Chapters 5-7 of Matthew’s Gospel are well known as the “Sermon on the Mount,” the most extended recorded address, along with John 14-16, of Jesus. The Sermon is a discourse on the kingdom, a kingdom which is “at hand,” but is not yet finally and fully established. Jesus’s Sermon gives us glimpses into how things will be in that day by telling us how things should be, even today
Imagine a puzzle a child has tried to assemble, but pieces have been fit together wrongly. They are backwards, upside down, and forced together in the oddest of ways. You point the child to the picture on the box, reminding him of how things can look, how they should look. Then you begin pulling the whole thing apart in order to fit it together properly.
The Sermon is like that. Religious leaders had pieced things together wrongly, misapprehending the nature of righteousness, falling prey to the self-righteousness that insidiously destroys faith. Jesus pulls apart their understanding of religion in order to fit things together properly. “You have heard it said. . . but I say to you. . .” The Sermon disorients the audience, in order to reorient us toward genuine faith which works itself out in love.
Beginning with the Beatitudes in 5:2-12, Jesus shows us the box cover: humans who gain God’s kingdom, with all its comfort, inheritance, righteousness, mercy, and above all, life with God face to face as His own children. Those are the pieces we’re familiar with, the things we might expect of God’s kingdom. But Jesus turns over pieces we’d hardly seen before when he describes the humans who gain God’s kingdom. They are poor in spirit, they mourn, they are meek, they hunger and thirst. They are merciful, pure in heart, and peacemakers. They are persecuted. Our puzzle is being pulled apart. Blessing, that happiness we find when we are in accord with God, is found in our lack, and in our love.
This kingdom, which “is at hand,” isn’t like any earthly kingdom yet seen. It is a place of reconciliation and peace. It is a place where those who harm us find forgiveness, where retaliation is a thing of the past, and those who hate find love. The kingdom is about what “will be” but it is also about what “has already” come. The reality of what is to come – there and then – has implications for the way things ought to be today – here and now.
This kingdom is a place where anger is tantamount to murder, a disorienting thought for each of us, since anger is so common to us. But from the perspective of the kingdom, anger is a form of murder – it kills the soul. This is disorienting in a helpful way because it positions us to see the gift of reconciliation offered in Christ, which leads to peace, and therefore a peaceable kingdom.
Just as Jerusalem is identified, by its name, with “peace,” so is the kingdom Jesus brings. Whatever the origin of the name Jerusalem, the term yerushalaim would be recognized by any Semitic speaker as a place of “wholeness,” that is, “holiness” or “shalom.” By the time the Hebrews had constructed a temple in the city, it became recognized as a place of divine presence, the place where heaven met earth, as the very dwelling place of God among His people. To be in the city was a sign of blessing, to be exiled from it was a sign of cursing and reproach. In this way Jerusalem is an archetype for the kingdom, and we look toward the “New Jerusalem” where God’s kingdom is established in its fullness.
The Sermon unfolds into an extended display of the wisdom of Jesus. We sit at the feet of Jesus the teacher, the rabbi, speaking not in parables but in plain words. The teaching is pure, peaceable, open to reason, full of mercy, and sincere (James 3:17). It is an impartial sermon, equally damning of everyone. In this grand example of wisdom from above Jesus holds out what appear to be impossibly high standards, while reminding us that self-righteousness is the grossest sin of all. He holds out standards of forgiveness that are entirely possible, though when hard-hearted we make it seem impossible. Jesus reminds us of the primacy of reconciliation that leads to shalom.
I say the sermon is damning because unless we are blindly self-righteous we see ourselves described too often in the text. We all are murderers, adulterers and liars. And as soon as we object that we are not really that bad, we once more find ourselves among the self-righteous, which is, yet again, the most grievous sin of all.
As we are reminded that Christ came to fulfill the law, we are bluntly told that we fail the law. The rhetorical force of the Sermon, if we really listen to it, presses us toward this truth. We all murder in our displays of anger. All men are adulterers, and some men even make their wives adulterers. We all lie. We are all takers and not givers.
Again, we are disoriented by this teaching. It seems too much to bear and, if we are honest, in our heart we yet again object that we really aren’t that bad. But Jesus cares for us too much to cease the relentless tide of the text. When someone strikes us, we are not to refuse them the other cheek as well. And yet we do. Almost always we do.
We withhold love from our enemies, just as we withhold love from the needy. We withhold forgiveness from those who have harmed us. We take for ourselves those things God alone should give us. It is God who gives reward, and yet we take it ourselves by displays of religious devotion – giving to the needy and praying and fasting in order to be seen by others – and we earn a reward puny in comparison to what God would give were we to give and pray and fast in the right manner.
