Monday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 7:1-5
We begin today the last chapter of the Sermon on the Mount. In the Gospel, Jesus says:
Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.
This means, of course, judged by God. This is a good example of Matthew’s using an impersonal passive voice to avoid mentioning the name of God, which is understood. Another example is where he has Jesus say:
…whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven [by God], and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven [by God]. (Matt 16:19)
Jesus today touches on an issue in which very few of us can claim innocence—passing judgment on others. Sometimes we call it gossip, which seems harmless enough, and very often it is relatively harmless. And yet at times we can spend a long time tearing other people apart, revealing to others information about people which they do not need to know. What Jesus says is so true. We focus on a tiny speck in someone else’s eye while there is a large plank in our own.
In fact, that is probably why we are so fond of indulging in this exercise. Our purpose is not so much to bring another person down as to bring ourselves up. Often those we judge are ‘higher placed’ than we are, or more gifted or more educated. To some extent unconsciously, we feel inferior. One way to even things up is to bring them down, to reveal their feet of clay (and this is made even worse in our time by the reach and impact of social media).
But as Jesus says, this is a kind of hypocrisy. Given our own faults, what right have we to sit in judgement on another? So often our judgements are based on the purely external or on incomplete evidence. We condemn acts while being quite ignorant of the motives behind the acts. Only God is in a position to make an accurate judgement of a person’s strengths or weaknesses.
Linked with all this is the fact that, nine times out of ten, we would never make our criticisms face to face. This, on the one hand, is a form of cowardice and, on the other, proves our hypocrisy because we make no effort to help the person make the changes we would like to see. It might be a good resolution for us to promise only to criticise people to their face and then in a non-judgmental fashion—and to give them an opportunity to express their side. Sometimes we will find that our criticisms are without real foundation, or we will find the person grateful for our having drawn attention to something of which they were unaware.
And removing that plank from our eye is another way of saying, that before we make any evaluation of another, we need to be sure that our view is totally free from any prejudice or bias. We do have a serious responsibility to draw attention to things that people do wrong, especially if others or they themselves are hurt, but it is a responsibility we often shirk. Gossiping behind their backs is so much easier, but it helps no one.
Read more
Wednesday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 7:15-20
Today’s reading continues from the Sermon on the Mount and contains a warning which must have been very relevant in the early Church, but has not lost its meaning in our own day.
Sadly, there are ‘prophets’ who are wolves in sheep’s clothing. On the outside, they seem to have the image of Jesus, his gentleness and love, but in fact they are religious predators, using people for their own ends. There have been unfortunate examples of this in some so-called ‘televangelists’ who, in the name of the Lord Jesus, ripped off countless numbers of trusting people, many of them elderly and not well-off, by making them pledge large sums of money they could not afford.
How can you recognise them? By their “fruits”, i.e. by the way they behave and not just by what they say or the claims they make. It is not that difficult to separate the genuine from the false. As Jesus says, it is not possible for a bad tree to consistently produce good fruit nor for a genuinely good tree to produce bad fruit. Very often we have to admit that we try to make a good impression on people and we often try to hide from others what we believe to be our weaknesses.
Integrity and transparency are precious qualities to be found in any person and they are not easy to achieve. Most of us wear masks of some kind. Yet people can often identify more easily with a person whose faults are admitted. They feel that they are dealing with the real person and not a phoney. This can apply very much to pastors and other religious leaders.
Jesus is calling on us today to be really genuine people. Take care of the inside and the outside will take care of itself.
Read more
Friday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 8:1-4
The two chapters (8 and 9) following the Sermon on the Mount include a long list of miracles (ten altogether) performed by Jesus. They are seen as a confirmation of his authority to teach because they are so obviously the work of God himself. The man who can do these things also has the right to be heard and followed.
The first story is the cure of a leper. It is told with the usual brevity and lack of detail characteristic of Matthew (compare with Mark’s version, 1:40-45). A leper begs to be healed. His faith and trust in Jesus is revealed by his saying:
Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.
Jesus replies:
I am willing.
And he cures him instantly. We may note the simplicity of Jesus’ act. In this, the healing miracles of Jesus contrast with the fantastic stories from the Hellenistic world and those sometimes attributed to Jewish rabbis.
