The Sermon on the Mount is a favorite scripture of many ministers because they feel that it expresses the essence of Christianity.
Also known as The Beatitudes and related in Matthew 5:1-12 and Luke 6:20-26, the Revs. Michael Sis and Landon Coleman say the sermon gives perspective to a world that can seem to lack it.
“This teaching of Jesus is enough to cause a revolution in us,” said the Most Rev. Sis, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of San Angelo. “Jesus gives four blessings and four woes. The woes are not curses but rather are warnings of extreme caution.”
Sis said one can imagine placing these blessings and woes on two sides of a chart.
Noting that the sermon recounted in Matthew is known as The Sermon on the Mount and the one in Luke as The Sermon on the Plain because it was given at different times in different locations, he said, “On the left side of the chart are the woes, those who are rich, full, laughing and popular in the eyes of the world.
“On the right side are the blessings, those who are poor, hungry, weeping, and hated and rejected on account of Jesus Christ. In those Beatitudes of Luke Chapter 6, Jesus takes our natural assumptions about the meaning of true happiness in life and he turns them upside down. It’s a revolution.”
Sis said the values of the world say that a happy, successful life is when people are rich, comfortable, satisfied, well-entertained, appreciated and praised by other people.
“But Jesus Christ teaches us in The Beatitudes that when we are in that situation we had better be very careful,” he said. “He also teaches that we are blessed when we are poor, hungry, sorrowful and disliked on account of him. Why does Jesus call these people blessed and happy? Because when we are deprived of the security of the passing things of this world, we put all our trust in God.”
Sis said the most difficult times can be the most providential.
“When we are carrying a heavy burden, when we are dispossessed of our personal security, all we have to lean on is God,” he said. “Just think of the typical signs of security in this world. These things won’t last forever.
“Our money can be lost or stolen and we can’t take it with us when we die. Our food can run out. Our fans and admirers will not always be there. However, if we put our ultimate trust in what will really last and in what will remain into the next life, then we will really be secure.”
The bishop asked, do you trust in your own power and in passing material things or do you place your trust in God, who is eternal?
“A famous American evangelist named Dwight L. Moody lived in the 1800s and I think he captured very well the kind of insight that is at work in The Beatitudes of Jesus in Luke Chapter 6,” he said. “Trust in yourself and you are doomed to disappointment; trust in your friends and they will die and leave you; trust in money and you may have it taken away from you; trust in your reputation and some slanderous tongue will blast it; but trust in God and you are never to be confounded in time or eternity.”
The Rev. Coleman, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church, said the first thing Jesus preached is in Mark 1:15: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel.”
“Those words capture the essence of Jesus’ evangelistic call to sinners,” Coleman said. “They are an invitation to turn from sin and believe the truth about Jesus the Messiah.
“The Sermon on the Mount was a sermon preached to those who had positively responded to Jesus’ evangelistic call.”
Coleman said Matthew 5:1 introduces the Sermon on the Mount by saying Jesus was speaking to his disciples.
“Matthew’s note about Jesus’ audience is important,” he said. “In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is not telling non-Christians how to become Christians nor is he telling his disciples how to be good people and make the world a better place.
“He is telling his disciples as people who have repented and believed how they should live in the world. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus provided his disciples with a series of tests to help them know if they were truly disciples.
“These tests remind us that eternal life is less about whether or not you think you know Jesus, it’s more about whether or not Jesus knows you.”
Coleman said eternal life is therefore most essentially about building your life on Jesus’ teachings.
“A cursory reading of the Sermon on the Mount reveals obvious parallels with the Sermon on the Plain as recorded in the Gospel of Luke,” he said. “This is expected as Jesus was a traveling preacher for several years.
“As he traveled and taught in various places, he surely repeated ideas, themes, stories, illustrations and material.”
Coleman said the Sermon on the Mount begins with the idea of happiness. “Jesus proclaims blessings on certain types of people and the essence of these blessings is happiness in God,” he said. “The same usage of ‘bless,’ ‘blessed’ and ‘blessing’ can be found in the Book of Psalms.
“Jesus began this sermon with a topic that appeals to all people — happiness. Blaise Pascal rightly noted that all men seek happiness and this is without exception.
“Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is telling his disciples how they might find, know and experience true happiness in the Lord.”
Coleman said an important part of the Sermon on the Mount is Matthew 5:17-20.
“In these verses Jesus explained that he had not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets,” he said. “Rather, he came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets.
“He was telling his disciples that the Old Testament was a book that pointed forward to Jesus. He was claiming to be the true Passover Lamb, the better Moses, the true Tabernacle and Temple, the promised King, the final Prophet and the Great High Priest.”
Coleman said the Sermon on the Mount “is radically counter-cultural.
“Examples of Jesus’ counter-cultural teaching include a high view of marriage rooted on the teaching of Genesis 1-2, an understanding of human sin that runs deeper than external behavior, an insistence that the externals of religious ritual are not enough, a clear line in the sand when it comes to serving God and loving money and the most challenging words about knowing when to judge others and when to not judge others,” he said.
