The Son of Man III: The Sermon on the Mount

Irish Jesuit Province

The Son of Man III: The Sermon on the MountAuthor(s): Hugh KellySource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 79, No. 933 (Mar., 1951), pp. 121-126Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20516333 .

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THE SON OF MAN?111

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT B> HUGH KELLY, S.J.

CHRIST began His public life officially, as it were, by the sermon

on the mount. Actually, He had been teaching for some time

in the synagogues of Galilee. But the sermon on the mount

has all the features of an official inauguration. It is the longest public sermon recorded in the gospel. Everything about it, the setting, the

note of authority, the amplitude, the range of subject, show that it was

the beginning of a new order of human relations with God. After

two thousand years of Christianity, during which it has been preached, meditated, commented, expounded on innumerable occasions, it still

remains a divine utterance, always fresh, profound, arresting, never

hackneyed, never exhausted, an abiding spring of spiritual refresh

ment and life. There is scarcely a sentence in which it has not passed into a proverb; scarcely a phrase which does not bear the stamp of

a most distinctive personal utterance. Never man before or since

spoke like that.

The setting is expressly noted by the two evangelists who have

preserved it for us, St. Matthew and St. Luke. The young Teacher

was already well known, had already gathered round Himself a body of disciples, and had become a figure of much interest and speculation for the public. One day He led His disciples and the crowd, that had

come to hear Him, up the slopes of one of the hills that stand on

the west side of the Sea of Galilee to a small hollow. His disciples

grouped themselves closely around Him, while beyond them was the

wide semi-circle of the crowd. "And when He was set down?

opening His mouth He taught them." There is a quiet authority and deliberation about His actions; and yet His whole manner is

winning and simple. This scene has been often compared with the

scene in the Old Testament when God gave the commandments, the

Old Law, to Moses on Mount Sinai. On that occasion the people stood far off in fear; the mountain was covered with a cloud and,

amid thunder and lightning, God spoke from impenetrable darkness

to the leader of the people. But here, in the scene of the gospel, all

is different. The crowd seated on the grass, in the midst of wild

flowers, with the birds darting around them, see close at hand and

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listen to a Teacher Who discourses with authority, certainly, but how

sweetly and how attractively. They were surely to hear from Him a

message of good tidings. The sermon on the mount is an outline, a general plan, of the

way in which the new religion, which Christ came to teach, was to

be lived. It does not contain all His teaching; the most profound

mysteries of the spiritual life had to await their time and audience.

But it indicates the general spirit, the broad features, of the way of

life which would lead men to the Kingdom. It gave the Christian

outlook on life. Its principal aim was to teach men a higher justice than that preached and practised by the Scribes and Pharisees. It

taught its hearers how to orientate human life in all its aspects towards God Our Father; how to live in God's sight not merely in our external actions but in the thoughts and intentions of their mind

and soul. It taught men that to seek God's approval for everything in life was the matter of supreme consequence. "Seek first the

Kingdom of God and His justice "?that was to be the supreme aim

of human life.

The sermon opens with a series of arresting, challenging statements, the Beatitudes : Blessed are the poor in spirit; Blessed are the meek;

Blessed are the pure of heart, and so on. They show at once the

originality, we might almost say the revolutionary character, of

Christ's message. They constitute a challenge to the natural man, the homo animalis, in whom vanity and self-love in all its forms are

so deeply rooted. They are a sketch of the ideal follower of God, of the man who worships in spirit and truth; they enumerate the

virtues which make one a member of the Kingdom. They describe

the state of soul of those who are docile to the teaching of Christ

and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Christ Himself has given the highest commendation to them because He made them the

conditions of His own human life. His example is thus one of the

essential elements of the new life He came to teach. But He has

given more than an example; He has given the promise and guarantee of their eternal recompense; "Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven".

That is the chief reason why they make men happy.

Only the Son of God could tell us of the eternal recompense of the

Beatitudes. In them He has given an unquenchable hope to

Christians, an unfailing source of courage and joy in the face of the

sufferings of life. Certain modern philosophers and Protestant

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theologians have maintained that it was unworthy of Christ to propose a recompense for a virtuous life; that the accomplishment of duty is its own reward. But Christ has constantly pointed out, and not

merely in the Beatitudes, to the external reward promised to a

Christian life. Even in the natural order virtue perfects human nature

and brings it closer to its last end, which is God, the knowledge and

love of Whom constitutes man's happiness. That is still more true

in the light of man's elevation to the supernatual order by sanctifying grace, which gives him a claim to the Beatific Vision, and which is

meant to flower into the light of glory. Then He goes on to indicate the relation of the Old Law, given

to Moses, with the New Law which He was inaugurating. On this most grave and delicate subject, where the suspicion and fanaticism of His hearers would be only too easily aroused, He speaks with a

note of authority which befits the founder of the law and not a subject. " It was said to them of old. . . . But I say to you . . ." He declared

that He had come not to abolish the law but to fulfil it, to bring it to its perfection. It had been the law of slaves and servants; which

might be observed by mere external deeds. He came to make it the

law of children?a law which claimed that which was most important, the mind and soul. The men of old considered that they had fulfilled

the law when they abstained from murder or adultery; the New Law

forbade the murder or adultery that was committed in the heart. The

Kingdom of God must first rule in men's hearts and must reform the

world from within. It is the leaven hidden within the mass that it

will pervade by its hidden action.

