Matthew 4:17 quotes Jesus as saying that the core of his message was simple: get your act together, turn our life around, God's rule is right around the corner. Not in the after-life, but right here and in just a little while. Then the author starts the sermon on the mount off (Mt. 5:3-12) by setting out the vision of what life in God's coming kingdom will be like for those who follow Jesus and his teachings. It will be a blessing, a joy. But, Jesus as quoted in the sermon, goes on (Mt. 5:17-20) to teach that this new life won't be easy. The vision is a challenging one. You poor, humble Christians are going to have to live lives more obviously faithful to God than the holiest people (and the most highly educated, wealthiest people) of the Jewish nation.The compiler/author of the gospel then goes on to quote a series of Jesus' sayings (Mt. 5:21-42) that put real meat on the bones of his message. They address fundamental sources of human suffering and injustice: anger, sexual lust, family instability, failure to keep one's word, and revenge. Anger drives people apart and its consequences are serious. Do whatever it takes, Jesus taught, to escape the ravages of anger. Sexual lust destroys lives. It has serious consequences for those women who are its object. Men are better off blind or mutilated if it will prevent them from so much as looking at a woman with the desire to have sex with her. Treating the sanctity of the family lightly is equally dangerous, equally fraught with evil consequences. We break up our family at our own peril. And, finally, the consequences of the desire for revenge are so great that we must do everything we can to avoid them; we must do anything to maintain good relations with people who oppress us rather than lust after revenge.
The Kingdom that is coming soon, in sum, will be inhabited by a people who know how to control their tempers, treat women with respect, respect the sanctity of the family, keep their word as their bond, and maintain social peace by acting humbly in the face of oppression. The Kingdom will be a peaceable place. Its citizens will respect each other. They will behave in the best interests of the Kingdom itself, which also happens to be in their own personal best interests.
Jesus, his followers remembered, used some pretty extreme language (pull out your own eye!) to make the point that these five values are of fundamental importance. We shouldn't let ourselves get tripped up over that language. The points being made are too important for us to let ourselves off the hook by thinking that, "nobody can live up to Jesus' teachings." That is nonsense. We can control our tempers. We can treat women justly. We can maintain good relations in our families. We can keep our word. We can keep from turning others into our enemies. It isn't easy, and we get caught up in stupid, really mixed up, ambivalent, very human situations all too often. Jesus, as quoted by the gospel, never said it would be easy. That being said, the behaviors Jesus called for are doable. The Kingdom is still just a small ways off. The issue is whether we want to live in it or not.
