Gospel in Year A – John 1:29-42, Matthew 4:17-6:34
Introduction to Matthew
If we go with the majority of scholars, this gospel was complete at some point after 70 AD and before 110 AD, when Ignatius quotes from it. Schweizer accepts an 80-85 AD date.
As to the place of origin, Syria is still the most likely possibility. Yet, an association with Palestinian Judaism is discernable. The authoritative position given to Peter in this Gospel suggests Syria as the place of origin. We know he was in Syrian Antioch in Galatians 2:11ff. He was also in Corinth for a period, given the references in I Corinthians. The text shows a strong interest in individual behavior and in the historical Jesus. It is like the Didache.
In 125-175 AD, Papias says, "Matthew collected the sayings in the Hebrew tongue, but each man translated them as he was able." This indicates four things: a) In the middle of the second century, the differences between the gospels presented a problem. b) Our gospel was associated with Matthew, the disciple of Jesus mentioned in 9:9. c) No one ventured to ascribe to Matthew the entire gospel as we have it; instead, they credited him with a Hebrew or Aramaic prototype. d) This prototype was probably limited to some or all of the sayings of Jesus contained in Matthew.
Sources. Note that in Ch. 3-4, 12-28, Matthew follows Mark closely. He also adds material from “Q.” He also has some special material, but it does not have a coherent theme that might indicate a separate source. One could say that Matthew offers a revised and expanded version of Mark, since he includes so much of Mark and tries to resolve some of the ambiguities in Mark.
Themes
The ending of Matthew draws together the threads of the story he tells and commissions the disciples. Matthew ends with the immediate presence of the risen Lord, who promises to remain present always, until the end of the age. This reassuring word grounds the life and mission of the church on solid rock. Matthew creates an ordered, symbolic world, in which Jesus possesses all authority in heaven and on earth and defending it against rival worldviews. We see the way in which he constructs that world in his representation of Jesus as teacher, his account of discipleship as community formation, and his adaptation of eschatology as a warrant for ethics.
Matthew was less concerned with the historical events of Jesus' life than with his teaching. The historical events of Jesus' life fulfill all the promises of salvation made by God. He moves the teaching of Jesus into the foreground, while the deeds of Jesus confirm the validity of that teaching. Matthew also has six major discourses that Matthew has produced by using texts from the sources available to him.
Several passages appear significant to the development of the theology of Matthew. 6:9-13 is the Lord’s Prayer, which he expands for use in the worship of the church. 13:24-30, 36-43, where the church is not yet a gathering of the elect but has a mixture of good and evil in it. 16:17-19, in which he reflects the concept of church in the early Palestinian community. 25:31-46, the portrait of the last judgment. As the coming Son of Man, Jesus judges all nations, the criterion being the conduct of individuals in their lives. The apocalyptic scene he reduces to an exhortation to living in a Christian way in the world. 28:18-20, the Great commission, a summary of the gospel.
One approach to the text is that Matthew intends to portray Jesus as a new Moses. Some indications of this theme are in the opening chapters. In addition, the Sermon on the Mount is an arrangement Matthew gives to the teaching of Jesus as if Jesus provides his own interpretation of Torah. He does not structure the sermon in such a way as to offer new legislation, but to teach accurately Torah.
The Christology involves Jesus as authoritative teacher of the people of God. He shows the basis of this authority by relating birth and resurrection. Rather than beginning with John the Baptist, he begins with the genealogy of Jesus, his birth, and early childhood. By birth, he is Messiah, son of David, son of Abraham, and conceived by the Holy Spirit. The difficulties surrounding the birth of Jesus remind one of the difficulties surrounding the birth of Moses. To know Jesus rightly is to acknowledge his authority by obeying his teaching. His formula quotations suggest the scripted character of salvation history.
First of the discourses in Matthew is the Sermon on the Mount, 5-7, a catechism-like digest of paraenesis.
The second discourse in Matthew is the commission of the disciples in Chapter 10
The third discourse in Matthew is a collection of parables in Chapter 13. The parable in 13:1-9, 18-23 concerning the one who sows seed suggests that one needs to listen to the word with discernment, because appearances are deceiving. The final judgment will make clear the distinction between good and evil. One must listen today with the total commitment required, because the reign of God is the highest good at which one can aim. Matthew 18:21-35, the parable of the unforgiving servant, and 20:1-16, the parable of the vineyard, are parables that invite one to consider that the reign of God brings mercy and forgiveness. The parables also emphasize the importance of doing the will of God. The parable contrasting the behavior of two sons in 21:28-32 is one example. 21:33-43 is a parable of the vineyard in which he wards the religious leaders that they will lose their share in the reign of God and another group of people will receive it. 22:1-14 is a parable of the marriage feast, another warning that the invitation to the reign of God could be offered to others.
The fourth discourse in Matthew concerns church order in Chapter 18. Matthew views the Christian community as a learning community or as a community of students taught by Jesus. Jesus is the founder of the church. To join the movement is to join the community of disciples that he has expressly called, taught, and authorized. One cannot follow Jesus except by becoming part of the community he trained to carry out his mission in the world. One element of that community is its rigorous life. Speech and action are the outward manifestations of what is in the heart. In the parable of the final judgment, the sheep do not even know that their actions were serving Jesus. They were simply bearing fruit, giving expression to the goodness of their character. Action flows from character, but character is a matter of training in the ways of righteousness. Although like the wisdom tradition, the primary concern of Matthew in this presentation of the teaching of Jesus is the formation of the community. However, a second element of the character of the community is mercy, a quality that lives in tension with that of rigor. He states twice, based on Hosea 6:6, that God desires mercy and not sacrifice. Matthew is citing a passage rabbinic Judaism accepted as key after the destruction of the temple.
The teaching of Jesus provides a dramatic new hermeneutical filter that necessitates a rereading of everything in the Torah considering the dominant imperative of mercy. While the Pharisees tie up heavy burdens, Jesus, in the spirit of wisdom, offered a different reading of Torah:
11:28-30 (NRSV)
28 “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Further, Matthew adds to the two great commandments: Matthew 22:40 (NRSV) “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Everything else in the Torah hangs upon love of God and neighbor. This principle becomes another hermeneutical filter that has consequences for the specific content of the moral vision of Matthew. Those trained for the reign of God are trained to evaluate all norms, even Torah itself, in terms of the criteria of love and mercy. In the community that lives this vision, acts of love and mercy should abound. Yet, his narrative sets up a serious tension between rigor and mercy. In order to be salt and light, the community is to exemplify a rigorous standard of right living exceeding scribes and Pharisees. On the other hand, the community interprets Torah through the hermeneutical keys established by Jesus.
Matthew writes of some community guidelines for discipline and forgiveness:
Matthew 18:15-20 (NRSV)
15 “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. 16 But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
The community does not ignore sin. This approach would end the rounds of gossip that most churches experience. The focus is upon repentance and restoration. We also need to remember that gentiles and tax collectors are the ones to whom Jesus went, and so this instruction does not mean sunning, but that the person becomes the object of the missionary efforts of the church. The church also receives enormous authority in that it has the power to bind and loose. Since Jesus in the midst of any group of two or three, Matthew is confident that wise decisions will arise even with this authority. 18:21-35 deals with how many times one should forgive. The parable of the unforgiving slave in 18:23-35 has the same message.
The fifth discourse of Matthew is sayings against the Pharisees in Chapter 23. His community has recently experienced expulsion from the synagogue and is in vigorous debate with rabbinic Judaism, the only form of Judaism that survived the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. The disagreement with Judaism was over the interpretation of Torah.
Is this a Jewish-Christian Gospel or a Gentile-Christian Gospel? Many scholars conclude that this gospel reflects Jewish-Christian concerns. Yet, many of the elements of the gospel that do reflect concerns in the debate with Judaism appear incorporated into a main body of material that has a larger vision. The recipients of his gospel are Gentiles, while the anti-pharisaic polemic concerns the Israel of history and is thus part of his salvation history approach to the action of God in Jesus. The teaching of Judaism that only Jews and proselytes can attain salvation and that Gentiles must begin by converting to Judaism, Torah, and circumcision, finds no support in Matthew. His intimate knowledge of Judaism, however, suggests that he was a Jew who became a Christian, and in that sense the document is a Jewish-Christian document.
The strategy of the rabbis was to circle the wagons, establishing strong group boundaries defined in terms of orthopraxy. Matthew represents an originally Jewish-Christian community that chose to spiritualize the meaning of the Torah by means of a hermeneutic of love and mercy to create an inclusive community that reached out to Gentiles. Subsequent history shows that Matthew was successful in formulating a foundational narrative for Gentile mission and unsuccessful in keeping that mission grounded in Judaism. This division occurred because of Christology, in which he accepted Jesus as the authoritative teacher of Torah. The destruction of the temple was the definitive judgment on a corrupt and faithless generation of Jews who had rejected the Messiah. He creates a conciliatory platform for a pluralistic church. This hypothesis would explain some of the unresolved tensions in Matthew, such as the tension between rigor and mercy.
Jesus becomes a model of righteousness that exceeds that of scribes and Pharisees. His birth is in the power of the Spirit, his baptism declares his being Son, and the temptation verifies his course of life as that of Son. Jesus is the obedient Son who obeys the Father. At the end of his life, he endures insults by people who say more than they know about Jesus. Jesus does show his obedience to the Father by enduring the suffering of the cross. Throughout his ministry, Jesus looks with compassion upon the crowds, and that compassion motivates his behavior and teaching toward them. Far from abrogating the law, Jesus views mercy, love, and compassion as the hermeneutical keys that unlock the original intent of the Torah. Matthew also presents the religious leaders of the day as hypocrites with divided loyalties who seek the approval of people. They observe the traditions of the elders, while Jesus remains true to the original intent of God in giving Torah.
The sixth and final discourse concerns last things in Chapter 24-25.
What is the relationship between eschatology and ethics? The theology of Matthew is not legalistic. He exhorts toward a better righteousness is made possible because of the love commandment which he precedes by the saving act of God. Righteousness involves the conduct expected of those who live considering the reign of God. The law and the prophets as interpreted by Jesus represent the content of that ethic.
Matthew has much material relating to reward and punishment. The prospect of judgment by God provides a powerful motivation for the followers of Jesus to behave in certain ways. The present situation in which good and evil exist side by side will not last forever. One needs to make decisions upon the values that will last into eternity. If one’s life is a narrative or story, we are accountable for the story we construct, first to each other, and then to God.
Matthew encourages reflection upon behavior today considering the coming judgment of God. The followers of Jesus are in a situation of waiting. In the meantime, they are to act with compassion toward those in need, the standard of judgment God will use at the end of time. The parables suggest the reign of God is a gracious gift. To enter that rule of God, one must bear fruits of righteousness, have vigilance, be enterprising, be compassionate, and be merciful. The future judgment of God will bring the separation of good and evil. The present confronts us with the ambiguous situation of discerning the difference between good and evil. The reign of God is the highest good at which one can aim. The norm of moral living corresponds to vigilance, mercy, and compassion. The presence of the reign of God in the ministry of Jesus, and the certainty of future judgment rendered by God, one must live out the present considering the reign of God.
Matthew has several themes that separate him from other gospels. The title Son of God becomes increasingly important. Matthew does not accept the Markan messianic secret but wants his gospel to point to the paradox of his revelation that takes place in lowliness. An example is the triumphal entry, in which the lowly Jesus entering on a donkey whom others openly acknowledge as Messiah. He also provides a different self-understanding of the church. The church has the character of permanence. The anticipation of the Parousia recedes. Instead, he places greater emphasis on the problem of false teachers who will appear in the last days. Rather than unbelief, Jesus chastises the disciples for little faith.
Matthew makes most of its ethical contributions through compiling the Sermon on the Mount. His basic ethical perspective derives from Mark: the centrality of the reign of God, doing the will of God, and a system of reward and punishment. The reign of God has drawn near. Mark has 14 references to the reign of God, while Matthew has 50, 32 of which are unique to him. Matthew includes many of these references in parables, and thus invites the reader to consider the world from the perspective of the reign of God.
The parables describe a world in which people make ethical decisions considering the reign of God. In the moral world they create the norm for good and evil is how one acts in relationship to the in-breaking rule of God. A subtle shift occurs in the way Matthew relates an ethical use of eschatological themes. Matthew settles into the expectation of a protracted historical period prior to the eschatological consummation. Jesus established a church built on the confession of Peter. The church has a mission to proclaim the gospel to the entire world, a project that will take time. Further, his conviction that the risen Lord is present in and with his church allows Matthew to settle in for the long haul. Immanuel, God with us, is the theme, in which he envisions a powerful spiritual presence in the worshipping community. The gospel ends with the disciples worshipping him. The disciples who witness the calming of the sea worship him. The context of the reign of God provides a powerful warrant for ethical behavior.
One question is whether the compromise Matthew seems to aim toward works. His Jesus proclaims the reign of God, while at the same time demands radical ethical obedience and teaches mercy toward sinners, a Jesus who commissions the church strictly to teach and obey his commandments and yet at the same time remains present with the community to enable more flexible discernments.
In terms of the context for moral reflection, Matthew offers several possibilities. First, he offers a symbolic world that experiences the world with the authoritative presence of Christ. Second, the present age has significance in that the church has a mission to fulfill of making disciples of all nations. Third, the future judgment of God has its foundation in works of love and mercy. Fourth, we simply note the bitterness between Christian community and synagogue, the vigorous debate, and the difficulty of bringing all this into the context of loving enemies. Fifth, he envisions a humble and patient Christian community. Sixth, obedience is real possibility for individuals and for the community.
Bibliography
Fox William Albright and C. S. Mann, 1971
Raymond Brown, Birth of the Messiah, 1977.
Rudolf Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1963 ( ).
Hans Conzelmann and Andreas Lindemann, Interpreting the New Testament: An Introduction to the Principles and Methods of N. T. Exegesis, 1985.
C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, 1961.
Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics, 1996
David Hill, The New Century Bible Commentary, 1972.
Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 1954, 1970.
Jesus Seminar, 1993.
Jack Dean Kingsbury, Matthew as Story, 1986.
Gerd Ludedemann, The Resurrection of Jesus, 1994;
Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7, 1985, 1989
Frank J. Matera, New Testament Ethics: The Legacies of Jesus and Paul, 1996.
John P. Meier, The Vision of Matthew: Christ, Church and Morality in the First Gospel, 1979.
Russell Pregeant, Engaging the New Testament: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, 1995.
Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel of Matthew,1985, 2002.
Eduard Schweizer, 1975.
