Issues: Sermon on The Mount

The issues raised by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount number in the multitudes like the crowd that followed him the day he delivered it. Even if the crowd’s size was exaggerated for dramatic effect and that number is a small one, it still represents many questions. Some of these concerns have to do with what some commentators say the sermon meant. Other issues that arise concerning what Jesus actually said without the shadowy veil of interpretation. For those who illustrate the loudest about what Jesus said in the Sermon often live it the least. Preachers and politicians, for Jesus was political, instruct their followers and constituents how to live as Jesus said when their lives are hardly examples of the virtues Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. That then has become the most serious issue raised by the Sermon, the interpretation of it.

Chronologically, the first perplexing portion of the Sermon, the Beatitudes, stretches roughly from Matthew verse 3 through verse 11, but the two verses before that tell how Jesus saw the crowd and climbed a mountain. Presumably he climbed the mountain, which probably means a hill and not an actual mountain, to affect the echo factor; sort of an ancient sound system. He also sat down indicating he was relaxed, not being dramatic as many modern day preachers would be delivering the same sort of address. Historically, teachers sat down and students gathered around to listen in the Socratic fashion. Many commentators say that is the pose Jesus took while delivering the Sermon too, speaking and teaching calmly, not wildly gesticulating and wiping his face with his fancy handkerchief, worn specifically for such an occasion when he might be so overcome with the spirit as to warrant whipping it ou...

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...ngry adversary, frothing at the mouth, turn almost immediately docile in wonder at the unexpected kindness from someone s/he is treating so badly.

That message should be the one those ranting preachers teach, one of Jesus’ type of vengeance, not the kind they think is justice—death for homosexuals, poverty for those not born into the right income bracket, disease for those who believe differently than they do. If those who want to make a show of their piety want to truly show their desire to follow Jesus’ teaching, then they need to get down from the pulpit, the podium, the stage, and go sit at the feet of Jesus on the mount. They need to genuinely desire to have world peace, eradicate poverty and sickness, take care of the earth, and to generally love their fellow humans, not try to re-teach, re-interpret, and re-think what Jesus said. They need to just live it.