Jesus' Sermon on the Mount/Plain - The Biblical Setting

Matthew preceded the Sermon on the Mount with a description of Jesus' followers, both the inner and outer circles.

He began with the inner circle of 12 disciples who give up everything to follow Jesus. These were the ones who were called by Jesus to follow him. The rest in the chapter followed him without being called.

The larger group of those who came to Jesus were described as needy people. They came to be healed from a wide range of diseases, torments and possessions.

Before the Sermon on the Plain, Luke likewise described 2 types of people, the inner circle and the outer circle. But whereas Matthew was very brief in describing the outer circle, Luke spent a great amount of detail in painting a picture, not so much in describing the people, but rather, of people who are used as props to describe Jesus' authority.

Matthew used the same stories about the same people to tell us about Jesus' authority, but Matthew waited until immediately after the Sermon rather than immediately before (which Luke did).

Both Matthew and Luke place Jesus' sermon in the context of Jesus' authority over sin, the unclean, the demonic and over the Sabbath.

POWER OVER SIN

In Jesus' day sickness was usually related to sin. In John 9 Jesus' disciples asked Jesus, "Who sinned?" when they saw a man born blind. The assumption was...this blindness was a direct result of somebody's sin, either this man's or his parents'. James also concludes that sickness was the result of sin..."If anyone is sick...confess your faults to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed."

When people brought a man who had palsy (various forms of paralysis), Jesus' first words were, "Your sins are forgiven you." What Jesus said offended the scribes because theologically only God can forgive sins. The fact that Jesus then healed the man showed to everybody that Jesus had power to forgive sins, thus implying that Jesus was God, because only God can forgive sins, and this man could only have been healed if his sins were forgiven, and as everybody witnessing that event believed, his palsy was the result of sin.

POWER OVER THE DEMONIC

Jesus' authority was emphasized not only over sin, but over the demonic as well. Once again, the emphasis was not on the people in these stories, but the emphasis is the power of Jesus' word. After casting out a demon in Luke 4 the people were amazed, saying, "What authority and power this man's words possess! Even evil spirits obey him and flee at his command!"

POWER OVER THE UNCLEAN

The whole concept of clean vs. unclean is foreign to most of us, but to the people of Jesus' day, everybody thought in terms of things clean and things unclean. There were certain things in life that people avoided touching and there were certain things one did not do for fear of becoming unclean... and once one was unclean there were certain ritual baths and offerings that needed to be made after a designated amount of days.

Jesus' power over the unclean was demonstrated not only in casting out unclean demons, but also by touching those who were unclean. Haggai 2 established that something clean (according to the Law) cannot transfer the state of clean into the unclean. However, unclean does affect the clean so that anything clean by the Law would be unclean if it touched that which was unclean.

When a leper came to Jesus, he told Jesus he wanted to be cleansed of his leprosy. Contrary to all common practice and wisdom Jesus touched him, which according to Haggai and according to Moses' Law should have made Jesus unclean, but instead the impossible happened...when Jesus touched the leper, the leper was cleansed and Jesus remained clean. People who saw Jesus knew the transfer had taken place because the leper was healed in front of them.

By touching and healing a leper, Jesus did more than a simple healing, he demonstrated before all that he had power on earth over the unclean...he had power greater than the Law of Moses.

POWER OVER THE SABBATH

Two events dealing with Sabbath stand out. Jesus plucked corn from the fields on the Sabbath and when he was questioned about breaking the Sabbath, he reminded those who were offended that David himself broke certain Laws of Moses for the sake of meeting human needs for hunger. But anybody can argue a good case. In another episode Scribes and Pharisees questioned Jesus' healing on the Sabbath. Jesus pointed out that they took care of animals on the Sabbath and we are more imortant than animals...then he healed a man with a withered hand, thus proving that he had power over the Sabbath to do good.

In these four ways (power over sin, the demonic, the unclean, and over the Sabbath) Jesus demonstrated to his audience through healings and miracles that he was more than a normal human being and that he had authority. This builds the context for his two sermons - one on a mount and one on a plain.

Missing in this sermon context is Jesus' power over Rome - politically, socially or economically. Could it be that Jesus did not come to change secular politics? Or is he saving that for later? Or perhaps the early church kept Roman politicians and politics out in order to win Romans or to avoid persecution or for any other reason?

The Sermon on the Mount as a Covenant Renewal

According to Richard Horsley and others, the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain are both a renewal of the Mosaic Covenant. The Sermons in Luke 6 and Matthew 5-8 are framed like an ancient covenant which is broken down into three sections.

