Matthew Gospel Lesson Common Time Year A
"Gospel" is not biography. It presents good news about what God has done. The author designs it to win people to faith in Jesus. Matthew was completed as we have it around 85 AD. He used a source scholars refer to as Q, the verses Matthew and Luke share, the Gospel of Mark (Ch. 3-4, 12-28 following Mark closely), and material unique to Matthew. Its place of origin is Syria.
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.
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 say 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 essentially 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.
The relationship between the first three gospels is a matter of much scholarly discussion. Something like 93% of Mark is in Matthew and Luke. There are also sayings that Matthew and Luke share, but which are not in Mark. Given the similarity in wording, it is not just a matter of three people giving a witness to the same event, so we are dealing with written sources that are in common. I offer one example of the issue.
The story of the call of Matthew/Levi becomes an interesting moment in the discussion of the relationship between the first three gospels. In Mark, the name of this disciple is Levi. The change, according to some, occurs because Levi does not occur in any of the lists of the disciples. Luke calls him Levi, while Mark calls him “Levi, son of Alphaeus” (Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27). Neither Luke nor Mark lists a Levi among the twelve apostles, though all three synoptic gospels refer to a son of Alphaeus among them — James son of Alphaeus (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15). The absence of Levi from Mark and Luke’s lists is understandable in that they both make it clear that the twelve apostles were chosen out of a much larger group of disciples (Mark 3:13-14; Luke 6:13). Matthew, however, does not say this. Although Matthew 5:1 mentions an indeterminate number of disciples with Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount, 10:1-2 simply states that he summoned his twelve disciples, and then lists the names of the twelve apostles as if the two groups comprised the same 12 people. If this were Matthew’s view, it might explain why he replaced the name Levi with the name of someone listed among the twelve. This begs the question, however, of why he did not rename Levi James son of Alphaeus in that Mark calls him Levi the son of Alphaeus. Ancient tradition would say that Matthew calls the tax collector Matthew for a quite simple reason — he recognized the story as being about himself.
The briefer account in Matthew places greater emphasis upon the shyness of the woman and the promise of Jesus that healing has come through faith. In verse 23-25, Matthew also has a briefer account than Mark on the healing of the daughter. It also removes many of the elements that focus upon the miracle. Matthew’s version is very similar to those of Mark and Luke, although he abbreviates both parts of the story fairly substantially. According to Mark, the woman with the hemorrhage is said to be immediately healed upon touching Jesus (5:29), but Jesus still tells her to “go in peace, and be healed” in verse 34, as if he did not know she had been healed already. Also, Mark and Luke make much over the fact that Jesus doesn’t see the woman he has healed in the crowd but simply feels power coming out of him and needs to stop and ask who has touched him (Mark 5:30-33; Luke 8:43-47). Matthew solves both problems of Jesus seeming to have insufficient knowledge of events, by simply having Jesus see the woman right away and declare her healed as soon as she touches him (Matthew 9:22).
One final aspect of this dual miracle account is unusual in Matthew, namely its placement following Jesus’ teaching on fasting. Mark’s order of events (followed by Luke) proceeds from the calling of Levi, to three teachings (on the inclusion of outcasts, fasting, and the Sabbath), the healing of the man with a withered hand and the listing of the twelve (Mark 2:15-3:19; Luke 5:29-6:16). The raising of the child and the healing of the woman with the hemorrhage do not occur in Mark until chapter 5:22-43 and in Luke until chapter 8:40-56. Matthew follows Mark’s order up to the teaching on fasting but then inserts the resurrection and healing story of Matthew 9:18-26, the healing of two blind men, a mute, and only then proceeds to the list of the twelve apostles. Matthew postpones the teaching on the Sabbath and the healing of the man with withered hand until chapter 12:1-14.
For some scholars, Matthew’s transposition of these two miracle stories seems odd in that Jesus’ teaching on the Sabbath, which places mercy for the man with the withered hand above considerations of correct Sabbath observance, would seem to flow well from Matthew’s citation of Hosea 6:6, and he is the only evangelist who cites Hosea 6:6! Matthew did not want to follow a story in which Jesus’ respect for ritual purity laws was questioned with a story that called into question his respect for the Sabbath. Instead, these two controversial teachings on Jewish law are separated by stories of Jesus’ miracles, one involving the resurrecting of a prominent Jewish leader’s child, perhaps so that Jesus’ power as a miracle worker might demonstrate his divinely sanctioned authority.
In the following studies, I will focus upon the presentation Matthew provides us. This assumes that Matthew has a valid approach to the story of the Jesus that we need to hear today. In another setting, it would be beneficial to sort through the material to arrive at what we might think Jesus of Nazareth said and did, but that setting is not here. I want us to hear the witness of Matthew as clearly and distinctly as we can.
