath deepen with the rhythm of the wind, let your hearts return to the old gods—the gods of sun and earth, of stone and tree, of the storm and the shifting stars.”

“Blessed are they who love the tree more than the tower, for they shall not be felled.”

“Blessed are they who put their hands to the earth with reverence, who shape clay and carve stone and work with wood, for theirs is the joy of the making.”

“Blessed are they who cast aside the vanity of Man and listen once more to the silence of the mountain, for they shall know the speech of the divine."

Then he turned and looked at them all, his eyes two burning coals.

“You ask me, then, what is the law of life, if not the law of your cities? If not the law of your men with their papers and their wires and their feeble morality? You ask me what is the way, if not the way of your schools and your sterile knowledge?”

“And I tell you: the law is the great, thundering, nameless current that moves in all things, that beats in the hearts of lions and in the sap of the trees. It is the law of the flame and the river, the law of blood and root, the law of life against death, of creation against stagnation! It is the law of the stars that wheel with fire and of the waves that crash against the cliffs in endless renewal. It is the law of the fire that consumes and gives birth! It is the law that your Machine has forgotten, that your tame religions have feared, that your masters have sought to bind in chains.”

“But woe unto them, for the Fire cannot be bound! The river cannot be dammed forever! The trees will split the pavements, and the mountains shall shake your cities down to dust!”

“And when that day comes, the meek shall not inherit the earth—no! The fierce shall inherit it, the fiery, the living, the true, those whose blood still sings with the old, wild music!”

“And they shall build no temples, for the trees shall be their cathedrals. And they shall make no laws, for the rhythm of the earth shall be their only commandment. And they shall have no idols, for they shall walk hand in hand with the unseen gods of wind and flame and silence.”

“Ah! But for now, look around you! The Machine still rises, the great fraud of modern man still binds your hands, still whispers in your ears, still lulls you into sleep with its soft, sterile hum. But I tell you, wake up! Wake up and burn! Let the old, holy rage come into your hearts, let the wind of life enter your lungs again, let your flesh remember what it is to be of the earth, with the earth, for the earth.”

“Blessed are the rebels, for they shall be the firstborn of the new world.”

“Blessed are those who set fire to the idols of progress, for they shall walk in the light of the sun.”

“Blessed are the fierce of blood, for they shall burn forever with the living Fire.”

And he turned his gaze from the crowd and up to the mountain’s peak, where the sky was a molten flame, where the ungraspable summit whispered its eternal challenge. And the people, hearing him, felt in their bones the shuddering of an ancient, forgotten power—the first tremor of the great unmaking.

And he stood, as if risen from the rock itself, as if carved from the very fire of the mountain. And the air grew hot and trembling, as though the breath of the cosmos had fallen upon them. He lifted his hands, and his voice rang out, neither gentle nor pleading, but fierce, filled with the flame that makes the stars burn and the rivers churn their restless path to the sea.

“Woe unto you who have made yourselves ghosts in the land of the living! Woe unto you who have cast off the body, who have made yourselves dry, pale specters of intellect and progress, walking shadows of civilization!”

“You have denied your own flesh, torn yourselves from the root of life, and for what? For numbers on a screen? For dead words upon a page, brittle and crumbling with time? For the approval of men who themselves are dying, who have cut themselves off from the sun and the wind, who have not felt the pulse of the earth in their feet for a hundred years?”

“But I tell you, flesh is sacred! The blood is holy! The fire that burns in your loins, in your heart, in your belly—it is the same fire that makes the mountain smoke and the sun rise red upon the horizon. You were not meant to be cold, dead intellects, machines of duty and industry, obedient cogs in the lifeless wheel of progress! You were meant to burn, to feel the living rush of creation, to pulse and surge and thunder with the rhythm of the great Fire!”

Then he turned his eyes upon them, eyes that saw into the depths of their being, and he said:

“You have been taught to shame your own flesh. You have been told that the body is corrupt, that desire is sin, that to hunger is to be weak. But this is a lie! This is the doctrine of those who would rule you, who would make you tame, who would shear you like sheep to feed their great machine. They have poisoned your blood, made you afraid of your own fire, made you shrink from the roaring, living current that moves in all things.”

“But I tell you: your flesh is not sin, it is song! Your hunger is not shame, it is glory! Your desire is not weakness, it is the great law of the cosmos, the rhythm of all things that move and breathe and live!”

“Blessed are those whose blood runs hot, for they shall dance in the fire of life.”

“Blessed are those who love with their whole bodies, who make no false separations between soul and flesh, for they shall know the true ecstasy.”