1. This covenant begins with a recounting of something God has done or is doing for his people - In the beatitudes, God has broken into the world with a kingdom for the poor, the powerless, the merciful, the persecuted and those who mourn. Excluded from the kingdom are the rich, the well fed, the popular, and the powerful (Luke 6:24-26). In Jesus' day the vast majority of the population was included in that definition.

2. The second part of this covenant establishes the guidlelines - Jesus gives his listeners the laws of the kingdom, IE: the responsibilities of God's Covenant partners are stated, encouraging and challenging his kingdom people to go beyond the expected in loving God and neighbor, beyond what they have learned and beyond what they see in the pious ones of their day.

3. Finally, this covenant ends with consequences of following or not following the agreement. The blessings and the curses in Matthew and Luke are illustrated in parables of 2 houses; one built on sand and one built on a rock. The one built on sand is easy prey to the elements of life, but the one built on a rock is firm.

The Sermon on the Mount - Part One

The Sermon on the Mount focuses on the proper interpretation of the Law and some of the dynamics of the Kingdom of God. As mentioned before, Jesus' audience was in expectation of a kingdom breaking into human history at any moment overthrowing the the powerful and subduing the foreigners. For the people and for John the Baptist, the kingdom was political, economic and social. Furthermore, there was no division between polictics, economy and sociology. For Jesus however, there is no indication that he thought the kingdom was anything politiical. In this context Jesus gave a message of the kingdom emphasizing the proper understanding of the Law of Moses.

DIGNITY

The first words of the Sermon on the Mount were, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God." These words sunk deep down into the hearts of people who had very little dignity in life, people who suffered from constant poverty and oppression. In this promise they were given hope of a future they could not find in their present lives.

Jesus gave the masses dignity, comfort and hope in the Sermon on the Mount. He offered to common people a new life in a new kingdom with a new way of living under the Law. The common people were considered by Caiaphas and his friends to be ignorant and unable to understand the Law. Jesus not only challenged that way of thinking, he gave the common people the dignity and respect of knowing that they could live under the Law, and live under the Law in such a way that exceeded the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees.

It is typical for a group to think of itself as better than all other groups. A group of people who are oppressed or who face obvious inequities are no exception to the rule. They find things to be proud of, areas of life in which they tell themselves that they are better than those who have and those who oppress.

Jesus gave a new dignity to the masses in the Sermon on the Mount. Their righteousness could be better than the religious leaders and the Kingdom of God belonged to them, not to the religiously powerful and rich.


THE LAW

Jesus did not seek to replace the Law with Grace and Faith, in fact, he sought to bring renewal to Israel in its understanding of and following after the Law. Jesus taught a different way of reading the Law and a more intense following of the Law than was being established from the religious authorities of his day.

First Century religious leaders debated small details of the Law struggling to unearth what the Law said about things clean and unclean, how to best keep the Sabbath holy, and how to tithe. In contrast, Jesus spoke boldly of the Kingdom of God and of a new way of following the Law. Interestingly, his take on the Law was on the one hand far more intense than the established leaders taught, but on the other hand Jesus' teachings focused on different matters of the Law than his contemporaries.

Jesus taught that not all Law was equal. In other words there were some laws that were more important than the others and there were certain matters of the Law that outweighed everything else in the Law (justice, mercy and faithfulness, for example).

The religious leaders of Jesus day helped to set the tone for the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus set up his expectations for the kingdom, a lot of it was set in the context of... "Don't be like them," or "Be better than them."

PERSONAL AND SOCIAL LIVING IN THE KINGDOM

The rest of the Sermon on the Mount can be summed up under this title. To an audience that lived in poverty and little or no hope for the future, Jesus told them to trust God and ask Him for what they needed. Jesus told them that in the kingdom, God would take care of their needs.

As his followers began to discover and learn the Law through Jesus' teachings, Jesus told them not to judge each other, but to be merciful to each other. Becoming a learner or an expert in the Law carried with it the temptation of objectifying people and holding them in contempt for not living up to the standards of the Law. At the same time the new learner could see how much others broke the Law while excusing or overlooking his/her own faults. Jesus warned his followers that if they judged, they would be judged by the same measure. He also warned people against judging others for the same sins they committed.

WHAT YOU GIVE WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU

If you judge, you will be judged.
If you forgive, you will be forgiven.
If you show mercy, you will receive mercy.
If you do not forgive, you will not be forgiven.
If you give, you will receive (not in the Sermon on the Mount, but follows the same rule).

POLITICS AND THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

What can I say about politics in the Sermon on the Mount? His listeners no doubt assumed there would be politics involved for the establishment of a new kingdom. When they heard the Sermon on the Mount, they believed wholeheartedly that there would be some sort of political overthrow of the present system and establishment of God's Kingdom.

