The Ethics of the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5-7:27 (New International Version)

I am really interested in discussing the ethics and the interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount. Does any one have any thoughts or anecdotes about their experiences with the teachings of this Sermon?

All seminary students go over the Sermon on the Mount (if not on their own in their own personal studies, then in their classes of NT Introduction) and I have continued to give the Sermon some serious consideration over the years.

I have heard various lectures on the Sermon from Dr. Tolar, Dr. Crutchley, Dr. Ellis and Dr. Wenham. I have also read Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, which is a great work, and various other interpretations by Albert Schweitzer, Leo Tolstoy, Stanley Hauerwas, Martin Luther Henry Thoreau, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Francis of Assisi.

To me the matter comes down to how we approach Christian Ethics. I myself take my own form of the Absolutist View which takes the Sermon as a real sermon about matters that should be taken as a literal teaching to be literally applied in our daily lives.

Here is a Wikipedia definition of the Absolutist View:

“The Absolutist View rejects all compromise and believes that, if obeying the scripture costs the welfare of the believer, then that is a reasonable sacrifice for salvation. All the precepts in the Sermon must be taken literally and applied universally. Proponents of this view include St. Francis of Assisi and in later life Leo Tolstoy. The Oriental Orthodox Churches fully adopt this position; among heterodox groups, the early Anabaptists came close, and modern Anabaptist groups such as the Mennonites and Hutterites come closest.”

The aspect of my view of the Absolutist View which allows me to call it my own form is that I while I believe that the ethics of this Sermon should be taken as universal, the idea that one could enforce or even expect such a spiritual ethic to be universal is absurd.

In this, I agree with Ellis that there exists a two-tiered ethic between that of the OT and NT and between the world and the kingdom of God. The world works with an ethic like that of the OT which is “eye for an eye”. This is the ethical system of the world and it works (as Dr. Pierce states, the “eye for an eye” ethic is grace).

However, there is a higher grace that we see throughout the OT but which comes in both spirit and power at the coming of the kingdom of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The kingdom of God works with a higher level ethic which we could summarize as “love thy neighbor as thyself”, “love thy enemies”, and “universal forgiveness”. This ethic comes to absolute expression in the Cross. This ethic is about taking up the cross and following Jesus towards that self-submission, self-emptying, self-sacrificing obedience unto death for love of God and Man.

Notice this similar approach to the Beatitudes:

“One interpretation of narrative theologians is that the Beatitudes provide a corrective against an upside-down view of the power structures of the world that has been all but universally taken for granted. That is, the powers and principalities of this world - primarily referencing, but not meant to be exclusive to political, military and economic forces - appear to be the inheritors of power and dominion. In the Beatitudes, however, Jesus explains that the reality of things as seen from God's perspective is that the powerless who are the inheritors the future. It is the meek, the poor, those who suffer loss, those on the bottom of the social ladder, who will rule in the rightside-up kingdom of God. Jesus is attempting to jog his listeners' assumptions regarding security and hope, showing them that the kingdom of God is for those who hope in God and not in the power structures offered by the world. Though not specifically referenced and explained with much less poetry, these same themes are strongly espoused by the Apostle Paul in his letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians. As for a more modern example, such an interpretation of the Beatitudes can be found in "Resident Aliens", by Stanley Hauerwas & William Willimon. In their book Jesus is explained to be showing his audience that "In God's kingdom, the poor are royalty, the sick are blessed." "The Beatitudes are not a strategy for achieving a better society ... they are an indication ... of life in the kingdom of God ... to produce a shock within our imaginations ... to see life ... in a radical new way." Similary, John H. Yoder, in his "Politics of Jesus" refers to Matthew 5 as part of a "call on the disciples of Jesus to renounce participation in the interplay of egoisms". This entire work attempts to show that such politlics of Jesus is the entire basis behind Christian pacifism - that the Jesus who has already conquered evil now calls us to follow him through the same heavenly humility.”

The Sermon the Mount is about this self-denying Faith of God in Christ. However, while such an ethic was accomplished in Christ, it is impossible for anyone to follow this ethic absolutely. Indeed, it is even practically absurd to expect believers themselves to adopt these principles for their lives.

To this extent, I have a modified interpretation of the Sermon similarly to that of Martin Dibelius.

“Martin Dibelius, presented another view also based on eschatology. His Unconditional Divine Will View is that the ethics behind the Sermon are absolute and unbending, but the current fallen state of the world makes it impossible to live up to them. Humans are bound to attempt to live up to them, but failure is inevitable. This will change when the Kingdom of Heaven is proclaimed and all will be able to live in a Godly manner. A similar view is also described in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, written in the late nineteenth century.”

But I differ with Dibelius in that while I do know that such an ethic is impossible for man, such a fact does not negate the reality of such an ethic and the pursuit of that ethic by the follower of Jesus. Indeed, the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount is what we as believers are called to and what God expects. Thus, we should pursue that ethic in the way of Christ and pray for that Christ-like-ness. Will we always be perfect in such a practice? No, of course not. But God is gracious and that is why there is Jesus Christ as the means of grace upon Man. In this same way, we should expect believers to practice the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount but certainly be gracious in the inability of others to meet its high ethic. Why? Because God has been gracious and tolerant with our inabilities, thus we should be just as gracious with others.

I am really interested in discussing the ethics and the interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount. Does any one have any thoughts or anecdotes about their experiences with the teachings of this Sermon?