{"id":2667,"date":"2014-03-09T14:20:09","date_gmt":"2014-03-09T14:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/?p=2667"},"modified":"2014-03-09T14:20:09","modified_gmt":"2014-03-09T14:20:09","slug":"the-city-on-the-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2014\/03\/09\/the-city-on-the-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"The City on the Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every time you read slowly through a familiar part of scripture you notice something new.\u00a0 Today I noticed something about the “city on a hill” metaphor used by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14<\/a>).<\/p>\n

This metaphor is famous in American history because of John Winthrop’s sermon<\/a> aboard the Arabella in 1630 and later by John F. Kennedy<\/a> and Ronald Reagan<\/a>.\u00a0 In politics and sermons, the city on the hill usually represents an elect, special group of people, who in virtue of their virtues<\/em>, can lead the way forward for the rest of humanity.\u00a0 The city on the hill is on the hill<\/em> because it is socially and morally above the masses of those without virtue.<\/p>\n

But in Matthew’s Gospel the flow of events does not suggest this kind of elitism.\u00a0 In Matthew 4, the writer details Jesus’ temptation by Satan, including Satan’s final offer of the kingdoms and glory of the world from a perch on a high mountain.\u00a0 (Matt. 4:8-11<\/a>).\u00a0 After his temptation, Jesus begins to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom.\u00a0 (Matt. 4:17<\/a>).\u00a0 As he proclaims the Kingdom, Jesus calls individuals to follow him, including Peter, Andrew, James, and John.\u00a0 (Matt. 4:18-22<\/a>).\u00a0 We should notice that the call of these disciples is from among ordinary people who had already heard Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom.<\/p>\n

As Jesus continues to preach and minister in the synagogues, he touches and heals the common people — the \u03bb\u03b1\u1ff7<\/span> (“laity”), and “crowds” begin to follow him.\u00a0 (Matt. 4:24-25<\/a>).\u00a0 Seeing the crowds, Jesus retreats to “the mountain” with his “disciples.”\u00a0 (Matt. 5:1<\/a>).\u00a0 There is a lovely parallel here with the “mountain” from which Satan showed Jesus the kingdoms and glory of the world during the temptation narrative in the previous chapter.\u00a0 From\u00a0this<\/em> mountain, Jesus is showing his disciples the wealth and glory of the Kingdom of God:\u00a0 the crowds of ordinary people who need love, healing and care.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

I think that\u00a0these crowds<\/em> are the people Jesus refers to in the beatitudes:\u00a0 the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the hungry and thirsty for righteousness, the merciful, the peacemakers, the persecuted.\u00a0 (Matthew 5:1-10<\/a>).\u00a0 Jesus tells his disciples that these crowds<\/em> already have within them people who are “blessed,” and instructs his disciples to be “salt” and “light” in and to the crowds.\u00a0 (Matthew 5:13-16<\/a>).\u00a0 This is why, and how, the righteousness of Jesus disciples must “surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees,” and it is also how they will “enter the kingdom of heaven”:\u00a0 by living among ordinary people who do not even realize they are already blessed.\u00a0 (Matthew 5:17-20<\/a>).
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every time you read slowly through a familiar part of scripture you notice something new.\u00a0 Today I noticed something about the “city on a hill” metaphor used by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14). This metaphor is famous in American history because of John Winthrop’s sermon aboard the Arabella in 1630 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[77,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city","category-scripture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-H1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}