But Jesus’ miracles also differ because of the spiritual and symbolic meaning attached to them. They often have the quality of a parable, and frequently the words that accompany the miracle are of greater significance. Such is true in this case, where the healing of the leper has wider ramifications as indicated below.
While compassion is many times the motive behind a miracle, most often they are seen as strengthening a person’s faith. Jesus, too, is very selective in the miracles he performs and often demands secrecy from the beneficiary. Jesus does not want to be the centre of any sensational wonder-working. It will be the miracle of his resurrection that will be the really determining factor of who he is.
Soon, we will see Jesus sending out his disciples to proclaim the Kingdom and giving them his own powers of healing. Their mandate will be to do the same work that Jesus has been doing. The 10 miracles recounted in chapters 8 and 9 will be the kind of thing that the missionary successors of Jesus will also do.
After the healing, Jesus then instructs the man, in accordance with the requirements of the law, to go to the Temple to get a certificate from the priests as proof of his return to health. Only with this official documentation will he be allowed to re-enter society.
The leper was a particularly unfortunate person in ancient society. It was known that through contact with a leprous person one could contract the disease, so they were kept isolated from the rest of society. There was, of course, no known cure and the person’s body just gradually rotted away.
What was probably more tragic was the fact that many people with other kinds of similar-looking skin diseases, which were not at all infectious, could be branded as lepers and condemned to the same policy of isolation. The healing of the leper by Jesus was then much more than a physical healing. It meant that the man could be fully re-integrated into normal society.
In our time, the leper can be a symbol for all those who are marginalised by our societies for one reason or another—foreigners; people of a different colour or culture, or gender, or religion; those with addictions—to drugs or alcohol, wealth or power, or pornography; victims of sexually transmitted diseases…the list could go on and on.
We Christians have a special responsibility to be agents of healing to re-integrate such people and accept them fully as brothers and sisters.
Read more
Tuesday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Genesis 13:2, 5-18 (more…)
Read more
Friday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Genesis 17:1, 9-10, 15-22 (more…)
Read more
Saturday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Genesis 18:1-15
Another stage in the fulfilling of God’s promise to Abraham. The reading begins by our being told that the Lord visited Abraham by the terebinth (turpentine tree) of Mamre, which was the site of his home, as he sat at the entrance to his tent. For all his wealth and prosperity, Abraham still lives a nomadic life, as does Lot.
In fact, he sees three men standing before him. And the text seems uncertain in its use of singular or plural for the visitors. A more primitive tradition seems to speak of only three men and leaves their identity mysterious. Abraham in speaking uses the singular, but it is not clear whether he is speaking to all three in the singular, or to one of them. Many of the Fathers saw a foreshadowing here of the doctrine of the Trinity, a doctrine that was revealed only in the New Testament. As later on, two of the men are described as ‘angels’, the third is taken by some to be Yahweh himself. Whatever interpretation is chosen, they clearly represent a special presence of God himself.
Abraham ran forward to greet them and bowed profoundly before them. Speaking in the singular (“My Lord”), he immediately asks them to accept the hospitality of his tent. At this stage his bowing to the ground is not religious adoration, but simply a mark of respect to guests. At first, Abraham sees his guests as mere human beings and welcomes them warmly; their superhuman character is only gradually revealed.
He offers them water to wash their hot and dusty feet and suggests they take some rest under the shade of a tree. He also invites them to have some food and refresh themselves before continuing their journey. They accept his invitation.
The picture is one of typical Near Eastern hospitality which includes:
Abraham immediately tells his wife Sarah to bake bread, and he orders that a steer be prepared for eating. When all was ready, he offered his guests the meat of the steer with curds and milk, and waited on them as they ate under the tree. The curds were a type of soft cheese or yogurt.
The men then asked for Sarah. On being told that she was in the tent (women did not appear in the presence of men as they ate), one of them said that he would return in about one year’s time when Sarah would have a child. ‘One of them’ would indicate the speaker as being Yahweh himself, something Abraham begins to realise when he hears the prediction of a miraculous birth. “About this time next year” is literally “when the time becomes alive”, i.e. at the time when birth is due after the period of gestation; the conception is understood as taking place soon after the prediction.
