Blessed of the New Covenant: who, why, and when?

Reflections for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time:

(Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13, 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 & Matthew 5:1-12a)

“Jesus went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, he began to teach”: the smallest of details can have the greatest significance. Why does Matthew begin the Sermon on the Mount with these details which we so often overlook? To understand this, we need to situate the Gospel of the day in its context. John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets has been arrested and his ministry ends. And it is at this juncture that the ministry of Jesus begins in Galilee. Jesus is inaugurating a new beginning. The new era of the new prophet is dawning. Jesus is here to gather his new Israel, the Church.

The Sermon on the Mount is not merely a declaration of ethical precepts that Jesus hands over to his Church. It also marks the definitive beginning of a new gathering that begins in the ministry of Jesus. Matthew wants to insist on the importance and radicality of this new beginning by linking it to the first beginning (the law of the new covenant to the law of the Torah). Just as Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments of God’s ancient covenant, Jesus, the new Moses (Deuteronomy 18:18), climbs the Mount of Beatitudes to herald the coming of a new covenant, the birth of a new identity and way of life for His New Israel. Three clues indicate this truth:

Firstly, the phrase “he went up the mountain” occurs only three times in the Old Testament and each of these occurrences refers to Moses (Exodus: 19:3, 24:18, 34:4). Secondly, Matthew describes the place of the sermon as “the mountain” without mentioning the name of the mountain or referring to any mountain in the previous passages. What does this mean? He is evoking the image of the most important mountain for the People of Israel: ‘the mountain’ Sinai. Thirdly, Jesus sits down to teach. This reflects the Talmud interpretation of Deuteronomy 9:9, where Moses sits down on the mountain fasting for 40 days and nights. And it is during this time that Moses is made a prophet and a teacher of the old covenant.

All these clues point to one truth: just as God handed over the Ten Commandments to the People of Israel in the Old Testament on Mount Sinai, Jesus defines the characteristic principles of his New Israel in his Sermon on the Mount. For Matthew, this is a key moment not just for the disciples, or the first community of Christians, but for the history of salvation: the new prophet forms a new community and hands over the new laws of the new covenant.

Eight beatitudes describe this newness, which we shall decipher through three important questions:

1. Who are the blessed?

Matthew presents a list of those identified as “the blessed” of the new covenant: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who are merciful, those who are pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who suffer for righteousness, and those who suffer persecutions ‘because of’ Jesus. These yardsticks of blessedness are counter-intuitive and counter-cultural, to say the least. To the ‘way of the world’ blessedness is associated with the prosperous, influential, powerful, and achievers. Therefore, those who hunger, mourn, thirst and suffer are ‘victims’ at best.

To Jesus, however, the ‘victims’ of the world are the ones truly blessed! What Jesus is proposing here is not just a change in perspective but an alternative way of living. Saint Francis of Assisi rightly says, “When we live the Beatitudes, we make Jesus present and we become signs of contradiction.” Beatitudes (the law of the new covenant) invite us to a counter-cultural mode of being, relating, and serving that is not of this world (John 15:19). Counter-cultural discipleship is about living in a permanent state of non-conformity. It is instead a choice to critically examine, carefully discern, and collectively resist or encourage values, priorities, and parameters, that the world equates with ‘blessedness’. Living the counter-cultural way of the Beatitudes means re-evaluating the currents that envelop us through the optic of God.

2. Why are they blessed?

The reason for blessedness in the first and last Beatitudes is stated in the present tense: “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. Whereas, the other six reasons are presented in the future divine passive: “they shall be comforted”, “they shall inherit the earth”, “they shall be satisfied”, “they shall receive mercy”, “they shall see God”, and “they shall be called sons of God”. What does this divine passive mean? We are blessed not because of our own personal achievements or virtues. Blessedness is about what God shall achieve in and through our discipleship. We shall be blessed if we transform our lives into fields of God’s liberating and salvific action.

The third chapter of Zephaniah cites six blessings that the Lord has reserved for “the remnants” of Israel who pass from the days of Babylonian invasion to the future day of the Lord: humility, refuge, integrity, provision, peaceful rest, and security. In the second reading, Paul argues that our vocation is not merited but received as a gift. We do not become worthy of discipleship by virtue of our power, noble birth, or wisdom. On the contrary, God chooses the weak to shame the strong. He elevates the lowly to humble the mighty. The poor, the suffering, and the meek are blessed not because God loves their misery but because their lives are fertile fields of God’s intervention.

3. When will they be blessed? Popular as they are, the Beatitudes, are often subject to misinterpretations. The future passive used in the pericope is misunderstood to mean that the promise of the Beatitudes is a far and distant dream. The sermon on the mount is not the promise of a pie in the sky. Jesus is not speaking of a happily-ever-after ending that awaits us after our death. The vision of the Beatitudes is not an apocalyptic promise of a reversal of fortunes. Neither does it provide a spiritual justification for poverty, oppression, violence, or injustice.

Tolstoy regarded the beatitudes as the basis of Christianity. Gandhi proclaims that the Sermon on the Mount went straight to his heart. For us Christians, the sermon on the mount is a program as well as a promise. It is a call extended to all of us to cooperate with God’s salvific action here and now. God establishes, through our discipleship, a new world order in which the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the excluded, the marginalised, and the disadvantaged become proactive ‘subjects’ of a just world. May our openness to God’s salvific action enable us to walk towards the counter-cultural world order to which the law of the covenant points us.