Enticements to community: Formal, agonistic and destabilizing rhetoric in the Sermon on the Mount

Kenneth Burke's writings on rhetoric may guide an exploration of how the Se rmon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew functions as a persuasive act, i nviting hearers to identify with the community being formed around a promis ed kingdom of heaven. Burke's approach provides, first, a way to evaluate h ow other interpreters have described formal features of the Sermon's rhetor ic. Second, Burke's insights help elucidate the Sermon's agonistic elements - its enticements to social identification and detachment. finally, a read ing a la Burke points to the paradoxically destabilizing effects of the Ser mon on the Mount's perfectionistic demands.