Sarah, who was inside at the entrance to the tent, heard all this being said. She and Abraham were very old, and Sarah had long before had her menopause. She “laughed to herself” at the thought of being a mother:
After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I be fruitful?
We will subsequently see her future son named “Isaac”, a name that means ‘God has smiled’.
But the Lord (in the person of the three men) asked Abraham why Sarah had laughed at the idea of becoming pregnant:
Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?
Mary will hear similar words from Gabriel at the Annunciation. Again the Lord promises to return in a year’s time when Sarah will bear a son. Sarah then became afraid (she has begun to realise who the speaker is) and denies having laughed. But the Lord chides:
Yes, you did laugh.
That is the end of our reading. Immediately after this, the three men left and continued their journey to Sodom. Abraham, with true courtesy, accompanied them part of the way. This coming Monday will find us in Sodom. The reading is a lesson in courtesy and hospitality to the stranger, and one to be taken aboard by every Christian. One never knows when God is present in a caller to the door. In fact, one can take it that he is present, one way or another, in every caller and should be treated as such.
Read more
Wednesday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Genesis 15:1-12,17-18
Today we read about the first of the formal covenants between God and Abram and later between God and the Israelites. It begins with a general promise from God in a vision to Abram:
Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.
“Shield” here signifies ‘King’ and “Do not be afraid” is a phrase repeated again and again throughout Scripture.
But this does not reassure Abram. He has heard these promises already, but so far nothing has happened. What good are all God’s blessings if Abram remains childless and without an heir and has to bequeath his property to his steward, Eliezer?
You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.
It is known that in Mesopotamia, a childless man could adopt one of his own male servants to be heir and guardian of his estate.
But God reaffirms his former promise:
This man [Eliezer] shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.
He tells Abram to look up at the night sky and try to count the stars, if he can. His descendants will be just as numerous. It is said that on a clear night 8,000 stars can be seen in a Middle Eastern sky but, for most people, it means a number beyond counting. And, in spite of the unlikelihood of that happening:
…he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.
It is an act of trust in a promise which, from a human point of view, could not be realised. God then acknowledges that Abram’s act of trust is worthy of reward based on his “righteousness”, namely, on his integrity and humble submission to God, which makes a person pleasing to God.
Much later, Paul will use this text to prove that justification before God depends on our faith and trust in him and not on the external observance of the Law. At the same time, because Abram’s faith was the source of his carrying out God’s wishes, James in his Letter cites the same text to show that faith which does not result in good behaviour is ‘dead’ (James 2:14-26). There is no contradiction here: we do not ‘earn’ salvation by the ‘good works’ we do or by observing regulations and laws, but a genuine commitment in faith to God and his teaching naturally overflows into acts of love and care for others. Paul, then, makes Abram’s faith a model for all Christians (see Rom 4:1-25 and Gal 3:6-9).
As an encouragement to Abram, God reminds him that:
I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.
But again, Abram is not fully convinced. He is living in this land, but how can he be sure that he will gain full possession of it?
Abram is then instructed to prepare to offer a sacrifice. He is told to bring animals from his flocks:
Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.
At three years an animal was regarded as ritually mature.
The animals were cut in two and arranged with each half facing the other; the two birds, however, were not cut. Birds of prey came down on the dead animals, but Abram drove them away. As the sun set, Abram fell into a kind of trance and “a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him”—a sure sign of the awesome presence of God coming down on him.
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking brazier and a flaming torch passed between the two rows of animal offerings. As often in Scripture, the smoke and fire represent God’s presence. Although the text does not mention it, Abram may also have walked between the two rows of split carcasses, although it could be that God alone, as the one initiating a unilateral agreement, walked between them. As the Bible and also contemporary inscriptions make clear, agreements were sometimes ratified by walking between the divided pieces of animals. While they did so, the contracting parties would call down on themselves a fate similar to that of the slaughtered beast, if they should fail to keep their word. Here the two partners to the agreement are God and Abram, although the chief initiator and implementer is God.