Theological reflection on the Gospel Lesson
In the Gospel of John, John the Baptist offers a testimony regarding Jesus (John 1:29-42, Year A Epiphany 2). Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. John the Baptist received divine revelation to see who Jesus is. In Isaiah 53:7, the suffering servant is willing to sacrifice his life for the people of God. The Passover lamb that the Jewish people eat is a sign of deliverance. I would refer to I John, where we find Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world (2:2), that God sent the Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (4:10), and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin (1:7). John recognizes that Jesus has priority. He saw the Spirit of God come upon Jesus at baptism. This reminds us of the servant of the Lord in Isaiah, on whom the Spirit of the Lord rests (11:2, 42:1) and thereby anoints the servant to bring good news to the oppressed, to bring healing to the brokenhearted, and to release people from the prison they have made for themselves (61:1). The Spirit is empowering the Son to glorify the Father. The Spirit fills Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry. At the beginning of his gospel, John continues to make clear who Jesus is.After a testimony like that, we ought not to have surprise that some of the disciples of John the Baptist begin to follow Jesus. John the Baptist points to Jesus, declares him to him as the Lamb of God, and two of his disciples follow Jesus. Andrew was one of them, and he will bring his brother Simon to Jesus. Jesus will immediately give him a new name, Cephas or Peter. John is inviting us to put ourselves in the position of these first disciples. They have made the decisive step. We need to keep our eyes open to see Jesus for who he is and to follow Jesus. John callus upon readers of this text to keep their eyes open, be ready to bear witness to their experiences of Jesus’ holiness, and follow when Jesus beckons, “Come and see” (v. 39). What we see are disciples of John the Baptist who met Jesus in company with John and attached themselves to Jesus when they heard John refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God. Simon comes when Andrew said that we have found the Messiah. Throughout the passage, they have taken the decisive step themselves with an astonishing freedom and necessity. They have no task or mission. We might even ponder whether this passage is even a calling at all. For John, it clearly is. Yet, in this coming of the disciples to Jesus, the decisive acting Subject both in His own sight and theirs is Jesus Himself. Therefore, Jesus is the one doing the calling, even if we find no verbal calling in his presentation. The priority of Jesus is the presupposition of the entire passage. What Jesus calls them to is a highly practical recognition of the existence of Jesus and commitment to it. In the confession of Andrew, Philip, and Nathaniel, they have accepted their task and are already engaged in discharging it.[1]
The Jewish people killed a lamb for a meal that they ate in their homes. It was the “paschal lamb.” Observant Jews are to bring the sacrifice that the Torah mandates on the eve of Passover and eat it on the first night of the holiday with bitter herbs and matzo. According to the Torah, they offered it on the night of the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt. A person with right intention had to be the one to offer the sacrifice. The sacrifice occurred at the temple. A lay person made the sacrifice, but a priest brought some of the blood to the altar and sprinkled it on the altar. In this case, Jesus could be the “lamb of God” who brings deliverance and who establishes community and fellowship as a people of God. In Isaiah 53:7, the servant of the Lord becomes a lamb, willing to offer his life for his people. Later, in verse 10, he becomes an offering for sin. Note I John 3:5, proving that "the sin" is the whole collective weight of sin which burdens humanity. This must mean his vicarious, expiatory or death, note I John 2:2, 4:10, 1:7, 5:6.
After the arrest of John the Baptist, Jesus returned to Galilee (Mt), and made his home in Capernaum (Mt), in fulfillment of Isaiah 9:1-2 (Mt), where he began his proclamation, his teaching in the synagogues, his healing of diseases, and his calling of his first disciples, Simon/Peter and his brother Andrew, and then James and John, the sons of Zebedee (Matthew 4:12-23, Year C Epiphany 3). Although he made his home in Capernaum, Jesus made statements concerning his own rootless lifestyle (e.g., "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head," Matthew 8:20, as well as his frequent warnings against the captivity of possessions (e.g., Matthew 19:21; Luke 12:15, 33; 14:33). What Matthew means by adding to the account in Mark that Jesus returning to make his home in Capernaum is not clear. The only other occurrence of the word used here for home is Matthew 2:23, where Joseph made his home in Nazareth. Capernaum (Village of Nahum) was an ancient and important farming, fishing, and trading center on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, about five kilometers from the sea's entrance into the Jordan River. Inhabited already in the third millennium B.C., by the time of Jesus, Capernaum covered an area of approximately 15 acres, a significant village in the region. He will connect the region with the prophecy in Isaiah 9:1-2. Matthew will want to identify the noteworthy events in the life of Jesus with fulfillment of scripture. John preached in the wilderness and people came from cities and villages to hear him. Jesus departed from the wilderness to go to a certain part of Israel, so that those who sat in darkness have seen a great light and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned. Death is not outside our lives, but this end that has yet to come casts a shadow in advance and defines the whole path of life as a being for death in the sense that our end is not integrated into our existence. Rather, it threatens each moment of our living self-affirmation with nothingness. We thus lead our temporal lives under the shadow of death.[2] Yet, Jesus is the one bringing such light into the darkness. Darkness still represents despair and ignorance that need the clarity of light and enlightenment.
Matthew 4:17-11:30 is the second major division of Matthew, dealing with his message, ministry, and disciples. In fact, Matthew is being quite clear about the mission and message of the church, as he describes content of the good news in Chapters 5-7 and the healing and exorcism as signs of the Messiah occur in Chapters 8-9, and Chapters 10-11 focusing on the nature, difficulty, and danger of discipleship.
Matthew offers a summary of the preaching of Jesus (Matthew 4:17). 17 From that time one of two temporal references in Matthew, signaling the actual beginning of the public ministry of Jesus. The other, at 16:21, signals the end of that ministry, as he prepares for his suffering and death. Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent (Μετανοεῖτε, to turn one’s entire self and identity from one direction to another), for the kingdom of heaven (βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν) has come near (ἤγγικεν).” A summary of the proclamation of Jesus, which turns out to have the same theme as that of John the Baptist. First, he proclaims that the people of God are to repent. To repent in this context consists in following Jesus. To repent meant to acquire a new identity, with both new relationships and the restoration of existing relationships to their rightful condition. With his call for conversion, Jesus continued the message of John, a message in line with Hosea in 12:6 and 14:1-2. The prophet called the people of God to turn again to its God. II Chronicles 24:19 understands prophecy in Israel as motivated by calling people to conversion. Yet, all of us who have asserted our autonomy against God and turned aside need conversion to God if we are to experience redemption from our falling into bondage to the power of death. Therefore, Christian mission has taken to all nations this summons to turn or convert to God.[3] The reason they are to repent is that the kingdom of heaven is near, which is precisely the summary Matthew gives of the preaching of John the Baptist. It implies the irruption of the reign of God into history is imminent. Yet, there is a subtle notion of the presence of the reign of God. We see this in Matthew 12:28, where Jesus says that if he by the Spirit of God casts out devils, the reign of God has come upon you. The question of John the Baptist as to whether Jesus is the one for whom they have been looking receives the answer of the healings and exorcisms, suggesting the reign of God is already present. The salvation promised for the end is a present reality. Luke 17:21 puts all of this beyond doubt: the reign of God is in your midst. In Matthew 13:16-17, this generation is “blessed” because it has seen and heard Jesus, and Jesus says in Matthew 11:12 that he beheld Satan falling.[4] Jesus conceived of God's rule as all around him but difficult to discern. God was so real for him that he did not distinguish God's present activity from any future activity. He had a poetic sense of time in which the future and the present merged.
Based upon Mark, Matthew relates the story of the calling of the first four disciples. The call occurs in an ordinary way. Jesus is walking along a lake. Some people are engaged in their occupation of fishing, and Jesus calls them to fish for people. Such a calling is not like that of the dramatic vision of the Lord Isaiah had (Isaiah 6). To Peter and Andrew his brother he said, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” We might note that the image of fishing for people occurring in Jeremiah 16:14-16, where the days are coming are when the Lord will send anglers who will catch the exiled and scattered people of God from among the nations and bring them home. The image refers specifically to God's restoring the scattered Israelites to their land (albeit with punishing recompense for their misdeeds). Jesus intended the focus of his statement to be on the dramatic difference between the old life his disciples' as those consumed with worldly pursuits, and their new life as his followers engaged in the supremely important business of gathering the scattered people of God. In other words, the important word in the verse is the noun "people," not the verb "fish." To the ancient reader, the summons to follow Jesus was an extraordinary disruption in a person's life. It might even seem offensive. Simon is a married man (1:30), responsible for support of his wife and children (unless he is widowed but see I Corinthians 9:5) and his mother-in-law as well. His family, friends, and community would have regarded his response to Jesus as irresponsible. Successfully calling two disciples, Jesus calls James and John, sons of Zebedee, as they were mending their nets with their father. A society in which the father was head of a household, it is unusual for sons to a leave a father like this. The point is to show the impact Jesus had upon the first followers. The exalted Lord is present in the actions of the earthly Jesus, as Matthew portrays him. Many scholars consider this story “ideal,” in that it shows true discipleship as hearing the invitation of Jesus and leaving behind a former way of life to follow Jesus. The call to discipleship is the initiative of Jesus. Simon and Andrew renounce their belongings and follow Jesus with little psychological preparation. This heightens the focus on Jesus. In what way does the episode have typical significance? The basis of this call story is in I Kings 19:19-21, describing Elijah finding Elishia plowing in the field, casting his mantle upon him, and Elishia following Elijah after he respectfully returned to his father and mother and kissed them. One should note that following on the part of the disciples does not distinguish them from the people who are sympathetic to Jesus, but the people, by following, belong together with the disciples. These features try to bring out the authority of the command and the completeness of obedience. The story is "ideal" in that it embodies a truth in a metaphorical situation. It condenses history into one symbolic moment. This calling always had the purpose that Jesus needed witnesses who see and hear. They are to go along with Christ on his way through Galilee and later to Jerusalem. They are to accompany Christ, whether they understand or not. It suggests a commission to their future speech and action. They attach themselves to him and tread on his heels. Jesus noticed them, selecting them from among many, and thus deciding their faith. Why should they follow? They will have to give up any further exercise of their previous calling, with no respect to what they were doing. Christ is the savior of people, and it is to people that he calls them. Their calling is to win people for Christ.[5]
Cecil Frances Alexander (1852) wrote a wonderful hymn that builds on this text. “Jesus calls us” over the tumult of the wild sea of our lives with a sweet voice, saying, “Christian, follow me.” She refers to our worship of this world, from which Jesus calls us, “Christian, love me more.” She invites Christians to hear the call and serve and love Him best of all. Fanny J. Crosby (1875) wrote, “All the way my Savior leads me.” Through my life, he has been my guide. From the perspective of eternity, we will look back and see that Jesus led us all the way. Mary Louise Bringle (2004) wrote that from the nets of our labors, the noise and confusion of city or seashore, Jesus summons us all. Its refrain is the encouragement that we will rise up and follow, Christ before and beside us, loving pattern to guide us as we answer the call. We may be weary. We see the stranger and the neighbor. We hear words of hatred that cry out for challenge. We have moments of courage and see the need for justice. Like disciples before us, risking selfless compassion, Jesus summons us. Cesareo Gabarain (1936-1991) wrote that Lord has come to the lakeshore, looking for neither wealthy nor wise, but only that I humbly follow. Chris Tomlin wrote the praise song, “I will follow,” suggesting that if Jesus goes or stays, I will follow. Finally, the chorus “I have decided to follow Jesus,” says that there is no turning back. If none goes with me, I will follow. The world is behind me, the cross is before me, no turning back.
Based on Mark, Matthew offers a summary of the teaching and healing ministry of Jesus. His summary refers to the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom (identified in Matthew 5-7) and curing every disease and every sickness among the people (Matthew 8-9).
First of the discourses in Matthew is the Sermon on the Mount, 5-7, a catechism-like digest of paraenesis. Considering the presentation by Matthew in his whole gospel, this sermon at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus places further weight upon Jesus as teacher. It also emphasizes the ethics of those who live in the light of the reign of God. Matthew shaped the sermon, so we should not assume that its structure comes from Jesus.
Is it possible to meet the demands of this sermon? The Reformation teaching on this point was that the intent was to point out how sinful we are, since no one can fulfill the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. Albert Schweitzer suggested that he intended its fulfillment, but only in the context of an interim ethic. The problem with the latter interpretation is that the sermon is not set in an eschatological context. The demands of the sermon serve as abiding ethical directives for Christian living in the world. This also means that he expected Christians to live them out in the realm of the Christian life, for they bear on the meaning and content of the Ten Commandments. Betz sees Jesus here as the authoritative interpreter of the Torah for the law-abiding community. The home of this sermon is Jewish piety and theology, and an ethic of obedience t the Torah. The sermon does not reflect any of the theological reflection that Paul offers concerning the structure of sin that works against fulfillment of right conduct. People could do what God requires. The human predicament is not so much indwelling sin as it is rebellion against the will of God as interpreted by Jesus. The sermon represents an impossible ideal when we separate it from the gracious gift of the reign of God on the one hand and from the community of the faithful on the other.
If law and righteousness in the theology of Mathew are placed in juxtaposition to the teaching of Paul on justification, we might note substantial differences. Mathew does not say that God gives righteousness as a gift. However, if we examine the structure of both authors, we find that righteousness in Paul corresponds to “kingdom of heaven” in Matthew, both designating the unconditional saving action of God and the demonstration of the grace of God. Robert Mohrlang suggests that the underlying structure in Matthew is provided by the gracious gift of the reign of God that results in the fruit of righteousness in one’s life. The saving work of God in Christ demands the response of the fruits of righteousness. Separate from the gracious gift of the reign of God and from Christian community, the righteousness that exceeds that of scribes and Pharisees is impossible. In that light, the Sermon on the Mount becomes a blueprint for Christian discipleship. Ethical conduct does not bring the saving work of God into effect. However, one does not appropriate that saving work without the fruits of righteousness.
What is the relationship to the Ten Commandments? The intent of Matthew appears to be the presentation of Jesus as bringing to light the original intent of the Ten Commandments.
What meaning can they have?
Matthew no longer reckons with the imminence of the parousia, which is why Matthew compiles the sermon from his sources in the way he did.
In 5:3-16 we have the introduction to the sermon, in which Jesus pronounces a blessing upon those who live a consistent with the qualities of life presented in them. The metaphors of the disciples being salt and light suggest that other people need to see their good works and praise God.
In 5:17-20, the law and the prophets as interpreted by Jesus remain valid for Christians.
The sermon continues with three ways in which those who follow Jesus can have righteousness that exceeds that of scribes and Pharisees.
The first is in the form of six antitheses in 5:21-48. Jesus does not abrogate the law; he offers an interpretation of the law in light of the hermeneutical principles established in other parts of the gospel: God desires mercy rather than sacrifice and love of God and neighbor. Jesus does not give a new set of legal ruling. The small number of examples suggests that Matthew wants people to interpret the whole Torah in light of the principles espoused here.
The second example of righteousness that exceeds that of scribes and Pharisees is that of practical piety in 6:1-18, focusing on almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. Performing such acts to impress others is to do them with a divided heart and in the manner of the hypocrites.
The third example of righteousness that exceeds is in 6:19-7:11, a loosely connected series of seven statements that revolve around the general theme of seeking the reign of God and its righteousness with a sense of total commitment. Another explanation of the organization is that of the themes in the Lord’s Prayer. We hallow the name of God by storing up treasure in heaven, having a single eye, and serving God alone as our master. We trust God for daily bread by not being anxious for our lives and seeking the reign of God and its righteousness. We forgive others their trespasses by refusing to sit in judgment of them. We avoid evil during temptation by persistent prayer.
The sermon concludes with an exhortation that reminds one of the two ways in wisdom literature, warning of false prophets and encouraging people who trust his interpretation of Torah build their lives on a solid foundation. In the final judgment of God, it will not be sufficient to call him Lord, for one must do the will of God.
Matthew provides a setting for his collection of sayings by Jesus referred to as the Sermon on the Mount and begins the proclamation of the kingdom with a presentation of the Beatitudes, which are from both Q and M (Matthew 5:1-12, Year A Epiphany 5).
