Today we begin reading from Matthew's Gospel and being with chapter 5 and the Sermon on the Mount. It begins with Jesus seeing the crowds and going up a hill to teach. Moses, too, delivered God's law from an elevated place, Mount Sinai. In the traditional way of a teacher, Jesus sits down. The Sermon consists mainly of the qualities which are expected of a follower of the new Law and the new Moses, Jesus. It begins with what we call the Eight Beatitudes. It would seem that Matthew is presenting the Beatitudes as taking over the role of the Commandments and this is indicated by the prominent place they have informing the opening of this first discourse. They are, as it were, a manifesto of Jesus' message and His call to see the world in His way. They express the necessary attitudes of those who belong to the Kingdom. Those who have these attitudes already have entered that Kingdom. Some people have seen in these Beatitudes a portrait of Jesus Himself and certainly they should be the portrait of every Christian and of every Kingdom person. They go far beyond what is demanded in the Ten Commandments. The Commandments are not so difficult to follow and, in so far as several of them are expressed in the negative ('Thou shalt no..."), they can be observed by doing nothing! There is no way, however, that people can ever say they observe any Beatitude to the fullest. They always call us to a further and higher level to grow more in the likeness of Jesus.