The Subversive Message of the Sermon on the Mount

In Matthew 5 we find the Sermon on the Mount. It begins with what are called the Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes are honorifics or honorific language that Jesus uses to honor his hearers. I remind my Bible class students that there are three questions you should ask yourself before reading any text of Scripture. These questions are: “Who is the author of the text, or to whom is the authorship attributed?” “Who are the recipients or hearers of the message of the text?” Finally, “What is the problem addressed in the text?”

It is necessary to clarify these three questions in order to correctly interpret any biblical text. In this text, we are informed that the tax collector turned disciple, Matthew, is the author of the text (Matthew’s authorship has been debated by scholars).

We also know from the beginning of the text of Matthew 5:1-2 that the addressees are the four disciples of Jesus (the others have not yet been chosen) and that the audience is the unidentified crowd. The text begins, “Jesus saw the crowd, went up on the mountain and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.”

The issue addressed is how to establish the principles and ethics of life in an alternative community by addressing misinterpretations of the law.

After listing the honors or beatitudes, Jesus then gives about six reinterpretations of the law.

We’ll discuss all six reinterpretations in next week’s episode.

Today we discuss the special honors that Jesus shares with his disciples and the crowd. Recall that the crowd was composed of the peasant class of biblical Palestine in northeast Africa.

So these people are African Jews who were colonized by Europeans from Rome. These facts are essential to understanding what Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus sets an ethical and theological standard for life in an alternative community that would oppose the dominant community of Rome.

This would make the Sermon on the Mount a subversive message to the underprivileged classes, inspiring and instructing them on how to organize a community with values ​​different from the society in which they currently live.

The new community would be judged on how members treated and cared for each other. Their community would focus on community, cooperation and compassion rather than competition.

The honors Jesus lists are: “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” “Blessed are those who mourn,” “Blessed are the meek,” “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” “Blessed are the merciful,” “Blessed are the pure in heart,” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.”

We could spend weeks thinking about each of these honors, gleaning the powerful and subversive significance each holds for life in a society built on inequality, but we don’t have time to do it enough.

In a society where the law of the strongest, militarism, materialism and domination reign, these beatitudes would be perceived as weaknesses by those who are indebted to Rome and the system of domination.

But for Jesus and his spiritual principles, these characteristics are the foundation of a society or community that values ​​life and seeks to live in accordance with divine values.

Jesus does not seek to purify today’s society because evil is too deeply rooted; he organizes a new community from the ground up to challenge the system of domination.

These characteristics or beatitudes are ethical components to which every person must aspire in all his human relationships in order to live under the sovereignty of God.

These characteristics may seem like weaknesses in our society of “big stick diplomacy” and belligerent bluster, which form the framework for the toxic masculinity that dominates our nation, but far from being weaknesses, they are strengths.

They take what Dr. King calls the “strength of loving.”

The society that Jesus seeks to organize is a society that ensures that the least are cherished and revered. It is a society of divine reversals as in the Scripture that says, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” It is an alternative society that Jesus has already begun in his incarnation and that his disciples are charged with organizing and maintaining.

To further emphasize his point, Jesus says to the peasants who are plunged into abject poverty and submission: “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.” Jesus says this in the words of Gustavo Gutierrez, the Latin American liberation theologian: “God has a preferential option for the poor, the disinherited, and the rejected.

This is a subversive message to the poor to demonstrate that poor people have more power than they think.

Let us remember that in these chaotic times when the Supreme Court grants total immunity to presidents, literally opening the door to fascism and dictatorship, Uhuru Sassa!

The Rev. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church, but a culturally aware, Christ-centered, community-minded church; we are openly Black and staunchly Christian.” Contact the church by email at (email protected) or by phone at 219-944-0500.