So, we are to look for God’s reward; we are to lay up treasures in heaven. And if we live as Jesus instructs us to, we need not worry about life in this world. We are to seek first the kingdom of God and then – only then – will all these things be given to us. The good things that will truly satisfy will be given to us by the Lord if we but ask. In this is found the peace of the divine kingdom.
It seems that this is enough. We have been disoriented enough, and we seem barely to have found our balance when Jesus reminds us of “the golden rule,” that we should treat others as we wish to be treated. This, Jesus says, “is the Law and the Prophets.” By this, Jesus means that neighbor love is the sum of God’s teaching. Yes, we are to love God, but we are also to love neighbor. And, as Jesus knows too well, those who spend much time “loving” God are often the biggest failures at loving neighbors.
And before we object too loudly that we can’t be guilty of this, we are disoriented again as Jesus explains that failure to love is destructive. Such failure is common. The way of the unloving is wide, and those who walk it have many companions along the path. The way of love, however, hard and narrow as it may be, is the way that leads to life. It is, as Paul says, the more excellent way. Few find it.
This is truly disorienting to us. Things seem too difficult. Jesus seems too demanding. Yet we pray, as Jesus taught in the Sermon, that God’s kingdom will come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven, where love will reign in fullness, which is the essence of shalom.
We could wish that the Sermon would end here, with such thoughts of peace, but it is not to be. Jesus issues a stern warning at this point. Beware of false prophets – those who claim authority, but do not teach or live like Jesus taught and lived. How do you know who is “true”? You will know them by their fruits. So those who claim to be prophets, but who forsake love and refuse to do the will of the Father in heaven will not receive the blessing of God. In fact, they will be abandoned by Christ in the judgment. Disorienting indeed.
Jesus closes with an illustration of two builders. One wise, he builds his house on rock, and wind and water cannot move it. One foolish, he builds on sand where wind and water are its downfall: “and great was the fall of it.” Jesus clearly explains, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them” builds wisely. “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them” builds foolishly. Hear, and do.
The ending of the Sermon is almost anticlimactic. No flourish of rhetoric, no emotional appeal, no closing prayer. We are not told that hundreds repented or that they experienced a “revival.” But maybe they did. The crowds were astonished, they recognized Jesus’s authority, and when He came down from the mountain, they followed Him.
The kingdom coming doesn’t look like people flooding an altar so much as it looks like people hearing Jesus, and then following Him out into the world to do what He said.
Those who say “Lord, Lord” do well to recognize His authority. Will we then follow Him down the mountain and into the world, to love God and our neighbor in the radical, beautiful way Jesus described? Will we live the kingdom, while we pray for it to come? That is the way of wisdom, the narrow, difficult, glorious way of love. To the extent we build on this rock, we will withstand the hardships of this life. And to the extent we live God’s kingdom today, the here and now can offer beautiful glimpses of the there and then.
The Sermon is like that. Religious leaders had pieced things together wrongly, misapprehending the nature of righteousness, falling prey to the self-righteousness that insidiously destroys faith. Jesus pulls apart their understanding of religion in order to fit things together properly. “You have heard it said. . . but I say to you. . .” The Sermon disorients the audience, in order to reorient us toward genuine faith which works itself out in love.
Beginning with the Beatitudes in 5:2-12, Jesus shows us the box cover: humans who gain God’s kingdom, with all its comfort, inheritance, righteousness, mercy, and above all, life with God face to face as His own children. Those are the pieces we’re familiar with, the things we might expect of God’s kingdom. But Jesus turns over pieces we’d hardly seen before when he describes the humans who gain God’s kingdom. They are poor in spirit, they mourn, they are meek, they hunger and thirst. They are merciful, pure in heart, and peacemakers. They are persecuted. Our puzzle is being pulled apart. Blessing, that happiness we find when we are in accord with God, is found in our lack, and in our love.
This kingdom, which “is at hand,” isn’t like any earthly kingdom yet seen. It is a place of reconciliation and peace. It is a place where those who harm us find forgiveness, where retaliation is a thing of the past, and those who hate find love. The kingdom is about what “will be” but it is also about what “has already” come. The reality of what is to come – there and then – has implications for the way things ought to be today – here and now.
This kingdom is a place where anger is tantamount to murder, a disorienting thought for each of us, since anger is so common to us. But from the perspective of the kingdom, anger is a form of murder – it kills the soul. This is disorienting in a helpful way because it positions us to see the gift of reconciliation offered in Christ, which leads to peace, and therefore a peaceable kingdom.
Just as Jerusalem is identified, by its name, with “peace,” so is the kingdom Jesus brings. Whatever the origin of the name Jerusalem, the term yerushalaim would be recognized by any Semitic speaker as a place of “wholeness,” that is, “holiness” or “shalom.” By the time the Hebrews had constructed a temple in the city, it became recognized as a place of divine presence, the place where heaven met earth, as the very dwelling place of God among His people. To be in the city was a sign of blessing, to be exiled from it was a sign of cursing and reproach. In this way Jerusalem is an archetype for the kingdom, and we look toward the “New Jerusalem” where God’s kingdom is established in its fullness.
