Three fairly hefty chapters of sayings from Jesus are recorded in Mathew chapters 5, 6 and 7. These sayings are in reality a collection of Jesus' words on a number of occasions, laced in this context probably by the author of the Gospel. Many of the sayings are very familiar and it is common to find the sermon regarded as the heart of Jesus' moral teaching.

Matthew clearly understood Jesus to be a teacher of Israel. It is not clear to what extent Jews living at the time of Jesus expected the Messiah to be a teacher or to supplement or supersede the role of Moses who had been the great lawgiver. (See the Old Testament books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). Most Jews would not have expected the Messiah to produce for them a new Law, but rather offer an interpretation of the existing Torah. Matthew seems to show Jesus in exactly his light. On the other hand Matthew was not writing for Jews, but for Christians. These Christians may originally have been Jews, but the gospel is written for those who already accept Jesus as the Son of God.

In this respect the author of the Gospel has to show that Jesus.

(i) Has to state a Christian attitude to the Old Testament Law.

(ii) He had to be aware that some Christians were already interpreting many of the positive things that Jesus said as "The law of Christ"see St Paul's earlier writings to the Galatians Gal 6:2 and 1 Cor 9:21.

The theologian Benedict Green suggested that the following types of material were found in the Sermon.

A
• A series of antitheses - seven in total are found in Mat 5:21-48.

B
• A similar series of contrasts of aspects of conventional Jewish piety and the corresponding requirements from the disciples. (Almsgiving, Prayer and Fasting) Matt 6:1-18.
• The section on prayer was expanded by the inclusion of the Lord's Prayer Matt 6:7-13.

C
• A collection of sayings on ethical matters. This was essentially Q material, common to both Matthew and Luke.
• It probably included a form of the Beatitudes.
• The commands to non-resistance
• Love of one's neighbours
• Sayings against judging others.
• Sayings on "acts of mercy" found in the section Matt 6:19-7:12.

• These sayings do not form a single group; nevertheless their ethical theme suggests that we should list them together.

D
• Miscellaneous sayings preserved in the tradition. (This sort of category is often introduced by scholars when they find that they have material that won't fit anywhere else!) Even so, there's not a great deal of it and Green felt it was intended to elucidate the attitude of Jesus to Old Testament Law. Especially Matt 5:17-20.

Throughout the sermon, the author of the gospel seems to be bringing the teaching of Jesus into contact with either the Torah or contemporary Jewish beliefs. When Jesus deals with Old Testament texts, he treats these commandments as halakah or commentary. The aim of this isn't to make the commandment more difficult or indeed impossible, but to seek an interpretation which gives full meaning to the point of law under consideration. Man who is in agreement with the auspices of God sees through the teachings of Jesus the deeper meaning of the of the commandment. The aim is not to make Jesus into a liberal revolutionary rabbi. The Pharisees exacted more particular conditions from the law, they seem to have been concerned with the minute details, Jesus seems to be urging his followers to discover a greater level of righteousness. All of this is summed up in the section Matt 5:17-20.

So what does it involve?

1. The right understanding of the Law is summed up in the double commandment of love. This is the fundamental principle of the whole law.

2. The spirit in which the disciple is to approach its demands is set out in the Beatitudes at the beginning of the sermon Matt 5:3-12.

LOCATION IN MATHEW

Luke in his Gospel has a Sermon on the Plain, a smaller, but similar sermon to the one found in Matthew. However the setting or context of the sermon in Matthew's Gospel is not the same as that found in Luke. In Luke the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17-49) is set after the calling of the twelve disciples (Luke 6:12-16). The call of the twelve in Matthew (Matt 10:1-4) leads immediately into a section on "mission" and the new apostles are at once sent out. (Matt 10:5-11:1) This is an important theme for Matthew. The Sermon on the Mount is much earlier in the gospel, chapters 5,6 and 7. It occurs long before there is any sign of controversy with the authorities. Some scholars see here a proclamation of the kingdom, which is the goal of the scriptures and the decisive opening statement about the long-awaited messianic reign.

Other scholars see a typological link here between Jesus and Moses. Jesus, like Moses before him announced God’s commands from a holy mountain for the chosen people.

THEOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE SERMON

There is no doubt that the sermon has strong links with Jewish thought. G Friedlander’s work, The Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount 1911 showed that virtually all the statements in Matt 5-7 could be paralleled in the Talmud or other Jewish sources. Yet when one reads the Talmud it becomes clear that while there may be verbal and linguistic similarities the meaning and implications of the phrases in the Jewish work is not the same.

1. Some scholars have argued that Jesus' sense of eschatology in the Sermon on the Mount is so "realized" that the ethic contained there is of timeless moral quality. They point out that it cannot be integrated with other apocalyptic elements in Jesus' teaching (Matt24) or with the vision of a suffering and witnessing community.

It is true that there is little of an apocalyptic nature in the Sermon on the Mount. To a large extent this is probably governed by the nature of the subject material. Teachings and ethical maxims are very different from predictions about the future. There is no indication that the material in the Sermon on the Mount was ever intended to be removed out of the context of the gospel as a whole

2. It is claimed by many that the sermon was intended to be a set of moral standards used catechetically by the community for whom Matthew was writing. The author brought together words and phrases of Jesus which originally had a different setting and context for use by those who were either new to the faith or preparing for baptism into the church.

This view gives a very specific setting to the sermon.

3. An offshoot of the above interpretation claims that the ethical demands were intended to apply to believers of every age and in every circumstance. This results in a philosophy of pacifism and the conclusion that Christians should not seek to be involved in political wrangles or affairs of state. This view which became popular with certain Protestant sects, is important in so far as it points out the separate status of a believing community, which must not be confused with the world, but there seems little to point out the timelessness of what Matthew was trying to say. A variant of this view was proposed by C Burchard who understood the chapters 5-7 to provide the rules of conduct for the Matthaean church in the light of opposition to its witness

4. Existentialist philosophers saw in the Sermon on the Mount a summons by Jesus to a personal decision and an authentic faith. This has been criticised by those who see in this ideal a lack of uniqueness in Jesus the deliverer of the message.

5. A very strong line of interpretation was that the words of the Sermon on the Mount were intended to be an "interim ethic" to remain in force until the Second Coming of Jesus. The community, for whom these words were intended, would use them as their ethical standard until the consummation of all things in Christ at the Parousia. One great strength of this argument is that it acknowledges the centrality of the theme of "kingdom of heaven" in the discourse. The words of Jesus provide ethical guidelines for life in the kingdom and does so with reference to the contemporary setting in which the author was writing.

RELATION TO THE SERMON ON THE PLAIN (Luke 6:20-49)

The early church fathers such as Augustine of Hippo claimed that Matthew and Luke used separate sources. Others such as Origen, Chrysostom and Calvin defended the view that the two accounts were variants of the same source.

Both sermons are followed by a similar sequence of events - entrance to Capernaum and the healing of the centurion's servant. .

But Luke's sermon is shorter and has its own thematic emphases eg humility and much of the extra material in Matthew is scattered elsewhere in the Lucan account especially in his travel narrative (Luke 9:51-18:14)

Matthew speaks of a mountain and Luke speaks of the sermon being delivered on a plain.

Luke's discourse follows the choosing of the twelve, which does not take place in Matthew until chapter 10.

a) Much of what Luke omits, mostly in Matt 5:17-37 and 6:1-18 is exactly the sort of material that would be of interest to Matthew's Jewish or Jewish Christian audience.

Matthew has also omitted some material from the Sermon on the Plain that he has placed elsewhere Matt 6:25-34 see Luke 12:22-31.

It is likely that Luke may have the original setting of the words of that he felt they were more applicable in this context.

Matthew's account is usually the longer, but this in itself may not be a hallmark of originality.

But also cf Matt 5:12 with Luke 6:23-26

and Matt 5:47 with Luke 633-35.

b) The setting of the sermon is different with Matthew choosing a mountainside and Luke using a "Plain".

c) The positioning of the sermon in relation to other features of each gospel is significant. (especially in regard to the choosing of the twelve). In this respect Luke's account is more believable.

Matthew has all the indications that this is a product by the author for a community. It looks and is systematic in its treatment of the various themes. The purpose of the Lucan account is much more limited.