When people read the Sermon on the Mount, it can feel as though Jesus is jumping from topic to topic. One moment He speaks about anger. Then adultery. Then divorce. Then retaliation.
At first, these teachings sound like separate moral instructions. But taken together, they reveal something deeper. Jesus is not simply listing moral failures. He is teaching us how to see one another.
Two weeks ago, we explored what Jesus said about adultery. In that message, we introduced a simple metaphor: mirrors and windows. We noted that mirrors reflect our own desires back to us. Windows allow us to see another person’s dignity and humanity.
This metaphor helps illuminate what Jesus is doing in His sermon found in Matthew’s Gospel. At first glance, anger, adultery, divorce, and retaliation seem like four separate moral issues. But Jesus is actually addressing a deeper human problem that lies beneath them all. He is teaching us how to see.
In His sermon, Jesus repeatedly moves beneath outward behavior to the inner posture of the heart.
Anger, He says, is not only about violence. It begins with contempt. Adultery, He teaches, is not only about physical betrayal, but begins with the way a person looks at another human being. That is, with a desire that turns a person into something to possess.
What Jesus says about divorce is often treated as though Jesus is offering a legal ruling about marriage. But in the flow of the Sermon on the Mount, divorce is another example of the same deeper problem. Before a relationship breaks legally, something usually shifts in the way two people see one another.
A mirror and a window are surprisingly similar. Both are made of glass. The difference is a thin reflective coating placed on the back of the glass. Without that coating, you see through the glass. Add the coating, and suddenly the glass becomes a mirror. Instead of seeing through it, you see your own reflection.
The same transformation happens in human relationships.
Sometimes we encounter others through a window. We recognize their dignity, their story, their humanity. We see them as people whose lives and experiences are real and meaningful apart from our own. But at other times, people become mirrors. They reflect our expectations, our desires, our frustrations, and our fears. Instead of encountering them as persons, we begin to experience them primarily in terms of how they affect us.
A helpful way of describing this difference comes from the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, who describes human relationships as falling into two patterns. One he called I–It. In this pattern, the other person becomes an object—someone who serves our needs, fulfills our expectations, or stands in our way. The other he called I–Thou. In this pattern, we encounter another person as a sacred life with dignity, mystery, and worth.
In other words, mirrors reflect me, while windows see you.
In His sermon, Jesus refers to a practice already familiar in his time: the certificate of divorce. In ancient Jewish society, a written certificate served as a legal protection for a woman whose husband ended the marriage. Without such a document, she could be left socially and economically vulnerable.
Religious teachers of the day debated the circumstances under which a man could issue this certificate. Some argued that divorce should be allowed only in extreme circumstances. Others permitted it for much lesser reasons.
Anyone who divorces his wife makes her a victim of adultery.
Matthew 5:31-32
Jesus does not enter the debate by listing acceptable conditions. Instead, he points beyond legal arguments to the deeper problem.
Human beings have a remarkable ability to turn one another into objects. And when relationships become mirrors—when the other person is seen primarily through the lens of our own expectations and desires—the relationship itself begins to unravel.
Divorce, in this sense, is not the root problem. It is one place where the deeper problem becomes visible.
Together, these teachings form a kind of progression. Anger begins when we no longer see another person with dignity. Adultery begins when the gaze turns another human being into an object of desire. Divorce often follows when a relationship is defined by disappointment rather than by mutual recognition of each other’s humanity. And retaliation is what happens when two people—or even two nations—are both looking into mirrors, convinced their own reflection is the only one that matters.
Mirrors reflect me. Windows see you.
In each case, the behavior may look different, but the deeper problem is the same: we have stopped seeing one another as persons created in the image of God.
What Jesus exposes is not merely a set of behaviors. He exposes a way of seeing the world.
Because divorce has often been treated primarily as a moral failure, many people carry deep shame around it—even when the circumstances were complex or painful. Yet anyone who has walked closely with couples facing divorce knows that it is rarely simple.
Divorce is grief. It is the painful recognition that something hoped for did not become what it was meant to be.
For that reason, the role of the church cannot be limited to pronouncing judgment. The church is called to be a community of healing. When relationships flourish, the church celebrates. But when relationships struggle, the church’s role is to offer support. And when relationships break, the church must continue to offer compassion and care to all involved.
The gospel reminds us that every person remains a child of God whose dignity is not erased by the failures of human relationships.
Jesus exposes mirror-seeing not to shame us, but to invite us into a different way of living. Windows take humility. They require us to pause long enough to notice the person in front of us rather than focusing only on our own reflection.
When that happens, relationships can change in remarkable ways.
In marriage, people begin to see one another not as roles or expectations but as living persons. In friendships, loyalty deepens. In families, patience grows. In communities, judgment gives way to grace.
Seeing through windows does not guarantee that every relationship will succeed. But it does restore something essential to human life: the ability to recognize the image of God in one another.
The hope of the gospel begins with the way Christ sees us. Jesus does not look at us through a mirror. He does not measure us primarily by what we offer Him or how well we perform. Instead, He encounters each person as a life worth loving and redeeming.
He sees our failures, our wounds, and the brokenness of our relationships. Yet He continues to see us as beloved. And if Christ can see us that way, then perhaps by His grace we can begin to see each other the same way.
Mirrors reflect me. Windows see you.
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Pastor Tommy
Series concept and substantial content created and shared by © The Rev. Jeremy Peters, Court Street United Methodist Church, 2026. Used with permission.
Additional content from: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The Little Prince. Translated by Richard Howard. NY: Harper Collins, 2000.