The Sermon on the Mountain (reading the Jesus Book of Pope Benedict - First Volume)

(Chapter 4) The Sermon on the Mountain is a passage which is often misused by the modernists to show that nothing is needed to achieve the salvation, no study, no observation of the laws, only a simple mind suffices. And liberal theologians tend to see this sermon as an abolishment of the Old Law, including the Decalogue. 

Pope Benedict shows us that not an iota of the Old Law can be abolished, and tells us what the real meaning of this passage is. What is striking for me is how Pope Benedict shows the continuity between the Sermon on the Mountain and the Old Testament, especially the Psalms. It is also very interesting that he mentions on many places his good friend Rabbi Neusner. Thus, the liberal thesis that the Sermon on the Mountain presents a new Ethics and abolish the old Ethics of OT is refuted. And with "the poor" mentioned in the sermon are not meant impoverished people, as poverty doesn't lead to salvation, but those who are poor before God, that is, those, who don't boast of what they have done. The Holy Father cites a sentence of Therese of Lisieux: "I will stand before God with empty hands and keep them open". It means, we open our hands to receive the Grace of the Lord. The poor are also those who decide to abandon earthly comfort to follow the example of Christ, like Francis of Assisi did.

The Sermon on the Mountain, thus Pope Benedict, is a hidden Christology: as God took the flesh of man and died for our sake. So the Sermon on the Mountain tells us how to be the true imitator of Christ: to love, and that means to abandon every kind of egoism. And Pope Benedict wrote: "in opposite to the alluring glamour of Nietzsche's picture of man this way (of imitation Christi) appears poor, but it is the real way of life to ascend, only on the way of love the richness of life and the magnitude of human vocation become available".

In the second part of this chapter Pope Benedict tells us that according to the Jewish Tradition, the Messiah is supposed to bring his own "Torah". So the question is raised again: do the new laws substitute the old ones? The answer of Pope Benedict is: they don't abolish the old laws, but fulfil them. A very interesting passage which our Pope quotes from the book of Rabbi Neusner is: Jesus has, in comparison to the prophets, not a single new law! Jesus said only, come and follow me (Mt. 19, 20). And that is the reason why Rabbi Neusner decides that he remains in the Jewish Religion, because Rabbi Neusner finds that to follow Jesus will be contrary to the first (to honour God alone and to keep Sabbath) and the fourth (to honour father and mother) commandment. Pope Benedict shows that these commandments are fulfilled in the social teachings of the Church. And Pope Benedict shows also that in the Torah Israel is not only for its own people there, but is to become the light of all people in the world. The aim of the Holy Father is, as I see it, to show that Jesus Christ stands in the continuity with the OT, though he brought very new and revolutionary teachings. But his teachings can also be found in the inner structure of the Torah.

This approach of our Holy Father to the NT is very interesting. It is not only in the hermeneutic tradition of the analogical reading, but also in a new sense as he is using the Jewish Tradition of Bible reading to support our Christian teachings. It will not only teach us to have more respect and insight for the Jewish Tradition which is in part also ours, but can also be useful to explain to the Jews what Christianity is, and even persuade some of them more easily, as the Scripture is central for the Jewish Religion.