Sermon on the Mount

by Scot McKnight

  We are to extend this as well into our neighborhood, as when we look after our neighbor’s grass or mail when they are gone, just as our neighbors (Jim and Julie) look after ours when we are gone—and Kris and I are the major receivers on this one because we travel more than do Jim and Julie.

  We are to do this at work. I think here of how my colleagues and I interact with one another; we ask each other to read what we are writing, and it is a good rule for us to say, “How would I want my stuff to be read by a colleague?” Perhaps many don’t know how this works, but sometimes I give to my fellow New Testament friend and one of the editors of this series, Joel Willitts, or to my philosopher friend Greg Clark, something I’ve written, and basically I want them to make my piece better. But sometimes their suggestions mean I’m wrong or that I’ve got more work to do, and I think they want the same of me—but this is where the Jesus Creed and the Golden Rule become the genius they are: they ask us to love one another in such a way that we become better because of love and not just tolerated or accepted for whatever we want to be told about ourselves. We work with one another out of love, not competition or drudgery. We work with one another to make one another better.

  The same applies in our churches. We need to think in the exercise of gifts of how we would want to be treated, and we need to treat others that way. Recently a former student came into my office and told me she was now working in an “über-charismatic” organization. They were a little too “in her face” about some things, and she asked my advice. We covered a few topics like learning to understand variety among Christians, but one of our solutions was that she needed to think about how she would want to treat someone or how she would want to be told if she were being a bit overbearing. So she agreed to think and pray about this and then chat with the person who had been a little too pushy with her. But the Golden Rule is of direct value in relationships in churches. It takes but a moment’s thought to think it through: How do I want to treat others? How would I want to be treated?

  Listening for Corporate Groups

  I’d like to suggest that the Golden Rule is perhaps the most potent political weapon we Christians have today. And I don’t say this because I’m Anabaptist but because empathy is at the bottom of the Golden Rule. If we as Christians with a faithful witness would set the example, not by way of reaction but by way of reasoned empathy, we might set the tone for more shalom in our world. Think about 9/11 and al Qaeda in light of the Christian’s obligation to respond in all situations with the Golden Rule, of asking how we would want to be treated.

  The Golden Rule leads us to a measured humility. Instead of immediate, visceral, angry reaction and plots of vindication—all normal human responses to injustice—perhaps we could ask this first: Did we do something to provoke this? What were the reasons the invaders gave for their violence? To be sure, no one here wants to justify their violence, even if we deserved it (and I don’t think we did), but at least we need to back up enough to assess the situation and ask why in the world anyone would want to invade us. Perhaps we need to ask if our international policies are such that we are breeding hatred for our economy, our morals, and our culture when we think we are doing well. Perhaps we need to ask—following the Golden Rule—questions that make us turn inward first.

  But international politics is just one example. What about at work? Can we apply the Golden Rule to our place of work? I’m a professor, so let me explore a few questions. If I were a student, would I want to be treated the way my students are treated? If I were an administrator, would I want to be treated this way? If I were a neighbor, would I want to be treated the way my school treats its neighbors? If I were an academic or sports rival, would I want to be treated this way? Do I treat colleagues the way I want to be treated?

  This is the Law and the Prophets.

  This is God’s will.

  This is Jesus’ Ethic from Above and Beyond.

  Any serious pondering of all of life through the Golden Rule is dangerous for our moral health because it will summon us—I know I feel this way just writing the above paragraphs—to live under the King and as one of his kingdom citizens.

  If you listen to yourself in all of life, you will be led out of yourself into a life of loving others.

  Notes

  1. KNT: “So whatever you want people to do to you, do just that to them. Yes: this is what the law and the prophets are all about.”

  2. For more Jewish texts, see Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount, 135.

  3. See Aharon Shemesh, “Legal Texts,” EDEJ, 877–80.

  4. Other instances in Matthew are 13:46; 18:25; 28:20.

  5. See b. Šabbat 31a. P. S. Alexander, “Jesus and the Golden Rule,” in Hillel and Jesus: Comparative Studies of Two Major Religious Leaders (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 363–88 (here p. 366).

  6. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:687–88.

  7. For discussion, P. Ricouer, “The Golden Rule,” NTS 36 (1990): 392–97.

  Chapter 21

  Matthew 7:13–14

  LISTEN to the Story

  13“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad1 is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow2 the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

  Listening to the text in the Story: Exodus 19:1–24:18; Deuteronomy 6; 12–26; Joshua 1–5; 23:1–24:28; Nehemiah 8:1–10:39.

  The exodus, forming the covenant but especially the giving of the law, stands behind our passage. One is reminded of Moses’ ups-and-downs Mount Sinai to meet with God and then with the children of Israel. The fundamental summons of Moses was for the people to do God’s revealed Torah. “When Moses went and told the people all the LORD’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, ‘Everything the LORD has said we will do’ ” (Exod 24:3).

