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We continue, for the third week, to be on Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount. We started off by saying the Beatitude are ways of seeing. Jesus wants us to see and love in ourselves what God sees and loves in us. What God sees and loves in us is blessedness, salt, and light.  In the Beatitudes, Jesus says “blessed are you” eight times, and then he gives us two more truths about ourselves: “You are the salt of the earth, and you are the light of the world.”  Blessedness is particular to Jewish and Christian cultures.  And then you get into salt which has a more universal application in other religions.  And finally, when you get into light, you’re almost into universal, cosmic symbolism that every religion in the world plays with, in order to describe the spiritual dimension of the cosmos and the spiritual dimension of the human person.  So, if we expected from Christ some kind of low-key-stub-your-toe kind of vision, we would be terribly mistaken.

If we listen to the truth about who we are, blessedness, salt, and light–a truth that comes from God–then why would we want to settle for any lesser truth or even lies, for that matter?  Five times in today’s, and next Sunday’s, gospel passages Jesus says, “You have heard it said…, but I say to you…” This is what the world around you says about you and expects from you.  But I call you to something more.  I call you to move at the world from the place of blessedness, salt, and light.  “You have heard it said, ‘You shall no shall not murder,’ but I say to you, ‘Don’t even let anger fester within you.’  You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you, ‘Don’t even let lustful thoughts dominate your mind.’  You have heard it said, ‘You shall not swear falsely (don’t lie and don’t destroy another person’s good name), but I say to you, “Don’t swear at all; say yes when you mean yes and no when you mean no.  Anything else that passes your lips comes from the evil one. 

If you are any good at remembering the order of the 10 Commandments (which I’m not), murder, adultery and bearing false witness are commandments six, seven, and nine. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is not dismissing the 10 Commandments because he has come up with something better and more stream-lined in the eight Beatitudes.  I think he’s telling us that many of us are following the “letter of the law” but not following the “spirit of the law.”  In other words, you can keep all the commandments of God while, at the same time, not have an ounce of love for your neighbour.  You can be walking to the altar of God to offer your gift, while at the same time care little that you are not reconciled with your brother or sister.  That would be fulfilling the letter of the law but neglecting the spirit of the law.  We can fulfil the 10 Commandments out of duty and look squeaky clean on the outside, but our hearts can still be far from the love of God and even farther from love neighbour.  That’s why we need the Sermon on the Mount, as a complement to the 10 Commandments.  The Beatitudes are not Jesus’ way of abolishing the Law, but of bringing the Law to its fulfilment.  The 10 Commandments are written on tablets and come to us from both above and from the outside.  They are great guideposts and should be taken seriously.  However, the Sermon on the Mount, especially the Beatitudes, come from the inside—from a place of blessedness, salt and light deep within us.  

For Jesus actions are important.  However, what’s more important is the place within you from which your actions flow.  When Jesus speaks about murder, adultery, and lying, he is more concerned about the places from which murder, adultery, and lying emerge.  Murder comes from a place of anger within, so nip anger in the bud before it becomes murder.  (By the way, we can kill people with our words and our attitudes much more efficiently that with knives and guns).  Adultery comes from a place of lust, so nip lust in the bud before it becomes adultery.  Bearing false witness (lying) comes from a conflicted space within us where we fudge the truth.  Instead of saying yes when we mean yes and no when we mean no, we concoct a third answer to justify ourselves even when we are clearly in the wrong.  Jesus wants us to nip that before it turns into a false witness. 

With these five saying, “You have heard it said…, but I say to you…” Jesus is doing two things, I believe.  He’s firstly stopping evil in its tracks before it become a runaway train.  He’s stopping hatred before it becomes murder; he’s stopping lust before it become adultery.  The second thing Jesus is doing, is he’s encouraging us to look honestly within so that we might discern where our actions are originating from.  He wants our actions, our words, our attitudes to flow from the deepest and truest place within us—the place of blessedness, salt, and light.  

Here is a story about a busy man who doesn’t know from where his actions are flowing.  One day a certain man hurriedly headed out the door for work.  In his path was his three-year-old son playing with blocks.  The man patted the boy on the head, stepped over him, opened the door and went outside.  Halfway down the walk a guilt bomb exploded within him.

“What am I doing?” he thought to himself.  “I am ignoring my son.  I never play with him.  He’ll be old before I know it.”  In the background of his thoughts, he heard the pounding rhythms of “Cat’s in the Cradle,” Harry Chapin’s ballad to lost fatherhood.  He returned to the house and sat down and began to build blocks. 

After two minutes, the boy said, “Daddy, why are you mad at me?” 

Playing blocks out of guilt is not the same thing as playing blocks out of love, and the difference is quickly spotted, even by three-year-olds, especially by three-year-olds.  Doing something because it is expected and doing something from the heart are two different experiences.  In the story, the father’s actions were coming from every possible place inside him except from the one place his boy needed them to come from: the place of love, the heart.  Perhaps, that’s why Jesus, a little further on in Matthew’s Gospel, insists that we forgive our brothers and sisters from the heart. 

If you find yourself offering your gift at the altar, the altar of your work or whatever altar you think is important, and you realize someone has been left out there, then leave your gift right where it is and go play blocks with someone.  The Lord has placed before us life and death, good and evil, and whichever one we choose, that shall be given to us.

Fr. Phil Mulligan