Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. He said:
Matthew 5:1-2 NIVUK
Elections aren’t good for the environment.
Have you noticed that?
Flyers through letterboxes. Posters stuck to walls. Endless weighty policy documents that no-one but the most fanatical ever reads in their entirety.
Even the Green parties are at it.
Everyone seems desperate to tell us who they are and what they stand for.
Except in countries where party politics are not the done thing. Then all they need is a catchy jingle, a bunch of bright young things to do a dance routine and their face on a colour coordinated poster.
They are noisy, messy and quite annoying, but a necessary part of democratic life.
I’m just so glad that our elections only last a few months. Although if I was in power, I’d make it a law for the political parties to recycle all that paper.
Jesus never campaigned for office. He never became, or even pretended to be, a politician. But the Gospel contains what it means to follow Him and truly be a Christian – what it means morally to be part of the Kingdom of Heaven. What we will look at over the next few months is exactly that.
This, in a way, is Jesus’ manifesto.
However, before we do so, we need to gat a few things straight.
Firstly, Jesus’ popularity.
We often get the idea that following Jesus was something of a minority affair. We get that idea because in many countries following Jesus is a minority affair. But not at this particular point. Jesus was popular and gaining in popularity:
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and illness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralysed; and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.
Matthew 4:23-25 NIVUK
We have to be clear here. These people may have been motivated to follow Jesus for different reasons. He was healing many. He was casting out demons. Many among those who followed Him up that mountain would have been following Him either because they needed healing or because they wanted to see the show, not because of His vision of the Kingdom of Heaven.
But nevertheless, the reality is that many people were following Jesus: not all Jews, not all seekers, not all with the right motives, but following Him nonetheless.
Secondly, we see His position: He heads up a mountain.
Many have seen in this parallels with Moses heading up Mount Sinai to receive the law from God (Exodus 24:18). That’s not impossible – like Moses, Jesus is about to dispense commands to shape a new society.
However, I'm not sure if that particular symbolism is in Jesus’ mind. More likely, this is simply a quieter place, free from the cramped hustle and bustle of the towns and villages, where He can teach the crowd and get His message across.
It’s worth noting that Luke records similar teachings being imparted while Jesus was in a level place – a plain (Luke 6:17-19).
He is also seated – the calm position of an authoritative teacher about to impart knowledge.
There is also something here that some scholars have picked up. It’s a little grammatical, so bear with me.
The tense of the verb ‘to teach’ here possibly indicates that this was not a ‘one off’ sermon.
It’s in a continuous tense, meaning that Jesus ‘kept teaching’ His disciples.
But why is that important?
It means that either this is not a complete Sermon, but instead a compilation of Jesus’ teachings, or it is a complete sermon and Jesus kept teaching these same themes on other occasions (such as the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6:17-49).
Speaking as someone who takes an interest in teaching and presenting the Gospel, the Sermon on the Mount is structured as a sermon, with a distinct, and unmistakable, beginning, middle and end. So it is quite likely that this was a single sermon, but with parts of it also preached on other occasions.
That’s all well and good. We can understand Jesus’ popularity and position, but what was His point? What was He trying to achieve?
Even a quick scan of the sermon reveals that Jesus was clearly comparing the values of the Kingdom of Heaven to the values of contemporary society. He is clearly saying, ‘This is what other people believe... here is what I believe’. He is passing on the distinctive nature of His Kingdom.
Again, there is a parallel here with Moses:
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
Deuteronomy 7:6 NIVUK
So what about us, as people called to follow Jesus in the twenty-first century? What does this mean for us?
Jesus is still popular nowadays. Those who call themselves Christian are now the dominant religious group in the world. People still follow Him for different reasons – not all of them good.
But as we see Jesus here, sitting down to teach on the mountainside, we must understand that the call to be different, to be distinct, to be holy, has not changed.
And neither has the price for doing so.
But if we truly want to be His followers, we must listen carefully to His Word and seek to obey it.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I experience the pull every day to fall in line and be like everyone else. I know this is not what you want of me. Help me to understand what it truly means to be part of the Kingdom of Heaven and to live differently. Amen.
Questions
1. Why did Jesus take His followers up a mountainside? What was He trying to achieve? Should you do something like this to read His Word and hear from Him?
2. What was Jesus teaching His disciples? How can I do this?
3. What excites and encourages me in the Sermon on the Mount? What scares me? What makes me stop and think?
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