Matthew 7:21-29 (Year A May 29-June 4) is the final portion of the Sermon on the Mount, waring against false prophets. A saying of Jesus (Luke 6:46=Matthew 7:21 Q) suggests that we need to ponder who can enter a life ruled by God. In the version in Luke, Jesus asks the rhetorical question of why some call him Lord but do not do the things he says. In Matthew, while profession of faith that Jesus is Lord is important, the test of qualifying for such entry is the doing will of the Father, for which we have prayed in the Lord’s Prayer to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Verses 22-23 (M), suggests that on the day of judgment that determines who will enter the rule of God, one would think that those who prophesy in the name of Jesus, cast out demons, and do many deeds of power in the name of Jesus, would be among those invited to enter. However, could persons who can do such mighty deeds subvert the way of Jesus? Such persons, endowed as they are with dramatic spiritual gifts, may not have the interior life or the character that Christ values. Jesus will declare that he never knew them. Thus, people who do extraordinary things have no assurances and may in fact be serving evil. External displays of religiosity are not always safe indicators of internal character and righteousness. Character and genuine righteousness are more important. Reflecting the rule of God in our lives is not a matter of the grand gesture, mighty words, or exercising prominent gifts. In verses 24-27 (=Luke 6:47-49 Q) we learn what genuine hearing means. Those who listen to Jesus’ teachings but do not act on them lay one kind of foundation; those who listen and then act build the other kind of foundation. The first invites destruction in the deluge, the second will withstand the final test. One displays wisdom when one builds one’s life on being a faithful doer of the word of Jesus. Reflect upon the beatitudes. Reflect upon a life of nonviolence and love. Reflect upon the genuineness of devotional acts. Make sure your life as a Christian is a matter of constructing a soul that embodies the Lord’s Prayer. The image of the two foundations belongs to common Israelite, Judean, and rabbinic lore. Several rabbis of the late first and early second centuries are credited with creating similar parables to stress the need of putting teaching into practice. It suggests that as Christians gather, they are in the process of building a foundation for their lives. God is patiently constructing an interior life and a life of character that can withstand the inevitable tests life will bring. Some of those tests will feel like a storm. Every choice we make is slowly constructing the type of person we shall be. Matthew concludes with an affirmation of what Jesus taught as from one who had authority.
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 (Year A June 5-11) contain the story of the calling of Matthew and the story of the daughter of the leader of the synagogue and her healing and the story of the woman suffering from a hemorrhage.
Matthew 9:9-13 is a story about Jesus involving the call of Matthew and the matter of eating with sinners. The invitation of Jesus to the tax collector (Matthew, but Levi, son of Alphaeus in Mark 2:14) to follow him in words similar as that to Peter, Andrew, James and John, and the tax collector responding in similar fashion as those disciples, shows Jesus as in Galilee crossing cultural and religious boundaries. These first five responses to the invitation of Jesus to follow him represent an ideal response to this invitation. Jewish contemporaries viewed tax collectors as crooked and unclean since they were the intermediaries of the Roman taxation system. This tax collector profited from his association with the Roman occupiers of Galilee, but he was on the bottom of the system. He was an outsider to both the Roman and Jewish culture, and to this person, the invitation of Jesus comes. Such a story ought to always challenge us as readers to look for the boundaries made by human beings to see if Christ is calling us to cross that boundary. The willingness of this tax collector to leave the job security, home, and other possessions he had may stimulate us to reflect upon whether Christ is calling us to depart from our setting and embark upon something riskier but fulfilling of the vocation given us. These are not easy questions to raise or to answer, but such a story invites to see and to hear our world and even our lives in a different way that we did before.
This invitation from Jesus leads to a pronouncement story concerning eating with sinners (verses 10-13=Mark 2:15-17, Luke 5:29-32). The gathering of disciples by Jesus in Galilee contributes to the controversy he will have with religious authorities. It may even seem like a mundane thing, yet, the company Jesus keeps generates controversy. Part of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee involves testing and crossing sacred boundaries in religion and culture. The inclusion of tax collectors and sinners at the table shows their participation in eschatological salvation. This act is rescuing the lost. Those who accept the message are no longer outcasts. They share in the salvation of the rule of God. The presence of salvation also relates to the removal of the barrier that separates from God.[1] The Pharisees condemn social intercourse with tax collectors and sinners because something about it constituted a violation of ritual purity laws. Pharisees and the disciples gathering around Jesus shared common concerns. Both were reform movements within Judaism that challenged the temple system and the ways in which that system had served to confine the expression of their faith. As a domestically based tradition, Pharisaism was very much concerned with table practice, the serving of meals and the extension of hospitality. Mark Twain called it “being good in the worst sense of the word.” Jesus did not seem to look down upon people because he knew they were struggling with something in their lives that brought them to this moment. Jesus is an example of accepting love. Yet, his table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners was part of what surrounded the ministry of Jesus with ambivalence that led to rejection and offense of his person.[2] The story arises out of the controversy Jesus had with the Judaism of his day and had continuing significance as the church in Israel continued in its struggle with Judaism. The matter of table fellowship remained a struggle within the early church, for even Cephas, who had come to Antioch, ate with Gentiles until representatives from James came into the city. He withdrew table fellowship out of his fear of those parts of the early church who thought that circumcision should still be an important Christian rite (Galatians 2:11-12). When Jesus overheard the criticism, he responded with a secular proverb: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Only by being willing to engage those who are considered impure can one reach them with a message of a better way of living. However, unique to Matthew, Jesus also invites them to learn the meaning of Hosea 6:6: ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice.’ He is placing covenant loyalty to other Jews above the need for ritual purity that was required for participation in Temple life. Jesus then admits that his mission is to call sinners rather than the righteous. His point is that Pharisees are already inside the circle of the covenant, but that he wants to broaden the circle or expand the table. The saying reflects solid early Christian teaching concerning the reason God sent Jesus. Yes, Jesus came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10) and Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (I Timothy 1:15). The contrast between "religious folks" and "sinners" reflects Jesus' social habits: he elects to associate with toll collectors and prostitutes, but not in a way that meant he refused to associate also with the socially respectable. Jesus wants his contemporaries to see that the reality of the rule of God is near and among them, especially in those religious authorities have labeled as outsiders. He wants his righteous contemporaries to see, know, and taste the goodness of the rule of God among us. Yet, Jesus gave offense due to those included in his table fellowship. The meals Jesus held or shared characterized his coming and the conduct of his disciples. When he accepted invitations from others, he made known his readiness to grant fellowship with him to those who issued the invitation. Others felt this to be especially scandalous in some cases because by his participation the table fellowship that he granted or accepted became a sign of the presence of the reign of God that he proclaimed and a sign of the acceptance of the other participants into the future community of salvation. The granting of acceptance of table fellowship by Jesus removed everything that separated people from God and his salvation. It meant the forgiveness of sins, so that table fellowship was a real symbol of fellowship with God and of participation in the future of the reign of God.[3]
Matthew 9:18-26 is a story of the healing of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of a woman. This version of the story has a leader of the synagogue, a respected leader in the community, kneeling before Jesus, as any desperate father would, to say his daughter has died, but still asking Jesus to lay his on her, expressing his faith in the power of Jesus to make her live. Jesus and his disciples follow. On their way, a ritually unclean woman, according to Leviticus 15:25-27. She has been ill for twelve years. Emphasizing her shyness, she touches the tassels (tallith) of the robe of Jesus, depicting Jesus as a Jew faithful to the Torah. She is engaging in non-traditional behavior, for oral tradition forbade a woman from touching this part of the garment of a man who was not a member of her family. She takes this risk because she seeks healing. Jesus turns, sees her, and offers encouragement to her, addressing her as daughter, and letting her know that her faith has made her well, and instantly she was made well. The restorative words of healing and peace finalize her healing. Here is an example of the kind of faith true disciples must maintain. She confronts lingering illness and the personal struggles that entailed, which makes the positive thrust of the story, her faith in Jesus, even more remarkable. Her appearance, gender, and status make her a surprising model of faithfulness. In this context, faith is the conviction that resources are present to meet the needs of this moment. The story becomes personal for the follower of Jesus. Do I believe I have the resources I need to face the challenges in this moment of my life? We know today that faith has certain characteristics, regardless of the content. As the story of the synagogue leader continues, however, Jesus arrives at the home of the man, witnessing the beginning of a funeral, flute playing and public expressions of grief. The sting of death is reflected in such public acts, especially when a young person dies. Such public action allows those affected by the death of this person to say that this person mattered, that something precious and irreplaceable has ended. Funerals close a door that needs to close so that we can move on with the rest of our lives. However, Jesus tells those gathered to leave, for the girl is sleeping. Their response is to laugh, for we live in a world where death is final. However, when the crowd left, he went to the girl, took her by the hand, and the girl got up, with the report of this spreading throughout the district, emphasizing the wonder working power of Jesus that directs readers to the divine authority of Jesus. The faith expressed by two people of different social status and gender become a model for readers.
Matthew 9:35-10:20 (Year A June 12-18) offers a summary of the preaching mission of Jesus and the summons by Jesus of the Twelve to continue his mission to Israel.
Verses 35-38 (Q) are a transitional summary passage on the healing mission of Jesus, while opening a new line of discussion in the mission and message of Jesus that must continue to spread throughout the land. Those who followed Jesus came from a large area around Galilee. He taught in the synagogues of the Pharisees, Jesus directly challenging his opponents. Typical of such services would be an exposition of a passage from the Hebrew Bible. The synagogue became the natural locus for his proclamation of the rule of God. He united teaching and proclamation of the good news of the rule of God. His word combined with his actions of bringing healing from disease and sickness. He did so as he saw the crowds and had compassion upon them. He internalized their suffering by seeing what truly harassed them. He provides a model for his followers in showing that one opens one mind to the situation of others, allowing their situation to affect him. Their situation entered his heart. He made their situation his own. He identified with them. Solidarity with the world means the genuinely pious approach the children of this world in this way. Those who are genuinely righteous sit down with unrighteous friends. Those genuinely wise are willing to be fools among fools. They are not too good to go into hell for a heavenly cause. [4] In this case, they had no good shepherd or leader. The crowds are damaged goods. They have broken lives. It is time to harvest them for the rule of God. Yet, he invites his disciples to pray for laborers. The Father will send them into the field. Jeremiah 2:3 says that Israel itself is the first fruit of the harvest. Joel 3:13 say the harvest is ripe. Paul wants to go to Rome to reap a harvest among them as he has among the Gentiles (Romans 1:13). John 4:34-38 refers to fields ripe for harvesting fruit for eternal life. The image suggests the final harvest will soon take place. Missionaries are to call people to repentance and prepare them for the final judgment. Praying for more laborers will mean that more people will receive the blessing of the approaching rule of God. The call of Jesus to “fish for people” finds its fulfillment in the disciples becoming laborers within a field ripe for harvesting.
