“Blessed”, says Jesus, for those we consider unhappy. For us, the rich, the powerful and the honoured are the blessed; we value those who have wealth, power and count in society.
For Jesus, the poor, the humble and the despised are the blessed; those who do not have, the powerless and do not count. It is a radical reversal of values, no mistake; either we are wrong, or He is wrong!
The beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which extends over three chapters (Mt: 5-7), constitutes the manifesto, the ‘magna charter’ of the kingdom; it says who its citizens are, their condition for belonging. The criteria by which God judges and acts are exactly the opposite of ours.
The kingdom of God and the kingdom of man are opposed, as two contrary ways of living, of being in the world; that of Jesus, Son of the Father and brother to all, and that of the fatherless and brotherless self-made human being, against all.
The Sermon on the Mount is a baptismal catechesis, a summary of Christian life, the Son’s rule of life. It is not a new law, more difficult even than the old one, but it is the new heart, promised by the prophets. What Jesus proclaims, is what He lives Himself.
His words are not laws, but gospel; they are not noble and difficult demands, but the sublime and beautiful gift that He offers us, as He makes Himself our brother. Without the gift of His Spirit, the beatitudes are a sublime ideology, all the more despairing, though the more sublime.
Jesus not only says a message; He gives us what He says. These three chapters, 5-7, have the power to make us anew; they purify our lives, give us faith, make us fit to serve, free us from fear, evil, sin, sickness and death, and enable us to see and proclaim the kingdom of God.
Jesus’s words are the medicine for our ills, the truth that heals the heart from the lie that lies at its bottom. The Sermon on the Mount is an ‘indicative’ that becomes an ‘imperative’. The Son shows us how to be what in reality we are by nature: children. Then, we must therefore become brothers and sisters. The person has no other duty than to become what he/she already is.
It is important to grasp the ‘beauty’ of this discourse, which restores, in the Son, the true face of ourselves and of the Father. These words are not only addressed to the disciples, even to the most courageous. They are for every human being who seeks his/her own truth, bringing us back to the true self, beyond all appearances. They are, therefore, the salvation for this world, the full development of its potential.
Jesus, crucified and risen, is the fulfilment of the beatitudes. As a crucified man, He fulfils the first part – He is poor, afflicted, meek, hungry, thirsting for justice, pure of heart, peacemaker, persecuted – and as a risen person, He fulfils the second part – the kingdom is His, He is consoled, He inherits the earth, He is satisfied, He finds mercy, He sees God, He is the Son of God.
The beatitudes are the Son’s identity card. The Church is made up of those who hear the beatitudes and, by the power of the Spirit, make Jesus their life and their rule of life. (Fr. Silvano Fausti)