The Sermon unfolds into an extended display of the wisdom of Jesus. We sit at the feet of Jesus the teacher, the rabbi, speaking not in parables but in plain words. The teaching is pure, peaceable, open to reason, full of mercy, and sincere (James 3:17). It is an impartial sermon, equally damning of everyone. In this grand example of wisdom from above Jesus holds out what appear to be impossibly high standards, while reminding us that self-righteousness is the grossest sin of all. He holds out standards of forgiveness that are entirely possible, though when hard-hearted we make it seem impossible. Jesus reminds us of the primacy of reconciliation that leads to shalom.
I say the sermon is damning because unless we are blindly self-righteous we see ourselves described too often in the text. We all are murderers, adulterers and liars. And as soon as we object that we are not really that bad, we once more find ourselves among the self-righteous, which is, yet again, the most grievous sin of all.
As we are reminded that Christ came to fulfill the law, we are bluntly told that we fail the law. The rhetorical force of the Sermon, if we really listen to it, presses us toward this truth. We all murder in our displays of anger. All men are adulterers, and some men even make their wives adulterers. We all lie. We are all takers and not givers.
Again, we are disoriented by this teaching. It seems too much to bear and, if we are honest, in our heart we yet again object that we really aren’t that bad. But Jesus cares for us too much to cease the relentless tide of the text. When someone strikes us, we are not to refuse them the other cheek as well. And yet we do. Almost always we do.
We withhold love from our enemies, just as we withhold love from the needy. We withhold forgiveness from those who have harmed us. We take for ourselves those things God alone should give us. It is God who gives reward, and yet we take it ourselves by displays of religious devotion – giving to the needy and praying and fasting in order to be seen by others – and we earn a reward puny in comparison to what God would give were we to give and pray and fast in the right manner.
So, we are to look for God’s reward; we are to lay up treasures in heaven. And if we live as Jesus instructs us to, we need not worry about life in this world. We are to seek first the kingdom of God and then – only then – will all these things be given to us. The good things that will truly satisfy will be given to us by the Lord if we but ask. In this is found the peace of the divine kingdom.
It seems that this is enough. We have been disoriented enough, and we seem barely to have found our balance when Jesus reminds us of “the golden rule,” that we should treat others as we wish to be treated. This, Jesus says, “is the Law and the Prophets.” By this, Jesus means that neighbor love is the sum of God’s teaching. Yes, we are to love God, but we are also to love neighbor. And, as Jesus knows too well, those who spend much time “loving” God are often the biggest failures at loving neighbors.
And before we object too loudly that we can’t be guilty of this, we are disoriented again as Jesus explains that failure to love is destructive. Such failure is common. The way of the unloving is wide, and those who walk it have many companions along the path. The way of love, however, hard and narrow as it may be, is the way that leads to life. It is, as Paul says, the more excellent way. Few find it.
This is truly disorienting to us. Things seem too difficult. Jesus seems too demanding. Yet we pray, as Jesus taught in the Sermon, that God’s kingdom will come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven, where love will reign in fullness, which is the essence of shalom.
We could wish that the Sermon would end here, with such thoughts of peace, but it is not to be. Jesus issues a stern warning at this point. Beware of false prophets – those who claim authority, but do not teach or live like Jesus taught and lived. How do you know who is “true”? You will know them by their fruits. So those who claim to be prophets, but who forsake love and refuse to do the will of the Father in heaven will not receive the blessing of God. In fact, they will be abandoned by Christ in the judgment. Disorienting indeed.
Jesus closes with an illustration of two builders. One wise, he builds his house on rock, and wind and water cannot move it. One foolish, he builds on sand where wind and water are its downfall: “and great was the fall of it.” Jesus clearly explains, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them” builds wisely. “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them” builds foolishly. Hear, and do.
The ending of the Sermon is almost anticlimactic. No flourish of rhetoric, no emotional appeal, no closing prayer. We are not told that hundreds repented or that they experienced a “revival.” But maybe they did. The crowds were astonished, they recognized Jesus’s authority, and when He came down from the mountain, they followed Him.
The kingdom coming doesn’t look like people flooding an altar so much as it looks like people hearing Jesus, and then following Him out into the world to do what He said.
Those who say “Lord, Lord” do well to recognize His authority. Will we then follow Him down the mountain and into the world, to love God and our neighbor in the radical, beautiful way Jesus described? Will we live the kingdom, while we pray for it to come? That is the way of wisdom, the narrow, difficult, glorious way of love. To the extent we build on this rock, we will withstand the hardships of this life. And to the extent we live God’s kingdom today, the here and now can offer beautiful glimpses of the there and then.
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