Jesus did not live in a compassionate world. The temple was a bloody place with its sacrificial animals. The conquering Romans were brutal. To read the last part of Daniel and the books of the Maccabees in the apocrypha is to read of the barbarity of the Hellenistic empire against the Jewish people. Raiders from the east would occasionally try to invade the Roman empire. Many religions in the world still offered the brutality of human sacrifice to the gods. Hundreds of years later, Muslim armies strode across north Africa and into Spain and parts of France and east Europe before being turned back. Their approach was often to convert or perish. The Viking raids of the British Isles and Europe were done in the name of their gods, which required human sacrifice. Their vision of Valhalla, the palace of Oden, was to fight and kill during the day and feast with the enemy at night. Such was their version of heaven. It was a cult of death, as they bravely, courageously, and without fear marched toward it. I wish I could say that our modern world, with its democracy, scientific advances, and value for individuality, had somehow become more compassionate. The 1700s saw wars for independence. The 1800s saw the 30 years war between Catholic and Protestant. The 1900s saw massive deaths fighting colonialism (WWI), fascism (WWII), and Communism (Korea, Vietnam, Cold War). Stalin would kill millions of his own people to maintain power. The Communist Party of China becomes increasingly ready to use its economic power in an aggressive way and its military power to nations close to it. The bloody borders of Islam are known well, as those of Islamic belief keep pushing their religion through violence. Terrorism funded by the wealth of Islamic nations remains a serious threat to the freedoms so many of us come to enjoy.
It will not be an easy to become compassionate in a world so brutal. Our tendency is to meet brutality with force. Indeed, it may well be a certain type of compassion that strongly resists brutality. It will not be easy to look upon the crowds, the masses, with compassion. Those who view themselves as righteous often look upon its sin, drunkenness, violence, drug abuse, hatred, and war with judgment. Behind so much of the behavior that one might find objectionable is the result of confusion in dealing with the complexity of life.
Sociologist Peter Berger has described us Christians as a “cognitive minority.” Christian modes of thought deviate from the officially sanctioned, socially enforced systems of knowledge. The world’s “plausibility structures” by which it knows what is possible and permissible, tell the world that the Christian faith is implausible. “It is, of course, possible to go against the social consensus that surrounds us, but there are powerful pressures (which manifest themselves as psychological pressures within our own consciousness) to conform to the views and beliefs of our” fellow citizens. A subtle yet powerful policing keeps us from uttering and affirming certain Christian convictions within conventional society. Churches that seek to be faithful to the apostolic witness represented in scripture disrupt the culture by rescuing some people from its value system and inculcating people into a new culture called the church. Followers of Jesus need to stay focused on what they believe and value. Practice compassion, because people will be hurting, as they choose paths that lead to lack of meaning, emptiness, and guilt.
In 10:1-15 are sayings for instructions for disciples on the road. This missionary change suggests urgency and confrontation with hostility to the mission. The sayings are striking in what they prohibit: no food, no money, no extra clothes, and no luggage. They are to wear no sandals or have a staff. They are to exhibit the attitude of complete trust and reliance on the provisions of providence. They reflect the simple lifestyle Jesus advocated and lived. The first traveling missionaries of the community adopted a similar lifestyle. Jesus first calls them to himself, the only one who can equip these laborers. He will give them the authority he has shown in his ministry over unclean spirits and bring healing of disease and sickness. The list of the Twelve gives priority to Peter. The number would also have the theological significance of connection to the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus summons people to him who are not naturally friendly toward each other. If anything, it would be a challenge to form a team out of such a diverse group. The naming of the disciples precedes the second of the five discourses Matthew provides, suggesting Jesus is the new Moses or instructor of the rule of God. At this point, Jesus sends them to the lost sheep of Israel, rather than Gentiles or Samaritans. Jesus did not view himself as setting up a people of God separate from Israel. The proclamation of good news of the rule of God also connects the message of the disciples with Jesus and John the Baptist. They are to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons. They did not pay to receive this authority, so they are to offer this gift to others without payment. We find this saying reflected in II Corinthians 11:7 and I Corinthians 9:3-18. Paul will point out that he refused payment from Corinth. The Didache states that anyone who asks for payment is a phony. They are to take no money or extra tunics or sandals or even a staff. They would depend upon the hospitality of the people to whom they offered their service. Similarities with the Cynic pattern here is one of similar social manners, not just rhetoric. Let us consider their prohibition of the use of money. Diogenes Laeterius: "Diocles relates how Diogenes persuaded Crates to give up his property to sheep-pasture, and throw into the sea any money he had." Similarly Monimus, after deciding to follow Diogenes: "straight off pretended to be mad and easy flinging away the small change and all the money on the banker's table, until his master dismissed him; and he immediately devoted himself to Diogenes." Julian described Diogenes as "Cityless, homeless, a man without a country, owning not an obol, not a drachma, not even a household slave." Other statements: "if all the gold, all the silver, all the copper should give but, I would not be injured in the least." "... are you not afraid of the money? ... For by no means does money always profit those who have gotten it; but people have suffered many more injuries and more evils from money than from poverty, particularly when they lacked sense." Cynic teachers could also prohibit the use of the beggars’ bag under certain circumstances, even though usually, it was part of their property. Those most directly affected by Jesus' ministry would be most likely to preserve and spread the account of that ministry. Within just a few generations, Paul still had an itinerant ministry among resident communities and resident leaders. We also find recognition that some will not offer basic hospitality, in which case they are to move on to the next community. They are to offer blessing to all but allow the blessing to return to them if not received. They are to leave judgment to God.
