Can we overstate the significance of these next three chapters of Matthew?
These days, the beatitudes (5:3-12) seem to be better known as a thing than they are in the particulars of what they say. Scholars still wrestle even today in regard to which parts of Jesus’s “sermon” are descriptive, prescriptive, or both.1 As we go along, we’ll differentiate a bit. The beatitudes seem to be descriptive, like an announcement of the nature of the Kingdom. It might be one thing to make effort to replicate them and another to live into them.
A thing about Matthew 5-7 is just how high of a bar Jesus sets. We’ll read some things and wonder why there seems to be no reflection or action concerning it in the Church today.
Also, sometimes it’s good to consider the conclusion even before we begin. It can be easy to finish a bit overwhelmed with a sigh at the end of Matthew 5-7 and miss Jesus’ conclusion.
Everybody who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise builder who built a house on bedrock. - Matthew 7:24
Jesus isn’t philosophizing here. He isn’t simply giving a law. He is teaching. And good teachers don’t do so just to hear themselves talk. Jesus is expecting that what he teaches is to be put into practice. One paraphrasing translation says that these are words to build a life on.
Indeed.
Matthew 5:1-2
Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up a mountain. He sat down and his disciples came to him. He taught them, saying…
Prayer
God,
Actually, today, I just want to ask your help in that as I read these next three chapters over the next three weeks, I don’t simply study this scripture in a trivial way. I mean, I do want to know that Jesus is saying, but not for the sake of winning any arguments. The thing is I really like Jesus and I feel like this stuff is significantly important.
So both bless me and challenge me. Call me and rebuke me. Make me to understand not just in my head, but also in my heart that, working together, they’d tell my hands and feet what to do as one who loves Jesus.
By your spirit & in Christ,
Amen.
These three chapters are obviously best known as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:2 explicitly uses a form of the word didache, which is rendered “to teach.” Much has been said about differentiation and/or relationship between teaching and preaching. That’s for a space of writing different than this one. We’ll approach Jesus’ teaching here simply as the core of his message and in Matthew in particular, an announcement of the kingdom of heaven.