A Community Manifesto

We commonly talk about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount as a summary statement of what he taught over the course of his three years of ministry. There is no reason to take this as a sermon he taught in one and only venue. There is no reason to believe this is the only manner in which he related these words and teachings. There is ample reason to see between Matthew’ and Luke’s accounts that variations are as much the product of Jesus having offered this discourse on multiple occasions and in different ways.

Over the last three and a half years, you have heard me repeat myself various times on various issues. I have not always used the same words. I have retold some stories with different meanings and applications. I have highlighted certain aspects at times, and emphasized other things on other occasions. Sometimes, my extemporaneous prayers have sounded a lot like how I led public prayer on other occasions.

What we are reading here in Matthew chapters 5-7 is a summary of Jesus’ preaching. It is not even the full sermon he delivered on any given day. The gospel of Matthew as a whole is a sermon, much like Mark, Luke, or John. Mark’s gospel can be read aloud in 45 minutes. The occasion offered for this “Sermon on the Mount” is an occasion that would have extended over the larger part of a day, not the fifteen minutes it would take us to read these words of Jesus.

On the other hand, this summary is something akin to what we might today call a manifesto. It is Jesus’ summary statement on the character of the community he was establishing under the banner of God’s Reign. Chapter 5 started us off with the Beatitudes, an outline of the basic outlook for those who would belong to this community of God’s Reign. It then established some of those identifying traits that would separate this community from all others. It then portrayed love as a much higher value than anger and retaliation, of reconciliation above wielding power over others. Now in chapter 6, Jesus shifts to issues of piety in the context of intention and purpose.

Yes, we are called to a life of piety. We are called to lives that declare our allegiance to God and the values and concerns of God. We are called to place ourselves in service to God’s ideals. What we are not called to is to use that piety for some purpose other than drawing ourselves closer to God. If my goal is to be seen by people, that’s as far as my demonstration of piety will get me. God will not be impressed.

Jesus tells his disciples that prayer is not about fancy word-smithing or the repetition of mantras. It is simply bringing ourselves into God’s presence and encountering God. It is placing ourselves in God’s care and relying on God’s provision and direction. As we beg God’s forgiveness, so are we charged to forgive others, for this placing ourselves before God is about finding ourselves in God’s presence and allowing God’s character to transform us from the inside out.

Piety is about hitching our lives to God’s purposes and character. It is about learning a new way to live in full dependence upon God, rather than upon the norms of a society around us. It is about being in this new community of God’s Reign and giving ourselves to its new mandate and direction.

Belonging to and finding identity in God’s presence and Reign is to take the place of all other demands on our allegiance. It requires a replacing our values with the values of God. What we look for, what we seek, determines much more than our desires. It also determines the outcome of our living. If we are actively seeking God’s Reign above all else, that is what we shall find. If we try to seek something other than simply God’s Reign, we will be at a loss. Either we embrace this new community of God’s Reign to the exclusion of all else, or we do not embrace it at all.



— ©Copyright 2023, Christopher B. Harbin 



http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/

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