Rewriting the Sermon on the Mount

Posted on February 10, 2023 by Herb Montgomery

Herb Montgomery | February 10, 2023

To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.

All of this reveals the concerns and struggles of the Jesus community at this time. It reveals traits and practices they felt were intrinsically destructive. We have our own struggles to face today, personally and socially. The Sermon on the Mount was written to 1^st Century Jesus-followers living in the wake of the temple’s destruction who were trying to find their new place in the world. If this sermon were to be rewritten today, what can you imagine it might include now?

Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

“Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:21-33)

Our reading this week gives us a window into the life and concerns of the early Jesus community. The fact that Matthew’s author includes these words of instruction in his version of Jesus’ sermon tells us something about the audience this gospel was written for. All of these instructions were written to apply to that community.

A few things are interesting here. Matthew was written after Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, so Jesus’ instruction about sacrificing in the Temple suggests this was part of an older tradition in the community.

His words about settling out of court also indicate how unreliable court rulings could have been. Courts in that time could be merciless or even corrupt, so getting justice from those courts was not something one could always count on. (Consider the parable of the unjust judge in Luke 18.)

This collection of instructions also prohibits lust. This kind of prohibition was common in the Hebrew tradition and so it’s no surprise Jesus drew from his own heritage:

“Do not lust in your heart after her beauty

or let her captivate you with her eyes.” (Proverbs 6:25)

It’s also helpful to read Jesus’ warnings of “Gehenna” through the lens of the Jewish prophetic justice tradition rather than the much later Christian lens of a punitive afterlife in hell. I’ve written at length about this in the appendix of my book Finding Jesus.

Gehenna, the valley of the son of Hinnom, was a literal place in the history of the Jews:

“Then the boundary goes up by the valley of the son of Hinnom (Gehenna) at the southern slope of the Jebusites (that is, Jerusalem); and the boundary goes up to the top of the mountain that lies over against the valley of the son of Hinnom, on the west, at the northern end of the valley of Rephaim.” (Joshua 15:8)

This place became home to Judah’s terrible history of participating in child sacrifice:

“And [Ahaz, King of Judah] made offerings in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and made his sons pass through fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel.” (2 Chronicles 28:3)

“He made his son pass through fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom, practiced soothsaying and augury and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.” (2 Chronicles 33:6)

Gehenna was the cultic location where children were offered to the god Molech. At some point it also came to be referred to as Topheth, a word thought to signify the hearth where a child was placed. The Hebrew term has parallels in both Ugaritic and Aramaic that mean “furnace, fireplace.” Scholars believe that Topheth was at the edge of the valley of the son of Hinnom, southwest of Jerusalem. An 8^th Century BC Phoenician inscription describes sacrifices that ancient peoples made to Molech before battle.

But the history of the place does not end there.

It next resurfaces with the prophet Jeremiah:

“And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire—which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter: for they will bury in Topheth until there is no more room.” (Jeremiah 7:31–32)

Jeremiah is saying to his people that Babylon is coming, and will bring such devastation on Jerusalem that the valley of the son of Hinnom (Gehenna) will become a burying place that will overflow with corpses, and not those of sacrificed children but corpses of adults who, according to Jeremiah, followed after the kinds of gods that required such nightmarish atrocities.

At this stage, notice that Jeremiah is warning not of a postmortem experience, but of a distinctly this-life, this-world experience that could rightly be termed “hell” but that points to the literal destruction of their nation by a Gentile kingdom—Babylon.

“And go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom(the valley of the son of Hinnom Gehenna) at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you. You shall say: Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such disaster upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent, and gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind. Therefore the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter.” (Jeremiah 19:2–6)

For Jeremiah, Gehenna had an end. It was not the equivalent of being eternally forsaken by God. Gehenna, in Jeremiah’s thinking, was temporary and held a restorative hope rather than a retributive one.

“The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when the city shall be rebuilt for the LORD from the tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. And the measuring line shall go out farther, straight to the hill Gareb, and shall then turn to Goah. The whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes (Gehenna), and all the fields as far as the Wadi Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be sacred to the LORD. It shall never again be uprooted or overthrown.” (Jeremiah 31:38:40)

“See, I am going to gather them from all the lands to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation; I will bring them back to this place, and I will settle them in safety. They shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for all time, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, never to draw back from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn from me.” (Jeremiah 32:37)

“For thus says the LORD: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart. I will let you find me, says the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” (Jeremiah 29:10-14)

I share all of this to say that though some sectors of Christianity have threatened individuals with hell for their behavior or identity, many of the Jewish cultures of Jesus’ day would not have done so. The threat in Jesus’ day would have been much more like those made by the prophets: certain behaviors could be connected with the threats of foreign invasion, destruction, and oppression by non-Jewish empires like what Jesus’ community was experiencing from Rome when Matthew’s gospel was written. The message was: If the covenant community continues do such and such, this and thus will happen.

Lastly, these threats betray an ableist set of values that prioritizes the “whole” body over the disabled body. I’ve written before of how the gospels’ ablest language needs to be addressed so this week, let me just say we can do better.

From instructing his disciples on lust, Jesus then progresses to teaching on divorce. Matthew’s version varies from others’, revealing that some in the early Jesus community must have created an exception to the ban on divorce for cases of infidelity. It is helpful for us to remember in our context today that, in many cultures of that time, women could not divorce their husbands. Only men could divorce their wives. And they could divorce them for a multitude of reasons, some trivial. To divorce one woman simply because you were lusting after another would make her a victim of adultery: her husband’s adultery. Economically, socially, and politically how men practiced divorce in Jesus’ day was unjust for women.

Again, all of this reveals the concerns and struggles of the Jesus community at this time. It reveals traits and practices they felt were intrinsically destructive. We have our own struggles to face today, personally and socially. The Sermon on the Mount was written to 1^st Century Jesus-followers living in the wake of the temple’s destruction who were trying to find their new place in the world. If this sermon were to be rewritten today, what can you imagine it might include now?

One thing I think would remain is Jesus’ regard for the concrete harms people were suffering in the here and now. We, too, should be concerned with injustice, oppression, and violence however and wherever they are manifested.

Jesus’ sermon was life-giving for its original audience in their cultural context. What can a life-giving, culturally relevant Sermon on the Mount look like for us today?

HeartGroup Application

1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.

2. What are concerns you would include if the sermon on the mount were written, today? Share with your group.

3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?

Thanks for checking in with us, today.

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Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.

I love each of you dearly,

I’ll see you next week.

Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!

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