If we are to give priority to the understanding of the Christian life to the teaching of Jesus, then the Beatitudes need to receive careful attention. People often praise the beatitudes. It seems as if people rarely read them. We can easily praise them, but our words are empty when they fail to consistently to translate into action.[6] "Jesus did not `think what the day thought (Nietzsche).'" Those who think today’s conventional, expectable thought see it fade and disappear with the day. These Beatitudes are fresh, radical, and thus capable of unsettling and healing anyone in range.[7]
. One should imagine a discussion between Jesus and his students organized around a problem they are pondering. The rabbi in that day would crystallize his teaching with a short and memorable saying. The beatitudes here are the result of that process. They are profound statements. Yet, they would make little sense without some of the background just suggested. These beatitudes are inviting us to reflect upon what “success” means to God. Jesus wants to clarify for the disciples and for the people what it means to follow him. These sayings of Jesus are wisdom sayings. Their design is to bring us to a place of insight concerning what Jesus thinks genuine happiness might be. If we spend some prayerful time spending a day using it as a mantra or brief prayer, letting its truth sink into our hearts, we will be far closer to what Jesus wanted. What is your calling? What should you do with your life? What really matters? The vocation of such a one is to daily seek to learn what it means to be Christian in the historical setting one finds oneself. Here is the challenge for us today. Your happiness may not be where you think it is. If we listen carefully, Jesus will turn our sense of happiness upside down.
Part of the beauty of the beatitudes is that all to whom they apply will have a share in the coming salvation, whether they ever heard of Jesus in this life or not. The reason is that they factually have a share in Jesus and his message, as the Day of Judgment will make obvious.[8] Congratulating the poor without qualification is unexpected, even paradoxical, since one usually reserves this for those who enjoy prosperity, happiness, or power. The congratulations to the weeping and the hungry are expressed vivid and exaggerated language, which announces a dramatic transformation. Chapter 6 will give the version of the Lord’s Prayer we find in Matthew. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” One can easily imagine Matthew viewing the beatitudes as giving some content to the will of God as Jesus understood it and as how the rule of God comes even now, in the prayer and life of the people of God, even as they look forward to the coming fullness of that rule. Moreover, the Beatitudes feature three ways humankind experiences the blessings accompanying the unfolding of the kingdom — as those who need good news, as those who help share good news and as those who are willing to work for the sake of good news even at personal cost.
The Beatitudes receive their name after the Latin adjective beatus (“fortunate”) that stands at the beginning of verses 3-11 in the Vulgate. The word in Greek is Μακάριοι and one best translates it as “happy” or “blissful.” Beatitudes acknowledge praise due to an individual for some deed or quality and are thus not asking God to bless those who do such things. "Blessed" is a formula of congratulations in relation to piety, wisdom, and prosperity. Μακάριοι is associated with the joy and peace associated with a relationship with divinity. These are not statements, but punctuation. How Blest, How wonderful. There is an emotional quality of blessedness and joy. There are other beatitudes in 11:6, 13:16, 24:46, Luke 11:27-28, Revelation 1:3; James 1:12; Romans 14:22; and John 20:29.
The statements are synthetic rather than analytical. Happiness comes to people who possess characteristics like this. They describe the life-direction of the one following Jesus. They stand opposite to current ideas of happiness and good fortune. Jesus is giving people added information about themselves. The presence of Jesus makes these persons blessed.[9] Jesus saw a new world coming. Jesus himself was a sign of that new world, the first outbreak of the rule of God, a signal that, by the grace of God, reality was making a fundamental shift. The beatitudes may seem like an unrealistic way to live. However, if we ponder them deeply, and considering the proleptic appearance of the rule of God in Jesus, they become a powerful invitation to live in an unusual way.
The first eight of the nine beatitudes form a single unit in Matthew 5:3-10; the refrain “theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:3, 10) acts like a set of bookends for the material between them (scholars call this common literary structure an inclusio). The ninth beatitude in 5:11-12 thus lies outside this literary unit.
3 “Blessed (Μακάριοι) are the poor (πτωχοὶ), with Matthew adding to the Q version in spirit (πνεύματι), for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” (The Message) They are in dire need of good news, and they will have it. This is in keeping with how Jesus approaches the lowly throughout Matthew. We can see the theme in other Jewish literature. The Lord looks upon the humble and contrite in spirit who tremble at the word of the Lord (Isaiah 66:2b). The Lord hears the oppressed and needy (Psalm 69:32-33). The pious shall give thanks, in parallel thought with the poor receiving the mercy of God (Psalm of Solomon 10:7, from around 50 BC-70 AD).[10]Matthew may shift the meaning from the poor economically to a quality of the inner life. Matthew has correctly interpreted what Jesus meant here. We have no one else upon whom to rely than God. That is our situation, whether we are aware of it or not. This poverty, true and saving despair, is the gift of the Holy Spirit and the work of Jesus Christ. In this, it resembles faith, of which it is a part. It is to know our sin and divine compassion, forgiving us our sins. It suggests despair about ourselves and the possibilities of existence.[11]The poor in spirit focuses upon inner life. It has in mind inner resources. It seems close to the ethical attitude of humility. It contrasts lack of sufficiency for life verses self-sufficiency. It suggests the poverty of human resources. In the Old Testament, the poor recognize their state of poverty before God. "Poor" people do not have to do something first. One must hear in this beatitude one's own lack. Although the economically poor are in view, Matthew’s version of the beatitude makes it clear that it refers to the poverty of people before God. In the history of influence, most of the ancients viewed this as a spiritual poverty, humility.
As Jesus speaks, the future kingdom comes. God's authority is behind him. The humble receive the promise of the kingdom. In doing so, the salvation that Jesus mediates consists of fellowship with God and the related life, which also embraces a renewal of fellowship with others. To have part in the rule of God is of the very essence of salvation.[12]
4 “Blessed (Μακάριοι) are those who mourn (πενθοῦντες), for they will be comforted (παρακληθήσονται). "You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.” (The Message) If we are in the presence of one who mourns the natural reaction is one of pity and compassion. Yet, Jesus invites us to ponder that the blessing of God is upon them. They are in dire need of good news, and they will have it. This is in keeping with how Jesus approaches the lowly throughout Matthew. Mourning here is over one’s own sin as well as the sins of others. It suggests mourning over the state of the world. What a paradox Jesus discloses here, that we find our genuine happiness in mourning. We experience the suffering and pain of this world, not just for ourselves, I hope, but that of others as well. Evil is in us and around us, erupting in bedrooms and boardrooms, back alleys and battlefields. Your mourning is not the end, but the prelude to the comfort God will bring.
God will replace the mourning of this age with the comfort of the next age. We find the same emphasis in the prophetic promise that in the year of the favor of the Lord, comfort will come to those who mourn, providing for those who mourn in Zion, giving them garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and the mantle of praise rather than a faint spirit (Isaiah 61:2-3). It suggests strengthening and consoling. The promise of this passage is that the suffering and death of human history will not have the final word.
5 “Blessed (Μακάριοι) are the meek (πραεῖς), for they will inherit the earth. "You're blessed when you're content with just who you are - no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.” (The Message) They help bring good news to others, committed to nurturing compassion and wholeness in the world according to the kingdom of heaven. They receive blessing to be blessings to others. We find a similar thought when the psalmist says the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant prosperity (Psalm 37:11). The beatitude is close to verse 3, and even closer if one translates into Aramaic. Gentle people who are trying to reject the power-hungry and violent ways of the world we live in. It speaks of the need for us to live God-controlled lives. Meekness is something like self-control. A truly meek person is one who has every instinct, impulse, and passion under control. They know themselves well enough to put themselves under the direction God gives them. It refers to those who acknowledge the will of God rather than their own. These do not need power, because their trust is in God. The sense is unassuming or undemanding. A look at Jewish parenesis shows that one can hardly separate the nuances of humility and kindness from each other. Without humility, for example, one cannot learn, for the first step in learning is the realization of our ignorance. Without humility, love becomes impossible, for the beginning of love is a sense of unworthiness. Without humility, we will not know true religion, which begins with a sense of our weakness and of our need for God.[13] The word does not mean the sickly weakness, milk-toast person. The Old Testament calls Moses meek. Jesus also was meek. It refers to a strong character; firmness combined with humility. In the Old Testament, it refers to gentleness, steadiness, and open to trust in God. Aristotle described ethical living as a mean, or mid-point, between two extremes. On the one extreme was wild and uncontrolled anger; on the other was a total lack of anger, a spineless resignation. In between was righteous anger, the middle way, or the golden mean. Aristotle used a form of this very same word translated here as “meekness” to describe a life lived in perfect balance.
The promise is participation in the rule of God over the earth. The promise is that what life experience denied them on earth, influence apart from power and violence, will belong to them. One can accomplish this inheriting only partially now. Those who act with equanimity and sensitivity will normally get further than those who are rough of will.
6 “Blessed (Μακάριοι) are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (δικαιοσύνην), for they will be filled. "You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.” (The Message) Happiness is for those who we actively seek doing the will of God. We need to fill our lives with the things of God. We must never stop hungering and thirsting. The wonder of humanity is not its sin, but that regardless of the depths of evil to which we can sink, goodness still haunts us. When embedded in the mud of our self-destructive and self-inflicted darkness, we never wholly forget the stars above us. God blesses those who do not stop hungering and thirsting.[14] They help bring good news to others, committed to nurturing compassion and wholeness in the world according to the kingdom of heaven. They receive blessing to be blessings to others. The Old Testament knows of hungering and thirsting for God's word, mercy, and presence. The Lord shall bring a time of famine and thirst for the words of the Lord (Amos 8:11). The Lord shall be the host of a feast for all peoples that includes rich food and well-aged wines (Isaiah 25:6). All who thirst are to come to the waters and those without money can come, buy, and eat, eating rich food that will satisfy truly (Isaiah 55:1-2, 7). They shall not hunger or thirst, for the Lord has pity on them will lead them by springs of water (Isaiah 49:10). The tears of the psalmist have been his food (Psalm 42:3). Some wandered in the wilderness, hungry and thirsty and fainting within, but the Lord delivered them from distress, for the Lord satisfies the thirsty and the hungry with good things (Psalm 107:4-9). Even such a background of the saying suggests they have not attained righteousness. It suggests continual hungering and thirsting, the longing of the pious. What they lack, they long for what only God can give. The “righteousness” to which Jesus refers receives a description in Matthew 5:20-48.
7 “Blessed (Μακάριοι) are the merciful (ἐλεήμονες), for they will receive mercy. "You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care full,' you find yourselves cared for.” (The Message) Followers of Jesus show such mercy to others, for they are anxious to receive it themselves. They help bring good news to others, committed to nurturing compassion and wholeness in the world according to the kingdom of heaven. They receive blessing to be blessings to others. In a similar thought, we are to forgive neighbors the wrongs they have done and then the Lord will pardon our sins when we pray (Ecclesiasticus or Sirach 28:2). No one can count on God's mercy that does not also show mercy. It stresses the connection between God's love for humanity and neighborly love.
8 “Blessed (Μακάριοι) are the pure in heart (καθαροὶ τῇ καρδίᾳ), for they will see God. "You're blessed when you get your inside world - your mind and heart - put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.” (The Message) Such persons are willing to show the world in word and deed that there is nothing more life-changing than single-minded devotion to God. Yet, our focus is fuzzy at best, feeling pulled in all directions. They help bring good news to others, committed to nurturing compassion and wholeness in the world according to the kingdom of heaven. They receive blessing to be blessings to others. Those who have pure hearts will ascend Zion and abide in the Temple, seeking the face of God (Psalm 24:3-6). Other parts of the New Testament reinforce this theme. Christian instruction has the goal of love that comes from a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith (I Timothy 1:5). Those who call upon the Lord with a pure heart pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace (II Timothy 2:22). It suggests purity of heart as undivided obedience to God. The point is inner and moral purity, presenting the whole self to God. "Heart" is the center of human wanting, thinking, and feeling. The point is not opposition to the acts of worship prescribed in the Old Testament, including its sacrifices. Christian tradition has interpreted this beatitude in an ascetic manner. Yet, we must not interpret purity of peart in a way that would lead to removal from the world or to a form of piety suitable only for the religiously gifted. This quality will manifest itself as obedience toward God in the world.
This quality of life has a hope for a future seeing of God that is more than private individual experience. The promise may refer either to seeing God in worship or to the eschatological seeing. When God reveals Christ to the world, we shall we shall be like him, seeing him as he is (I John 3:2b). In any case, “entering into” the rule of God has its definition materially as the vision of God.[15]
9 “Blessed Μακάριοι) are the peacemakers (εἰρηνοποιοί), for they will be called children of God."You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That is when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.” (The Message) It speaks of our need to work for peace and the justice that paves the way for peace. However, for most of us, we are lovers of peace and we want a peaceful existence in our own lives in which the strife and brokenness in our world does not bother us. Peacemakers are active. A person refuses to take sides in a dispute, steps between two parties, and tries to make peace. It suggests overcoming evil with good. This beatitude points to the commandment of love of enemies. Thus, Matthew is thinking not only of a peaceful living together of members of the community but thinks beyond the limits of the community. They help bring good news to others, committed to nurturing compassion and wholeness in the world according to the kingdom of heaven. They receive blessing to be blessings to others.
The promise is that God will name them as children of God. The Old Testament reserves the title for Israel. Jesus applies the name to anyone who exhibits the qualities of making peace.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted (δεδιωγμένοι) for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.” (The Message) The beatitude points us in the direction of the love of enemies. The world does not want the people of God to point them in the direction of setting things right with God and with each other. If one genuinely hungers and thirst for righteousness (5:6), one may find that suffering is the result. The persecuted are favorites of God. It refers to those who undergo fiery tests of loyalty to God. The implication is that right conduct before God brings persecution. Yet, we are not to think of masochism or sadism here. Rather, it does seem that the New Testament teaches that Christians should not look upon persecution as strange. They are not to avenge themselves. It gives an opening for all kinds of unrighteousness and folly and wickedness. In fact, such defenselessness may be dishonorable. Jesus calls upon his followers to love their enemies. The only answer seems to be that they resemble in a faint way the suffering of Jesus.[16] Christians are not to look upon honor in the same way that the rest of the world may do. Affliction in this world is not an unqualified bad and may be a good. Jesus makes it clear that working for the sake of good news can get you into trouble. Doing what is sacred is not always the safest choice in a world consistently indifferent to, if not the source of, the spiritual impoverishment and grief caused by lowliness that inflicts itself upon people. receiving blessing from God is challenging, if not risky, business. Jesus is fully aware of the cost of discipleship, indeed, fully aware of the cost of being the Messiah.
In fact, followers of Jesus receive blessedness, even when persecution occurs. Hatred by the world will in fact mean blessedness from God. Jesus promises them the kingdom of heaven. Again, in doing so, the salvation that Jesus mediates consists of fellowship with God and the related life, which also embraces a renewal of fellowship with others. To have part in the rule of God is of the very essence of salvation.[17]
11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, speaking of empowerment to participate in the kingdom for the sake of something bigger than personal satisfaction, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets, disciples becoming the successors of the prophets, who were before you. "Not only that - count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens - give a cheer, even! - for though they don't like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.” (The Message) The beatitude points us in the direction of the love of enemies. Here is precisely where the task of standing with and for the kingdom comes into play most fully, particularly whenever we confront the sad news of the world with the good news of heaven, no matter what the personal cost. One receives blessing from God especially when the world offers rejection. Such blessed boldness connects us to the same heavenly power that sustains Jesus and the prophets before him.
The ninth beatitude differs from the other beatitudes in that it is longer and less ethereal than the others are. However, note that its theme, persecution, is a theme the eighth beatitude introduces. Matthew here switches suddenly to the second person (“Blessed are you when people revile you ...”), and many scholars believe that the direct address implies that readers of the gospel may have felt harassed by Jewish groups like the Pharisees, with whom it is likely the author and his community were in conflict.
