This longish section of the Sermon on the Mount begins with a summons to a righteousness that surpasses that of the serious and saintly religious leaders (5:20) and concludes with a call to “be perfect . . . as your heavenly Father is perfect” (5:48).  

Clearly, we’re going to need help with this.  Thankfully, help is available: As Frederick Dale Bruner writes, “To read the Sermon on the Mount is to discover what it means to be Jesus’ disciples; to read it with faith is to receive power to be Jesus’ disciples.”

Yes, Jesus raises the bar higher . . . so he can go deeper with us, so his Spirit can deal with our thoughts and desires, purging our souls of anger and lust, keeping our tongues from name-calling and frivolous promises.  Jesus seeks to form, by his word and Spirit, a beloved community, free from the toxicity of malice, pursuing reconciliation, in which people are never objectified (by either sexual lust or the lust for power) . . . a community marked by faithfulness and unadulterated truth-telling

Higher, deeper . . . and broader!  Jesus challenges us to expand that beloved community by including those who we now consider our enemies!  For the first hearers of this part of the Sermon – Matthew 5:38-48 – the enemy was the occupying Roman army.  Roman soldiers were never above shaming the locals with a slap on the face or even a demand for the shirt off their backs, just to remind them who was in charge; and they had the right to make a resident carry their packs for one mile of their march through the countryside.

We can almost feel the resentment surging and imagine the plots for revenge.  But Jesus called his followers to interrupt the cycle of violent thoughts and actions with confounding deeds of non-violent resistance.  Could these be also be steps in “converting” enemies into friends, by absorbing their abuses, praying for them, and treating them as fellow recipients of God’s grace?  Think about it: These are the steps Jesus walked . . . all the way to the cross.

Go deeper:

• “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”  (Ruth Bader Ginsberg)  Does anything in this statement from the Notorious RBG resonate with Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount.
• It may be easier to love a distant enemy than our “enemies” close to home.  How do Jesus’ words apply to our “enemies” within a troubled marriage or in a dysfunctional family?

– Pastor Dave
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