“Blessed are they who shatter the chains of moral prudery, who live as the beasts live, as the trees live, as the stars live, fierce and full and fearless, for they shall never taste death.”

And the people, hearing him, felt the stirrings in their bones, as if something long asleep was beginning to awaken, something ancient, something older than civilization, older than the cities, older than the very names of gods and men.

Then he said:

“You have built idols, thinking them gods, but your gods are dead, brittle things! Your gods of money and progress, your gods of law and order, your gods of duty and obedience! They are nothing but dust, nothing but rusting machines, old and blind and deaf to the thunder of the cosmos!”

“But I tell you, the true gods are not in your temples, nor in your churches, nor in the shriveled pages of your books! The true gods are in the earth, in the trees, in the wind that howls and the river that surges and the fire that leaps in the dark! The true gods are the great and terrible forces of life itself, and they demand no prayers, no sacrifices, no obedience—only that you live, that you burn with the same furious, sacred power that moves in them!”

“Woe unto them who worship dead idols, for they shall perish with them! Woe unto them who kneel to the false gods of reason and industry, for the mountain shall swallow them whole! Woe unto them who deny the sacredness of the earth, for the earth shall shake them off like dust!”

And his words rang like a storm breaking upon the cliffs, and the people trembled, for they saw before them the truth, stark and terrible. They saw the cities they had built—dead things, empty things, full of machines but without life. They saw themselves as they were—pale, bloodless, shadows of what they should have been.

And he said to them:

“You must tear down these idols! You must cast out the false gods of civilization and return to the old way, the way of fire, the way of blood, the way of the living cosmos! You must leave behind the hollow temples of industry and bow instead to the trees, to the rivers, to the great, blazing sun! You must tear down the walls of your sterile cities and walk again upon the bare earth, beneath the open sky, beneath the eternal stars!”

“Blessed are they who forsake the cities, for they shall find the garden once more.”

“Blessed are they who cast off the chains of morality, for they shall drink deep of the living waters.”

“Blessed are they who answer the call of the wild, who feel the burning in their blood and follow it without fear, for they shall be one with the great Fire of the world!”

And the people wept, for they saw that the path he spoke of was terrible and great, that it demanded of them everything, that it would burn away all that was weak, all that was false, all that was tamed.

Then he looked out, past them, past the mountain, past even the stars, and he said:

“There are those who will call me mad, who will say I preach destruction, that I lead men astray. And I say to them: yes! Yes, I bring fire, and the fire will burn away the old world, will tear it down to its roots, to its very foundations! Yes, I bring madness, but it is the holy madness, the wild, sacred madness of the gods, the madness that makes rivers flood and trees crack stone, that makes men throw off their chains and run naked beneath the moon, laughing and howling like beasts of joy!”

“For what is holiness, if not madness to the dead? What is life, if not fire to the cold and the bloodless? What is the law of the cosmos, if not the wild, dancing flame that consumes and gives birth, destroys and renews?”

“So let the old world tremble! Let the cities shudder in fear! Let the priests and the scholars and the factory-masters gnash their teeth, for their time is ended, and the time of fire has come!”

“And you, if you have heard me, if your blood still remembers, if your soul still longs for the old, lost power—come! Come and burn! Come and rise from the grave of modernity and stand once more upon the living, breathing earth! Come and tear the veil from your eyes, come and dance, come and love, come and live!”

And the mountain roared, as if it, too, had heard his voice, and the people stood upon its slopes, trembling, knowing that they stood at the threshold of something vast, something holy, something that could never be undone.

And the mountain burned, and the air trembled, and the people, standing before him, felt their blood quicken, as if the fire of the cosmos itself had entered their veins. And he stood, tall and terrible, his face like the dawn, his hands raised not in blessing, but in command, as one who speaks not for men, nor for gods, but for the great, flaming current of life itself. And he said:

“I tell you now of the kingdom that is coming, the kingdom that has always been, the kingdom of fire, which no man can own and no machine can master. It is the kingdom of the great living world, the kingdom of blood and root and thunder, where the sun is holy and the river is sacred and the beasts move with wisdom deeper than all the books of men. It is the kingdom that has been stolen from you, the kingdom you have forgotten, the kingdom that was your birthright before you were tamed, before you were shorn, before you were made into ghosts walking in the land of the living.”

“And I tell you this: The kingdom of fire is at hand! It is breaking forth even now! It is rising through the cracks in your pavements, through the ruins of your dead cities, through the hearts of those who remember, those who still feel the living pulse of the earth! It is coming with flame and storm, with the shaking of mountains and the howling of winds, and the Machine shall not stand before it!”

