Matthew 5:1-20 Beatitudes, salt of the earth, let your light shine
(Psalm 1:1-3)
The sermon on the mount is a tough passage. We have words like
‘meek,’ and ‘hungry,’ and the notion that those are good things to be. This tends to run counter to what we’re told and what we teach in other aspects of our lives. The meek get run over by the assertive, and no one wants to go to bed hungry, or thirsty, that’s for poor people. And people are poor because they’re lazy. We don’t value peacemakers, they’re weak. The sermon on the mount runs against most of what we actually value, so we don’t spend a whole lot of time on it.
What would happen if we did?
What if we took this sermon and applied it to our priorities and ideas
about what makes the world work? Then add some salt, add some light?
Would things look differently than they do now? Would they look more like the kingdom of the one who preaches on the mount?