Verses 11-13 focus on what these traveling missionaries are to expect in the reception or rejection. They can fully expect to face challenges and suffering. A worthy home is receptive to the gospel. They are to be content with the deserving house. The blessing promised to those who believe in the preaching of the disciples is a very real quantity: in the disciples’ words God himself visits people, comes to them, or departs from them. The content of their message is summarized in the word “peace.”
Verses 14-15 continues to focus on what they are to expect from their efforts and the response of the apostles to the welcome or rejection they will receive as they fulfill the mission Jesus gave them. They can expect to face challenge and suffering. Thus, they are to use the ritual act of shaking the dust off their feet as the leave the home or town to signify severing relations with one who does not welcome them. Defeat and failure are part of life. Such a sacrament of failure frees one to continue the mission in the face of failure. Given that Jesus objected to the purity laws of his time, the act of shaking off dust did not relate to the rabbinic notion of the dust of the heathen polluting a person. While Christian tradition values the virtue of perseverance, there is a faithfulness to the mission in letting go and moving on as well. Such a rejection is under the threat of an eschatological threat like that of Sodom and Gomorrah. Thus, these apostles can expect to receive a reception like that which Jesus received.
In verses 16-20, Jesus wants them to see the situation into which he is sending them. Why was it important to have this vision of being sent? Dio Chrysostom says he hoped it would gain him a hearing. To say one was sent responded to concerns about authority and authorization. It answered the implied question: And what gives you the right to say that? How is it that you can do this? The early Christians in Israel viewed itself as messenger-scouts, heralds of a better path to happiness. They are like sheep amid wolves. The band of disciples is not a haven from the threats in the world. One could imagine Jesus, with a twinkle in his eye, telling them in paradoxical fashion and in the form of popular proverb to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Stressing the official nature of the opposition (Mark 13:9-13), their opponents will bring them before governors and kings due to their testimony concerning him. The Spirit of their Father will speak through them at the appropriate time. The disciples of Jesus will receive hatred because of their faithfulness to Jesus.
Matthew 10:24-39 (Year A June 19-25) are a portion of the missionary discourse delivered by Jesus.
Verses 24-25 involves savings on the coming persecution. Verses 24 (Q and John 13:16) is a proverb that reinforces the traditional superior and inferior relationship between teacher and disciple, slave and master, pointing to a harsh reality of human cultures. The culture in which Jesus lived assumed social stratification. In this context, verse 25 (unique to Matthew) asks why disciples would have any reason to think that it will go better for them that for their teacher or why slaves would think it would go better for them than it has gone for their master. If “they,” the opponents of Jesus, have called the master of the house, in this case, Jesus, Beelzebul, how much more they will malign those of his household, in this case, the disciples. The exorcisms of Jesus made him an easy target of such accusations. Beelzebul is a variant of Baal-zebub (II Kings 1:1-6), a Philistine god at Ekron whose name (in Hebrew) literally means “lord of flies.” Matthew 9:34 reports: “But the Pharisees said, ‘By the ruler of the demons he [Jesus] casts out the demons.’” Similarly, see 12:22-29, where, after Jesus had healed a demon-possessed man. The close connection between Jesus and his disciples as that of teacher and disciple finds recognition here. However, the result of this identification is that the students will receive the same abuse and misunderstanding that their teacher suffers. [5] If Jesus is truly victor, due to the truth of the wisdom that the disciple is not above the master, the disciple knows that he or she will enter into the same conflict with the world that Jesus has.[6] Affliction accompanies Christian life, and we see here that the world will be a source of that affliction. The connection between Jesus and his followers will the world to bring affliction upon those who follow him.[7]
Verses 26-33 are sayings concerning public confession, an encouragement for the disciples to remain fearless witnesses for Christ. The end-time revelation of the judgment of God will bring to light who we are. The point is the encouragement to public profession of Christian faith. One can acknowledge and recognize this faith, but one does not complete the discipleship process until one professes. One is not genuinely free until one is a witness. The believer has a love for the people of this world and therefore professes what God has done and said in Christ. Such a witness occurs in the mere fact that they are who they are. The community humbly professes its faith.[8] Because Jesus’ followers were frightened, he told them three times within verses 26-31 not to be afraid of those who would want to persecute them. His followers are to fear God, recognizing that God can kill the soul and body, suggesting the soul is mortal. Their Father cares for the insignificant sparrow, so the Father will care for the follower of Jesus. They are to trust the Father fully. They have no reason to doubt the providential care of God. This means that every creature is a good in itself and not just a means to a larger end. God has in mind the good of individual creatures.[9] The world as it is leads to the affliction of the follower of Jesus. Jesus speaks for human beings, but human beings must also speak for Jesus. We are to publicly take our stand with Jesus. The confession of faith is a matter of taking sides with Jesus in the public dispute concerning his cause and person.