Keep it simple. We often hear that advice. The truth behind it is that often, the insights we need to live a full Christian life are just that – simple. We are to love God with all our hearts. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. In a sense, simple, is it not?
What are followers of Jesus supposed to look like? Well, they are to recognize their complete dependence upon God, concerned with the suffering in this world, meek before others, hunger and thirst for what is right, be willing to suffer for what is right, be merciful to others, have inward and outward purity, and make peace in a world divided. I am not suggesting that any of this is easy. Yet, it is simple and direct, as Jesus puts it, at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.
Sure. It is so simple that if we are faithful to Jesus, we will spend our lives becoming like this. The beatitudes invite us to consider Christianity as a lifestyle, a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. With all the centuries since shared the beatitudes, the church became an established religion in a way that sometimes avoided this type of lifestyle change. Thus, one could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one’s “personal Lord and Savior.” The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.[18]
If we follow Jesus, if our vocation in life is to learn to be Christian, then we need to let Jesus define for us that type of life will look like. Some parts of the Bible are clarifying moments. The Ten Commandments would be an obvious place to go for such a clarifying moment. For many of us, Micah 6:1-8 is a clarifying moment in declaring that God requires of the people of God only that they do justice, act with kindness, and walk humbly with God. It seems to me that Jesus had a clarifying moment toward the beginning of his ministry in Galilee in offering his inaugural sermon that Matthew has expanded into the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has no intention of being a lone ranger. He wants people who will be faithful witnesses with him. He also wants to clarify for the disciples and for the people what it means to follow him.
The Beatitudes contain what Jesus considers to be the successful, well-lived human life. The promises affirmed here are for now provisionally and proleptically but will reach their fulfillment in the eschatological age. God will bring an unexpected bent of the world toward love, peace, and justice.
Living the type of life described here is not available only to followers of Jesus. The beatitudes describe a life any person of any culture or historical setting might adopt as the goal of proper character formation. If one adopts this direction in one’s life, one participates in the saving work of God now and in the gracious end toward which God is moving natural and human history. My point is this. A personal encounter with Jesus through the Christian message as a response of faith to it cannot be the universal criterion for participation in salvation or exclusion from it if we take seriously what the New Testament says about the love of God for the world that embraces all people. Hearing the gospel in a way that might bring personal encounter is historically contingent and cannot be decisive for eternal salvation. In their case, what counts is whether actual conduct agrees with the will of God that Jesus proclaimed. The message of Jesus is the norm by which God judges, even in the case of those who never meet Jesus personally. All to whom the beatitudes apply will have a share in the coming salvation whether they have ever heard of Jesus in this life or not. They have a share in the message of Jesus and in him, as the Day of Judgment will reveal. Further, the eschatological transformation contains an element of compensation for the sufferings and deficiencies of the present world.[19]
The proclamation of the rule of God involved reflecting upon discipleship and the relation of that discipleship to the Old Testament (Matthew 5:13-20, Year A Epiphany 5). Matthew provides another aspect of the proclamation of the rule of God by Jesus.
In verses 13-16, when Jesus speaks of the difference his people make in the world, he uses two small, often unnoticed, insignificant substances -- salt and light. Today, we come by both quite easily. Some areas complain of having too much light, calling it light pollution. Some of us must limit our intake of salt. In the days of Jesus, these metaphors took on a quite different meaning. Light can be very fragile, but even in small quantities it makes quite a difference. When the darkness is particularly great, one does not need a huge amount of light to make a significant difference. Light and salt depend upon their environment to have the influence they are to have. The church is not everything you need. Your families, your neighborhood, your work, your government, are all vital parts of your life. Yet, the church has a message and a life that is to enlighten and salt every part of your life.
13 From Matthew we read, "You are the salt of the earth; from the material Matthew shares with Luke,but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. Such a saying may have occasioned surprise, for salt contained impurities. As I understand it, a first century rabbi stated that just as salt cannot lose its saver, Judaism could not lose what is essential to it. On the lips of Jesus, the saying suggests that the community that follows Jesus is the salt. The saying speaks to the danger of something valuable that loses the essential quality that makes it valuable. Further, salt was not just for flavoring, but also for preserving. Tiny amounts of salt could also fertilize soil that lost its nutrients. One must scatter the salt around for the salt to do any good. Jesus has a concern for the influence of his followers in the world. The saying suggests a distinction between outsider and insider in the sense that Jesus expected his followers to reconsider and live from that they which they previously learned. Of course, the invitation to that change of heart and life is open to all. Part of our problem today with this metaphor is that salt is used for flavoring and is getting bad press anyway. We want a salt free diet. In the days of Jesus, salt was a precious commodity. It was preservative, being the lifeline when fresh food became scarce. It was a fertilizer as farmers worked it into the soil to restore lost chemical nutrients, of course not using too much so that it would be negative in productivity. The image of the earth suggests the fertilizer vision is the most appropriate. Any salt that no longer helps make the land more productive is not fit for anything. Salt is an element that one must scatter over and spread out to be effective. One must sprinkle salt around.
If we apply the saying to the church of recent times, the way salt loses its savor is the process of secularization. It ought not to surprise us that that the world is secular, for that is what it is, and always will be. However, “when the church becomes secular, it is the greatest conceivable misfortune both for the church and the world.” This is what happens when the church wants to be only “for” the world, nation, and culture. It loses its importance, meaning and reason for existence. The secularization of the church, in all its attempts to connect to the world, is its alienation. Some people would take these reflections in a quite liberal political direction, along with a critique of democracy, freedom, and capitalism. However, one can also see that as “progressive Christianity” continues to expand, it keeps favoring current political movements of the political Left, trying to erase the distinction between itself and a part of the culture, and yet, runs the risk of this alienation. The reason, of course, is that if the church is only “for” the world, it is no longer “for” Christ and “for” God.[20] Sometimes, the church may be at peace with the world precisely because it has lost its saltiness.[21]The church may behave in such a way as to provide no objection to the world, making itself invisible, and therefore forfeiting its right to exist.[22] The Christian community has no other task. The task is simple and unassuming. If God wills to accomplish much through its labor, that is the affair of God. The Christian community can neither bring this about nor enforce it. It has no right to ask for successes. It must simply hold itself in readiness for God.[23] The church can grow secular, which means it sets it light under a bushel and loses its saltiness. Yet, Jesus Christ never becomes identical with secular history. Christ in the world remains light and salt, shaming and awakening the church, judging and saving the church. Christ maintains the particularity of the church in relation to all other occurrences in history.[24] One who believes in Jesus Christ is the lighted candle. To believe is also to give yourself as light. One cannot acknowledge Christ privately without also confessing oneself as a Christian.[25]
From Matthew 14 "You (that is disciples) are the light of the world. Also from Matthew: A city built on a hill cannot be hid. The light of the city gathers in one place. Many small lights gathered in a community will make light that one cannot hide. The church is to be that hilltop night light for the world. The saying suggests that Jesus seems to have still lived with the prophetic expectation of the end-time pilgrimage of the peoples to Zion as the place of the proclaiming of the righteous will of God. Until that time comes, the community of believers is to bear witness in the nations around it to the rule of God that has dawned as the visible city on a hill that one cannot hide.[26] 15 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. One must expose the flame to the surrounding air to have sufficient oxygen to burn brightly. The disciples are the light that shine in the world and bring glory to God. Matthew had in mind the one room Palestinian home of the common person. The saying becomes a warning to the church. The world is averse to the light. Nevertheless, in its life, the church is to attract people to the light. 16 From Matthew: In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. The disciples will be a light by letting others see their good works and glorify God. Light is useless when one covers it up. Further, the light will not continue to burn if one covers it up and deprives it of its oxygen.
I can illustrate the struggle of the church influencing American culture with an article from the New York Times, around Christmas 2010, by Ross Douthat. He begins by discussing the difficulty of being a Christian around Christmas time. This quickly expands, however, into the notion of the changing culture in America, and the difficulty amidst the changes. He refers to two books that have helped him wrestle with this. One book is American Grace by Robert Putnam (Harvard) and David Campbell (Notre Dame). The book is quite technical. It takes much work to mine any nuggets one can find, according to some. As if to spare me the challenging work of reading its 550 pages, he summarizes the book by saying that it examines the role that religion plays in binding up the social fabric of the nation. Society reaps enormous benefits from religious people engaging it, while suffering few of the potential downsides. Widespread churchgoing makes Americans more altruistic and more engaged with their communities, more likely to volunteer and more inclined to give to secular and religious charities. Yet at the same time, thanks to Americans’ ever-increasing tolerance, this country has been spared the kind of sectarian conflict that often accompanies religious zeal.
All that sounds like the church is being what it is supposed to be, at one level. It is being salt and light in American culture.
Another book, by James Davison Hunter, To Change the World, presents a different picture. The United Methodist Church says it makes disciples “for the transformation of the world.” The problem with this statement of the mission of the church is that the world is passing away. The world is always going its way of focusing upon political and economic power. Its principalities and powers will always do what they do. The mission statement itself assumes a relationship with the world that the church simply does not have. The world is the darkness in which the church must be light. In any case, this author discusses the vain attempts by Christians, whether from the political Left or Right, to engage the culture from a “populist” perspective and have lost. Both groups express themselves in the “language of loss, disappointment, anger, antipathy, resentment and desire for conquest.” Thanks in part to this bunker mentality, American Christianity has become what Hunter calls a “weak culture” — one that mobilizes but does not convert, alienates rather than attracts, and looks backward toward a lost past instead of forward to a vibrant future. He argues that the Christian churches are influential only in the “peripheral areas” of our common life. One of his central theses is that "culture" does not usually change in a populist, bottom up manner. Rather, it changes by the influence of a small network of elites with symbolic power to create and change the institutions in which we live. Churches used to be among such elites. They are no more.
Douthat concludes that believing Christians are no longer the influence they once were, either upon popular culture or upon the elites with symbolic power. The term for this is secularity, as the culture and the political class remove themselves in an increasingly open away from the church. Christians need to find a way to thrive in a society that is becoming less friendly to Christians.
Here is my struggle. The church is rapidly becoming a minority movement in a culture it helped create. I would be among those who feel some loss there. Yet, in the process, we may feel more connected to the tiny band of followers to whom Jesus first spoke these words concerning being salt and light.
Salt and light exist for the benefit of its environment, providing purification, seasoning, preservation, and for the benefit of that which it illuminates. Jesus reminds us that our witness in the world can weaken. This fact should not surprise us. We know we are sinners. We know we are not perfect. Yet, it should sadden us that sometimes, the salt does not taste like it should. Sometimes our light does not shine as it should. We blend in too well at times with our surroundings so that others could not tell much difference between the world and us. The philosopher Spinoza once said:
I have often wondered that persons who make boasts of professing the Christian religion - namely, love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all people - should quarrel with such rancorous animosities, and display daily toward one another such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues which they profess, is the readiest criterion of their faith.[27]
Further, in Matthew 5:17-20, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. The relationship of Jesus to the Mosaic Law is in debate here. From Matthew: 17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. The early church accepted the canon of the Synagogue. Early Christians added the New Testament, enlarging a canon already given, extending it as a new action of God. The early church did not try to adopt the sacred writings of other religions as such a “preface,” an approach that would have made the missionary task much easier. Yet, the canon of the synagogue is not just a preface or introduction to the New. It is Scripture.[28] This saying suggests neither Jesus nor his followers have the goal of dissolving Judaism. The saying accepts it. It does not even require that followers of Jesus must abandon or replace it.[29] 18 From the source common to Matthew and Luke: For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away (meaning never), not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.[30] Given the regard this passage shows for the smallest letter of the Hebrew Bible, “we must be on our guard against trying to say anything different.” These words belong to revelation and their writing by the Spirit.[31] 19 From Matthew: Therefore, whoever breaks in the sense of transgressing and invalidating one of the least of these commandments, the rabbis distinguishing between light and weighty commandments in a way that suggests the effort demanded of the believer and the reward promised for keeping it, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Does the distinction between great or least in the rule of God mean there are various places in heaven? The fulfilling of the Torah in verse 17 has its basis in verses 18-19. Faithfulness to each individual commandment of the Torah would appear to be the goal. The mission of Jesus consists exactly in his establishing of the Torah through his obedience, up to the last and least commandment. The point seems to be that Jesus exercises his lordship in such a way that the Torah remains valid.
The lectionary division assumes that verse 20 concludes the section begun in verse 17. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. This notion of “entering” contains a future element to the teaching regarding the kingdom. The decisive element for Matthew is that the love commandment becomes the center of these intensified individual commandments. Based on the antitheses, the higher righteousness of the disciples is not only a quantitative increase of the fulfilling of the law - measured on the Torah - but also primarily a qualitative intensification of the life before God - measured on love. Matthew obviously does not sense the tension between the qualitative fulfillment of the will of God in the antitheses, which the love commandment infinitely intensified, and the obedience toward all individual prescriptions of the Torah, which verses 17-19 seem to demand. The transition takes place smoothly and inconspicuously. In practice, the Matthean community has subordinated the many individual commandments of the Torah to the love commandment as the center. Matthew provided this introduction to ensure that no one would interpret the following antitheses as antinomian or as a break with the heritage of Israel. The concept that Jesus fulfills law and prophets completely and perfectly means that for Matthew there is no longer any other way of access to the Bible of Israel than by way of Jesus. Therefore, the preamble to the antitheses has at the same time the effect of a reprimand of Israel. Matthew, who fixes the authority of the Bible through Jesus, can do no other than measure the scribes and Pharisees by the standard of the higher righteousness that Jesus sets. Measured by this standard, which is not theirs, their righteousness is not enough. Jesus accepts the Law, demanding that his followers need to seek a better righteousness than did its greatest champions.[32]
The Bible is a human word in that its collection of letters, wisdom, prophecies, accounts of historical events, occur in historical contexts written by people during a 1300-year process. If we give precedence to the word of God, we are willing to lay our lives alongside what we read in the Bible and allow the Bible to check our views of God, self, and others. If the Bible is an opinion piece, a poetic insight, or debatable philosophical points, then it gives the church of today much freedom to pursue its own understanding of what God wants, which may lead such persons to say the Bible is wrong and is not a reliable witness of what God wants in the world. We recognize that our way is not always best, and in fact, that we often get God and discipleship wrong, if left to our devices. To accept this special role for the Bible is to have a degree of humility concerning our lives. Whatever guidance we need as to who God is and who we are to be does not simply well up from inside us. In fact, we admit that the guidance we most need comes from outside you. The reason is that we recognize in the Bible a special working of God in Israel and in Jesus Christ. Such witnesses to what God is doing in history and in human lives become that “check,” that external reference that gets us out of ourselves and directs us to God. I find it one of my great responsibilities, sometimes with fear and trembling, to stand before people and share the Word of God. The church always wrestles with what this Word means for today. Pastors do so in a quite personal and public way. My concern is that if we conclude that this Word is simply a human word, then we will be quite free to say something different from it. We become the judge of the Word. This feels arrogant to me. However, if pastor and church have a bond with Scripture in a way that it remains our guide, our check, or our external reference in what we believe and how we live, we must exercise enough care that we do not say something different.
