Teachings in Sermon on The Mount and Nonviolence

The Sermon on the mount is a group of teachings by Jesus Christ. These teachings can be found in the book of Matthew. During the Sermon on the Mount Jesus revealed his teaching philosophy of living a Christ like life. During his time on the Mount he taught his disciples the Lord’s prayer. This message was the basis for his disciples to go out and spread the word of Christ.

The beatitudes are as followed; Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The poor in spirit are people who take action to change. Your repentance has to be meaningful and not based on the act you have done. Sometimes we are sorry for the repercussions, but we are not sorry enough to discontinue the destructive, violent behaviors. Blessed are They that mourn: for they shall be comforted. In the Bible blessed means happy. But in the beatitudes, it means being right with God through the Holy Spirit. Jesus contrasts the secular idea of happiness with blessedness- Spiritual prosperity- which means having a meaningful relationship with God and the path to following Christ teachings. The people who agree with God about the evil of their own hearts can attain an enviable state of blessedness, due to the comfort they receive from communion with the Holy Spirit.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. There is a popular misconception of what it means to be meek. In the beatitudes meek means to be humble and arrogant. In the Greek New Testament meek is from the term praus which connotates strength brought under control.

Blessed are they which do hunger and Thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. A quote from Henry Thoreau sums up this beatitude very well “How prompt we are to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our bodies; how slow to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our souls!” In this beatitude Jesus wants people to have a want and a desire to live morally right lives. Once he we have the drive in us to want to live righteous lives on relationship with God will get stronger.

Blessed are merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Mercy is treating others better than they deserved to be treated. This type of mercy can cost an advantage you may otherwise have benefitted from. Yet there is an overall beneficial outcome to all those concerned. Mercy is Helping your colleagues at work attain there goals regardless of your feelings toward them. In the grand scheme mercy is helping someone other than yourself. The most important learning experiences come from errors. A quote from Soichiro Honda states that “Success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success represents the one percent of your work that only comes from the 99 percent that is called failure.” Businesses and groups do not have the opportunity to grow and excel if mistakes are not acknowledged. If you are blessed with sadness for your own failings and with the right relationships, you will not find it difficult to show mercy to anyone in your life.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. The most important aspect of this beatitude is Jesus is concerned about the purity of our heart. The aim of Jesus teaches is not to reform society, but to alter the hearts of all sinners. Your heart is what you are in your private moments when no one knows but god. Your spoken word is what comes from the heart. The heart is critical to Jesus’ teaching. What we are in are most private moments is what Jesus cares about. What does it mean to see God? To be welcomed to his presence, to be in awe of his glory, and to be in comfort by his grace.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The eighth beatitude may seem negative. Until now we have focused on the qualities of meekness, humility, mercy, relationships, peacemaking, and purity of heart, all qualities we strive for in our lives. Persecution that comes from unjust activity is not blessed. If we fail by our fault, then we should be expecting to negative things to happen. Jesus talked about being blessed for oppressed for doing the correct thing. If you associate with victims in your life expect persecution. The active persecution for the right reasons indicates that the powers of the secular world believe you are succeeding in Jesus’ teachings. The best organizations and most admiral people are not perfect. The eighth is a reminder to all that working in a secular world demands courage.

Nonviolence and the sermon on the mount.

Does Jesus’ teaching in the sermon on the mount to “turn the other cheek” and not resist evil demand pacifism on the part of Christians. To begin his teaching Jesus just restated that the law is binding. Contemporary notions should be adjusted. An illustration of the errors concerns retaliations. Jesus is not setting aside the idea of restitution itself, nor the “law of the tooth” (the Lex talionis as a standard of public justice). Jesus is challenging his followers to their personal injury vs. public injury.

Do I believe it is necessary for followers of Jesus to be advocates of nonviolence? The simple answer is yes. Jesus taught peace and love to his followers something that Christians have not always followed. From the early beginnings Christianity shifted to a religion in which started overs wars and problems over. The most notable historic example of Christian violence is the Crusades. The Crusades were a group of wars fought by the Christians and Muslims to gain control of holy religious land. This string of battles was only the start of Religious induced violence.

Bringing this back to modern times and the current state of our world is fairly easy. The first place that comes to mind when thinking of religious induced violence is the president. In January of 2017 President Trump made an executive order blocking the entry of people from the countries of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen all predominately Muslim countries. This created more unnecessary tension within the country who already had issues at the beginning of the century with the September 11th attacks. It is acts like these that caused issues between different religious groups and can be easily avoided.

In Modern day times it is very possible to be an advocate of nonviolence while being a follower of Jesus. There have been some good examples of peace makers throughout the past few decades. One person that comes to mind is mother Teresa. Mother Teresa gave her life to serving the poor and less fortunate most notably in the slums of India. Another figure that comes to mind is Martin Luther King. King was an activist for the civil rights movement and a minister. During his speeches he worked lots of religious quotes and ideas into them. The recent past as brought us a lot of Christian activist.

Kanye West has recently decided to devote his music and life to Christianity giving himself the title of “Christian innovator”. His new album Jesus is King shows fans the new side of Kanye that has never been seen through his music before. West has also started what he calls a church dubbing it Sunday Service. Sunday Service started around January of 2019 with a small choir and some of wests close friends and collaborators. From there it took off from playing Coachella on Easter Sunday in April to playing Jimmy Kimmel and selling out the Los Angeles Forum multiple weeks in a row. I think the idea of Kanye West becoming a man of God shows any one violent or not can change themselves to live be nonviolent people. Now I am not saying Kanye has a violent history or promoting violence, because he doesn’t but he does a history of being controversial, unpredictable, and having a tendency to start problems with people. Kanye is an example of people changing to live Christianity nonviolent lives.

Another example of this is the rap collective Odd Future also known as Odd Future Wolf Gang kill Them all which was active from 2007-2015. Odd Future was known for their controversial songs and lyrics most notable is the line from the song Radical that goes “Kill people burn shit fuck school”. The leader of odd Future Tyler, The Creator has been arrested multiple times for starting riots, he has also been banned from New Zealand and recently was unbanned from the United Kingdom. Fast forward to present day and a lot has changed for those teenagers. Tyler, the creator went from being banned from countries to making love albums for his boyfriend. One member that ties this together is Frank Ocean. Once Odd future disbanded Frank became a Christian. Changing his path from immature violent behavior to seem to also help his career. If these artist can go through such radical change as Christians everyday common people should have no problem.