From Augustine to Aquinas, Luther to Zwingli to Calvin, Kierkegaard to Tolstoy, and Bultmann to Bonhoeffer to Windisch to W D Davies to Guelich to Betz, Christians have wrestled with the stringent demands and far-fetched promises of the Sermon on the Mount.
I still have a 35,000 word typewritten exegesis paper I wrote over 40 years ago as my probationary studies in my first years of Baptist ministry here in Scotland. For three years off and on I read and made notes, typed (with a typewriter), edited and retyped (no delete or cut and paste) until it was ready to present as evidence I was continuing to engage with biblical scholarship and theological study and reflection. I also still have the assessment, feedback and comments. The examiner suggested it should be the basis of a publication on the Sermon on the Mount. That never happened.
What did happen was a lifelong wrestling with a text that grabs you by the ankles every time you read it and give it the slightest chance to tackle. I've kept reasonably up to date with scholarship, but that's the easier part. I go back to several of the classic texts, not least Bonhoeffer's discipleship. The big commentaries on Matthew and Luke keep coming, and the occasional dedicated monograph like Pennington's recent Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing - these add information, perspective, context and theological reflection.
But what long term exposure to the scholarship on the text does not do, is adequately explain why so many who do the exegesis of Matthew 5-7 end up domesticating the text, toning down the demand, blunting the edge of words meant to cut through our moral complacency and comfort zones. Culpepper acknowledges this unseemly rush to compromise right at the start of his own exegetical account of these troublesome and disruptive sayings of Jesus. He wryly observes that "The history of interpretation can be viewed as a succession of ingenious evasions and responses to these evasions." (81)
Culpepper himself quotes Tertullian who claimed the Sermon is Jesus' "official proclamation of the Christ", an allusion to the practice of Roman officials who upon taking office, announced the rules of their administration." He recalls Bonhoeffer's more astringent approach which he describes like this: "The Sermon does not call us to interpret it, to study it, or to debate it: it calls us to obey it. Obedience is possible however, only in the context of fellowship with the crucified." (83)
Now over the years I've preached on the Sermon on the Mount. Twice I've taken a congregation through it section by section. The Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer have been recurring texts in my sermons. But I'm still left wondering if I have given the words of Jesus the same exposure and weight as some of the celebrated Pauline texts.
I was forced to think about this by one of Culpepper's sharp comments. He notes Jesus "went up on the mountain...the disciples came... he opened his mouth and began to teach them." 5.1 But then Culpepper jumps to Matthew 28.20 the end of Matthew's gospel where Jesus again goes up on the mountain, probably the same mountain, and commands his disciples to "teach all nations to keep all I have commanded you."
Why had I never linked those two mountains like this? Culpepper is suggesting that the Great Commission has at its heart the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, communicating and demonstrating the ethos, principles, rules and values of the Kingdom of God. Jesus' own way of being, is to be spoken, remembered and written, and from then on to be taught as the distilled essence and essential demonstration of human lives transformed in the Kingdom of God.
Oh I know the Great Commission and the good news is more than this; but it is not less than this; and often enough the church's witness has been demonstrably less than this.
My next reflection on Culpepper's commentary will be about what he makes of the Beatitudes.
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