John Hess-Yoder once served as a missionary in Laos. While there he learned about an intriguing fact of the region’s history. It seems that prior to the time of European colonialism, there were no fixed national borders. Borders only came into existence after the European powers began to carve up the region to exploit its resources and people. Of course, the lack of clear boundaries brought with it some difficulties. How, for instance, does one know who is a citizen of your country so that you can collect taxes from them? The kings of Vietnam and Laos came up with a solution that focused not on a person’s location but on their characteristics and practices.
Describing this borderland policy, Hess-Yoder recalls, “Those who ate short-grain rice, built their houses on stilts, and decorated them with Indian-style serpents were considered Laotians. On the other hand, those who ate long-grain rice, built their houses on the ground, and decorated them with Chinese-style dragons were considered Vietnamese. The exact location of a person's home was not what determined his or her nationality. Instead, each person belonged to the kingdom whose cultural values he or she exhibited.”
This arrangement, he suggests, is an analogy for the Kingdom of God. He says, “So it is with us , we live in the world, but as part of God's kingdom, we are to live according to kingdom's standards and values.”
The Sermon on the Mount is a brief guide book to the values and characteristics of those who are citizens of the Kingdom of God, or, as Matthew calls it, the Kingdom of Heaven. In our Lenten Study, Adam Hamilton observes, “If the kingdom of God is Jesus’ driving vision, the Sermon on the Mount serves as the road map for how his followers are to live out that vision. In it, Jesus addresses the missional, ethical, and spiritual life of those who seek to live as subjects of God.” Indeed, Matthew may well have intended this sermon as just such a guide or map. The Sermon on the Mount is likely not a single sermon but a collection of Jesus’ teachings. Tom Long suggests it may be more accurate to refer to Matthew chapters 5-7 as the “Instructions on the Mount,” more accurate perhaps, but not nearly as catchy. Matthew seems to have edited together various teaching of Jesus which seemed to be essential for his community, and Christians in general, as they sought to live as disciples of Jesus and citizens of God’s kingdom.
At the beginning of this morning’s selections from Jesus’ Sermon, he tells his disciples and the assembled crowd: “You are the light of the world…. let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” The work of the God’s people, the purpose of the church, is to reflect the light of God—the light of grace, love, compassion and beauty—so that those who see it will be beguiled, will be dazzled, will be drawn to it, will want to know the source of it and thus will open themselves up to God. We do this not by shouting, not by trumpeting our own righteousness, not by speaking evil of those who disagree with us, not by pointing fingers of condemnation, not by insisting on our own way, not by seeking our own advancement or security or success. We shine God’s light by what we do for others, by love and sacrifice and giving ourselves to other people. We reflect God’s glorious, beautiful light by how we interact within this family of faith and by how we treat people out there in the world. Our words and our deeds should be as visible as a city on a hill, but they should point not to ourselves, but to the God who Jesus came to reveal.
Jesus is making a similar point when he describes his followers as “the salt of the earth.” Salt adds flavor to food. Indeed, it enhances the flavor of foods.
While we may take salt for granted today or try to use less of it, it been a valuable resource through most of human history. It is said that the first roads were built to transport salt; some of the earliest taxes were levied on salt; salt was even used as money. It was certainly a valued commodity in Jesus’ day. But, like any other commodity, it has to be used to fulfill its purpose, to justify its value. Perhaps this is how we should understand Jesus statement about salt losing its saltiness. This of course can’t literally happen. But if salt is not used, it might as well not be salt; it isn’t fulfilling its purpose. Kat Banakis suggests, “Jesus seems to be saying that our lives operate in a similar way: as a valuable resource to be poured out and never hidden.” [“Living the Word: Feb. 9, 5th Sunday after the Epiphany,” The Christian Century, Jan. 29, 2020]
We are meant to be the salt of the world, to be used, to be poured out. We are to mix ourselves into the world around us and season it with God’s love, God’s justice, God’s mercy, God’s good news. This is precisely the prophet Micah’s point: we are to act justly towards others and especially to the vulnerable and oppressed and we are to show mercy and compassion to anyone who is in need. As William Temple once said, “The church is the only organization on earth that exists for those who are not its members.” [quoted by Charles James Cook, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1, 336] This requires us to mix it up with the world, to go outside the walls, to enact our faith in our everyday interactions with other people.
Of course, mixing it up in the world is not easy, predictable, nor always pretty. Recognizing the difficulties of human interactions and the human proclivity for conflict, Jesus gives specific examples of what kingdom living looks like. He presents these in the form of antitheses: contrasting the conventional wisdom of society (“you have heard it said…”) with the higher righteousness of God’s kingdom (“but I say to you…”). In our first reading we heard three of the six antitheses in which Jesus calls his followers to a deeper, more authentic way of living, to a religious faith that is not merely lip service, but that actually makes a difference in how we live, a faith in which God’s light shines through our actions.
Jesus councils not just against murder but also against anger. To insult another is to demean them, to speak as if they are less than fully human. Of course, we cannot avoid getting angry, and anger can lead us to try to change things for the better. But the anger that is not redirected, that is nurtured or unrestrained, is the first step on down a destructive road, a road that can end in murder or at least the killing of relationships. Indeed, in our moment of fury, when we unleash a torrent of hurtful words, or strike out physically, or simply give the other the evil eye, we are often saying in effect, “I wish you were dead.”
