Sermon; Epiphany 4A (Annual Meeting Sunday); Matthew 5:1-12

As I’ve been saying, the Gospel of Matthew brings to mind the Hebrew scriptures more than any other gospel – especially if you are familiar with those scriptures, as Matthew’s original audience surely was.

Matthew’s opening genealogy recalls the genealogies of Genesis and Numbers.  The Holy Family’s flight to Egypt and return to their homeland recalls the story of the Exodus.  Within that story, the slaughter of the innocents recalls Pharaoh’s edict to kill all male Hebrew children.  Jesus’ 40-day wilderness experience recalls the Israelite’s 40-years in the wilderness.  These examples, and more, tie Matthew’s gospel deeply to those ancient scriptures.

This connection with those scriptures continues in today’s gospel passage.  Today Jesus goes up the mountain to teach his disciples.  Beginning with today’s passage and continuing all the way through Chapter 7, we are given the Sermon on the Mount. 

Now you might be asking yourself, “How is this connected to the OT?”  First of all, encounters with God were often located on a mountain.  It was on a mountain where Elijah encountered God in the sheer silence.  Moses went up the mountain to receive the Law from God.  It was that Law that defined the Israelites from all the other nations they encountered.

In the same way, Jesus goes up the mountain.  But instead of receiving the Law from God, he gives a new law – not a law of statutes, ordinances, rules, regulations, and prohibitions, but a law of the heart.  This is the beginning of the fulfillment of the words of Jeremiah when he said, “The days are surely coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and Judah . . . I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.”

What Matthew does is to show Jesus, through the Sermon on the Mount, as both law giver AND the authorized interpreter of the Law.

The law Jesus gives is one of community standards.  This is the law and these are the words this new community of Christ is to live into.  This is the law and these are the words we are to live into.

Once again Matthew connects his readers to the Hebrew scriptures.  These words of Jesus are not just something he made up on the fly in the hopes that his followers would be nice.  All of his words, and particularly the ones we hear today, come from the Law and the Prophets.  These all come from Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah, Amos, and others.  And paired with the words from Micah that we heard earlier – What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God – these all sum up the heart of the Law.

At last year’s Annual Meeting we did a little exercise where we put meaningful words about Saint Luke’s on newsprint and then narrowed those down to what we thought were most important or most reflected our parish.  Those words led the Vestry to develop a new vision statement . . . which is . . . to Proclaim the Love of God and Extend Hope to ALL People.

One way we can live into our vision statement is to also work to make the Beatitudes a reality.

We can work to make this a Spirit-filled place so that those who are poor in spirit will see the kingdom of heaven.  We can be a place of comfort for those who mourn.  We can be a place where mercy is present.  And, harkening back to Micah, we can be a place that proclaims justice, loves kindness, and humbly walks with God.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ gives a law of the heart designed to shape his community of believers.  Through our baptism we have been adopted into that community. 

As we move forward into 2026, may we be shaped by Christ’s law.  May we manifest the promises of our baptismal covenant.  May we have the courage to speak out against injustice.  May we find strength in providing mercy and comfort.  May we proclaim the love of God and extend hope to all people in a way that let’s them know we are, above everything else, a community of Christ.

Amen.