He takes up some of the chief observances of religion and shows

how they must be interior and spiritual because they must be done

primarily for God Our Father. The Pharisees had done their good works in the sight of the world and were praised for them. "Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward." His followers'

religion must be of a purer kind. "

Unless your justice abound more

than that of the Pharisees you shall not enter the Kingdom of

Heaven." When His followers will give alms, it will be done so

secretly that not even the left hand will know what the right hand

is doing. When they pray it will be behind the closed door of their

rooms, and not at the street corners. When they are fasting they will go about with head anointed, in festive clothes and with joyous air. "And thy Father Who seeth in secret will reward."

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And not merely specific religious practices, but the whole of life is to be lifted up to God and done in His sight and for His eyes

first of all. The care for the maintenance of life, the toil to get food and clothes, that important part of life must be such as befits God's children. The necessities of life must be sought for with diligence but without excessive anxiety and with due confidence in God's

providence. He teaches this lesson in one of the loveliest passages in the gospel when He points to the birds that were flying overhead and to the lilies that grew all around in the fields and reminds His

hearers how these creatures, improvident and short-lived as they were, are enclosed in God's providence. "Are not you of much more

value than these? Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God, and

His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you." "

That you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven "

?that is the fundamental principle of the New Law, which is to be

taken account of in all human activity and aims. Men are to keep in mind that they are God's children and are to five their life in its

light. Their attitude towards money is to be regulated by it. "

Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth, where the rust and moth consume. . . . But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven."

Complete absorption in business of the world is sternly forbidden. "

You cannot serve God and mammon." But most of all our

relations with our fellow-men are transformed by this principle.

They are God's children as we are and must be treated as such. "

If you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do

not even the publicans do this? And if you salute your brethren

only, what do you more? Do not also the heathens do this? Be

you therefore perfect, as also your Heavenly Father is perfect." Thus

the barriers which the prejudice and passions of men had raised

between themselves must be thrown down, and all must be accorded

the courtesy and charity of members of the divine family. And at

times this spirit of union will make demands that are heroic; and

hatred and the desire for revenge are denounced in the sternest words

of the whole sermon. "

You have heard that it hath been said : Thou

shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say to you :

Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you; pray for them

that persecute and calumniate you: that you may be the children

of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who maketh His sun rise upon the good and the bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust."

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He Who laid down this law, so difficult to human nature, Himself

gave the supreme example in its fulfilment.

Such a teaching can never be trite or hackneyed. It is first heard

with a feeling of dismay or terror, because it runs counter to all the

deepest instincts of fallen human nature. It is as difficult and as

challenging in the twentieth century as it was in the first. It puts before the world a standard of action which is beyond the reach of

man's natural virtue and which he can reach only by the grace of

God. "That you may be the children of your Father Who is in

Heaven "

is the refrain of the sermon and must be taken very literally. Christ became man to give us

" the power to be made the sons of

God," and to give us the light and strength to live as God's sons. His

New Law is the law of sons. It is a law of the heart and soul, a law of interiority, which gives to God first of all man's thought and

intentions. It is a law of intimacy, whose observance keeps men in

the presence of God and gives them the freedom of children in their

Father's house. By its observance they will share in the beatitude of the angels "who always see the face of My Father Who is in

Heaven "

(Matt xviii, 10). Nay, they will have something of the

intimacy of Christ Himself with His Father which He will pray for on the eve of His passion. "That they all may be one as Thou

Father in Me and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us "

(John xvii, 21). The sermon on the mount thus lays down for the Christian the art

of life. There is nothing in human life that does not find its place in it, that is not given its true import and value. Work, sufferings,

duty, religion are all seen as part of one design. God is the Master

of life; the sufferings, disappointments, the persecutions, toils, which

enter into every life?these are sent by God or permitted by Him for

the furtherance of His divine purpose. Life is not at the mercy of

blind forces. It is planned and directed; its sufferings, if endured in

the right spirit, will bear an eternal weight of glory. The example of

Christ, the grace and truth of which He is the unfailing source, will

enable His follower to live as a son of God.

The full import of the sermon on the mount was assuredly not

grasped by those who heard it first. Even for successive ages it has

its formidable challenge, its depths, its sweet austere attraction. . . .

It is the New Law which will never be superseded. It is, and will be

always, a call to a new life, a life which will always be beyond the

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reach of the natural man but attainable by means of divine grace. But it is the unique way to the Kingdom of God; it is the only way by which man can reach the end which God has appointed for him. The New Law is the law of children and a law of love. But it is a true law with unshakeable obligation, with an eternal sanction. We

must live as God's children in this life if we are to attain to the blessed vision of His glory in Heaven.

" I put before you life and

death," Moses had said to the people when he proclaimed the Old Law. Christ puts the same alternative.

" You cannot serve God and

mammon."

When He had finished the crowd were in admiration at His doctrine. Every one who reads the sermon on the mount must share the same admiration for a message so lofty and inspiring, and of such

import to human life.

THE PEACE OF KWAN YIN

(continued from page 120)

senses? His face was calm, hiding the pain and fear that his decision might bring. His hands were tearing the net across.

The shadows were lengthening. It was almost time. Yuk Tong would be waiting. Slowly he came to his feet, and drew up the anchor. The latticed, bamboo sails creaked as they rode up the

mast; then they caught the evening breeze, and San Wah sailed

through Lammas Sound, and out to the cpen sea.

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The Son of Man III: The Sermon on the Mount