Did Jesus believe there would be a political overthrow of the present system? There is nothing in the Sermon on the Mount that suggests it. The Sermon on the Mount focuses on life in the kingdom, that is, how one is to live and act once the kingdom has been established.

To the modern reader, we understand that the kingdom was established not by political or by military resistance, but by living out the Sermon on the Mount, becoming peacemakers, humble people, merciful toward others rather than judgmental, letting go of debts, letting go of sins done against you, trusting God for sustenance, and going beyond the letter of the Law. This is how we build God's kingdom. And we build it slowly like a mustard seed growing.

But to Jesus' audience, even to his own disciples, they understood the kingdom to be established by an overthrow of the present kingdom, not slowly, but quickly in their lifetime.

What Healing Meant to First Century Jews

There were several types of healings in the Gospels and they all meant a whole lot more to the Jews than the typical Benny Hinn healings mean to us today.

When Jesus forgave a man's sins and healed him, He demonstrated that He had power over sin, which in turn demonstrated that he was either God or equal to God. From several biblical accounts, we learn that sickness was believed to be the result of somebody's sin. I have already shown this in a past blog. Suffice it to say that even biblical writers believed that sickness could be the result of sin. So if Jesus forgave a man's sin he demonstrated it by healing him as well. The logic was simple - sin caused the sickness, so if the sickness goes away it is because the source (sin) was gone. Jesus forgave a man's sin in Mark 2 which caused a stir; "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" was the response from those who knew the scripture when they heard Jesus forgive a man of his sins. Jesus healed the man to show to those who were there that he had the ability to forgive sins and if he could forgive sins, then He was more than mere human.

When the unclean touched Jesus (such as the woman with an issue of blood) or when Jesus touched the unclean (such as a dead body), Jesus did not become unclean but rather, the unclean were cleansed - the issue of blood stopped and the dead rose from the dead. Such healings from unclean diseases revealed that Jesus had power over the clean and unclean. In a discussion between God and Haggai, God asked Haggai (in chapter 2) if it was possible for someone or something clean to cleanse the unclean by touch. The answer was no; the unclean will automatically corrupt the clean. There were no exceptions. When people who were unclean touched Jesus they were cleansed and when Jesus touched them they were cleansed. This left a huge impression with the Jews of Jesus' day. He had power no other person on earth had over the clean, reversing a law of God and nature.

Raising the dead not only showed us that Jesus had power over the unclean, raising the dead also demonstrated that he had power over death. In John 11 Jesus said he was the Resurrection and the Life and then he raised up Lazarus. The book of John connects Jesus' healings to certain of Jesus' attributes. When Jesus healed the blind he showed that he had the power to make people see spiritually as well as physically. In John 9 Jesus healed a man born blind and then said, "I am the Light of the world." He also said, "For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind (Jn 9:39)."

When Jesus cast out demons he demonstrated to all that he had power over the demonic. Jesus told us that casting out demons was a demonstration that the kingdom of God had come. When Jesus cast out demons people were to understand that it would not have been possible unless Satan had been bound and that his possessions were being taken away from him (Matt 12:25-30).

Every kind of healing revealed that the kingdom of God had come for sinners and that God was accepting them. In the ancient world view, possession, poverty and sickness was caused by sin. Here is how the system worked:

1. God blessed the righteous with prosperity and that means wealth as well as health and long life. Those who ruled or who were fortuneate enough to be wealthy were those who had the best of this life and who easily bought into this belief because it justified their advantages and not only justified the imbalance of wealth, but made their lion's share of the wealth look like a gift from God himself.

2. God may discipline his beloved, but it was temporary and the promise of prosperity would return to the disciplined.

3. The wicked may prosper, but their prosperity was temporary.

4. Sickness was a sign that someone sinned. In most cases it was the sick person's sin, but in some cases it could be a parent who had sinned (Jn 9:2).

5. Poverty was seen as a sign of sinfulness, because God prospered the godly.

The priveledged class was not the only group that believed this hierarchy of faith, I believe the people themselves bought into the same ideas, so that even the poor and the sick believed they had somehow come under the displeasure of God.

The People of Jesus' Day - Different Groups of Poverty

Why Peasants Respnded to Jesus
by William R. Herzog II found in "Christian Origins" edited by Richard A. Horsley

Herzog argues that there were different levels among the poor of Israel. First of all, there were landowners who had property and the dignity that property brought. But because of taxes from Rome, Jerusalem, and the temple, people eventually fell into debt losing their land and becoming tenants working under contracts to land owners who were members of the ruling class. And if they lost their positions as tenants or could not find a job as a tenant, they ended up as day laborers working for day wages when work was available. Finally, when all else failed people resorted to begging.

