Matthew 5

It started off so easily, and all of a sudden I find myself in deeper water, over my head.

Up until now, we have:
- been informed of the genealogy (which has no real personal effect on me)
- been told about the birth of Jesus (kind of a history lesson).
- been mystified by magi from the east,
and by events directed by dreams.
(almost beyond comprehension, stimulating but not really personal)
- witnessed baptism of the man, anointing of the king (ya)
- experienced temptation! (comparison with my own life draws parallels, now it is getting personal).
- heard the first words being said by Jesus post-baptism,
preaching "Repent" to all,
commanding "Follow Me" to a few.
A face to face confrontation (yes, definitely personal,
lives are being changed forever here.
Would I accept? Would I avert my eyes?)
- witnessed miraculous healing, drawing huge crowds

What's the buzz? What's he gonna say?

What he says next seems like the kind of thing I could read over and over and over, and on my deathbed still feel that I hadn't mastered it.

Eight times he says
"blessed are xxx, for yyy"
where xxx is a certain subset of us (meek, merciful, etc.)

In Matthew 5:11 he switches to
"blessed are you"
and continues to use either "you" or "your" from then on (except for the prayer, where he says "us" and "our")

So what about these first eight subsets?
(poor in spirit,
those who mourn,
meek,
seek righteousness,
merciful,
pure in heart,
peacemakers)

This doesn't seem like a list of goals to me, something I should strive for.
I mean, I wouldn't say to myself,
"Hmmm, I would like to be a son of God so maybe I need to go out and make some peace",
or
"If I was just a little meeker, I would get a larger slice of the pie".
No, these seem like conditions that just are, not like things one would purposely do to get a corresponding blessing.

...but from then on, I feel he is teaching directly to me.
Reading these verses:

Mat 5:1
When Jesus saw the crowds,
he went up on a hillside and sat down.
His disciples came to him,
and he opened his mouth and began to teach them

I can't really tell if he was speaking to the whole crowd, or just to the disciples who came to him, but I think "You are the light of the world" and "You are the salt of the earth" can apply to me here and now as well as it did to those on the hill, and the meaning is unchanged.
So I am interpreting this like he is talking to ME.

Boy oh boy, does this jump out at you like it does for me?

Mat 5:20
For I tell you, unless your righteousness greatly exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven!"

All my life I have heard about Jesus and his conflict with the scribes and Pharisees, and here he sets them as our example?
Or, wait a minute...
Is this some kind of backhanded anti-compliment, that we are to do better than those bums?
Ok, I better be careful here, hypocrite that I am.
I'm leaving this one alone.

For the rest of this chapter his teaching is in the form
"You have heard xxx, but I say yyy"

Whoa... This is bold.

Especially if he says anything that will be considered contradictory or heretical to the word of God. Wasn't that punishable? I'm guessing this style was a shock to anyone who heard it, because by this time the crowd was probably starting to wonder "What's with this guy?. He has shown us miraculous works. He is different than our other rabbis. Maybe this really is a new thing, and we can abandon the old thing?". That's what I would be thinking anyway.

Wouldn't you want to know if what you had believed all your life in your religion was true?
And which parts of it were misinterpretations?

So I'm thinking Jesus knew just what to feed us when he taught this way.
He reinforces the law and the prophets,
He expands the listener's interpretation of them,
He speaks strongly with authority.
Great way to start, huh?

I could probably write forever on what the contents of this sermon should mean in my life, but I already used too much time rambling, and I have a lot more to read and ponder just to finish this week's chunk o' scripture.

This sermon only takes a few minutes to say out loud, but it contains so much. I have heard sermons that were ten times as long that didn't contain a tenth as much.

Where many would baby-feed us a little at a time, and only give us as much as they thought we deserved or could handle.

Jesus does just the opposite.

He sits down on that hill and spends some time with us, holding nothing back.

Praise the Lord.