[10] Verses 26b (Q=Luke 12:22, but another application in Mark 4:22=Luke 8:17) refers to the end-time revelation. Reminding us that secrets can be a dangerous matter, the judgment of God will bring to light the righteous and the sinner.[11] In verses 26a, 27 (Q=Luke 12:3) they are to have no fear of their opposition, for Christian faith is confession. The goal of the freedom in which Christ makes an individual genuinely free, free to believe in Christ, is the freedom to be the witness of Christ. Confessing is the moment in the act of faith in which the believer stands to his or her faith, or, rather to the One in whom one believes, the One whom one acknowledges and recognizes, the living Jesus Christ; and does so outwardly, again in general terms, in face of humanity. The existence of others gives the necessary summons to confession. According to their confession in the world, the existence of the Christian community likewise catches them up in the act of faith. The task of such individuals is to make this known in human language for human ears, and with the act of their human lives before human eyes. This witness occurs, not in great deeds, but in the mere fact that they are who they are, and that as such they say what they have to say and do what they must do and makes open use of the freedom that is given them to do this. [12]Verse 28 (Q=Luke 12:4-5) teach fear of God, a tenet of Israelite religious tradition, rather than fear of human beings. It admits that we fear rejection and loss, but both are part of growing up in this world. There is life beyond rejection and the loss of those we once thought might have been close to us. There are other things much more important of which to be afraid. The saying has a powerful application to the persecuted church of every generation. Given the end of the course of the life of Jesus in the cross, Jesus could easily have warned the disciples of the courage it will take to be a faithful witness in this world. The saying assumes the destruction of the soul is possible, and thus, the soul is mortal. The loss of the soul, the vital force of the individual, is the supreme loss. Verses 29-31 (Q=Luke 12:6-7) may come from common lore, like sayings on anxiety in 6:25-34, using concrete and striking images as well as hyperbole. While sparrows, worth so little to human beings, fall to the ground, facing their own dangers, they do not do so apart from the care of the Father. The Fathers counts every hair on our heads, a sign of divine lordship and ruling. [13] Thus, disciples are to trust the Father fully, knowing they are of more value than sparrows. They have no reason to doubt the providential care of God. The Father has intimate and detailed care for humanity. The saying address one of the greatest needs of us all, which is to be known, noticed, remembered, and respected. It recognizes the deep longing within us for love, to love and receive love and to move closer to the source of love, which is the essence of the human spirit. [14] This saying about the care of God for all the creatures God made rules out any creature having less significance for God as just a means to the higher ends of divine world government. Every creature is itself an end in the work of creation and therefore an end for the world government by God as well. Yet, the way in which God has the good of individual creatures in view, namely, with regard for the divine care of all other creatures, is different from what the creatures themselves seek as their good.[15] Verses 22-23 (Q=Luke 12:8-9) suggest that loyal acknowledgement of Jesus before humanity is a requirement of the disciples of Jesus. As we have noted, the world as it is leads to such affliction, the connection between Jesus and those who follow him will lead to affliction as well. In addition, Jesus Christ is the one who brings the Christian into affliction.[16] As Jesus will speak for human beings, human beings also have a responsibility to speak for Jesus. If they do not, they risk the loss of Jesus speaking for them.[17] Such a saying stands at the very beginning of Christian confession. It amounts to the sense of publicly taking sides in a conflict that arises relating to the message and person of Jesus. Confession of faith is taking sides for Jesus in a public dispute about his cause and person.[18]
Verses 34-39 are sayings on the coming cross. The text reveals what a fearless witness may expect to encounter. Jesus is not the peacemaker, but the bringer of a war. Most of us today are uncomfortable with this image of Jesus. The war is between this world and the new world Jesus seeks to bring. Followers of Jesus take this new world as worth striving for and seeking to make it as much a part of individual and corporate life today as possible. Here is a harsh reality of our reality. The Christian fellowship binds people to each other and will therefore introduce separation in other relationships, including family (verses 34-36, 1=Luke 12:51-53, see Micah 7:5-6; verse 37 Q=Luke 14:26). Jesus calls upon disciples to live their families (5:27-32, 19:1-14) and honor parents (15:1-9). We need to understand this saying in that context. Such love and honor within the family must not stand in the way of obedience to God. For Jesus, family ties faded into insignificance in relation to God's imperial rule, which he regarded as the fundamental claim on human loyalty. Jesus identifies his mission as bringing a sword rather than peace. The war will divide families. Jesus gives notification of the ultimate dissolution and disintegration of the world order, of the cleavage between yesterday and tomorrow, old and new, this world and the world to come. Certain people in certain situations must bear witness not to peace, but to the rule of God that that limits and qualifies it. [19] Even the primary loyalty of the ancient world, the household, Jesus sought to relativize given the priority of the rule of God. Jesus challenged the basic social and religious practice to its core. Such a household, comprised of husband, wife, children, grandchildren, and slaves, was a group to which birth irrevocably assigned one. Jesus points us to the priority of a family open to all who wish to join it. This saying is suggesting that Jesus comes to tear apart the ancient notion of the household, with its hierarchal system of gender and generations, with a new notion of the family of God open to all. The family expresses the values of society in miniature form. We first experience love and hate, respect and abuse, help and neglect. We may be at the giving or receiving end of each. The household was not just a center of domestic tranquility. It invited the use of power, and Jesus attacks its power center in this saying. The coming rule of God, provisionally present in Jesus, invites us to consider a new family open to all.