The covenant consisted of a promise to Abram to give him land in perpetuity—”from the river [or ‘wadi’ in some translations] of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates”. It was this covenant which would both guarantee Abram’s possession of the land he was occupying, and also be a sign that the promise of an heir would be fulfilled. We are very close now to that happening. It is this total trust of Abram in God’s promise which will be retold again and again down the ages and on into the New Testament (see Paul’s letters and the Letter to the Hebrews).
In Jesus, of course, we have a new covenant and it is for us to be part of it. Let us pray for faith and trust like that of Abram, when against all hope he continued to hope.
Read more
Monday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Genesis 12:1-9
Today we return to the Book of Genesis. We have left behind the mythological pre-historical stories of Creation and the Fall, and the early developments of mankind with their own theological meanings. We now move into an area of what we can call dateable history, about 1,800 years before the Christian era.
Starting with chapter 12 we enter on the real beginnings of the history of Israel proper. The rest of Genesis deals with the so-called ‘Patriarchs’—Abraham, his son Isaac, his son Jacob, and his 12 sons—with special attention to the second youngest, Joseph. These 12 sons will be the patriarchs from whom all the Israelites are descended. The book ends with the word “Egypt”. That introduces us to the next book, Exodus, which opens (at a much later date) with the Israelites living in slavery in Egypt where they have been since the time of Joseph.
The two opening chapters of this section of Genesis, chapters 12 and 13, come from the ‘Yahwist’ tradition, although there are some editorial additions from the ‘Priestly’ tradition. What we begin reading today represents the beginnings of the history of the Jewish people. The story begins with Abram (later to be called Abraham), the founding father of Israel.
Although we have now moved into the domain of history, it does not mean that everything described is a newspaperman’s eyewitness report. We are still very much in the area of legend and myth. These are stories which were told and retold to succeeding generations to give them a sense of pride in themselves as a people. Undoubtedly there are areas of fact which archaeology findings often confirm.
At the end of chapter 11 we are told that Terah brought his son Abram with his childless wife, Sarai, out of Ur in Chaldea, their ancestral home in what is now southern Iraq, with the intention of going to Canaan, but when they reached a place called Haran, they settled there. Haran was in northern Mesopotamia (now part of Iraq).
Our reading today begins with a call from God to Abram:
Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
Abram is being told to leave the settled world of the post-Babel nations and begin a pilgrimage with God to a better world of God’s making.
Yahweh then makes his first great promise to Abram:
I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
The original Hebrew promise can be understood to read as: “All nations shall bless themselves through you” (i.e. in blessing someone they will say, “May you be blessed as Abraham was”) or “All nations shall be blessed in you”. The former understanding is the more likely. Altogether the word “bless” or “blessing” occurs five times in this promise of Yahweh.
The blessing has a seven-fold structure:
- I will make you into a great nation
- I will bless you
- I will make your name great
- You will be a blessing
- I will bless those who bless you
- The one who curses you I will curse
- In you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed
God’s original blessing on all mankind would be restored and fulfilled through Abram and his offspring in various ways and degrees. These promises were reaffirmed to Abram, Isaac and Moses. The seventh promise is quoted in Acts (3:25) with reference to Peter’s Jewish listeners, Abram’s physical descendants, and in Galatians (3:8) to Paul’s gentile listeners, Abram’s spiritual descendants—among whom we are also included.
Putting his trust in God’s word, Abram left Haran, set out for Canaan and brought his nephew Lot with him. Prompt obedience, grounded in faith, characterises Abraham all through. He cuts off all earthly ties and sets out for an unknown land. It will be the first of the great acts of faith and trust in God’s word which will make Abraham a model of faith for future generations. It will be renewed when the promise is repeated in chapter 15 (of Genesis) and really put to the test when God asks for the surrender of his only legitimate son, Isaac, on whom the fulfilment of the promise depends.
To Abraham’s unquestioning act of faith, the chosen people will owe its very existence and destiny (Heb 11:8-19). Not only Abraham’s physical descendants, but all who, in virtue of this same faith, become his spiritual descendants will have their share in that destiny as Paul shows (Rom 4; Gal 3:7). We count ourselves among them.
