Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

It is time to get the Sermon of the Mount out of the closets of personal devotion back into the public sphere of the proclamation of the gospel again, dear congregation.

For centuries Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount has exercised a fascination as have few other texts. Across time and space, across denominations, even across religions and philosophies Jesus’ charta for a new time, for God’s rule close at hand has never stopped to fascinate, to challenge, give hope and comfort. Jesus’ intention to let all the world know that the kingdom of heaven has come near was hugely successful, probably more so than he could have imagined. Already on the mountain Jesus did not speak to the insiders only, his own disciples, but he wanted to address the whole world, the whole cosmos. That’s why the crowds were there as well, and they came from all over: from Galilee, the Decapolis (outside Jewish territory), from Jerusalem, Judea and beyond the Jordan. Today his Sermon or least some of its principles are known around the globe.

It has been quiet though around the Sermon of the Mount for a while. I don’t know that people search it out so much in their quest to make sense of the world. The last time when it had some public prominence was in the 80's, during the last years of the Cold War when the focus was on peace, social justice and the demand on the superpowers to reduce the weapons of mass destruction.

It has been quiet, but I think Jesus’ sermon would be worth checking out again.
We live in a fast world in which our definitions of values, our grasp of politics, our view of religion and society, our understanding of science can’t seem to follow fast enough the changes in all these areas. Our adaptation to new and changing facts always seems to lag behind a bit and the question arises whether the tradition has some stable and trustworthy principles to offer. Can the Christian tradition still contribute something in the search for meaning in a globalized world and an era where the ideas of the Enlightenment are confronted with postmodernism whatever that all may include?

The Sermon of the Mount contains a powerful message of hope and promise. Promise and hope in the God who sends his people out in the world as salt to give it taste and as light to make it bright. The sermon is Jesus’ sketch of what life in God’s empire looks like. It has a preamble (the Beatitudes, our lesson today) that describes the promise, it has a few case studies of life together as a community of active men and women of faith that are enough to establish the principles of an ethic of love and forgiveness. The sermon spells out the blessings and fruit of such life together, also consequences of not committing to it. Jesus tells us not to worry too much and most of all, he bases his whole outline of the life under God’s rule on prayer. The Sermon on the Mount has as its center piece the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus’ own gift to us, the community of believers.

Because of the Lord’s Prayer and the beatitudes, also because of the commandment to love the enemy, the Sermon of the Mount has always enjoyed a privileged role in the personal devotion of individuals and groups. In this time now of shifting paradigms all around us, new ways of life developing, global inter-dependence rising, I think it is worth bringing the Sermon of the Mount with its strong message of promise and hope more back into the public discourse of our churches, in the areas of peace work, social justice work, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, helping rebuild broken societies.

A certain uneasiness can be associated with Jesus’ teaching because “the real world”, his demands are impossible to fulfill. Way too difficult to keep. Often this has led to division among those who did better than others, or Jesus’ commandments were assigned right away to the ethically more pure and able, like monks, who then vicariously fulfilled for the common people what they could not do in the real world. Which was the root for much power abuse and arrogance.

However, the preamble of Jesus’ teaching, the Beatitudes put all the weight on the promise of life under God’s rule, or as Matthew has it, promise of life in the kingdom of heaven. A preamble is that part of a document that describes the nature, the spirit of what is to follow. So, the Beatitudes do not describe virtues that one needs to acquire in order to get access to the kingdom of heaven, but they point out God’s favor for certain human actions and situations. God favors the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and promises a reversal of their situation. God also favors the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, and promises them a heavenly reward. The promise of course is more than just a weak reference to better times in the future. Jesus, the one who speaks the Beatitudes is God’s son, God’s presence among us, the one in whom the kingdom of heaven is already present and continues to be present among us. The nature of a promise is that there is some reference of that future already in the present, there is a foretaste, a manifestation, maybe small yet strong enough to carry the hope.

Let’s hear it again, first the group of those favored ones whose situation will be reversed - and as you listen try to remember whether you have ever have witnessed a foretaste of such reversals:

Blessed are the poor in spirit - blessed are those who have no reason for hope in this world, who lost their hope. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn - blessed are the miserable and unhappy, who find no cause for joy. They will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek - blessed are those who have no access to the resources of this world. They will enjoy God’s creation.
Blessed are those who continually hunger and thirst for righteousness, who desire God’s justice to be done on earth. They will be filled.

The second group are people who have decided to help change the undesirable situations of those who lost hope, have no cause for joy, have been denied their share of God’s blessings in this world and deprived of justice.
Blessed are the merciful, those who seek to put right that which has gone wrong. They will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, those who keep their integrity. They are the ones who offered the world a vision of what is godly. In them something of God has been seen. Therefore they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, those who work for the wholeness and well-being that God wills for a broken world. They will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Blessed are those who are strongly committed to help bring God’s justice. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven also.

Blessed are they all, dear congregation, to this very day, and promised reversal and reward. Let us not be quiet about it. Let us see if not Jesus’ sermon can still fascinate people and give them something to build their lives on. The presence of Immanuel, God with us, gives us the sure hope that his kingdom is truly here. What a different kind of king he is. In the end, so that we won’t forget, again on a mountain, he commissions us to spread this message of promise and hope to all the world: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them .., and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded (- in the Sermon of the Mount). And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19,20)

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits.” (Psalm 103:1-2)
Amen.