The Sermon on the Mount does not provide comforting answers; rather, it poses questions that can only lead to responses capable of transforming one's life. An interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount for the present day fulfills its claim when it accepts this as a thorn in the flesh of Christianity and resists the temptation to dilute the Beatitudes and the commandments of Jesus found in the so-called antitheses through a strategy of softening. The well-known theologian and ethicist Eberhard Schockenhoff confronts this challenge.