Conference 4: Adults Only

We consider now the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

To repeat: the preamble (Matthew 4:23-25) and setting of the Sermon (Matthew 8 & 9) are important:

Jesus, we are told, went through Galilee and Syria teaching, proclaiming the good news, and healing every kind of disease (Matthew 4).

To repeat:

Jesus’ teaching is healing and his healing is teaching.

The crowds hear Jesus, but his words are primarily intended for the disciples. Jesus desires to deepen their understanding of what it means to be a disciple:

Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him (Matthew 5:1).

Is it a case of Adults Only?

The kingdom of heaven belongs to children (Matthew 19:14). There can be no doubt about that. However, the Beatitudes call us from passivity to participation. We are speaking about ‘age-appropriate consciousness’ of the kingdom – an essential attitude for adult disciples.

Modern commentators have noticed that the Beatitudes can be broken up into two sections, not independent, certainly complementary. 

The first three deal with vulnerability; the remaining five deal with quiet confidence. 

If we are to be ‘salt of the earth and light to the world,’ then we must have sympathy with others in their weakness, frailty and vulnerability. On the other hand, we must have a quiet confidence – not arrogance – that originates in Jesus himself and his message of love.

The Beatitudes are about being ‘vulnerable, non-grasping, non-competitive.’

We need to make a decision.

Are we going to move from being passive human beings to active participants in the kingdom of heaven?  It is characteristic of mature adults that they use their freedom, and declare, ‘This is how I want to live.’

Integral to adult maturation is the development of one’s heart, motives and intentions.

Ritual and external acts are not unimportant. We know this. Abandoning them is akin to abandoning culture. But ritual and external acts ‘must take second-place to the role played by mercy in the heart.’ Mercy must inform – and form – our ritual and external acts. Otherwise, culture becomes a mere shell.

Matthew presents us some ‘case studies,’ demonstrating the principle. Find them in Matthew 5: 21–43.

The key principle guiding these case studies?  We must go to the ‘heart of the matter’ and the external act will manifest the appropriate value. For instance:

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you, that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:27-28).

Respect and love men and women made in the image and likeness of God and our relationships will be right, incorporating the beauty and power of human sexuality, making it easier to avoid destructive acts of adultery.

Finally, the setting for the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 is similar to the setting for the Feeding of the Five Thousand in Matthew 14.

In the first scene, Jesus sees the crowd and then instructs them. In the second scene, Jesus sees the crowd and then he feeds them.

Matthew is helping us to see that at the centre of our lives as Christians is Word and Sacrament:

God speaks to us. God feeds us.

God is our Father, who by his creative providence, brings us to birth, accompanies us along the paths of time, and then takes us to himself at the moment of death. It is logical that he would want to communicate with us and to nourish us during our earthly pilgrimage.

Perhaps, too, Matthew is preparing us to understand the mystery of the Eucharist, whereby the Word of Christ is spoken, the Flesh of Christ is given.

Amen.

Q. Read the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12). Can you sense the vulnerability and quiet confidence in the text?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that ‘the Beatitudes depict the face of Jesus Christ and portray his love’ (CCC 1717). Can you sense the truth of the claim that the Beatitudes are first and foremost a description of Jesus himself?