Jesus proclaims the rule of God in the context of establishing a distinctive vision of that in which righteousness consists of (Matthew 5:21-37, Year A Epiphany 7). Jesus begins to reveal what going beyond the righteousness of the Pharisees means for ordinary men and women. Jesus appears here with a claim that was reserved for divine prerogative. The framing of the series of antitheses through the first and sixth antitheses makes clear that Matthew sees the center of the Old Testament in love. Love is the fulfillment, not the abolition of law and prophets. The love commandment does not abolish the "least commandments" but relativizes them from case to case. In this sense, law and prophets "hang" on the love commandment. The twofold command of love, while a summary of the Law, stands over against tradition as a critical principle. The evidence for this in the “I say to you” in this passage over against the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses governs the people of God in how to live in this world. These statements will show what living in God’s world is like, as it focuses on the heart.[33] W. D. Davies, in his commentary on the Sermon, says that this text opening the Sermon stands as a guardian against every immoral or antinomian misunderstanding of the gospel. Using the skills of historical criticism and pop psychology, to explain it away, reassuring you that a nice person like Jesus would have never said something tough like this. Jesus is saying something like the following. I know of no way to do that with this text. Do you think I have come to help you weasel out of the law? Forget it, says Jesus. I have come to intensify, exceed, and deepen the frontal assault of the law. The peculiar brand of contemporary arrogance is that of antinomian, which says: I am the only one who knows what is right for me and the measure of all things, for I make up the rules as I go along to suit the situation, so do not bother me with your judgments. I am doing the best I can. What right has Jesus or anyone else to tell me what I should do? Such antinomianism arises not out of an appreciation for the limits of the Law, but out of a lack of appreciation for any limits upon my own ego. Today, we need to hear the warning that antinomianism is a threat to our discipleship. We have moved from the awareness that just obeying a few rules makes you right to the conviction that no rules are right. Some rules are there precisely because if we follow them, they will make us free. An ethical person not only understands and obeys the rules, he or she also knows -- and embraces -- the purpose behind the rules. When Jesus wanted to lay out the ethical agenda for God's world, he did not ditch the rules that God handed down long ago on tablets to Moses. Instead, he "fulfilled" those rules by embodying them and teaching them with authority (5:17; 7:29). For Jesus, the rules were still important, but the principles behind the rules were even more important. It was not just about what was written in stone; it was about the character and law of God written on the hearts of God's people (Jeremiah 31:33).
Jesus is rooted in the law, but he calls his disciples to live a life with a much deeper rootedness than the legalism of scribes and Pharisees. The Pharisees were concerned with what people did or did not do with their hands. Jesus was more concerned about what people had in their hearts and how that would translate into their relationships with people as a sign of God's new world. In these verses, the ethical pattern for the people of God's world emerges. It is a pattern that goes beyond the letter of the law, to the spirit of the law. It goes beyond what we do with our hands, to who we are in our hearts. It recognizes that external behavior often emerges from an internal temperament.
Jesus will take the 10th commandment, with its command directed toward the heart and thus toward the inappropriate desire for the property or wife of the neighbor and recognized that each of the 10 commandments suggested such a righteousness that went beyond external compliance and dealt with the heart.
Matthew 5:21-26 contains sayings of Jesus concerning killing. This first antithesis contains three wisdom sayings of Jesus.
21 In the format of “holy law,” "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, "You shall not murder', the sixth commandment; and "whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' 22 But I say to you, he will enumerate several things that will broaden the application of such statements, that if you are angry, the normal beginning of abuse, with a brother or sister, a member of the Christian community, you will be liable to human judgment.[34] And if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the human religious council; and if you say, "You fool,' you will be liable to the divine judgment of the hell of fire. In rabbinical texts, there are statements that understand wrath in extreme cases as such a grave offense that there is no human but only a divine punishment for it. The emphasis is on the community and the harm done to it. Jesus understood that the dehumanizing act of murder has its roots in the dehumanizing of another person through our anger. And not only does anger dehumanize the other, it dehumanizes us, too. Every time we decide to allow anger to smolder inside of us, we become less than fully human, less than the people God created us to be. Instead of merely avoiding murder, we should embrace reconciliation, which leads to community. Other Jewish writings contain similar widening of the interpretation of the sixth commandment.
II Enoch 44:2-3
And whoever insults a person’s face, insults the face of a king, and treats the face of the Lord with repugnance. He who treats with contempt the face of any person treats the face of the Lord with contempt. He who expresses anger to any person without provocation will reap anger in the great judgment. He who spits on any person’s face, insultingly, will reap the same at the Lord’s great judgment.
The opposition that Jesus sets up here creates a sense of newness from the prevailing sentences of law. In offering such a criticism of the Law, setting his word in opposition to it, he devalues the Law in favor of the loving disposition one is to have toward others.
For some people, anger inspires them. They can write, pray, and preach well because it quickens the attention and sharpens the understanding.[35] However, anger is a sign that something wrong is emerging within us. Something is not working right. Evil, incompetence, or stupidity is lurking within us. Anger is like a sixth sense as it senses something wrong in our souls. It does not tell us whether something is wrong outside us or inside us. We usually assume the wrong is external. If we stay with the anger, however, we usually find something wrong is within us in that we have inaccurate information, inadequate understanding, or underdeveloped heart.[36]
In a first interpretation of the antithesis, 23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, assuming the existence of temple worship with its sacrificial system, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.[37]
Sirach 34:21-22
21 If one sacrifices ill-gotten goods, the offering is blemished; 22 the gifts of the lawless are not acceptable.
The point moves away from words and toward the positive act of reconciliation, which involves actual love toward the member of the community. The one who shows mercy has the right to offer sacrifices. Important are the statements concerning the unity of ethics and cult, made particularly in wisdom tradition: Sacrifices by godless people are an abomination to God: the one who shows mercy offers sacrifices. In these texts also, the cult takes second place to ethics, without being abrogated. As often with Jesus, so we have here a categorical, hyperbolically sharpened exemplary demand that aims at a new basic attitude to the fellow human and, as such, enjoins more than its literal fulfillment. In a similar manner, Abraham Lincoln advised that the best way to destroy an enemy is to turn him into a friend, and Mahatma Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." All these leaders knew that punishment and revenge never succeed in breaking the cycle of violence.
In the second interpretation of the antithesis, made from material common between Matthew and Luke,25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. It concerns reconciliation with the trial opponent before the court session, letting an exhortation that begins in everyday life take a sudden and surprising turn that lets the last judgment shine through behind the trial situation. Jesus assumes the cold and merciless quality of human courts. Do not rely upon them. Settle out of court. This text is pragmatic and finds its parallels in similar counsels of expediency in the wisdom tradition.
The word of Jesus is challenging here for a culture leaning toward anger and resentment. It is one thing to disagree with the other. It is another to stand in judgment because the other is inferior morally to you. Such distancing of oneself from the other will not lead to reconciliation. Human life, whether in our individual experience or as we become aware of our history, gives us plenty of reasons to be angry. One who is not angry when there is cause to be may well open the door to sin. Unreasonable patience nurtures many vices in that it fosters negligence in correcting what is wrong.
Anger is like a fire in that safely used we derive great benefit, but uncontrolled it can do great damage. We are not to let the sun go down on our anger, allowing resentment to simmer and endanger others. Do not hang on to anger obsessively. Those who live their lives driven by anger eventually pay a bitter personal price. Among the seven deadly sins, anger may be the most fun (Frederick Buechner Wishful Thinking, 1973). We get to lick our wounds, smack our lips over grievances long past, roll our tongues over the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, savor to the last morsel the pain someone gave you and the pain you give back. We have a feast fit for a king. Of course, the chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down so joyfully is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.
Bitterness reflects a form of sustained anger that keeps calling to mind experiences of hurt or pain. It is possible to revel in victimhood. Such bitterness can be present at a cultural level, for every nation has an imperfect past that has left wounds with which the present generation must deal. We have all known injured people who just cannot let it go. Some people go to their graves feeling bitter for the way their parents or their spouses or their children failed them. Or they castigate themselves for some missed opportunity decades in the past. Bitter talk, when it continues for an exceedingly long time without let-up, causes terrible emotional harm to the speaker — not to mention misery for everyone who must listen to their complaints. Such sustained anger blocks thinking rationally and seeking reasonable courses of action.
Anger is usually something we experience as an outburst, learn what we can from it, and move on to a flourishing human life. Anger inhibits rational thought and action. It distorts our perception of history and the world. Forgiveness of sin is prerequisite for a relationship with God. Even in our personal lives, a relationship cannot move toward something good if the aggrieved party does not extend forgiveness.
Matthew 5:27-30 are sayings regarding adultery. The new righteousness Jesus is explaining now touches upon the most personal of relationships, that of marriage. John 8:1-11 contains the response of Jesus to one caught in the act of adultery. John 4 and the story of the woman at the well offer another story of Jesus with one who was clearly not sexually pure. Luke 7:36-50 tells the story of a woman with a bad reputation disturbing a dinner, at which Jesus offers her forgiveness.
In this case, as a sentence of holy law, 27 "You have heard that it was said, "You shall not commit adultery,' the seventh commandment, 28 But I say to you, in a way that broadens the application of the commandment, that everyone who looks at a woman with lust (ἐπιθυμῆσαι) has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Such a statement is consistent with what Jews at the time taught concerning lust, as we see in the tenth commandment not to covet the wife of the neighbor. Even the ancient world in general would have agreed. Is there something special in this demand of Jesus? Jesus obviously had a very relaxed relationship to women who were at a disadvantage according to the Israelite law of God. His freedom even to turn to prostitutes, the discipleship of women, and the support of the circle of Jesus by them testify to it. Lust dehumanizes people into objects that we use for our own pleasure. We might be able to avoid the physical act of adultery and thus obey the law, but we forget that the emotional or psychological attachment of lust is just as destructive. Jesus here calls us not to merely avoid breaking the law but to avoid breaking the fidelity of marriage that supports community, trust, and love. Jesus here calls us not to merely avoid breaking the law but to avoid breaking the fidelity of marriage that supports community, trust, and love -- the kind of fidelity that Christ himself has with his bride, the church. God's new world is characterized by faithfulness, and when we embrace fidelity in our hearts and in our relationships, we will learn how to embrace it forever.
Verses 29-30, from Mark 9:47 (also in Matthew 18:8-9), we find a further application of the antithesis in showing that certain parts of the body are expendable in comparison to moral choices. 29 If your right eye, symbolic of good, precious, and important, causes you to sin (σκανδαλίζει, causes you to stumble), tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body[38] to be thrown into hell (γέενναν). 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell (γέενναν). The double saying is a warning against sin, related to standing phrases. To avoid it, one is to give everything, even the most important and precious thing, away. Here, the focus is attention to the danger we can become to ourselves. Such a radical saying, suggesting a marred, incomplete body, which was abhorrent in Jesus’ day, was something a follower of Jesus was to prefer to the submission to temptation. The point is ensnaring oneself rather than others. Jesus rejects the notion that one cannot treat the symptom and still get to true repentance. He uses humor here to make absurd the notion that one can eradicate sin performed by various parts of the body by amputating that part of the body. Sin does not arise in the body. It arises in the human soul, in the spirit or in the heart. In this way, Christ’s teaching is the exact opposite of Greek philosophies, such as Gnosticism, that attributed a degenerate nature to the human body. In a true Israelite perspective, the body and the soul are one. The body does not drag the soul down into “earthly” debaucheries. A heart and mind turned in the wrong direction uses the body in sinful ways. If sin rules your life, Jesus argues, then you are not eligible to receive new birth and enter the new life of the resurrection; therefore, rooting out sin is the only way to enter that new life. Jesus does not require his followers to make such an extreme gesture. All that Jesus asks of us is that we endeavor to rid our lives of sin that arises from human will. These verses, however, are not about maiming, but more about the blessing of life; God is more important than parts of our body. To allow hand, foot, or eye to bring one to the unquenchable fires of hell is unthinkable.[39] One could also argue that although the individual is in view in these verses, Mark weds words about the individual to his earlier words about communal offense because he wants to highlight the individual in relation to the community. Thus, the individual's sin affects the community, not only the person who commits such a sin. Therefore, the person's actions have consequences not only for self but also for others.
Matthew has referred the saying to the seduction to commit adultery and understood eye and hand as instruments for it. One might think of the context of such sayings as warnings of the final judgment and the threat of Hell.
“Gehenna” suggests spiritual destruction. The image of “hell” which appears in this passage is one adapted from ancient Israelite history to correspond with the Greek notion of Hades. Unlike the Greeks, the ancient Israelites did not have a concept of Hades, or Tartarus, namely an underworld filled with fire and brimstone in which the wicked were tortured for all eternity. Sheol, the ancient Hebrew abode of the dead, was simply a pit into which the dead disappeared, never to arise again. Gehenna, however, is the New Testament equivalent of Hades, the name of which is a graecization of the Hebrew place name ge ben Hinnom, or “valley of Ben Hinnom.” It was here, in the small valley outside the Jaffa gate, that ancient Israelite kings committed the sin of child sacrifice and constructed a tophet or child sacrifice burial ground offered by fire to the pagan gods Moloch and Baal (Jeremiah 7:30-34, 32:35). The image of gehenna then, evoked in the minds of Jewish hearers, is a place of unimaginable horror, death and depravity. After this practice ceased due to the reforms implemented by King Josiah (II Kings 23:10), the valley became a trash dump where fires continually burned in order to consume the garbage. It was a place where maggots constantly fed and multiplied. Eventually, in some strands of Jewish thought, this valley became associated with what the wicked would experience in the future, one in which "their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched" (v. 48).[40]
Matthew 5:31-32 is a saying of Jesus concerning divorce.
31 "It was also said, in a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 24:1-2, the intent making remarriage possible, "Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' 32 But I say to you, in a saying from material Matthew has in common with Luke 16:18, that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity (πορνείας, sexual immorality in general, but most likely adultery here). Unchastity was an abomination that desecrates the land of Israel, a case which requires divorce. The phrase suggests a legal saying rather than the insight we expect from the wisdom tradition. If a man divorces his wife for another reason, he causes her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery, a statement that is not in the interest of the disadvantaged woman. The Jewish command to the husband to pay the marriage bond at a divorce, on the other hand, meant at the same time practicable and effective protection for the woman. The theological question becomes how such a demand relates to the general principle of the love of God and neighbor being in a critical relationship to the Law. The point may well be that divorce is permissible, but it is not righteous because it represents human failure and falls short of the intent of God in marriage. If our hearts are focused on maintaining the relationship, then our hands will be less apt to sign the dismissal papers.
Among exegetes, the inclination is most widespread to associate it with Jesus' kindliness to women. The prohibition of divorce would then be an expression of the love of Jesus and of God for the disadvantaged woman. However, some things puzzle us. There also was a general rejection of divorce in Qumran, but not out of love for the disadvantaged woman. In Judaism, the intent of ordinary divorce was to make a remarriage possible. This prohibition could be devastating for the divorced woman. Thus, it is probable that Jesus thinks based on the pure, unconditional will of God, rather than out of consideration for disadvantage women. Yet, the reality is the absolute rejection of divorce and remarriage of divorced persons has the potential of lovelessness. The question is how the love of God for us, the love we are to show to our neighbors, combines with the absolute demand of the indissolubility of marriage.
Jesus clearly expected his married disciples and the larger band who followed him to remain married. Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18 both say that the man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery, and the divorced woman who marries another commits adultery. Matthew in this passage and in 19:9 has the exception that if the woman has committed adultery, the man may rightfully divorce and remarry.