  That summons from Mount Sinai is repeated by Moses in Deuteronomy 26:16–19:

  The LORD your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have declared this day that the LORD is your God and that you will walk in obedience to him, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws—that you will listen to him. And the LORD has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands. He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the LORD your God, as he promised.

  Exodus, Sinai, Jordan, Land—and at each major juncture in Israel’s history the people of God are summoned to hear God’s will and to commit themselves all over again—as if for the first time—to the Torah. Joshua 1–5 tells that Story again, and this one ends with a Passover celebration at Gilgal, the place where the reproach of disobedience was removed. This ongoing pattern of summons to obedience, including Joshua’s farewell (23:1–24:28), finds yet more echoes in Ezra’s return from the Babylonian exile. The temple is rebuilt, another Passover is celebrated, and Ezra summons Israel to renewed commitment to obey the Torah (Ezra 1–6, 7:1–10; Neh 8:1–10:39). Over and over the pattern is God’s act of redemption, the covenant is renewed, and the people are called to obey the will of God.

  So when Jesus climbs the mount of this Sermon, assumes the posture of a teacher and lawgiver, issues forth his kingdom demands in ways that develop what Moses has taught, and then summons his followers to kingdom obedience at the end, only to descend the mount, we are obligated to see him taking the posture of the Final Prophet, the Messiah. The Sermon is that serious: this is the Messiah’s revelation of God’s will. The major difference, of course, is that Jesus connects his teachings to the inauguration of the kingdom. He swallows up each demand in the Sermon in this final section and says to his disciples, “Do this.”

  EXPLAIN the Story

  First, Jesus gives a comprehensive summons in imagery: paths and gates (7:13–14). This is followed, secon
d, by a warning about those who claim their gifts but fail in deeds (7:15–23). Third, Jesus concludes with a two-way warning in a parable (7:24–27). Our first passage (7:13–14) has a simple summons to enter through the narrow gate (7:13a) followed by the two options to Jesus’ teaching (7:13b–14).3

  The Summons (7:13a)

  It is not uncommon for Jesus to summon people to “enter” the kingdom of God. Note Mark 9:47; 10:15; 14:25 as well as Matthew 5:19; 7:21; 8:11; 18:3. The most significant text of all these, and others could be listed, is Matthew 7:21: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Within the scope of the concluding summons to the Sermon, “enter” (the Greek word is eiserchomai) is used for both “life” and “kingdom.” The gravity of the summons is palpable: Jesus calls his followers to enter into the life of the kingdom in the here and now.

  Everything hinges on the “gate,” the entrance to cities and temples. What does this mean? Some restrict “gate” to the ethical vision or commands of Jesus from 5:1 to 7:12,4 while others see Jesus himself along with his commands.5 Jesus is the gate in John 10:9, and he is calling people to follow him; his demands are entailed in relationship with Jesus. The Messianic Ethic creates the Ethic from Above.

  There is one reason the gate is “narrow”: it is demanding discipleship.6 It is demanding because it contrasts with the wide gate that leads to a broad road in 7:13b and compares favorably with the “small” gate7 that leads to a narrow road in 7:14. The gate is narrow because it requires a person to turn from sin to follow Jesus, to do the will of God as taught by Jesus. It is narrow because it is the surpassing righteousness of 5:17–48, the deeper righteousness of 6:1–18, the single-minded righteousness of 6:19–34, and the wise way of life as seen in 7:1–11. In essence, the narrow gate is to follow Jesus by learning to live by the Jesus Creed and the Golden Rule (7:12). And the gate is narrow because of persecutions (5:11–12; 8:18–22; 10:17–25, 34–39; 24:9, 21, 29).8 Is it possible to walk the narrow road?

  As long as I recognize this road as the one I am commanded to walk, and try to walk it in fear of myself, it is truly impossible. But if I see Jesus Christ walking ahead of me, step by step, if I look only at him and follow him, step by step, then I will be protected on this path.9

  The Two Options: Destruction or Life (7:13b–14)

  These two options have been the source of considerable anxiety, some of it spiritually good and some of it unfortunately tragic. Jesus joins the two-paths of Deuteronomy 28 (blessings, curses) and a host of similar two-paths teaching in the ancient world. Perhaps the opening to the Didache puts it best:

  There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between these two ways. Now this is the way of life: first, “you shall love God, who made you;” second, “your neighbor as yourself;” and “whatever you do not wish to happen to you, do not do to another” (Did. 1:1–2).

  This two-paths approach to ethics is a rhetorical way of simplifying in order to cast before a listener the gravity of the moral life. It is heard as an Ethic from Above. This sort of rhetoric forces everything into two options: wide versus small, broad versus narrow, destruction versus life, and many versus few. Everything is chosen for rhetorical severity in order to create moral gravity. The choice matters because it determines who enters the kingdom.

