A very popular app helps to learn a great selection of languages, from widely spoken ones like English, Spanish or Chinese to the very niche, like Hawaiian, Navajo or Latin or even a few made-up ones, like Esperanto or High Valyrian, the latter being of “Game of Thrones” fame. Considering the service’s wide-ranging line-up there’s a strange absence of the language most widely used by humankind: legalese. It’s the language of formal documents, contracts, and regulations. Everyone comes across it every now and again, everyone is affected by it but very few are fluent enough to make use of it for their own benefit. Legalese is so intrinsic and impenetrable that whoever wants to use it effectively must employ its interpreters: lawyers. They don’t come cheap which indirectly confirms how difficult it is to master the language. There’s another baffling aspect of legalese. Most spoken languages over time tend to evolve towards their respective simplification; sophisticated grammar forms, vocabulary and conventions are replaced by simpler, direct and easy-to-communicate types. Legalese is different; over time it gets more and more complicated; sometimes to the point of becoming internally contradictory. In that case, a new law is then required to sort it out, so legalese is ever-expanding – a bit like our universe.
This might sound like a rant against law or lawyers, but it isn’t. I’m not an anarchist; I believe that good law properly implemented benefits society as a whole and individuals as well. Since time immemorial traditions, conventions and rules have organised social life. The invention of writing lent law a much more tangible, solid form. In the ancient world of handicrafts and a scarcity of resources, physical objects were treasured, valued and respected far more than in our world of disposable, single-use goods. Sometimes such physical objects gained the status of highly respected relics; it helped when the alleged source of the written law was divine. Historically, that was the case of Jewish religious law. Its origins were traced to a covenant between God and the people of Israel established on the Mount of Horeb, on their way to the Promised Land after they had escaped the slavery of Egypt. Their leader, Moses, spent forty days and nights on the mountain where he received the Law from God, chiselled on two stone tablets. They were kept inside a purpose-built ornamented wooden box called the Ark of the Covenant. It was held in the Sanctuary, initially a mobile, tented temple and then the holiest chamber of the bricks-and-mortar Temple in Jerusalem. The Law was the religion. The first five books of the Old Testament, considered holy scriptures by all Jewish religious branches, bear the collective name of the Torah, which translates from Hebrew as “Instruction”, “Teaching” or “Law”. Such a three-pronged translation implies that the Law wasn’t given as a set of rigid rules kept for their own sake but as an instrument for forming, shaping and moulding a new, holy people. The Old Testament is peppered with references and calls to consider, meditate and ponder the Law of the Lord. In other words, the faithful should think about how to apply the law to everyday situations; unlike any rules, in life good and evil are rarely clear-cut and finding the right approach can be challenging.
I reckon that my long, yawn-inducing introduction is important to understanding today’s gospel reading, as well as those in the following few Sundays. St Matthew saw Jesus as the fulfilment of Moses’ prophecy: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.” (Deuteronomy 18:15) Just as at that time Moses was considered the author of the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) so St Matthew used five speeches by Jesus, the New Moses, as the structure of his gospel. The Beatitudes we heard in today’s gospel were the grand opening of the first one, known as the Sermon on the Mount. The circumstances closely reflect those of the covenant made by Moses: it was proclaimed on a mountainside; in the same way that the Ten Commandments formed the core of the Law, so did the Beatitudes for the new order. But, of course, there were differences. St Matthew didn’t present Jesus as a law-enforcement officer, tasked with holding the people of Israel to account. Jesus, the New Moses, brought a new Torah, new Instruction, new Teaching, new Law. We will see that more clearly over the next three Sundays in the gospel readings. Instead of going ahead of ourselves, let’s look a bit more closely now at the Beatitudes.
The Ten Commandments effectively drew the bottom line, the absolute minimum required of the faithful. That’s why they were expressed mostly in a negative way: “You shall not murder, steal…” (compare Deuteronomy 5:17-21) and so on. Dare I say, the Ten Commandments formed the bottom from which human beings can bounce up. The Beatitudes pointed up, at the goal to be achieved, the spiritual posture and attitude that eventually restores us to our God-intended state: “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) The Beatitudes are a formation programme, a life-long, ever-in-progress spiritual training regime. We need them in order to set a goal and to keep us on track to achieve it because – unfortunately – human nature is such that we instinctively look for the path of least resistance, of minimal effort paired with – preferably – instant gratification. The Beatitudes invite each of us towards greater things, an elevated state of mind and heart where my existence serves more than myself only. There isn’t enough time in this sermon to closely reflect on each verse; in fact, each of them deserves a dedicated talk. On the other hand, they are very easy to understand. They are not written in legalese but in the language of charitable love. And last but not least, an interesting thing: the Beatitudes make hardly any reference to God or religion. They can be practised by everyone, of any faith or no faith. Just as the Ten Commandments form the universal bottom line, so the Beatitudes show the ultimate goal for the human spirit, to be a God lookalike: “God is love.” (1 John 4:8)