I would like to begin by offering some comments that stay close to the text and slowly move to application to today. The text offers me an opportunity to give proper precedence to the Bible as the primary witness to the kind of life Christians are to lead while also showing that proper biblical interpretation is a matter of carefully handling biblical materials. My perspective on this text is like when I approach a text that the disciples left everything to follow Jesus (Mark 1:16-20), that Jesus told the rich man to sell everything he had and follow him (Luke 17:22), and that the first followers of Jesus after the resurrection held everything in common (Acts 4:32-37). If we were to approach such texts in a legal way, the church would unlikely have stayed in existence. They church realized that it was in a different social setting that when Jesus travelled Israel with his small band of disciples and followers. Rules applicable to the disciples and the followers of Jesus before the resurrection may need some adaptation in different social settings.
Under the supposition of many scholars that when there are multiple versions of a saying of Jesus in the gospels, the hardest saying is the saying of Jesus, we can assume that the exception clause for unchastity is an addition within the tradition. Jesus taught an absolute prohibition of remarrying after divorce for his disciples and those who follow him. Jesus applied the rule against priests marrying divorced women in the Holiness Code (Leviticus 21:7, 13-14, focusing on priests marrying a virgin) to the community he formed. The early church struggled with the pastoral application of this saying of Jesus to the new setting several decades after the death of Jesus. The early church, rather than adopt a rule-oriented approach to a saying of Jesus, sought to apply the teaching of Jesus in the same spirit that Jesus understood the Torah and prophets. Out of love for God and neighbor, it considered that adultery would be an occasion when the offended party could divorce remarry. Jesus, in Matthew, reminds them of the saying that whoever divorces his wife is to give her a certificate of divorce.
(Deu 24:1-4) Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house {2} and goes off to become another man's wife. {3} Then suppose the second man dislikes her, writes her a bill of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house (or the second man who married her dies); {4} her first husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that would be abhorrent to the LORD, and you shall not bring guilt on the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a possession.
The many Jewish laws concerning marriage show a careful safeguarding of this area of human life. The grounds for divorce here are finding something “objectionable,” “disgraceful,” or “scandalous,” in the woman. Note, however, that the court system has nothing to do with the divorce. Ending the marriage is between the man and the woman. Over time, Jewish law limited divorce so that it was not just at the whim of the husband. In the Code of Hammurabi, #137-140, we find no such requirement upon the husband. The only continuing debate about divorce in first‑century Judaism existed between the followers of the more conservative Shammai School and the more liberal Hillel school. Shammai taught that the "objectionable" behavior that could give a husband just cause for divorcing his wife was adulterous behavior or the wife's extreme failure to observe Jewish law. Hillel, however, allowed that any behavior that caused the husband annoyance or embarrassment was legitimate grounds for giving the wife a bill of divorcement. There also was a general rejection of divorce in Qumran. In Judaism, ordinary divorce was intended to make a remarriage possible. The Jewish command to the husband to pay the marriage bond at a divorce, meant at the same time practicable and effective protection for the woman. As we continue with the text in Matthew, Jesus then says that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity (“porneia” can only mean adultery here, a phrase that suggests a legal saying rather than the insight we expect from the wisdom tradition), causes her to commit adultery. Such a prohibition could be an expression of love toward the woman in a society that placed limits on women. However, Jesus continues, whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery, a statement that is not in the interest of the disadvantaged woman. In Romans 7:3, Paul says that people will call a woman an adulterer who lives with a man other than her husband while her husband is alive. Only if he dies does she have the right of remarriage. In I Thessalonians 4:3, Paul points his readers to the will of God as their sanctification, and therefore they are to abstain from “unchastity,” the same word Matthew uses in the exception clause, but here Paul may refer to the broader use of the word as any form of sexual immorality. However, Paul finds a reason to refuse a strict rule-oriented approach to the saying of Jesus as he considered another pastoral situation and came down on the side of love:
1 Corinthians 7:15 (NRSV)
15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. It is to peace that God has called you.
He suggests that if a non-Christian spouse divorces the Christian spouse, the Christian should be at peace with the decision and the implication is that remarriage is acceptable. In all of this, there was a potential element of lovelessness. The theological question becomes how such a demand relates to the general principle of the love of God and neighbor being in a critical relationship to the Law. The point may well be that divorce is permissible, but it is not righteous because it represents human failure and falls short of the intent of God in marriage. If our hearts are focused on maintaining the relationship, then our hands will be less apt to sign the dismissal papers. At the same time, the context in which both Jesus and Paul address themselves to marriage is the soon arrival of the end, so the possibility that of living an extended period without the blessing a happy marriage, even a second one, did not realistically occur to them. Further, the early centuries of the church developed increasing asceticism, to the point where celibacy became valued more so than a happy marriage. It makes sense, in such contexts, that remarriage after divorce would not find acceptance.
Commenting upon marriage, divorce, and remarriage in the Bible and church tradition carries some risks. For the one who has experienced divorce as a Christian, it can appear one is justifying after the fact an action one has taken. That is not my goal, but that will always be the suspicion. A heightened risk occurs when one takes the Bible seriously as a guide for our lives. As I have sorted through these matters, I have sought to use an approach to the Bible that is similar to what I have used to support women in ministry, the nature of the husband and wife relationship, and homosexuality. I invite you to be patient as we consider in a prayerful way the matters before us.
First, how does Jesus respond to people caught in the web of sexual confusion and sexual sin? I direct you to John 4, where Jesus has a respectful discussion with a woman who has had multiple sexual relationships. In John 8, he refuses to condemn a woman caught in the act of adultery. In Luke 7, we find another occasion in which Jesus extends forgiveness to a woman who has had a loose sexual history. In all these cases, he refuses to isolate them, or to heap upon them shame and guilt. In fact, I offer that the response of Jesus is consistently in this direction – except when it came to those in political and religious authority. Regardless of what Jesus may have expected from his followers regarding divorce and re-marriage, he clearly would not want them to adopt the harsh attitudes of the Pharisees of his day.
Second, I invite you to reflect upon the nature of the ancient household. Proper household management was a matter of crucial social and political concern. The parallel to our culture would be a reflection on family and work. To upset the household was a potential threat to the order of society. The attraction to the early Christian movement of women and slaves made it suspect. Paul may have needed to respond to the accusation. The type of guidance offered assumes that Paul respected the social order and assumed that his churches would need to live in it. The guidance of Paul here is at least consistent with other passages. For example, in I Corinthians 11:2-16, Paul urges women to wear a veil as a sign that they are under authority. God made woman from man and for the sake of man, an obvious reference to the story in Genesis 1-3, but we see their interdependence in the fact that man comes to live through woman. In any case, he respects the “custom” of the woman wearing a covering for her head, even though he finds no such custom in the churches. Yet, while he assumes in I Corinthians 11 that women will pray and prophecy in church, he says in 14:34-36 that women are to remain silent in church because they are subordinate to the husband. In I Corinthians 7:20-24, Paul offers the general advice that if one becomes a follower of Christ as a slave, one should remain a slave. In the letter to Philemon, Paul has run into a run-a-way slave, and now asks the master for the freedom of the slave Onesimus so that he can serve Paul. The point here is that Paul respects the master and slave relationship. Interestingly, the assumption is that each member of the household Paul treats as a moral agent with a choice to make. The code for the household becomes part of the apostolic wisdom. To state the obvious, in Proverbs, we find abundant advice for parents, husbands, wives, children, masters, and slaves.
If we read with open mind and heart, we will find that the nature of the household would change dramatically if Christians followed the advice of the apostles. Marriage would become more like a partnership of mutual love. Raising children would become a compassionate enterprise. The master-slave relation would dissolve in practice, if not in official structure.
Husband-wife were central to the household. It would have been normal to guide the wife to submit to the husband. The challenge the New Testament offers is that the husband love the wife, even as Christ loved the church. Here is a transformation of ordinary life. We find a reflection on the puzzling nature of romantic love in the Song of Solomon. Ephesians 5:21-33, Colossians 3:18, and I Peter 3:1-7 offer some different guidance, considering the character and virtue the Christian community seeks to develop. We see another example of life in the household in I Corinthians 5, 6:12-7:40. The point I would stress is that secular culture has changed the ordering of family and work in significant ways. While our advice regarding family and work would change, one should conduct it in a similar spirit as did Paul. A general principle (I Corinthians 7:17-24) is that they are to remain in the outward, socially acceptable setting in which they found Christ. The key point is that God has bought all of them with a price. In that sense, every member of the highly structured household is on the same footing.
Third, let us consider the unique challenge that divorce and remarriage presented to the operation of the ancient household. The issues affected the structure of the basic unit economic unit of society. We can easily see why Jesus said that a woman must not separate from her husband and a husband must not separate from his wife, and even why the divorced must remain unmarried, given the hope for reconciliation. Such counsel protected the vulnerable woman from the male who misuses his social power. We can all agree that the plan of God is life-long union. Yet, we dare not interpret as church law that which Jesus gave as ethical ideal. Paul (I Corinthians 7:10-16) considers a possibility that did not fall under the general rule he had from Jesus (Luke 16:18; Matthew 5:32, 19:9). He counseled that if an unbelieving spouse wants a divorce, the Christian should allow that happen. The believer is no longer bound to that marriage, meaning the believer is free to remarry. We see Paul taking a pastoral approach to the new situation, showing his consistency with the teaching and action of Jesus. Many churches are right to make such adjustments in our secular culture. I invite you to consider the pastoral approach of the church to the human brokenness expressed in divorce. The basis for looking at divorce and remarriage differently is the changed cultural setting and (I emphasize this) the biblical conversation we see occurring.
Fourth, church tradition has had a responsibility to keep the conversation going. Divorce and re-marriage are examples of the dialogue within the biblical tradition and within the tradition of the church. The church tradition assumes from a theological perspective that human beings cannot dissolve marriage. Yet, the direction of the Bible and the tradition on this matter, the allowance for divorce and remarriage became a pastoral necessity. In later tradition, the death of the person from one is divorced becomes another sufficient allowance for remarriage. The Orthodox Church has taken this path before the church of the west did in that it considered the possibility of two divorces as allowable. It also considered that after the second divorce, the church would not remarry, for the person ought to consider the possibility that marriage is simply not for him or her. The ecumenical councils of the church deal with second marriages in a variety of ways, all stressing the seriousness of divorce. They give guidance on what happens if a man marries a divorced woman, and then wants to become clergy. They give guidance on the procedure for penance if someone divorces. Just as the New Testament considered proper grounds for divorce, the tradition continues that discussion, as well as grounds sufficient for a second marriage. In the context of sexuality, ecumenical councils defended marriage against attacks from the growing celibate community. The growing Christianizing of European culture led to less tolerance of divorce and even more so of remarriage.
Fifth, the proper grounds or rationales for divorce and remarriage are serious matters. If one assumes that both partners of the marriage are Christian, they receive the blessing of the church, and the culture supports Christian teaching and values, one ought not to be surprised that divorce and remarriage have less tolerance. However, the church continued its struggle to identify proper grounds. This means that the church is not against divorce. Rather, from a pragmatic perspective, it seeks to give spiritual and moral guidance as to the proper occasion for it.
God takes the act of divorce seriously. Anyone who has been through a divorce knows that there is plenty of sin to go around. We also know it represents a human failure and falls short of God’s intent in marriage. Even if one is attentive to the relationship, one never knows the darkness that may reside within. The woman may have a deep anger toward men that only marriage brings to the surface. The man may have residual anger the spills toward the woman and children. In both cases, the marriage may bring out the worst rather than the best. Sexual experimentation may reside deeply within either the man or woman. None of this darkness demands divorce. Yet, the church must offer its spiritual guidance that respects scripture and tradition, while also respecting the demands of a new cultural setting. The value of commitment and fidelity, the value of raising children, and the value of entering a relationship genuinely other in terms of sexuality, helps us to experience the good that God intends. Marriage and family are the primary ethical and moral training ground for us as human beings. God treats divorce seriously. God treats it as the ethical, moral, and spiritual issue that it is, rather than as an item of law. Therefore, the Bible does not mean that divorce and remarriage are unforgivable. Whatever sin we experience in divorce, God is fully capable of forgiving that sin. Further, as God forgives, God forgets. The same needs to become true of the church. We have the obvious biblical emphasis upon our need for grace and forgiveness because of sin. Therefore, a view consistent with the dialogue the Bible began would be that divorce is permissible, even if it is not a righteous choice. In an imperfect world, people sometimes make choices that are the lesser of evils. Further, I suggest that remarriage is not an adulterous condition. Sexual relations within the second marriage are holy.
Matthew 5:33-37 are sayings around oaths. The source is Matthew but with a relationship with James 5:12 as well, where James urges his readers not to swear at all, either by heaven or earth, but rather, let your Yes be Yes and No be no. 33 In the form of holy law, "Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, "You shall not swear falsely, the ninth commandment, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.' 34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. The concern shows that, like Judaism of his time, Jesus had a concern for the sanctification of the name of God. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let your word be "Yes, Yes' or "No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one. The point is that they are to let their word be yes or no. They are to be honest and truthful in all they do. Anything more than this comes from the evil one. Even in the Hellenistic world, the oath was undignified and contrary to ethical principles. The person should be reliable, rather than need an oath toward some external authority. Critique of oaths may take on an enlightenment, antireligious note: appeal to the gods is superfluous because the reliability of the human being along is decisive. The true sage does not need oaths because he carries God in himself. To swear an oath means to pull God down into human affairs. One finds many of these Hellenistic motifs again in Philo. Jesus demands unrestricted truthfulness of the human word. The reliability of the human being alone is decisive. Interestingly, according to Josephus, the Essenes rejected oaths so much so that Herod released them from the fealty oath of subjects. In rabbinic Judaism, the point was to prevent the misuse of the divine name by false or superfluous oaths. Matthew 23:16-22 may testify to the limited sense in which this prohibition found interpretation in early Christianity. In that passage, Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites for not taking oaths seriously. Paul also made use of the oath.
Jesus continues his proclamation of the rule of God that moves us toward understanding and practicing a better righteousness (Matthew 5:38-48, Year A Epiphany 8).