[20] The tie to the household is no excuse for not becoming a follower of Jesus. Honoring family and parents, as important as it may be, must not stand in the way of obedience to God. They will suffer, even to the point of taking up the cross of persecution. the fellowship of Christians with each other or a form of binding oneself to others will not occur without all kinds of separations. One must disrupt and destroy all falsity that will corrupt human fellowship. In this sense, the sword of Jesus Christ will continuously prove to be necessary and powerful. Yet, one wields the sword with unity as the aim.[21] Such a statement is a reminder of the broken nature of the reality that salvation can achieve in historical form. Christian confession itself causes opposition that Christians cannot avoid if the cost is their confession. Thus, the unity of humanity in the reign of God is always a broken one as we see it in its historical form.[22] Such separation is the cost of faithful confession in this world. Jesus warns his followers that they must make life-and-death choices in the matters of to whom to be loyal and whom to fear. There are soul-shaking consequences to their choices. If their primary focus is avoiding rejection, death, or bodily harm at the hands of angry family members and other folks who oppose Jesus, then they deny Jesus and risk losing their very souls. Alternatively, they can choose to focus primarily on Jesus and his mission, no matter what the cost (even a cross), deny themselves, and follow him. These sayings remind us that there is life beyond this paralyzing fear of rejection and loss and that in the whole scheme of things, there are much more important things of which to be afraid. Jesus offers us the ultimate perspective of the rule of God, and from that eternal perspective, we will all realize that being a faithful witness and standing with Christ in this life is much more important than the fear of rejection and loss. A community of people unafraid of losing the praise and esteem of the world and even its possessions and building would truly be free. The point for us today is that Jesus does not play a secondary role to other commitments. Re-ordering commitments is a central moment in our discipleship. Here, Jesus is saying that discipleship means strengthening our faith ties to Jesus. A true disciple will value a relationship with Christ over other relationships.
Verse 38 (Q=Luke 14:27, but also parallel to Mark 8:34-5, Matthew 16:24-25, Luke 9:23-24) returns to the theme of persecution in its mention of the cross, the Roman government's most heinous means of inflicting criminal punishment. The pain, brutality and degradation of a death by crucifixion ‑‑ including the spirit‑stripping practice of making the condemned "take up his cross" on this final death march to the execution site ‑‑ was a torture reserved for only the most despised of state criminals. Yet this is the very image Jesus chooses to represent as the fate of his most devoted disciples. This means that each disciple has a cross to take up, rather than to fear, hate, avoid, evade, or escape the affliction that falls on the disciple. Discipleship becomes a matter of each Christian carrying one’s own cross, suffering one’s own affliction, bearing the definite limitation of death that in one form or another falls on one’s own existence.[23] Jesus used this image to express the cost of faithfulness. Epictetus said, "If you want to be crucified, just wait. The cross will come. If it seems reasonable to comply, and the circumstances are right, then it's to be done, and your integrity maintained." He is rehearsing one of several consequences of adopting and living in accordance with a certain philosophy. He would likewise graphically depict the cost of assuming a comparable way of life. One can conceive of such a fate as imagined here because of the social challenge and outrageous behavior in which Jesus seems to have participated. Bearing one’s own cross is no easy burden. Jesus suggests that there will be a shared solidarity of suffering between himself and his disciples. As we have noted, Jesus is suggesting that while the world as it is leads to such affliction, the connection between Jesus and those who follow him will lead to affliction as well.[24] Jesus required his disciples to bear his cross, but only as far as they were to bear their own. That is, their cross meant the consequences of the special calling and sending they received from God. Sharing the cross and death of Jesus thus means subjecting all else to the specific divine calling that each of us receives just as Jesus himself subjected all else to his own sending by the Father and for the sake of it was willing to go even to death.[25] self-denial in the context of following Jesus involves a step into the open, into the freedom of a definite decision and act, in which it is with a real commitment that people take leave themselves, the person of yesterday, of the people they were. They give up their previous form of existence. What matters now is not the self, but to follow Jesus, regardless of the cost.[26] Following Jesus in this service means co-crucifixion with Jesus. Paul, in fact, suggests this in Galatians 2:19-20, where he says that he has been crucified with Christ so that now, his life is a matter of Christ living in and through him. The focus on discipleship is identification with the destiny of Jesus.
