The Sermon on the Mount – a question?
I suspect many of the verses in the Sermon on the Mount are familiar to us. Even if we haven’t read them in the Bible, they are often quoted in films, on TV, in the press, or by journalists or politicians.
The usual wisdom, that ‘its high ideals may be unattainable, but good to aim for’, might not be the response Jesus was looking for, but we can all agree that if they were lived out as the norm, the world would be better for it.
When I read these verses before my conversion to Christianity, I always viewed Jesus’s teaching as applying to individuals, to free moral agents; how we should choose to live our lives. Now, as a Christian, I see this entirely differently: as Christ in us, living His life in us, toward us, and then through us to the world. That is the essence of the Christian faith. Not a slog to attempt to comply with ever-stricter moral obligations, but faith in the indwelling Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; to live out that divine life through us. Perhaps ‘repentance’ in the Western world is more a call to abandon self-made attempts at being ‘good’, our self-reliance, and to place our faith, not in ourselves as autonomous free moral agents, but in Christ in us.
So far so good. Until this morning.
This morning I saw something new; not in contradiction to the above but a fuller, more expansive vision and meaning that Jesus was carrying than individuals’ behaviour, and specifically, ‘my’ salvation and wholeness.
‘Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’, or, What shall we drink?’, or ‘What shall we wear?’. For, after all these things, the Gentiles seek. For our heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you’ Mt 6v31-3
Why the reference to the Gentiles? Leave that out, and it runs just as smoothly, doesn’t it?
No, it doesn’t. It made sense to Jesus to include the reference to the Gentiles - and to Matthew, who included these words.
If the Sermon on the Mount is all about individuals, whether Jews or Gentiles, then including the reference to Gentiles seems not only superfluous but irrelevant. But we should stop and consider that Jesus, however, is not only speaking as the King of the Jews, but the King of Israel; the one who had every right to claim the throne but who chose to wear a crown of thorns instead.
Quite how God views nations, and the nation of Israel in particular, is beyond our understanding. I think it would be safe to say, God’s viewpoint is richer and inhabits dimensions that we struggle to comprehend. Lines on the map, DNA analysis, or Passports and ID cards must appear to be crude measures of who is a citizen and who is not. Scripture gives us some clues. The language of 'covenant’ or ‘testament’ is rich in meaning but at its heart is a deeply relational term used for marriage; it has less to do with lawyers and more to do with love. The ‘Old Covenant’ (or Old Testament) made with Israel is likened to a marriage that failed. Israel’s failure led the prophets not only to predict the downfall of the nation of Israel and its subsequent exile but also that a day would come when God would make a ‘New Covenant’ with Israel (Jeremiah 31v31).
Jesus inaugurated the New Covenant at the Last Supper, which looked ahead to his death on the cross:
‘This cup is the New Covenant in My blood, shed for you’ Luke 22v20
Jesus’s vision included individuals and the nation of Israel with whom He made a new covenant as the King of Israel.
Does this mean that the New Covenant (New Testament) is restricted to the Jews, to Israel? No. Not at all. The calling on Israel was always to be a light to the Gentiles: ‘I will appoint you to be a light to the Gentiles, that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth’ Isaiah 49v6.
So, my attention this morning was raised from treating the Sermon on the Mount as great spiritual teaching for individuals, to seeing that Jesus was calling into being an Israel that would fulfil its calling. But this new Israel would only fulfil it ancient calling if it could demonstrate that by ‘Seeking first the kingdom of God’, God supplied all their needs: body, soul, and spirit, and demonstrate that God is God, a heavenly Father who loves his children.
A question, though, remains: did Jesus succeed in calling into being an Israel that is a light to the nations?
A question, though, remains: did Jesus succeed in calling into being an Israel that is a light to the nations?
My answer is, ‘Well, it depends where you look’. If we look at our media and the reporting on Israel as a political entity, you might question that! But look at the immediate after-effects of Jesus’s death, resurrection, ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and you may see a different Israel.
Jesus was a Jew. Peter and all the apostles, including Paul, were Jews. Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalen and all the other women mentioned in the gospels were all Jews. The 3000 who were converted on the Day of Pentecost were all Jews. The early church was entirely Jewish. Not until Acts 10, when the Holy Spirit fell on Gentiles listening to Peter’s preaching, are Gentiles included.
The ‘Israel of God’, as Paul puts it in Galatians, or the Israel of the New Covenant, the Jews who believed, had brought the light to the world, just as prophesied, and, within a generation the whole of the Roman Empire had heard of Christ and churches were springing up like mushrooms under the noses of the authorities who had sought to eliminate the faith by crucifying Christ and persecuting the church.
So, when Jesus referred to the Gentiles in the Sermon on the Mount, it was with all this in mind; it was not an afterthought or a sentence with no relevance.
Twenty-one centuries later, when, in the West, we are prone to think of Christianity as a European phenomenon, it is good to remind ourselves that had it not been for Jesus, his teaching, his death and his resurrection, and the willingness of His Jewish disciples to spread the gospel – which means good news - Christianity would never have reached us. Interestingly, there are more churches and Jewish believers in Israel now than at any time since the first century. This ‘Israel of God’, as Paul describes it in Galatians 6v16, in contrast to the political entity in the news, is gaining strength…which can only be further good news for the world.