  Is Jesus hereby being a radical exclusivist, or one who thinks few will enter the kingdom while the vast majority of humans (most of whom on the world’s stage have not heard of Jesus) will be sent to hell? Or is this exaggerated rhetoric that ought to lead one to self-inspection instead of into theological speculation on the numbers of the saved? It is true that Jesus can use similar terms from different angles. Thus, 22:14 confirms our text with its “many are invited [called], but few are chosen.” But Jesus can also say “many” from the east and the west will come into the kingdom (8:11), and Jesus’ death liberates “many” (not few) from captivity (20:18). Yes, Jesus is exaggerating for rhetorical impact. But, yes, this raises the theological debate about who will be saved and on what grounds.10 There is a threshold for Jesus, and his moral severity arises because he connects entrance into the kingdom with response to him (21:28–32; 22:1–14; 25:31–46).

  What clinches this discussion for me is the Lukan parallel (Luke 13:23–24), which deserves to be quoted because it connects these words to final salvation: “Someone asked him, ‘Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?’ ”

  Jesus’ response is notable: “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.”

  There may be questions unanswered by Jesus, but it seems at least clear to this author that Jesus’ lines about many and few are directly related to those who will be saved, that is, those who will enter the kingdom of God. It hangs on whether Jesus is one’s Lord.

  LIVE the Story

  Followers of Jesus cannot be afraid to set the vision of Jesus, in which Jesus is King and humans are summoned to become citizens of his kingdom, in the context of a final judgment, nor can they be afraid of the simple framing of life into two options: following Jesus or not. As R. T. France says it so well, “This is not a matter of more or less successful attempts to follow the lifestyle of the kingdom heaven, but of being either in or out, saved or lost.”11 The Sermon is not theory: the Sermon itself gospels the gospel. The Sermon casts forth the image of Jesus and of his vision for how kingdom people are to live, and then Jesus looks his listeners in the eyes and summons them to choose to follow him. Sorting all folks into two seems brutal in our world, but we cannot soften the rigor of Jesus’ words, nor can we fail to connect this summons to grace. Again, this is an Ethic from Above with incomparable gravity.

  Final Accountability

  You can’t wander far into the Bible without recognizing that God holds people accountable and, as the Bible develops its Story, that accountability becomes a combination of this life and the age to come. Every day we all stand before God. Jesus stands upright in the middle of that orientation and says, “Follow me!”

  The options are life and destruction. This is not the place to debate the nature of hell but instead to observe that our one life now determines whether our end will be life—and here we are to see the new heavens and the new earth, often depicted as an endless banquet of joy, peace, justice, and love—or destruction—and here one would think of eternal separation from God, whether one thinks of this in terms of conscious pain or even of a destruction that comes to an end. Some consider annihilationism to be too soft while annihilationists see it as a more just form of eternal consequences. Either view is, in my view, justifiable and consistent with Jesus.

  But what we do not see in Jesus is an opportunity after death or the eventual salvation of all people. To be sure, whether one is an exclusivist, an inclusivist, or an accessibilist matters little in this instance; what matters is that Jesus calls us to account for ourselves before God. What we do now will determine what happens then. We need first to get ourselves postured so we hear this final accountability message of Jesus. Another way of saying this is to wonder aloud if our discussions about hell, how long it lasts, who goes there, and whether hell will be emptied might be distractions from the fundamental belief undergirding such discussions: Is one with Jesus or not? That’s the question this text poses to its hearers.

  Rigor

  The intent of Jesus in these words is the rhetoric of clarity. He wants his listeners to see that life matters, that their moral life matters both now and for the age to come, and he wants them to decide to follow him. Yes, the two-ways sayings here are part of a rhetoric, but this rhetoric is used because for Jesus there is a rigor required to enter the kingdom of God. To enter the kingdom we must enter through the one and only gate. If the common view that Jesus is the gate is correct, we are called to focus on Jesus—we are to respond to Jesus and to summon others to respond to
Jesus.

  Because 7:13–14 is connected thematically in the summons to 7:15–27, we need to let “gate” get as expansive as Jesus makes it: the gate is Jesus, who calls us to “do” (we will see the emphasis on this term in the next two units) the will of God as he teaches it. So the gate is not just a mild association with Jesus or some kind of general affiliation, but a radical commitment to Jesus as the one who is King and Lord who shapes all of life for us. To enter the narrow gate is to enter into a relationship with the Jesus who really is the King and Lord who saves and rules, and the relationship to Jesus entails following him.12

  A Song for Nagasaki

  There are many stories of Christians who have surrendered their lives for Jesus because of his call and because they know that they will answer someday to God. The story of World War II is often told from the angle of the Americans and British and the winners. The story of Pearl Harbor emerges far more often through the story of the winners. But there are Christian stories from Japan, and I can think of none more eloquent and moving than the story of Takashi Nagai.13

  Dr. Nagai was a convert from Buddhism to the Catholic Christian faith; he married a woman who had been praying for his conversion for years. When the American Chuck Sweeney chose not to drop the bomb on Kokura because of cloudy weather, he headed south and dropped it on Nagasaki. Dr. Nagai was at his radiology laboratory; his wife, Midori, was at home and was instantly burned beyond recognition and sent into the presence of God; his two children, with their grandmother, had been taken to the hills for protection, and they survived.