Knowing the dangers of anger, Jesus councils us to quickly seek reconciliation. This is not easy. It may mean admitting our own fault in the matter and apologizing or, if we are not at fault, it may mean recognizing that we ourselves have committed similar offenses in the past and being willing to forgive. As Ron Allen points out, “regardless of who caused the problem in the relationship, the person who becomes aware of the difficulty is responsible for taking steps toward reconciliation.” Our relationships are far more important than our pride or our need to be right. In God’s kingdom, we are not to insult, but to build up. We are not to hold grudges, but to offer grace. If we did that, if we used our words not to insult but to encourage, not to tear down, but to build up, our relationships—personal and political, casual and committed—would be radically altered for the better.
Similarly, Jesus councils against revenge and hatred. We are not to seek retribution, not to desire to get even. Instead, we are to respond with forgiveness. When Jesus tells his disciples to turn the other cheek, to do good, and to give expecting nothing in return, he is not telling them to allow others to walk all over them. He is not telling them to be passive in the face of abuse or aggression or injustice. Indeed, turning the other cheek was likely an act that asserted the dignity of the person struck. To present the other cheek to a social superior who had just backhanded you—a blow reserved for an inferior—was to say, “You may strike me again, but you will strike me as you would an equal, because in God’s eyes I am of equal worth to you.” So, Jesus is telling his audience, and us, to respond differently than expected, to seek by our actions to redefine the relationship. Ultimately, we are to act not out of anger, but out of love.
Similarly, Jesus tells us that we are not to hate, but to love our enemies. This is perhaps the most quintessentially Christian thing to do. The renowned scholar of world religions, Huston Smith once gave a lecture in which he listed what, to his mind, were the unique characteristics of various faiths. When he came to Christianity, he listed only one characteristic: “Forgiveness. Forgiveness of enemies. This is the very strange notion that makes the teachings of Jesus distinctive.”
The commandments to love God and love neighbor are at the heart of Christian ethics; they are the core of the Christian life. Thus, to live as citizens of the Kingdom, we must seek to love others, even our enemies, even those we do not like. Hamilton points out. “Love, here, is not warm affectionate feelings, but practicing loving kindness and seeking the good of the other.” Thus, as Paul observes in his letter to the Romans, “If your enemies are hungry feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.”
Jesus provides the theological justification for this difficult commandment by appealing to God’s nature: Love your enemies because this is what God does. “God causes the sun to rise and the life-giving rain to fall upon both the evil and the good, the righteous and the unrighteous.” [Matt 5.45] God is unfailingly generous and gracious—to all. Why? Because the very character of God is love, and love seeks not its own gain, but is motivated only by the good of the beloved.
That is why, if we love our enemies, we will be “children of our Father in heaven.” Children are those who are like their parents, who share in the nature of their parents. To be a child of God is to be like God, “to participate in the Divine nature by reflecting God’s unconditional love for all made in God’s image.” I think this is the meaning of being perfect as God is perfect. Gregory of Nyssa defined perfection not as a static state, but as a state of ongoing change for the better, as a continuous growth in goodness. Thus, we may understand the call to be perfect as God is perfect as a call to become ever more mature, to grow so that we more fully, more accurately mirror God’s own love.
This call to love is reiterated in the commandment not to judge. Honesty compels us to humility. We are all sinners. Thus, Jesus is calling for us to recognize our own failures and needs before condemning anyone else. Tom Long observes, “Find the wrong in oneself before turning the moral searchlight upon anyone else cause one to move from self-righteousness to compassion. When we recognize that we, too, are broken and flawed, …then we move from harsh judgement to a tender concern to help the neighbor. Instead of a finger poked in the neighbor’s face, we reach out mercifully to wipe the neighbor’s eye.”
All of this, indeed all of the teachings of the Law and the prophets, is summed up in the Golden Rule: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.” Hamilton sees this as a summary of all that Jesus has taught in the Sermon on the Mount, a summary of the “ethics of the Kingdom [of God] and the call to a higher righteousness.” The Golden Rule is not an advantageous rule of reciprocity—a way to get the treatment or benefits we want—but a revolutionary way of life that opens the door to reconciliation and transformation. It is the call to love others as we love ourselves and thus to imitate God whose very nature is love. It is the call to let our light shine in the darkness of the world so that others seek the One who is the source of our love and light.
Several years ago, the Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles, an associate of Martin Luther King, Jr. who was with him when he was assassinated in Memphis, was interviewed on NPR. The host asked what Kyles would be preaching about on the Martin Luther King holiday. Kyles told her,
I'll be talking about knocking holes in the darkness. It is said that Robert Louis Stevenson was a man who never enjoyed good health. He spent a lot of time in his room even as a child. He was always looking out the window. His nurse asked him one day, Robert, what are you doing? He said, I'm watching that old man knock holes in the darkness. She said, what are you talking about?
would climb up the ladder and light the light, come down, move the ladder to the next pole, climb up, come down, move the ladder. And everywhere he would light a light it appeared to with his little quick mind that a hole was being knocked in the darkness.
And so, I'm suggesting that those of us who have the strength and the ability, we should be knocking holes in the darkness. So, Martin Luther King came to Memphis - it was a dark place to come, but he came and he came knocking holes in the darkness.
Hamilton sees this as a powerful metaphor for “what Jesus had in mind for his followers.” We, as individuals and communities are to “knock holes in the darkness.” This is how the Kingdom of God grows and spreads, as we join in the work of God by enacting the vision, values and ideals of the Sermon on the Mount.”
Ultimately, I think this is what the Sermon on the Mount is about, shining our light in the darkness of the world. Jesus declares that we are the light of the world. Let us shine brightly so that the light of God will be seen by others and its loveliness will draw them to its source, that they too may know the joy of the Lord, that they too may praise and serve God. For when we live out God’s love and grace, when we continue Jesus’ mission of hope and compassion, then God’s kingdom “comes [among us], and God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.”