Matthew 5:38-42 are sayings around non-resistance. In the part of this segment unique to Matthew, we find Jesus drawing a sharp contrast with a well-known saying: 38 "You have heard that it was said in Exodus 21:22-25, Leviticus 24:17-21, and Deuteronomy 19:15-21 that one can administer justice equitably, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' The Old Testament context occurs in three casuistic legal texts. The first instance of the maxim is found in Exodus 21:22-25. This case addresses an altercation between a pregnant woman and another individual — or a situation when a bystander inadvertently injures her — that causes harm beyond a miscarriage. According to the statute, the one who injures the woman is to be punished in the same way: “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Exodus 21:23b-25). We also find the expression in Leviticus 24:17-21, embedded in a series of ordinances that stipulate the kind and degree of retaliation that the Law permits when one individual suffers the loss of an animal or another person give harm. Specifically, in such cases the law required that “Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered” (Leviticus 24:19-20). The phrase occurs a third time in Deuteronomy 19:15-21. In this instance, the expression “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” is set within the context of one who bears false witness against another with the intent to do that person harm. In such circumstances, the Israelites were not to show any pity to the perpetrator. Instead, they were to exact “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,” to do to that one what he or she intended to do to another (Deuteronomy 19:21). They had the purpose of curtailing excessive retaliation. In practice, when applied to ordinary encounters, life became transactional. Each person was to pay back others. Such a practice was common in the honor-shame culture of the ancient world. People were to reclaim the honor of the family by exacting revenge. In fact, the greater the revenge, the better. Genesis 34 contains one such story of the brothers of Dinah exacting revenge. Once her brothers discovered that Shechem had violated her, Simeon and Levi set a trap by requiring him to submit to circumcision before they would allow him to marry Dinah. Three days later when Shechem and his comrades were still sore, Simeon and Levi took up the sword, slaughtering all of them. Jacob was horrified by his sons' deed, certain that they had made him "odious to the inhabitants of the land," and was convinced that they were in danger of destruction. Nevertheless, Simeon and Levi were unfazed; they maintained that they had done what was honorable and asked, "Should our sister be treated like a whore?" (Genesis 34:1-31, esp. vv. 30-31). In Judges 13-16, Samson exacted revenge, and in II Samuel 21:1-14 the Gibeonites exacted revenge. The disciples of Jesus, James, and John, wanted to exact revenge when the Samaritans did not welcome Jesus (Luke 9:51-56). Jesus seems to reject such a personal application for his disciples.39 Thus, in direct contrast with the Law of Moses, But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. Can one still say that Christ has fulfilled the law? Of course, the Old Testament law of retaliation was already a limit on revenge, and thus a positive approach in the direction of the way of Jesus in overcoming force. Negatively, love means renunciation of counterforce and resistance. In context, the next antithesis will make the positive influence of love clear. Then, drawing from the source common to Matthew and Luke, But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. Instead of giving in to the natural inclination of striking back. In that culture, a slap in the face was an expression of hate and insult. It was a sign of challenge in which the aggressor was ready for a real fight. In this verse, a certain proactive strategy of passive resistance is apparent. Not always successful, the same behavior may nonetheless frequently produce a holding pattern, delayed attack, bewilderment, and retreat, if not defeat on the part of the predator. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus said, in a similar vein: "Does anything seem strange to him? Does he not expect worse and harsher treatment from the wicked than actually befalls him? Does he not count it as gain whenever they fail to go to the limit? 'So-and-so reviled you.' I am greatly obliged to him for not striking me. 'But he also struck you.' I am greatly obliged to him for not wounding me. 'But he also wounded you.' I am greatly obliged to him for not killing me." He also said, "Now the Cynic must have such patient endurance that most people will think that he is insensate and a stone. Nobody reviles him; nobody beats him; nobody insults him. But his body he himself has given for anyone who wants to use it as they see fit." 40 And if anyone wants to sue youand take your coat, give your cloak as well, an injunction that could leave one naked. Such an action would move against the natural inclination of suing in return. This notion is a case parody, with an extremely narrow focus that has broad application. In this case, it points to a situation that rarely occurs. One could not take such a saying literally without comic effect. When taken literally, it can produce insight, prompting the listener to react differently to acts of aggression. By not feeling the need to protect what they had, Jesus took every material means of manipulating and imposing oneself on Jesus and his followers in Galilee out of the hands of the enemy. Under the circumstances, such injunctions were smart moves. We cannot meaningfully understand such statements as the demand for an extraordinary exercise of moral virtue, but only as the marching order never to allow the rejection and opposition that they encounter to divert them from their accepted role as witnesses of the reign of God in which they must love, do good, and bless. They cannot be witnesses of the rule of God in any other way. They must witness in this way, even though they meet with enmity, hatred, cursing, and affliction.[41] Jesus opens an indirect opposition to the OT law of pledging. To the poor man, who must give his cloak as a pledge, one must return this cloak every evening so that he can sleep in it.
Exodus 22:26-27
26 If you take your neighbor's cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; 27 for it may be your neighbor's only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.
Deuteronomy 24:12-13
12 If the person is poor, you shall not sleep in the garment given you as the pledge. 13 You shall give the pledge back by sunset, so that your neighbor may sleep in the cloak and bless you; and it will be to your credit before the LORD your God.
The point of the saying is that one should not get involved in such lawsuits at all. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. A reference to the occupying Roman army, resisting the natural inclination to resist such conscription by the occupying force. 42 Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. Obeying Jesus here could leave one naked. Here is another case parody. If taken literally, it is ridiculous; the person would soon be destitute. It cuts against the social grain. The philosopher Crates once said: "You will be able to open your purse easily and to give away freely what you draw out with your hand: not as you do now, calculating, hesitant, trembling, as those with shaky hands. But you will regard a purse that is full as full and after you see that it is empty, you will not complain." Note the casual approach to cash and collateral. This is subversive wisdom of the Cynic regarding money and its proper management. Significant deviation from the usual habits for handling such an issue belongs to the teaching of Jesus and his effort to upset the social order or disorder created by these patterns of both thought and action. One should see everything in these verses as part of the regular daily grind of a subjugated people's struggle to survive. Personal violence and theft are as normal a part of everyday existence as the more peaceable exchange of goods and services. It provides yet another example of how one should express the love of the enemy. The use of the singular “you” makes the difficult response direct and personal: “You give go beggars.”
Scholars call these parenetical hortary sayings, aphorisms, and parody. They are a form of discourse that exaggerates certain traits for comic effect. Such sayings have the design of producing insight, prompting the listener or reader to react differently to acts of aggression. The supreme art of the world government by God is to cause good to come from evil, and in this way to overcome evil with good, as Jesus commanded his disciples to do. That may well be the intent in such injunctions.[42] Yet, at the least, the demands of Jesus do not consider their consequences, which might be very ambivalent: it also could happen that the one who strikes winds up for another hit, that the poor person without a cloak must freeze and that one strengthens the hostile occupation power! There is a piece of conscious provocation in such sayings. It is a matter of alienation, of shocking, a symbolic protest against the regular rule of force. They are the expression of a protest against any kind of spiraling of force which dehumanizes the human being and of hope for a different behavior of the person from that which is the everyday experience. In these sayings, we might find a gentle protest and an element of provocative contrast to the force that rules the world. These commands intend to find obedient persons to obey them. One understands provocative renunciation of force as an expression of love. Interestingly, in the circumstances of the first centuries of Christianity, the church applied these sayings literally. Christians could not be part of the armed forces of the Roman Empire. The reason is obvious. The Empire could call upon you to arrest and kill Christians. As history moved to a different historical setting, Christianity no longer experienced persecution, the application of the rule changed. Once Christianity had some responsibility for the culture, the application of the rule changed. The point is that a provocative use of this saying intends that nonviolence lead to the possibility of change in the aggressor. However, we also have experience of people for whom such nonviolence is a sign of weakness that invites more violence. The point is that an absolute application of this rule without regard to context is hardly the intent of Jesus. The point is not simple literal obedience, but re-discovery of their truth in new situations, in freedom but in a similar radicality. The arrival of the kingdom of God indirectly determines their motivation and context. They fit well into the eschatology of Jesus, who repeatedly speaks not of the kingdom of God itself but of the everyday life that the kingdom of God influences. If this is correct, then one may dare still a further statement. For Jesus, the limitless love of God for the people makes possible the love of human beings among themselves and even for their enemies marks the arrival of the kingdom of God. One understands provocative renunciation of force as an expression of love.
One way to think of such a command from Jesus is that Jesus taught consistent living and suffering of the truth of the soon arrival of the kingdom of God in contrast to and provocation of the world. However, the kingdom of God has not come in the manner in which Jesus thought. For that reason, a simple back to Jesus move is impossible for basic theological reasons. Rather, we need to interpret the exemplary nature of the text considering the situation one faces. Further, a fundamental change took place at the Constantinian reversal, a change that had to have its effects on the interpretation of our text if one is to deliver it anew in each situation. Until then, what confronted the Christians was the question of how they should carry out and live their testimony in the world of law and politics, a world for which the Christians were not at all responsible. Only now a tension existed between, first, the Christian commission to carry the testimony of the gospel to the world and to live in the community itself and second the Christian commission to help in shaping the realm of the world, including politics, for the best of humankind. To forgo the use of force is a contrasting sign of the kingdom of God or a part of a new way of righteousness that Jesus has opened up. Jesus understands the renunciation of force as an expression of love.
To address the matter most directly, one does not use this saying in a provocative way by giving in to the aggression of others in every situation. A provocative use of the saying looks to changing the behavior of the aggressor toward peace. In some situations, the nature of the aggressor has no possibility of such change. On a personal level, to stand by and allow an aggressor to kill one’s neighbor when one could use force to stop it is not an act of love nor is it provocative. Rather, such a stance is cowardly. On a corporate level, to do nothing to free slaves in the south, to stop the extermination of Jews in Europe, or to stop Muslim extremists who want to erase freedom from the earth and replace it with shira law, far from provocative behavior, becomes cowardly, unjust, and lacking in love for the betterment of humanity.
Matthew 5:43-48 are sayings of Jesus about love for enemies. 43 Beginning with the source unique to Matthew, "You have heard that it was said in Leviticus 19:18, "You shall love your neighbor and, in a saying not directly in the Old Testament, but possibly implied in Psalm 139:19-22 and 137:1-9, hate your enemy.' 44 In sharp contrast, drawing from the material common to Matthew and Luke, But I say to you, Love your enemies. We find it quoted often in early Christian teaching, in which they consider it a Christian distinction and innovation. The opinion of the church fathers that Jesus' commandment to love one's enemies is something new is only conditionally correct. In Greek philosophy, particularly in the Platonic and Stoic tradition, there are basic statements like those of Jesus. Interestingly, Diogenes, a Greek Cynic philosopher, gave similar advice: "When asked by someone how to repulse an enemy, he replied, 'You be kind and good to him."' In contrast with this, it is striking that Jesus speaks explicitly of the love of enemies. Nelson Mandela took this approach in South Africa when he said, "If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner." It creates the condition of the possibility that now permits the reader to imagine the heretofore inconceivable notion of overcoming evil with good, to use Paul's terms, or the defeat of enmity through different means than those of hatred and retaliation. This command is one of the most central of Christian texts, first century Christians considering it something new. The saying is memorable because it cuts against the social grain and constitutes a paradox. Enemies are not those we love; those we love are not usually our enemies. Those who love their enemies have no enemies. The secret hope is that such love could turn an enemy into a friend. The phrase "love your enemies," would lose its rhetorical force, if the activity of love in the imagined confrontation were somehow to eliminate or ignore the hostile character of the stated enemy. It is a strategy for handling unfriendly opposition. Love your enemies becomes a way to take care of the jerks. Abiding hostility provides the context for the injunction. This counsel to love your enemies has the purpose of forming a certain social character. One of the morally salient features of the teachings of Jesus was precisely this ability to handle hostility with notable restraint and calculated inversion. Further, on a practical level, one wonders if it asks too much of a disciple. Paul is not squeamish about writing of his enemies. II Peter 3:12-22 has a separate way of handling enemies in calling enemies irrational animals, and so on. Not only that, if one reads Matthew 23 from the perspective of a scribe or Pharisee, one might not feel the love. One could even wonder if the ethical teaching of Jesus is so high that it fails to produce solid and practical results in the followers of Jesus. Some people would say it violates the basic biological, anthropological, and psychological dimension of the human being. Church history, with its crusades, wars between Protestant and Catholic, forced missionary endeavors, and anti-Judaism in Christian Europe, all suggest as much.
As a general note, the various injunctions of Jesus as to how deal with opposition had the objective of some form of liberation from the menace of unresolved hostility and sporadic military repression, with personal enmity and the permanent threat of abuse. We must assume the pervasive and seriously destabilizing nature of all colonial rule as such. "Organized" political projects of resistance and revolt did not fully articulate themselves in Galilee and Judea until much closer to the outbreak of the first Jewish war than scholars used to assume. However, it could hardly have been business as usual after the Romans arrived on the scene even though they compelled commercial and other businesses to function more productively than before. How do you love your enemies?
You love your enemies in the following way. And pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, expressed a similar thought: "... the Cynic has made all persons his children ... In this way, he approaches them all and cares for them all. ... It is as a father that he does it, as a brother and as a servant of Zeus, who is father of us all." Jesus speaks of the love of God, that causes the sun to shine on good and bad, that causes rain to fall on the just and unjust, as a pattern of the love his followers are to have.[43] Followers of Jesus abide in the love of God and in fellowship with God only as they pass it on to others, and therefore are children of God. They live in a special and filial relationship with the Father.[44] If the work of God as the creator and sustainer who causes the sun to shine on the good and the bad is a model and basis for the command to love, then we must see the creation of the world as already an expression of the love of God.[45] We can also see here connection between the love and goodness of God in creation as the basis for the love and goodness of God in sending Jesus to seek and save the lost.[46] Generally, love is not so much a command but living reality, an impulse proceeding from the love of God for the world that lays hold of us and catches us up into its movement. Participation in the kindness of God as Creator ought to be the natural consequence of thankful acceptance of this kindness.[47] Jesus teaches the notion of the creative activity of God, especially in the providential care for the creatures of God, bringing such notions into the picture of the fatherly goodness of God. Jesus teaches the patience of God involved in this basic goodness expressed in creation.[48] Jesus calls his listeners to imitate God's penchant for meeting out unmerited mercies and love. It a natural conclusion of the message presented to have Jesus remind his followers not to judge others. Being the children of God is the essence of the Christian life, which we see here in the promise that the love of enemies makes us children of God.[49] 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? This phrase suggests the motive clause for the phrase "love your enemies." Only by behaving in a patently different fashion from the normal patterns of typical collegiality would they be able to realize their distinctive virtue. 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Such perfection suggests a pure, undivided heart oriented toward fulfilling what Jesus has commanded of disciples. Such sayings suggest that divine love is not restricted to those whose moral performance is superior.[50] We find here the perfection of the goodness of the Father demonstrated in the sun shining on the good and bad alike.[51] We find here an echo of the statement in Deuteronomy that the people are to be holy since the Lord is holy. Belonging to God in this way means separation from the world of sin.[52] The theological tradition generally applies references to creation here to the whole Trinity in its involvement in creation.[53]
Confucius memorably said that if you devote your life to seeking revenge, dig two graves. Many of us want to think that hatred is an emotion that we cannot help to have or a feeling we cannot overcome. If we hate someone, so we tend to think, we simply cannot help ourselves. We are human and thus have no choice but to hate. We believe this to excuse our hatred. We are not at fault when we hate. Our problem is that we can help it if we hate and hatred is our fault. Hatred is a choice, even as love is a choice. Love and hate are matters of the will.[54]
Jesus proclaimed the rule of God in a way that challenges his listener and we who read as to what has priority and the path of trust that moves us away from anxiety (Matthew 6:24-34, Year A Epiphany 8).
From the Q source, Matthew 6:24 is a saying on serving two masters. Matthew 6:24 is a saying on serving two masters. The source is Q. We can note the three-step argument of the saying. First, 24 “No one can serve two masters, for it creates an impossible situation. Second, Second, the result of the impossible situation is divided loyalty, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. Third, consequently, one must make a choice: You cannot serve God and wealth (μαμωνᾷ, an Aramaic word meaning wealth or money). For Greek readers of Matthew, the use of Aramaic may have had an intensifying effect. It calls for them to see money in a different light, showing the negative ways in which it could be a master. God and money are the only choices, seeking the loyalty of those who will serve them. The word mammon appears in both the Greek original and this English translation as a loan word from either Hebrew or, more likely, Aramaic. There is wide agreement among lexicographers that the word denotes “property” or “wealth.” There are examples of its use with those meanings in both the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Mishnaic Hebrew of later rabbis. It refers to the sum of the material possessions that distinguish one person from another, but by implication, it is no less certainly the sum of all such possessions. It includes the enjoyment of the authority and power exercised by such possessions.[55] Luke 16:13 is an exact parallel of Mathew 6:24, but Luke has already used the word twice in preceding verses (Luke 16:9 and 11) with the modifier “dishonest,” or perhaps “unjust” or “unrighteous” (adikia). Clearly, then, in the passage from Luke the word mammon has strongly negative connotations. However, one could argue that Luke must form those strongly negative connotations by twice using expressions meaning “dishonest wealth” because the word “mammon” in itself was more neutral. What indications are there here in Matthew that would suggest what connotations the word has within the Sermon on the Mount?
