Summary: Jesus spoke the words of life to a crowd, but how many paid attention? You might get an idea from the painting "The Sermon on the Mount" by Jan Brueghel the Elder (1598). It's easy to be distracted by the world, our neighbors and our stomachs, but if so, we'll miss out on much more than we imagine.
If you're a tourist in LA and it's Sunday morning, and you know you really ought to go to church, but you're on vacation, you might consider a visit to the Getty Museum up in the San Fernando hills. Many of the galleries are filled with paintings by the Old Masters of scenes from the Bible.
Okay, so it's not exactly like going to church, but you're trying to soothe your conscience and at least look saintly, especially in your own eyes!
Amid these artistic wonders it would be easy to walk by without noticing a small 1598 painting by the Flemish painter Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) titled "The Sermon on the Mount."1
Despite the fact it's so small (10.5 by 14 inches, oil on copper), more than half of it is taken up by the landscape. Towering trees forest the top of a hill. In the hazy distance are the towers of a Flemish town, standing in for Jerusalem.
A little off-center stands the tiny figure of Jesus, with some disciples dressed in "biblical" robes. He is surrounded by hundreds of people in "modern" dress (modern for 1598, that is). A few of them seem to be intent on what he's saying, but most of them are going about their business. There's a man selling pretzels, a child with arms up begging, folks engaging in commerce, and with a slight sinister air, soldiers looking on.
And of course there's a dog, and you know our eyes are always attracted to the dog! The trees are alive with birds - who toil not, neither do they spin, but they are certainly arrayed with finery unequaled even by Solomon in his glory.
Breughel has brought around three hundred individual faces to life with unique features. Those soldiers gazing with guarded expressions - are they keeping folks at bay or are they looking for trouble? There's a well-dressed family, children in tow, looking at another man who is pointing the way to Jesus. That's promising. Can we blame that pretzel seller for taking advantage of the opportunity to sell his wares to a hungry crowd? There are folks off to the side climbing the hill - were they looking for Jesus or just about on business of their own? Will they stop to find out what's happening?
Some listen entranced, some with faces seemingly convicted by sin, others watching joyfully. You have to wonder: Whose lives will be changed? And who will go their way, unimpressed, certain that the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount are meant for others, not practical, pragmatic people who live in the "real" world. Jesus doesn't really mean this, does he?
According to Matthew, Jesus, surrounded by crowds, walks up a nearby hill and his disciples and the crowd follow. By the end of this speech, however, it becomes obvious that other people have followed him, too. They have found him, and he is speaking to a crowd.2
Today's Gospel passage focuses on the opening of the Sermon on the Mount, known as the Beatitudes. Each line begins with the Greek word makarioi, translated in various English Bibles as "Blessed," "Fortunate" or "Happy." It refers to a deep, personal joy that comes from the way we live our lives when we change the way we look at the world, and at other human beings.3
In the New Testament era, many believed the rich were being rewarded in this life, and that the poor deserved what they got. Anyone foolish enough to put themselves last and others first deserved the poverty that might result.
But Jesus counseled another way of living. The first of those blessed are called "poor in spirit." This term appears only here in the New Testament, and indeed, in all the ancient Greek writings. It is a bold invitation to live in solidarity with the poor, to share their struggles, to do with less so that others can have more.
Next, we may well ask, why are those who mourn consider blessed? Losing loved ones to death is final. But the Teacher in Ecclesiastes advised us to be realistic about death;
It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of everyone,
and the living will lay it to heart.4
Jesus went further and encouraged us with the assurance that we will be comforted. Death is not the end.
The ancient world claimed to admire the virtue of being meek, of refusing to take advantage of our station, but in reality it was little practiced. Yet Jesus set us the example; he demonstrated the reward, in the words of the apostle Paul quoted in his letter to the Philippians, remind us that though Jesus, "existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped" but took the form of a slave and was obedient even to death on a cross.5
Again and again, the Beatitudes invite us to change our attitudes, to turn the world upside down, because the hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied, the merciful will receive mercy, the pure in heart will see clearly and will clearly see God!
And as for peacemakers, shalom, wholeness, wellness in spirit and in relationship, turning the other cheek, refusing to respond with evil to evil, is especially challenging. Did Jesus really mean this?
Well, did he really ask his Heavenly Father from the cross to forgive those who executed him because they didn't know what they were doing, when crucifixion was such a common punishment for the lowest of the low that the practitioners were especially well-practiced?
Just how realistic were these words of Jesus? Are we really supposed to live like this?
When the Christian faith was legalized in the fourth century it was recognized that emperors, kings and those in political authority couldn't go on torturing and murdering ordinary people if they were to live by the Sermon on the Mount. There developed talk of two kingdoms. It was claimed that only those with a special calling to live monastically could be expected to follow the words of Jesus. And even today, there are those who respond to his words with alarm. Where did you find that? they ask, seemingly unaware it was Jesus who said these words.
And Jesus makes no such exemption, neither for himself nor for us.
Perhaps you're wondering how anyone could remember the Beatitudes as they were spoken. There was no one recording this on their smartphone, posting it later for everyone to see and hear. These radical words that turn the world upside down should have just dissolved into thin air, right?
But actually, for many of the listeners, the words would have been very familiar, because they echo the psalms, a regular part of synagogue worship in first-century Judea. The meek inheriting the earth? See Psalm 37:11. Those who "hunger and thirst?" Psalm 107:5-6, 9, with further echoes in Proverbs 14:21. The "pure in heart?" Psalm 24:3-6. Two of the Beatitudes, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" and "Blessed are those who mourn" call to mind Isaiah 61:1-3, the words Jesus read as his mission statement in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth.6
Let's think about that painting again. Where are you in the picture? Are you listening? Or are you distracted? Are you pointing the way to Jesus for others, or distracting them from the words of life?
This rejoicing is wonderfully expressed in the Hank Williams song "The Sermon on the Mount," recorded by Merle Haggard on an album of Hank Williams lyrics not previously set to music:
A man sat on a mountainside, a carpenter by trade,
Teaching His disciples while they knelt and prayed.
He blessed the poor and simple, and He brought the mourners joy.
He came to heal the blind and lame. He came not to destroy.7
The Beatitudes call upon us to endure, to hunger and thirst for God's kingdom, regardless of any opposition we endure, and most of all, to rejoice! Yes, for despite the fact we may be reviled and persecuted for standing with Jesus, he told us nevertheless to rejoice and be glad! Rejoice, because we not only get to listen to the words of life, we can share that life so that someday Jesus will say to us, as he said to many who had no idea who they were serving, when Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me."8