The Sermon on the Mount

August 1, 2021

The Sermon on the Mount is the ethics of the kingdom of God expressed in the present world. We don’t live its teachings out because we think doing so will end well in the present. We do it because we’re looking toward the future, and living that future in the present. This is one reason it isn’t helpful to think of eternal life as a future reality we will escape to in death. We’re called to live that future right now. 

And the sermon isn’t just talk. Jesus lives out the Sermon on the Mount, adding weight to his invitation for us to do the same. In walking the path of the sermon we aren’t blazing a trail—we’re merely following the trail marked by Jesus. 

That said, the sermon is so full of moralistic idealism that we don’t always know what to do. In our culture, there’s a lot of backlash to this sort of idealism. We have a trope of taking the idealistic and idealized heroes of the past (Superman, Captain America) and making them get their hands dirty, or at least deriding them as unique manifestations of ideals that no one else could ever live up to. We all know it’s good to be good, but within limits. No one likes someone who is too good. We’re just weak humans, and should settle for being good-ish.

This isn’t just about superheroes and comics, it’s also a conversation within Christianity. We look at the Sermon on the Mount and don’t know what to do with it. Sometimes we just write it off—no one can live up to it, God doesn’t expect us to, so no need to even try; explain away all the difficult bits so that it becomes realistic for us to live it out. Other times we double down on moralistic legalism—God expects us to be perfect, so do it all perfectly. One path leads to lawlessness, or at least moral apathy, the other to overwhelming shame and guilt when we inevitably fail to attain perfection. 

What we’re missing is the work of the Holy Spirit. The good works we do are the result of the transformation wrought within us by the Holy Spirit. God doesn’t call us to settle for the realities of who we are today; he calls us to allow the Holy Spirit to shape and transform us towards perfection. He does call us to perfection, but he is the one moving us there and his grace covers any distance between us and that. 

Moralistic idealism without grace and the Holy Spirit is toxic; our culture understandably rebels against it. But that’s not how God works. God calls us toward the moral ideals of his kingdom. He shows us the path in the life and death of Jesus, and proves that we can trust him along this path in the resurrection and ascension. Don’t worry about reaching the end of the path. God will get us all there one of these days. For now, steadfastly walk along it, one step at a time, following and pursuing Jesus and all righteousness, knowing that a misstep is not the end and the strength for the journey is from the Holy Spirit.

—John Coffey