And the people, hearing this, fell silent, for they knew the Machine. They had built it with their own hands. They had fed it with their own flesh. It was the great, monstrous thing that ruled their days and nights, the vast, grinding engine of civilization that had swallowed the forests, poisoned the rivers, darkened the sky with its breath.

And he said:

“Woe unto them who serve the Machine! Woe unto them who have made steel their god and numbers their scripture, who have given their hands to dead gears and their minds to dead formulas, who have forgotten the living voice of the wind and the thunder!”

“You have built towers of iron and stone, but they are tombs, and you are the buried dead! You have filled your hands with silver and gold, but they are ashes, and your fingers are withered bones! You have sought power in engines and laws, in commerce and conquest, but you are powerless, for you have no life in you!”

“But I tell you, the Machine shall fall! It shall be torn apart, its wheels shattered, its gears rusted into dust. The rivers will reclaim their courses, the forests will rise again, the beasts will walk unafraid, and the earth shall shake itself free of all the weight of your dead industry.”

“For the Machine is not the law of the world. It is not the rhythm of the cosmos. It is a sickness, a great parasite that has drained you of your blood and your fire. And the great Fire of the world shall burn it away, as the sun burns away the mist, as the storm washes clean the sky!”

And his voice rose like a great wind upon the mountain, and the people trembled, for they saw before them a choice, terrible and vast. They saw the Machine, that great, monstrous thing of steel and order, standing upon the earth like a false god. And they saw the fire, the wild, untamed, sacred fire, the force of life itself, raging through the forests, surging through the rivers, rising through the mountains.

And he said:

“Now choose! Choose whom you will serve! Will you serve the Machine, and be its slaves, its shadows, its lifeless cogs? Will you kneel before its dead law, its cold, dead progress, and let your souls be extinguished like a candle in a tomb? Or will you serve the Fire, the great, living Fire that moves in the sun and the stars, in the beasts and the trees, in the blood of all living things? Will you rise and tear off the chains, will you cast down the false idols, will you set yourselves free?”

“For I tell you this: There is no middle path. There is no peace between the Fire and the Machine. The Machine will consume you, piece by piece, turn your soul into numbers, your body into fuel, until nothing is left but dust. But the Fire—ah, the Fire! The Fire will burn you clean, burn you pure, burn away all that is false, all that is dead, until you stand naked and blazing beneath the open sky, alive as the first man who ever walked upon the earth!”

And the people cried out, for they felt the truth of his words burning in their blood. They saw the ruins of their world before them, the factories that had drained the rivers, the towers that had blocked out the sky, the endless roads of concrete stretching like a lifeless web across the face of the earth. And they saw, beyond it, the wild earth that still lived, the forests waiting to rise, the rivers waiting to run free, the great, pulsing heart of the cosmos, beating beneath their feet.

And he said:

“Blessed are the wild ones, the untamed ones, those who do not bow to the Machine, for they shall inherit the earth.”

“Blessed are those who have fire in their blood, who hear the call of the wind and the waves, for they shall walk in the sacred garden once more.”

“Blessed are those who cast off the chains of progress, who turn their backs on the dead cities and seek the living world, for they shall be as the first-born of the earth, full of strength and wonder and holy madness.”

“But woe unto them who refuse the Fire! Woe unto them who cling to the Machine, who harden their hearts against the call of life! For they shall wither as dead leaves, they shall crumble as dry bones, they shall pass into dust and be forgotten!”

And the people, standing upon the mountain, saw the world laid bare before them, the old world of steel and order and death, and the new world of fire and wind and living power. And they knew that the old world was passing away, that it was burning even now, that the age of the Machine was at its end, and the age of the Fire was at hand.

And he lifted his hands, as if to tear open the heavens themselves, and he cried:

“I am the fire that has returned! I am the flame that was buried beneath the ruins of time! I have risen, and I shall not be extinguished! And you—if you would live, if you would be more than shadows and cogs and withered ghosts—then rise with me! Burn with me! Let the old world perish, and let the new world blaze forth! Let the kingdom of Fire be born!”

And as he spoke, the mountain shook, and the sky was filled with lightning, and the wind howled like the voices of forgotten gods. And the people, standing upon the slopes, felt the fire within them, felt the old blood stirring, felt themselves waking from a long, dead sleep.

And some fell upon their faces, weeping, for they had served the Machine too long, and their blood was thin, and they could not bear the fire. But others—ah, others!—they rose, their eyes blazing, their breath hot in their throats, their hands trembling with new strength. And they turned their backs upon the Machine, and they walked down from the mountain, into the world that was burning, into the world that was being born.

And the Fire followed them.