The Sermon on the Mount (I)

Now He saw the crowds, He went up on the mountainside and sat down.
His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them, saying: – Matthew 5:1-2 NIV

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at His teaching, because He taught as one who had authority, and not as their teacher of the law – Matthew 7:28-29 NIV

INTRODUCTION: What is this sermon!
The sermon on the Mount is probably the best-known part of the teaching of Jesus though arguably it is the least understood, and certainly it is the least obeyed. It is the nearest thing to a manifesto that He ever uttered, for it His own description of what He wanted His followers to be and to do. To my mind no two words sum it up better, or indicate more clearly its challenge to modern world, than the expression “Christian counter culture”.

In a way Christians find this search for cultural alternative one of the most hopeful, even exciting, signs of the times. This is because in His activities He is the comforter as well as the disturber. For the Holy Spirit, He necessarily convicts us of sin before He gives us the comfort of being our helper.

The first place to which Christians should be able to turn is the one place which they normally ignore, namely the church. For too often when Christians see in the church is not counter-culture but conformism, not a new society which they have renounced, not life but death then there is a lot of disappointment.

BACKGROUND TO THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.
This is how God put it to the people of Israel soon after He had rescued them from their Egyptian slavery and made them His special people by covenant: “I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes.
You shall do My ordinances and keep My statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God.” This appeal of God to His people, it will be noted, began and ended with the statement that He was the Lord their God. This was because He was their covenant God, and because they were His special people, that they were to be different from everybody else. They were to follow His commandment and not take their lead from standards of those around them.

Throughout the centuries which followed, the people of Israel kept forgetting their uniqueness as the people of God. Although in Balaam’s words they were “a people dwelling alone, and not reckoning itself among nations”, yet in practice they kept becoming assimilated to the people around: “They mingled with the nations and learned to as they did.”
So they demanded a king to govern them “like all the nations”, and when Samuel remonstrated with them on the ground that God was their king, they were stubborn in their insistence: “NO! but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations.” Worse even than the inauguration of the monarchy was their idolatry.
“Let us be like the nations” they said to themselves”… and worship wood and stone.” So God kept sending His prophets to them to remind them who they were and to plead with them to follow His way. “Learn not the way of the nations,” He said to them through Jeremiah, and through Ezekiel, Do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.”
But God’s people would not listen to His voice, and the specific reason given why His judgement fell first upon Israel and then nearly 150 years later upon Judah was same:

“The people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God… and had… walked in the customs of the nations…Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs which Israel had introduced.”

THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
All this is an essential background to any understanding of the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon is found in Matthew’s Gospel towards the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.
Immediately after His baptism and temptation He began to announce the good news that the Kingdom of God, long promised in the Old Testament era, was now on the threshold. He Himself had come to inaugurate it. With Him the new age had dawned, and the rule of God had broken into history.
‘Repent,’ He cried, “for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Indeed, “He went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom.” The Sermon on the Mount, then, is to be seen in this context. It portrays the repentance and the righteousness which belong to the Kingdom. That is, it describes what human life and human community look like when they come under the gracious rule of God.

And what they look like? Different! Jesus emphasised that His true followers, the citizens of God’s Kingdom, were to be entirely different from others. They were not to take a cue from the people around them, but from Him, and so prove to be genuine children of their Heavenly Father.
The key text of the Sermon of the Mount is Matthew 6:8: “Do not be like them.” It is immediately reminiscent of God’s Word to Israel in olden days: “You shall not do as they do.” It is the same call to be different. And right through the Sermon on the Mount this theme is elaborated. Their character was to be completely distinct from that admired by the world (the beatitudes). They were to shine like lights in the prevailing darkness. Their righteousness was to exceed that of the scribes Pharisees, both in the ethical behaviour and religious devotion, while their love was to be greater and their ambitions nobler than those of their pagan neighbours.

To be continued!
STAY BLESSED!

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By Dr Joyce Aryee