So, in obedience to the Lord’s call, Abram leaves Haran and sets out for Canaan, bringing with him his wife Sarai, his brother’s son Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated between them (mainly flocks and herds), and “the persons” they had acquired in Haran. These “persons” would include slaves and retainers forming part of the extended household of Abram and Lot. One gets the impression that they were very prosperous.
When they reached Canaan, they went as far as “the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak [terebinth] of Moreh.” The terebinth or turpentine tree is native to the Mediterranean region. It yielded probably the earliest known form of turpentine, said to have been used as medicine by the ancient Greeks. A famous sanctuary was located at Schechem in central Canaan, and a large tree was often a conspicuous feature at such holy places.
The Canaanites were living there but God had promised the land would in the future go to Abram and his descendants.
To your offspring I will give this land.
It is worth noticing that at this stage Abram did not have a single son or daughter by his wife Sarai, so the issue of descendants was still only based on a promise. But it is on the basis of this promise that Abram and his descendants claimed a sacred right to this land as their home. In the course of time, the original inhabitants, the Canaanites, would come to symbolise an idolatrous people who did not recognise the lordship of Yahweh and did not deserve to keep the land as theirs.
In acknowledgement of God’s promise, Abram:
…built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
This was the first of several that Abram would erect at places where he had special spiritual experiences. From there, Abram moved to hill country to a place between Bethel on the east and Ai on the west. Bethel lay just north of Jerusalem and was an important town in the religious history of God’s people. Only Jerusalem is mentioned more often in the Old Testament. Here, he built another altar and dedicated it to the Lord. Then he was on the move again and went by stages to the Negeb, the semi-desert area in southern Palestine.
The virtue for which Abram (Abraham) would become a model later on was his deep faith and trust in God’s promises, however unlikely they were of being fulfilled. Paul in his letters (especially Romans and the Letter to the Hebrews) put him forward as a model for all believers. It begins with his answering God’s call to leave the familiarity of his homeland and settle down in an unknown territory with which his people had no former connection.
This faith in God’s providential care is something we too need to cultivate. God can call us too to strange places and situations. He sometimes asks us to leave the familiar and take risks with the unknown. Sometimes it takes the form of a ‘vocation’ or calling to a particular way of life—inside or outside the Church. However, and sadly, it would appear that many people decide on their life’s work first and only then ask God what he wants them to do.
Read more
Thursday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Genesis 16:1-12,15-16
In spite of God’s promises, Abram is still without child by his wife, Sarai. But among her staff was an Egyptian maidservant, called Hagar. She may have been acquired while Abram was in Egypt (an anecdote not covered in our readings).
Sarai is aware of how she has disappointed her husband by not giving him a son, and she attributes this to God’s action. She then makes a generous offer, suggesting to Abram that he “go in to [her] slave” so that Abram might have sons through her:
You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.
Hagar would, in effect, act as a surrogate mother.
Sarai’s actions are all in keeping with the laws of the time, as known from ancient extra-biblical sources. According to Mesopotamian law, an infertile wife could offer one of her female slaves to her husband and recognise the child born as one of her own. There will be a similar situation with Rachel, the wife of Jacob, and Leah, Rachel’s older sister who was also a wife to Jacob (see Gen 30:1-24).
So, after they had lived 10 years in Canaan, Sarai offers her maidservant Hagar as a concubine to her husband. The servant very soon becomes pregnant. As soon as she did so, she looked on her mistress with disdain and contempt. Although a mere slave, Hagar was able to do what her mistress had not been able to accomplish. As mother to Abram’s long-wanted son she was not afraid of any reprisals from him.
Sarai then turns on Abram and blames him for Hagar’s behaviour:
May the wrong done to me be on you!
Sarai had generously given her maid to Abram and now that the maid is pregnant, she has only disdain for Sarai. Expressing hostility or suspicion on her part, Sarai says to Abram:
May the Lord judge between you and me!
Abram’s response does not sound very admirable to our ears today:
Your slave is in your power; do to her as you please.
Taking him at his word, the jealous and grieved wife treats Hagar so badly that she flees the household.
She is found on a road by an “angel of the Lord” near a spring out in the wilderness at Shur. At this time, the ‘angel’ is understood as a manifestation of God in human form and not—as angels are later understood—a created being distinct from God.
