Today’s Gospel comes from the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew’s Gospel, the Sermon on the Mount covers three chapters that delineate a new vision, a new human being, a new way of living with God and living with others. It is a beautiful Xray of a true human being. It is God’s plan for humanity. I invite you to take time to read it in its entirety – all three chapters. While it is based on the Law and tradition from the Old Testament, one can see immediately that it is radically new. Surely many would have thought that Jesus was proposing an abandonment of the teachings and practices of the Old Testament. That is why we hear Jesus saying today: I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. That was his mission as Messiah. Many were looking for the Messiah to be a new king, a new political power, or a judge. But Jesus spells out his mission of leading the people to a new relationship with God and each other in the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus lives the traditions and the true meaning of the Law in the Old Testament to a maximum, which we see especially in the Cross. He calls us to teach others this new relationship with God and others through our own lives. The best teachers are the ones who demonstrate with their own lives what they are proclaiming. Otherwise, the teachings are only empty words. That is what happened to Israel in the first reding. The people thought they could serve the Lord and the gods of Baal at the same time. Elijah, the prophet, showed them in words and actions the way of the Lord. Elijah was a great outspoken teacher.
Jesus says quite clearly today whoever lives, practices, and teaches the Sermon on the Mount will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. So now it comes to us to reflect on our own lives as witnesses or teachers. Are we powerful and convincing teachers of all aspects of the Sermon on the Mount?
But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments
will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.
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