The Sermon On The Mount
Ethics encapsulated in 1000 words.
Millions or words have been written on human ethics: the Sermon on the Mount encapsulates tomes of intellectual pursuit in a 100 words (more or less).
It is unlikely that the Sermon on the Mount was an actual event and more likely that Matthew gathered together Jesus’ words over many occasions and presents them as a single teaching. This would not be an acceptable practice by modern standards but was an accepted practice in the first century. Historians understand and accept this difference as simply a change in literary modes of practice with no implication of dishonesty. Times changed over centuries.
The Sermon on the Mount is the heart of Christianity; a succinct summary of the message and teaching of Jesus. Everything that Jesus did and taught (action and word) can be directly traced back to the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus tells us precisely what is required to be His disciples.
The Sermon on the Mount is not directed to ‘somebody else out there’. It was not ‘them’ Jesus was addressing; He is speaking to us. In the words of Jesus “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” (Mark 4:9).
Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear. Mark 4:9.
But, and it’s a big “but”, the Sermon on the Mount sets a standard that is so high it is impossible for us to achieve.
Who of us consistently ‘turns the other cheek’ or ‘when asked for our shirt give our coat as well’ or ‘walks the second mile’? There have been those who seem to have approached fulfillment of the Sermon on the Mount and we generally remember them with the title ‘saint’! St Francis of Aussi seemed to have come remarkably close. But not just Christians; Mahatma Gandhi is perhaps another standout. But even these doubtless failed in many ways. The message of the Gospels is that only Jesus Himself has ever fully met the Sermon on the Mount.
Why would this be? Why would Jesus set standards that were too high for us to meet?
with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Matthew 19:26
When Ludwig Wittgenstein, the great 20th century philosopher, heard that someone was working on a PhD thesis on the causes of World War 1 he said “Let him first ask why the wolf eats the lamb”.
In Romans 7:15 Paul expresses his pain that why he knows what is right and wants to do what is right, he repeatedly does what is wrong; a wrong that he hates. We know that it is wrong to be selfish and we don’t want to be selfish, and we can hate selfishness; but over and over we act selfishly. Our human nature overpowers us. We do things that make us unhappy and angry at ourselves.
There is a body of theological thought that the answer is in the first Beatitude. As Jesus later said “with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matt 19:26). We can only achieve the Sermon on the Mount if we totally hand ourselves over to God; if we empty ourselves and allow God to fill us completely. This is the big “but”; we cannot do it on our own. As the psalmist said: “Make Thou unto me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).
Make Thou unto me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10
The Sermon on the Mount can be seen as being delivered in two related but separate ‘halves’ or parts.
In the first part of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:3-16) Jesus is powerful but passive. It is God who will respond to the required actions of the Beatitudes. It is God’s people who are the salt of the earth (Matt 5:13-16). It is God’s people who should shine their light before others “so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven”.
Matthew 5:17 marks a major change; from now on Jesus speaks as the One who has authority.
In the second ‘half’ or part Jesus speaks as the One with authority. “You have heard it said … but I say …”
Jesus doesn’t change the Law, He reinterprets the Law and reflects the spirit rather than the letter of the Law. Jesus is saying in effect “This is what God meant when He said …”
The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him. Mark 1:27
… because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law. Matthew 7:29
Notes
Second mile
Second mile: During the Roman occupation of Israel at the time of Jesus a Roman soldier could compel a citizen to carry his supplies for a ‘mile’. The Roman mile was 1000 paces.
Longest piece of teaching
“The Sermon on the Mount is the longest piece of teaching from Jesus in then New Testament, and occupies chapter 5, 6 and 7 of the Gospel of Matthew. The Sermon has been one of the most widely quoted elements of the Canonical Gospels. To most believers in Jesus, the Sermon contains the central tenets of Christian discipleship.” [source]
Only in Matthew
The Sermon on the Mount is only found in the Matthew’s Gospel; the nearest equivalent being what has become known as the Sermon on the Plain in St Luke’s Gospel, 6:17-49. [source] Luke and Matthew contain other more or less common passages which are not to be found in Mark, and these are generally presumed to go back to another earlier document which we no longer possess, referred to by scholars as ‘Q’, the capital letter of the German word Quelle. [source]
“Comparing Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount with Luke’s Sermon on the Plain supports the conclusion that they both derive from the same conjectured source Q, which provided a collection of separate sayings and summaries of Jesus’ teaching. These sayings of the Lord had been remembered from different situations during his ministry and had been handed on by word of mouth before being put down in writing for the sake of new disciples. Such reported and written sayings originating with Jesus can be seen as a collection of bricks from which Luke and Matthew selected particular ones and often chiseled them into shape, using them to construct buildings with a purpose and a theological structure to fit their own conditions and to address their own concerns, as the German scholar Joachim Jeremias has suggested”. [source] At the time of the article, 2008, Jack Mahoney SJ was the Emeritus Professor of Moral and Social Theology in the University of London, and currently a staff member of the Mount Street Jesuit Centre, London. He has written widely in various branches of Christian and philosophical ethics.
image source: cited as sourced from Precipice Magazine (image not located, artist not disclosed)