He asks her where she has come from and where she is going. She says she has run away from her mistress Sarai. The angel tells her to go back to Sarai and to submit to her mistress’s abusive behaviour. In return, he promises that she will have descendants too numerous to count.
In addition, the messenger tells her that she is in fact already pregnant. She is going to have a son and he is to be called Ishmael. This is in answer to her prayer. In fact, the name Ishmael means either “May God hear!” or “God has heard”.
However, this son is strangely foreseen to:
…be a wild ass of a man,
with his hand against everyone,
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he shall live at odds with all his kin.
Away from human settlements, Ishmael would roam the desert like a wild donkey and the hostility between Sarai and Hagar will be passed on to their descendants. Ishmael’s descendants will be the desert Arabs. In describing them, Job asks:
Who has let the wild ass go free?…to which I have given the steppe [wilderness] for its home….[and which] scorns the tumult of the city. (Job 39:5-7)
But sure enough, when Abram was eighty-six years old, Hagar bore a son to Abram and the son was named Ishmael.
It is clear that this story represents a more primitive society with different social values. The having of an heir transcended any duties of marital fidelity, a fact which Sarai clearly acknowledged. Her primary responsibility as a wife was to produce an heir. Being a loving marriage companion was secondary to this.
Hagar’s attitude to Sarai is certainly not commendable, though it is understandable that a slave should feel good about being able to do something so important for her master which his wife could not. Abram’s attitude is not altogether commendable either. But he was, in his time and culture, simply recognising the superior status of his wife over a slave—even if that slave was to be (as he would have thought at the time) the mother of his heir. Hagar was, in contemporary terms, ‘only a baby-bearer’.
In our own day, typically there is a great deal of turmoil when a ‘mistress’ is present in a marriage. Extreme situations can occur, all the way from reducing a wife to the status of a live-in household employee to total amorality about sexual relations outside of marriage—and everything in between. All too often, the victims who suffer the most from this turmoil are the children of such relationships. In today’s passage, the seeds of future problems are sown, and sadly, the same unfortunate outcomes still occur.
Read more
Thursday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 7:21-29
We come today to the final reading from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus spells out the essential quality of the true disciple. He or she is not to be measured merely by external activities. It is not enough, for instance, to keep saying “Lord, Lord…” That by itself will not bring a person under the kingship of God. It will not be enough either to be able to perform wonders like casting out demons or working other miracles, even in the name of Jesus.
The true disciple is someone who is totally united to God in heart, soul and mind. Such a person is one who listens to Jesus’ words and carries them out. As we have said elsewhere, listening here means a number of things:
- To pay attention to what Jesus is saying to us; to listen with attentiveness.
- To understand what is being said, as it is possible to listen without understanding.
- To accept fully and to assimilate into one’s being what one understands. It is possible to hear clearly, to understand clearly, but not to accept or assimilate. Children do that all the time!
When we have fully assimilated as part of our own thinking what we have heard and understood, we will naturally act accordingly. It is only when all this becomes a reality in our lives that we can say we are truly disciples of Jesus and, as he says, that is the only sure foundation on which to build our lives.
To live a Christian life only on the surface, that is, only with words and externally conforming behaviour, is like building a house on sand. Once we come under attack, we will collapse because we have no deep foundation inside. We see that happening frequently when people who have lived in an outwardly Christian environment move to a purely secular situation—and fall away very quickly.
So let us be like that sensible man who builds his house on rock, the firm foundation that is Christ, with the vision of Christ also the vision of our own life, a life built on truth and love. With this we come to the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew clearly indicates the end by saying:
Now when Jesus had finished saying these words…
He adds that Jesus’ teaching made a deep impression on the people, mainly because he spoke with authority:
You have heard that it was said…But I say to you…
(Matt 5:38)
That is, he spoke in his own name, unlike the scribes who could only be interpreters of God’s Law.
As mentioned at the beginning, the Sermon on the Mount is the first of five major discourses. It deals mainly with the qualities that are to be found in the individual follower of Christ. Let us pray that those qualities may be found increasingly in each one of us.
Read more