A Year-Long Journey Through the Sermon on the Mount: Week 3

Chapter 3 – Foolish Wisdom

 

Some call the Sermon on the Mount a list of guidelines by which a person can live a life full of good manners. But it is so much more than that. These words that Jesus delivers are ones that can and should lead us to lives lived that puts human dignity at highest importance. But they are not easy words to live by. But then again, when has Jesus ever given us the easy way out?

 

There are two shocking things about this sermon right from the beginning. First of all, the crowd in front of him isn’t a group of rich aristocrats or powerful politicians. No, the crowd is full of farmers, shepherds, working-class folks who are struggling with day-to-day life under oppressive rule. These are everyday people like you and me. Secondly, the message Jesus delivers is one of empowering the people who are in front of him. The message isn’t about blessing the rich, the violent, the oppressors, those who never mourn, those who are never persecuted, etc. (p. 20-21). The Sermon on the Mount insists that we are blessed even when we don’t feel blessed. When we’re mourning, when we feel powerless, when we feel lost – no matter what, we are blessed by God. And it is in us that God trusts to pass on all of these blessings.

 

I think the hardest one to take is Matthew 5:11, which reads, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” Love thine enemies, right? It sure is hard to feel blessed when you’re feeling reviled, or hated, persecuted, and even more so when the people doing the hating, the reviling, and the persecuting are claiming to be doing so in the name of God and/or Jesus. Of the entire Sermon of the Mount, I still struggle with this one because it feels like the hardest to do.

 

The Sermon on the Mount is something that we can hold on to as a guide to how Jesus wants us to live, and as a reminder that we are blessed in our imperfectness.