Herzog also claims that people who had land or had adjusted to their particular work life would not be prone to rebel or desire any major change, but people who were in danger of losing whatever position they had were more apt to riot. Furthermore, landowners were not prone to give up all to follow anybody. In other words, people who were settled adjusted to their way of life and accepted it even though it wasn't all that good. However, take away what little one had and the protesting began.

Jesus' Mission Statement - Isaiah 61

The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18-19).

This passage from Isaiah 61:1-2a is the scripture Jesus used to define his ministry in the book of Luke. Throughout his ministry Jesus returned to it, declaring that he did not come for the healthy but for the sick (Matthew 9:12) and that he didn't come for those who could see, but for those who were blind (John 9:39).

Jesus' ministry was directed to needy people - the poor, those who sorrow, the blind and the slaves. We have already seen these were the people who went to Jesus for healing and deliverance - they were the types of people that Isaiah spoke about and they were the types of people Jesus believed he was called to.

ISAIAH 61 IN CONTEXT

Isaiah 61:1-2 was a celebration of bringing health, rebuilding, and prosperity to the poor and powerless (Israel). Isaiah 60 and 61 promised that the Gentiles and their rulers would give their honor, servitude and finances to Israel. It was the world of politics, economy, power and dominion brought under Israel's feet; and as I have already pointed out, this was the dream of the people that heard Jesus preach - a dream of being free from the dominion of foreigners and money hungry rulers - a dream they hoped to see through Jesus. It was a dream that served the interests and popular beliefs of those who followed Jesus.

According to the book of Mark, Jesus tried to direct the disciples away from the view that the messiah was a political ruler who was to fulfill their dreams of political and economic freedom, but rather Jesus told his disciples that his job was to serve and suffer for others (Matthew 8:33ff). Jesus gave the same job position to his disciples.

During his time in the desert Jesus rejected the tempter's offer for the world and all its glory, yet after his resurrection, the early church believed that Jesus was going to return very quickly to receive the kingdom, the world and all its glory and that he was going to rule the earth much as Isaiah 60 and 61 stated.

So here is the long and short of it all. Jesus quoted a scripture passage about his ministry that ignored the political surroundings of that same passage. This was not unusual for NT writers, who oftentimes quoted scripture with little or no concern for the original context of the OT scripture ("he will be called a Nazarene; out of Egypt I will call my son, a virgin will conceive," and so on), so it is very possible that Jesus' quoted from Isaiah 61, not thinking of the context of the passage.

OT scripture passages that were fulfilled by Jesus according the the NT, were oftentimes fulfilled first of all in their own day, hundreds of years before Jesus was born. The NT church saw in those same scripture passages another fulfillment in Christ.

Let me give an example. During Isaiah's day 2 armies stood outside of Jerusalem waiting to take the city. King Ahaz worried about the future of Jerusalem, but Isaiah told him not to fear because God would deliver Jerusalem from their enemies. Isaiah then told the king to ask the Lord for a sign, which the king refused to do... so Isaiah told him that God would give a sign. A virgin (Hebrew = virgin or young woman) would give birth to a son named Immanuel (meaning "God with us") and before the child would be old enough to know right from wrong, the kings would be gone (Isaiah 7:14). As Isaiah predicted, before the child was old enough to know better, the armies had left.

Taken by itself, without any context, Isaiah 7:14 looks like its only a random prophecy about Jesus and nothing else. But the context clearly reveals that Isaiah was talking about the situation in his own day, 700 years before Jesus was born. His young wife and their child were signs to King Ahaz, that God was the one delivering Jerusalem, because He had not abandoned them... He was still with them. Hundreds of years later the NT Church saw something else in Isaiah 7. They saw a new fulfillment, in their day, that Jesus was born from a virgin, which was a sign that God was with them. But in order for the verse to fit best to Jesus' situation Isaiah's context was left out.

Getting back to the scripture that Jesus used to define his ministry in Luke 4 - Jesus quoted a passage in Isaiah that was loaded with political meaning when it was written by Isaiah, but without its context it was emptied of politics and economics.

Jesus and the Soldiers

The soldiers that were hired by Rome came from different lands and even from Israel itself. They were people who had families and helped support them as well as they could. They were also people who had the difficult responsibility of keeping law and order in Rome's empire during a time when riots were common place.

