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English 222
Literature of the Bible
Wendy Furman-Adams
The "Sermon on the Mount"
Matthew 5-7; Luke 6 |
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General Introduction
Dates:
Ca. 4 B.C.E. Jesus of Nazareth born.
70 C.E. Jerusalem and its Temple permanently
destroyed by Roman legions (an event
memorialized even today in the Arch of Titus in
Rome).
Old Metaphor--New Intensity:
Hebrews 13.14: "Here we have no lasting city
["Here on earth we have no continuing place"],
but we seek after the city which is to come
["howbeit, we seek that which is to come."]
Eliot's Magi: "No longer at ease in the old
dispensation, with an alien people clutching
their gods" and thus "glad of another death."
Augustine (ca. 425): Two cities
Babylon - Jerusalem
City of Man - City of God
Jesus' Sermon on the Mount can be read, almost,
as the constitution of that new, "other," order:
1. The fulfillment of the law and the prophets
(as the Decalogue moves inward).
2. An inversion and rejection of the values of
the surrounding, Gentile world.
In sum, the sermon enunciates a principle of
life foreshadowed in the Magnificat and mirrored
in Dante's Commedia: we find that which we seek;
we become that which we love.
In terms of Augustine's four levels of allegory,
the Jesus of the Gospels moves insistently from
"the husk" (the literal) and even from the
moral/ethical (the Law), to the spiritual and
anagogical levels of "reality" ("the Kingdom of
Heaven").
To live in the Beatitudes is "realized
eschatology"--i.e. to live [in] the Kingdom of
God here and now; to live in the
moment (part of chronos), but connected in that moment with the
values of eternity (kairos)--and thus, by a kind
of self-transcendence, to live in eternity
itself.
Blessedness [happiness, beatitude]: the eternal
possession of goodness (now).
Thus, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, "t he
letter killeth [by separating, bifurcating], but
the spirit giveth life."
What kind of life is this?
Kieslowski's Dekalog a glimpse of the Kingdom in
late twentieth-century Poland (and as much
based, we see, on Matthew 5 - 7 as on Exodus 20).
(Think of the contortionist at the end of
Episode 8 -- or of the moments of suspension: e.g.
when the "risen" husband in Episode 2 steps into
the doctor's study; when the tailor in Episode 8
looks out his window and sees the two women from
his past, touching and talking.)
But Jesus is no more foreign to Kieslowski's
(and our) world than he was to that of
first-century Roman Palestine. (Think of Horace,
Terence, Seneca.)
Matthew 5 - 7: the announcement of the "rules" of
the coming (and present, invisible) Kingdom.
The Sermon Itself
Matthew 5 - 7
Six parts, plus a prologue and an epilogue.
Prologue, 5.1 - 2
An important point: the sermon is aimed not at
the crowds, but at the disciples. (Define the
word.)
Part I--The Seven (plus one) Beatitudes,
5.3 - 5.12.
Question: How do the Beatitudes both parallel
and redefine the Decalogue?
Part II--The Two Similitudes, 5.13 - 5.16.
Mini - parables of identity for the citizens of
the Kingdom (the City of God).
Part III--The New Rigor of the New Covenant,
5.17 - 48.
a. Introduction to the New Covenant, 5.17 - 20.
b. Five examples, 5.21 - 47.
1. Thou shalt not kill, 5.21 - 26.
2. Thou shalt not commit adultery, 5.27 - 32.
3. Thou shalt not swear falsely (take the name
of the Lord in vain), 5.33 - 37.
4. An eye for an eye, 5.38 - 42. (See Deuteronomy
19.21.)
5. Love your neighbor, 5.43 - 47. (Also see Luke
10.25 - 37).
c. Conclusion: "Be perfect, therefore, as your
heavenly Father is perfect" (5.48).
Part IV--True Piety (moves inward; restoration
of the integrity lost in the Fall), 6.1 - 6.18.
a. Introduction, 6.1.
b. Three examples, 6.2 - 6.18.
1. Alms, 6.2 - 4.
2. Prayer, 6.5 - 15.
3. Fasting, 6.16 - 18.
Part V--True Wealth (to value rightly--and thus
to be released from the anxiety attendant upon
the curse on Adam and Eve).
a. Introduction (the negative), 6.19 - 21.
b. Three mini-parables:
1. The lamp of the body, 6.22 - 23.
2. The two masters, 6.24.
3. The lilies of the field, 6.25 - 32.
c. Conclusion: Seek first the Kingdom, 6.33 - 34.
Part VI--Warnings and Parables of the Kingdom,
7.1 - 20.
a. Do not judge, 7.1 - 7.5.
b. Pearls before swine, 7.6.
c. Seek and find, 7.7 - 7.11.
d. "Golden rule," 7.12.
e. The narrow gate, 7.13 - 14.
f. Wolves in sheep's clothing, 7.15.
g. Trees and their fruits, 7.16 - 20.
h. The saved and the lost, 7.21 - 23.
i. The parable of the two houses, 7 - 24 - 27.
Conclusion--on Jesus' authority, 7.28 - 29.
Luke 6.20 - 49
How is this much briefer version of the sermon
also different in its emphasis?
Look at the setting--and at Jesus' audience
(6.17-20).
How are these Beatitudes different from those in
Matthew (6.20-26)?
What warnings and advice from the longer set in
Matthew does Luke preserve and emphasize?
Finally, Matthew (one of three Jewish
evangelists) is most interested in Jesus'
"fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets"--his
identity as Messiah. (Yet Matthew includes the
Gentile Magi.)
Luke, the one Gentile evangelist, more
interested in the mystery explored in his
Magnificat: the reversal of the world
order--through a universal savior, though one
grounded in Jewish tradition (as represented in
the Judean shepherds). |
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