THE  SERMON 

ON THE MOUNT

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 10^th Monday in Ordinary Time is, “The Sermon on the Mount.”

WEEKDAY MASS GOSPEL READINGS

We start today with the Gospel of Matthew - Chapter 5 - having just finished the Gospel of Mark at the end of Chapter 12 on Saturday.

Those who put the readings together for these weekday Masses skip Mark’s next section: Jesus eschatological message about the End Times - which then runs into Chapter 14 of Mark - Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection - which will bring us to Palm Sunday - the beginning of Holy Week.  So I assume that they saw that as a natural place to move over to the next Gospel Matthew.

In a given year for weekday Gospel readings we go through Mark, Matthew and Luke - in that order. John is featured during the Easter Season mainly.

So today we begin Matthew - Chapter 5 -  and then switch over to Luke at the end of August.

The Gospel of Matthew begins with his Infancy of Jesus stories - Chapters 1 and 2. Then in Matthew 3 and 4 we have Jesus as an adult - beginning with the preaching of John the Baptist. That’s Chapter 3. Then in Chapter 4 Jesus goes into the desert for 40 days, comes out, and calls his first 4 disciples and starts his ministry.

Chapter 5 begins the Sermon on the Mount - with the Beatitudes - and goes 3 chapters - and we’ll have this sermon for 3 weeks of Gospel readings - today till Friday in the 12^th week.

That’s the big picture. I like to line things up like that for my own sense of the weekday readings - and I mention all this because you are weekday Mass goers.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO START READING THE BIBLE

That’s the readings at Mass. Now if you are like lots of folks, who say they want to  start reading the Bible, I like to add, “Don’t start on Page 1.”

The Bible is a library - and most people don’t walk into a library and read the first book they meet when they come in the door. They browse.

So browse, but if you want a suggestion, I always like to suggest starting with James, because if you don’t get James, forget it.

I could say the same of the Sermon on the Mount. If you don’t get Jesus’ messages here, forget it.

Matthew gives us some great messages in the Sermon of the Mount.

There is a theory that there was a document that the person or persons who put together our Gospel of Matthew  had in hand. It is called Matthew Q. It has disappeared - but still a copy could be found. Wouldn’t that be great? Hey they found the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948 in caves - after being hid for some 2000 years.

Q stands for the German word, Quelle. It means “source”.

The theory - and it’s only a theory - is this: Matthew Q is the source for Matthew. They imagine it to simply be a long list of the sayings of Jesus. 

I remember giving a woman’s retreat once and by accident I had all the women break up into small groups. I asked them to come up with sayings their mother always used to say. Then women reported to the large group  the best ones they came up with.  I always regret that I didn’t jot them down.

I see Matthew Q as a listing of some of the great sayings of Jesus.

And the Sermon on the Mount is simply a listing of some of the great sayings of Jesus.

For example, “Turn the other cheek….”  “Go the extra mile.”

Ray Brown, the great Sulpician Scripture scholar points out that Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount goes beyond the Gospel of John. In Matthew Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us …. Ray Brown adds that John does not go into one’s enemies.  Ray Brown adds that we could also say that sometimes it’s more difficult loving the ones we’re with than loving the enemies, the strange, the strangers. [Cf. Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, page 377.]

THE SETTING

Okay that’s a few comments about the Sermon on the Mount which we start today with the Beatitudes - which we hear at many weddings and funerals.

Before I finish, let me mention a wonderful moment in my life. I was on a retreat for priests. We went to Israel in January of 2000. We got off the bus at various spots in the Holy Land. One obvious place was the possible site for the Sermon on the Mount.

Our leader, Father Stephen Doyle, led us into the Church of the Beatitudes. We prayed and he then read the Beatitudes and told us we have an hour of quiet prayer - there in the church - or we could go outside.

I went outside and looked down this big field that lead to the Lake of Galilee. While sitting there on a rock I saw 5 buses go down this road and then they stopped.  I’d guess there were 50 people per bus - so they got out and walked down a bit and entered this  big field.

They looked like they were Korean pilgrims. We had seen a lot of them in the Holy Land.

Then their pastor or priest started reading from the Bible. I’d assume he was doing what the priest who was leading us had just done - read something from the Sermon on the Mount.

CONCLUSION

These next 3 weeks at weekday Masses, we will be doing the same thing. We’ll be doing the same thing Christians have been doing for some 2000 years - listening to the Sermon on the Mount.

General Omar Bradley in an address on Armistice Day, 1948, said, “We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.”