In all likelihood, most soldiers had little or no respect for the people they protected. The people of Israel didn't like the soldiers as they represented a foreign rule and foreign taxes. Furthermore, many of religious people in Israel despised the lifestyle of the soldiers.

The soldiers responded by forcing Israeites to carry there baggage up to the limits the law allowed. When there was corporate punishment, it was the soldiers who carried out the dirty deeds of torturing and killing the supposed criminal.

There is one event in Jesus' life that may reflect the feelings of many in Israel. There was a man who came to Jesus who was demon possessed. When Jesus asked what the demon's name was, the demon answered, "My name is Legion, for we are many." To us this means a group of up to 4,800 soldiers. We focus on the number of demons. But to the people that heard this in Jesus day it said something about the soldiers. The soldiers of Rome were like demons, powerful but evil and unclean.

Any contact that Jesus had with soldiers is left silent until his trial. They did however, play an important part at John's baptism, asking him what they should do in order to be ready for bapism. John told them to stop using violence with the people and to be content with the salary they were given.

Although Jesus said and heard little or nothing about or from the soldiers, Jesus did on occasion meet with Centurions who were in charge of up to 480 soldiers. Centurions were usually "good guys" in the Bible. In Matthew 8 and Luke 7 Jesus commended a Centurion for having more faith than anybody in Israel. And at the cross it is a Centurion who confessed that Jesus was the son of God.

In Acts a Centurion had a vision that caused him to send for Peter in order to be the beginning of a Christian revival among the Gentiles, and it was a Centurion who watched over Paul and helped him stay alive when Paul was a prisoner on a ship.

The People of Jesus' Day - A People on Edge, Looking for a Better Life

The people of Jesus' day were heavily taxed by and ruled over by Romans (who were considered unclean) and corrupt leaders (High Priests, Saducees and Pharisees) in Jerusalem who relied on Rome for their support and legitimacy. The peoples' disatisfaction was seen in:
1. The constant riots that are reported by Josephus and the New Testament.
2. The popularity of the many messiahs and prophets that promised change through some great act of God.

During Jesus' day there were constant riots. Most of them were small, but some could be large, in fact, at least 4 were massive causing many deaths. Riots were caused by:
1. The perceived attack on Jewish religious practices or identity.
2. The lack of power and control in matters political, economic and religious.

Other factors that encouraged rioting were poverty, lack of economic oportunity and the racism of Romans who looked down on Barbarians (the Jews and other people who were occupied by Roman armies).

During Jesus' day there were false messiahs or prophets that led many astray by promising great works of God on the horizon. They led their followers into the desert, toward Jerusalem or up mountains only to find that they had walked into Roman massacres.

From the constant rioting and from the popluarity leaders with charisma who were filled with false hopes and promises. Desperate for a better life, people rebelled against the way things were and chose these leaders to guide them to a promised better life. Faced with deepening poverty people turned to dreams. They fell easy prey to those who could give them the illusion that something great was about to take place.

I believe that until his closest disciples had been properly trained, they were no more special or noble than the bunches of other people who followed other prophets making bold claims in God's name. Jesus knew this about all of his followers and for that reason found ways to pare them down from time to time. In John 6 Jesus spoke so harshly to his followers that they were offended and all but 12 left him. Jesus was not looking for people to place their own personal or national dreams on him and that is exactly what they were doing.

In the book of Mark, Jesus healed many people and told them afterward not to tell others about their healings (something that is called the Messianic Secret). I believe Jesus did this because of problems caused by people who followed Him for all the wrong reasons, reasons related to their personal hopes and dreams that were self-centered or national centered. Only the crucifixion and resurrection could fix the misunderstandings created by personal and national self-interest. Only the crucifixion and resurrection could help people see that the real Christian life involves suffering as much as it involves glory. The kingdom of God was not an escape from this world of politics and poverty, it was a committment to God's mission that says go, make disciples, love God and love neighbor.

After months of following Jesus, Peter finally understood that Jesus was the messiah - it was a revelation of God. After acknowledging his revelation, Jesus commended him for realizing that Jesus was the messiah. But when Jesus began to define the messiah's work in ways that displeased Peter, he tried to correct Jesus who then rebuked Peter saying, “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” God gave Peter a revelation that Jesus was the Christ, but Peter's own self-interest and his national self-interest reshaped God's revelation so that it became demonic. It became demonic in that it no longer served God's interests but served human interests.

Jesus was faced with a crowd of followers, including his own disciples, that hoped to find their human dreams made real in Him. They may have believed that he was the messiah or some great prophet, but their dreams were nothing more than personal and national hopes for a better life, and the better life they wanted was nothing like the life God was promising through Jesus.