We can note the three-step argument of the saying. First, 13 No slave can serve two masters, for it creates an impossible situation. Second, the result of the impossible situation is divided loyalty, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. Third, consequently, one must make a choice: You cannot serve God and wealth.” In context, this conclusion gives the proverb an unconventional twist. The popular view was that prosperity was a sign of divine favor. In this saying, Jesus may have encouraged the poor while at the same time challenged the rich. The saying is terse, pithy, and memorable. Choosing between serving God and serving money is the most pointed polarity of this passage. Apathy to a servant’s master is not an option. Hatred and love, devotion and despising are the language used here. In a striking way, the passage puts God and money on opposite sides of the spectrum of service. The oneness of God and the love of God with all that one is becomes the basis for the divine claim upon our lives for exclusive loyalty in our personal lives. [56] Confronted by revelation of the God of Israel, and our embrace of that revelation by faith, we recognize that everything has changed. The times and seasons have changed for us. We recognize that we now have our brief time on this earth only in God.[57]
Matthew structures verses 25-33 to highlight the pointlessness of one’s worry and the provision of God. The construction of every phrase lifts up the comparison between people, “you,” and the object of “your” worry.
25 "Therefore (“for this reason” NASB), stressing the connection this verse and the previous one, stressing that the question of which master one has will lead to a life of worry. I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Followers of Jesus are not to consider the necessities of life as identical with the purpose of life. This statement begins to show the re-evaluation of a life serving a different master: not material goods and money, but God (cf. vv. 19-21). When I read this question of Jesus, I hear him telling us to slow down, to not spend so much time worrying about what we possess, or how well our careers are going, and get on with what is genuinely important in life. Carl Jung has said that one third of the people he had as patients had no specific cause of suffering, but rather experienced something more vague: the senselessness and emptiness of their lives.[60] Is there more to life than eating, sleeping, working, raising families, as important as what these are? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Each starved bird refutes Jesus. If we add to that the famines and wars, Jesus seems soundly refuted.[61] Yet, is this the way to read Jesus here? The notion of Father is important to Jesus, including here, as God is Father by showing care for the creation, thereby bringing the Father within the realm of goodness as well. Among the attributes of divine love is that the goodness of the Father leads to care for all creatures.[62] The point of the comparison is simple: If the Father can feed these birds, then the Father can feed “you.” This argument from a minor point to a major point is common in Greco-Roman rhetoric, and this part of the Sermon on the Mount will repeat it (cf. vv. 28, 30, 32). Are you not of more value than they? This may sound presumptuous or simplistic. One should read it as neither. It is a way to reinforce this comparison from the lesser to the greater and to show God’s care for all creatures, humans included. 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?[63] The point is that one can achieve nothing by worrying. Jesus reiterates this question of control in the next three comparisons. First, 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. Thus, God not only provides the minimum for creation, the Father also can provide more than the wealthiest, most glorified monarch can (cf. I Kings 10 for descriptions of Solomon’s wealth). Money cannot compete with the glory of creation, which does not even work (toil or spin) to produce its beauty; beauty is a gift from God. Jesus uses the hyperbole of the situation, adding time or height to a person, to show that the control over life, over food, over clothes and over money that humans think they have is entirely an illusion (cf. the introduction to this passage in Luke 12:13-21). 30 The second comparison of these three is intentionally parallel to the first. However, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow one throws it into the oven, will God not much more clothe you? Jesus at least seems to suggest that humanity has only ethical problems to face and no economic problems. Yet, is that his point? Not only is nature more beautiful than clothing that money can buy, nature’s beauty is even fleeting. This produces another argument from the lesser to the greater, as humans, fortunately, experience greater longevity than the grass of the field. Therefore, they have no reason to doubt that God will care for them as well. Even so, the accusation at the end of this verse raises doubts for the audience --you of little faith (ὀλιγόπιστοι). Matthew often uses this phrase to describe the actions of the disciples. After he calms a storm, Jesus asked his disciples, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith” (Matthew 8:26) and continues to describe the doubt or questioning of the disciples in this manner (cf. 14:31; 16:8). ὀλιγόπιστοι is where fear and doubt meet faith. The doubts of the disciples and the doubts of those who heard these words of Jesus may register as fear. The words of this passage do not make sense on the surface. How can Jesus compare humans to birds, lilies and grass? If humans did not work, how would they eat, drink or wear clothes? (6:31; cf. 6:25). Faith as trust in God will not call forth necessities of life out of thin air, but it will direct us toward a just vision of life in which we have what we need rather than are being enslaved to needing what others have. How can Jesus compare humans to birds, lilies and grass? If humans did not work, how would they eat, drink or wear clothes? However, throughout the passage, the problem is not with the “property” or “wealth” of having food and drink to nourish the body or clothing to cover it — but with the idea of identifying life itself with the necessities of life. Yet people who mistakenly confuse these necessities of human life with the purposes of life consume themselves with “worry.” Such worry indicates a deficit of trust (“you of little faith,”) that God cares for humanity, just as God cares for the rest of creation — from the “birds of the air” to the “lilies” and “grass of the field.” So are human beings to adopt the patterns of “the birds of the air” and no longer “sow nor reap nor gather into barns” and let God feed us like animals who survive on what they find within their environment? Are we to “neither toil nor spin” to have clothing and instead adopt the mindlessly natural state of plants in the field? Of course not. Life is about striving, about working toward something. The issue, in the end, is: To what are we devoting our efforts? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things. This statement may have less of a basis in what the Gentiles actually did with their time and more of a function of what boundaries needed to be drawn around the community. In order to “serve God” (v. 24), this community could not seek after the things which would serve Mammon (money) (v.24).
Most of us have that moment when we ask a dangerous question: "Is this all that there is?" Jesus is asking that type of question here. In fact, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, showing they were also not to become ascetics. The question is not whether food, drink and clothing are important. The question involves whom we trust to provide these things. Thus, it involves the question of what we will need to form our identity, what we will need to integrate into the self that God wants to form in us. God knows our destiny,
The anxiety described here fixes on the self and leads to the concern expressed here. Jesus thus opposes this fixation upon self with concern for the reign of God.[67] For Jesus the goodness of the Creator and the paternal care of God are an answer to the human tendency to be anxious.[68] Based upon these verses, it rules out the possibility of any creature having less significance for God, as if it could be just a means to the higher ends of the divine government of the world. Every creature is an end in the work of creation, and therefore an end for world government as well. The care of God extends to the relations of the parts to each other.[69]
Jesus addresses the saying to those preoccupied with day-to-day existence rather than with political or apocalyptic crises. Jesus believed that God would provide for human needs. Jesus depicts the providence of God who cares for all creatures -- birds, lilies, grass, and human beings. Fretting about food and clothing does not produce food and clothing. Serene confidence that God will provide undergirds Jesus' lifestyle as an itinerant, without home or bed, without knowing where the next meal will come from. This complex of sayings is consistent with other sayings on wealth. Many ancient sages taught that life consisted of more than eating and clothing.
Let us admit that one takes a notable risk in preaching from this passage. How can we help caring for our lives? How can we model ourselves on the birds of the air and the lilies of the field? How can we seek the first the reign of God and divine righteousness in the assurance that food, drink, and clothes will be added to us? How is it all possible?[70] We can realize the absolute quality and seriousness of the divine command if we remember the prominent place that such statements as we find in verse 25 and 32 hold. We are simply not to be anxious or fearful. The anxiety and fear so strongly forbidden reveal that instead of going forward in confidence and hope, we have allowed ourselves to have the burden that can slow us down, looking upon a threat that confronts us, and by the considerations that one lets this threat interfere with the course of life. Anxiety is a little fear, while fear is great anxiety. Anxiety deals with the things of this world that we can envision. It focuses upon questions we have our future in this life. The anxious person longs for certainty in a world that will never be such. Anxiety and fear are the opposite of what the New Testament envisions as freedom. Fear and anxiety can determine what we do now, and thus, restricts our freedom of action. What we see in the future means for us that we are free for the present, even while we can only actually live in the present. It means we are not facing the essential. We have not advanced to that real love. We have permission to act, rather than hold ourselves in anxiety or fear over future possibilities. We are not a prisoner or slave to what we envision.[71] Further, from one perspective, such as advice as we find in verses 25 and 32 undermine the basis of the economy, without even seeking to replace it with anything else. This advice shakes “the basic pillars of all normal human activity in relation to the clearest necessities of life.”[72] The command for Sabbath rest has its basis here. Followers of Jesus are not to be anxious about life, food, drink, clothing, or the morrow. “Do not be anxious, do not worry” refers to the distress, burden, or tension that humanity accepts as inevitable, but which one really inflicts upon oneself arbitrarily by believing that on must speak the essential and decisive word in this matter by one’s own achievements in affirmation of one’s existence. One assumes responsibility to regulate the future envisioned in one’s own work. Yet, the real Father, by feeding the birds and clothing the lilies of the field, shows how graciously and mightily the Father cares for each person. This type of anxiety must cease. Anything done in anxiety is not done right as such.[73] The Heidelberg Catechism, question 26, says, “In whom I therefore trust, not doubting but He will care for my every need of body and soul, and turn to good all the evil that He sends me in this vale of woe, seeing that He can do this as an almighty God, and therefore will do it as a faithful Father.”[74] Our anxiety has no basis, and is empty and futile, because our Father indeed knows what we need.[75] This teaching of Jesus is not just a parable or picture of the divine order of creation. God orders the history of created beings in relation to the history of the covenant. We have here the true theme of the Christian doctrine of providence.[76]
33 Nevertheless, strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. The “giving” of these things is the same word as the potential “adding” of height or time to one’s life. Thus, what is impossible for humans in this discussion can be accomplished by God, who gives “all things.” If we took God as seriously as Jesus suggests, we would have undivided devotion to the rule of God rather than undivided devotion to earthly goods.[77] The type of anxiety about Jesus has concern would see if we took God this seriously. the concern of God is for the rule of God, which should also be the concern of the Christian.[78] The summons to subordinate all concerns to seeking the reign of God implies a conversion to God.[79] The call of Jesus that we should commit ourselves totally to the rule of God was the orientation of his ministry.[80] The uniqueness of the God who comes to rule excludes all competing concerns. If one is open to this rule, God already comes with this divine rule.[81] The issue in the end is: Are we, like those still not reconciled with God (the “Gentiles”), striving for these material things as if they were the sole purpose of life? Or are we striving “for the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” a realm of justice in which not only we ourselves but all of God’s creation is nurtured and sustained? If we take care of all people and all of creation, “all these things will be given to [us] as well.”
34 So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today." This admonition seems inescapably naïve. There is an inescapable quality to worry in this life. How can we leave tomorrow and its anxieties and confine ourselves to the troubles and joys of this day?
[1] Karl Barth (Church Dogmatics, IV.3 [71.4], p. 584-5).
[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 272.
[3] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 245.
[4] (Church Dogmatics III.2 [47], p. 459-461)
[5] (Church Dogmatics, IV.3 [71], 588-9)
[6] Archbishop Desmond Tuto.
[7] Martin Marty, Emphasis Ja-Fe 1996
[8]
[9]
[10] And the pious shall give thanks in the assembly of the people;
And on the poor shall God have mercy in the gladness () of Israel;
[11] Barth (Church Dogmatics, I.2 [16.2] 265)
[12] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Vol II, 398)
[13] —William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew (Westminster John Knox, 1968), 112-13.
[14] William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew (Westminster John Knox, 1968), 116.
[15] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Vol III, 528)
[16] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.1 [59.2] 243)
[17] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Vol II, 398)
[18] Richard Rohr, shared by Rev. Dennis L. Stone, Terrace Lake United Methodist Church, Kansas City, Missouri.
[19]
[20] Barth, (Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [67.3] 688)
[21] Barth, Church Dogmatics (IV.3 [71.5] 619)
[22] Barth, Church Dogmatics (IV.3 [72.3]
[23] Barth, Church Dogmatic (III.4 [55.3] 487)
[24] Barth, Church Dogmatic (IV.3 [69.3] 225)
[25] Barth, Church Dogmatic (IV.1 [63.2] 776)
[26] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 494.
[27] (Spinoza, Ethics, Chapter 6)
[28] Barth, Church Dogmatic (Church Dogmatics I.2 [19.2] 489)
[29] Barth, Church Dogmatic (IV.2 [66.3] 551)
[30] "Until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot nor one tittle shall pass away from the law, until all be fulfilled". So writes Matthew, and Luke, "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tittle of the law to fall." Who can say whether the rhetorical fulness of Matthew, or the pointed brevity of Luke is more likely to be original? Is the copiousness of Matthew that of the Galilean gospel, or that of (say) the Antiochene pulpit? If we look at the context, we observe that Matthew is developing a flowing discourse (5.17-48), whereas Luke is giving us one of those short paragraphs packed with gnomic sentences which are an occasional feature of his style (16.15-l8, cf. 12.49-53, 16.8-13, 17.1-6) We are left in complete indecision. Either could be adapting the other's text to his own purpose.
[31] Barth, Church Dogmatic I.2 [19.2] 517)
[32] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.3] 551)
[33] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 333.
[34] Verses 21-22a mirror a time when special rules were applied to behavior within the community of believers.
[35] --Martin Luther.
[36] --Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness (Eerdmans, 1992), 157.
[37] Verses 23-24, even though from a time when the sacrificial system was active, has the terminology of Matthew.
[38] Some scholars think it refers metaphorically to the body of the Christian community, at a time when it had to develop regulations for excluding members who did not conform to patterns of accepted behavior. To lop off members appeared preferable to having a contaminated body. Of course, the saying suggests that one should prefer a crippled body to the repeated ravages of temptation.
[39] (Moloney, 191).
[40] (Moloney, 191; Stephen Short, NIV Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979], 1169).
[41] Barth, CD, IV.3 [71.5] 625.
[42] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 525.
[43] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 184.
[44] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 372, Volume 3, 211.
[45] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2. 144.
[46] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 331.
[47] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 78.
[48] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 262.
[49] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 212.
[50] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 440.
[51] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 432.
[52] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 491-2.
[53] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 326.
[54] --Philip Gulley, For Everything a Season (Multnomah, 1999), 204.
[55] (Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.3] 169)
[56] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Vol. I, 445)
[57] Barth (Church Dogmatics, I.2 [14.1) 67)
[58] Verses 25-33 are from the source Q.
[59] (Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7, 402-403).
[60] (Modern Man in Search of a Soul)
[61] (Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7, 402-403).
[62] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Vol. I, 259)
[63] As the NRSV text note says, one can also translate this verse, “Can any of you by worrying add one cubit to your height?”
[64] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Vol. III, 640)
[65] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Vol I, 379)
[66] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Vol. II, 35)
[67] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Vol. II, 249)
[68] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Vol. II, 129)
[69] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Vol. II, 53)
[70] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.2 [65.2] 470)
[71] Barth (Church Dogmatics II.2 [37.3] 597-599)
[72] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.3] 178)
[73] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.4 [55.3] 554)
[74] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.1 [40] 39)
[75] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.2 [65.2] 469)
[76] (Church Dogmatics III.3 [48.3] 40)
[77] (Schweizer, Matthew, 164)
[78] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71.6] 654)
[79] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Vol. II, 311)
[80] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Vol. II, 329)
[81] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Vol. II, 330)
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