C.S. Lewis wrote (The Four Loves) that if you would love you would suffer. We cannot even love a dog without at one point or another feeling the pain of loss, assuming we outlive the dog. The greatest of all things-love-is itself most intimately bound with suffering. It is a poignant irony, I think. In our attempt to avoid suffering, we cut ourselves off from the one thing that can mitigate it: each other. Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering, because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice, because, given temperamental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain. When we know that the way of love, this exodus, this going out of oneself, is the true way by which man becomes human, then we also understand that suffering is the process through which we mature. Anyone who has inwardly accepted suffering becomes more mature and more understanding of others and becomes more human. People who have consistently avoided suffering do not understand other people. They become hard and selfish. We have no literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy. We have only moral answers. Yes, in the face of suffering at the hands of other human beings we may despair. Yet, hope also comes from other human beings.[27]
In verse 39 (Q=Luke 17:33, John 12:25) focuses on what we must do to fine life. The reward is that those who give their lives away will discover life. We discover life in giving it away rather than desperately holding on to it. Even if death is the result, the disciple has preserved the true self. The saying expresses the supreme value of the true self. There is no greater gain and no price to one can put upon it. This saying is true first of Jesus. Had Jesus saved his life at the cost of his proclaiming the divine lordship, he would have made himself independent of God and put himself in equality with God. He could not be the Son of God by an unlimited enduring of his finite existence. No finite being can be one with God in infinite reality. Only as he let his earthly existence consume itself in service to his mission could Jesus as a creature be one with God. He did not cling to his life. He chose to accept the ambivalence that his mission meant for his person, with all its consequences. He showed himself to be obedient to his mission.[28] Such renunciation is in favor of the living Lord, Jesus Christ.[29]This claim is the form of the Gospel, of the promise of the free grace of God by which alone human beings can live, but by which one may live in the full sense of the term.[30] In a sense, by choosing oneself, one loses what one seeks, becoming supremely non-human. To do so is to give oneself to the pride that is the heart of human behavior.[31]
Matthew 10:40-42 (Year A June 26-July 2) conclude the missionary discourse with sayings on hospitality. Verse 40 (Luke 10:16, John 13:20), suggests that anything which is simply a hospitable exchange between two persons is an exchange between four - the host or hostess, the disciple, Jesus, and the one who sent Jesus. Sayings about welcoming a messenger were common in the Mediterranean world. To welcome an emissary was tantamount to welcoming the person who had dispatched the emissary: “a man’s agent is like himself” (Mishnah, Berakhot 5.5). To receive the disciple is to receive Jesus, which is also to receive the Father. This means that even in the simplest relationships, the Father is the one who initiates by sending Jesus, and then Jesus sends the disciple. In a sense, qualifications for acceptance within the circle of Jesus drops dramatically. The tiniest hint of respect and interest for those who witness for Jesus qualifies as inclusion. Such persons are not opponents. Strangers are not always a threat or a nuisance. Anyone can assume the stance of those who welcome guests into our lives. The ethic behind these sayings is that of reciprocity. The messenger of Jesus is offering a gift through preaching, teaching, and actions. Some people will respond with the gift of welcome and a simple act of kindness that will bring refreshment. In general, the one who offers hospitality to a stranger is willing to welcome something new, unfamiliar, and unknown. Strangers have stories to tell that may stimulate the imagination in new directions. Coming from a different life-world than our own, hospitality to the stranger opens the door to a novel perspective that may expand us.[32]Verse 41 (unique to Matthew) encourages followers of Jesus to welcome others. The earliest church had wandering missionaries, prophets, and righteous people, who had authority to teach. They moved from one congregation to another, often despised and persecuted, always dependent on hospitality. Verse 42 (Mark 9:41) is a proverb that drops acceptance into this network dramatically, for all Jesus requires is the tiniest hint of respect and interest, a cup of water to the little ones, the ordinary member of the community, is hardly being a measure of exuberant hospitality, in those who witness in his name. Jesus elevates the virtue of hospitality among his followers and promising that those who practice it will receive a heavenly reward beyond what is owed. These sayings encourage simple acts of kindness. Such hospitality is a way the follower of Jesus can show the world a unique way of relating to the strangers that come into our lives.
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 (Year A July 3-9)
Matthew 11:16-19 (Luke 7:31-35) concern children in the marketplaces, expressing the solidarity of Jesus with John. Jesus compares this generation of adults to children offering childish ridicule. They harass each other by playing the flute as at weddings and wailing as if for a dirge to leading to mourning, chiding others for not participating in the game they are playing. Jesus compares the crowds to a gang of spoiled and sulking children. They complain that no one will play a game, whether wedding or funeral, with them. Neither John nor Jesus fulfilled their expectations, as they stand apart as critical observers. While this generation thinks John has a demon because of his lifestyle, it also thinks the lifestyle of Jesus means he is a glutton, drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners, an accusation made in Deuteronomy 21:20-21 against a disobedient child who is to be stoned to death, purging the evil from the community. It presents a slur on the style of Jesus. “Be not among winebibbers, or among gluttonous eaters of meat” (Prov 23:20). Such a saying contrasts John the ascetic with Jesus the glutton and drunk, and this generation unhappy with both, Jesus portraying it as sulky and immature. The crowd discounts John because his abstinence is too strict, while the crowd rejects Jesus because his behavior is not strict enough. In an ambiguous proverb, Jesus suggests the wisdom of God in choosing these servants, John and Jesus. People show their wisdom by receiving John and Jesus. This wisdom was demonstrated in the changed lives of those who followed him. It is a call not to sit on the sidelines as an uninvolved spectator, not to live under any illusions, for this generation will always have its wisdom, but true wisdom will often lay in places this generation will not expect or desire.[33] By deflecting the questions of John’s disciples about Jesus’ identity, and by undermining the people’s expectations about John’s identity, Jesus can focus his hearers’ attention on the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom is the common point of reference for both Jesus and John, as the substance of both their teaching and their ways of life, and thus the source of their identities. Implicit in the text is the question of whether we are open our closed to Jesus as a revelation from the Father.
Matthew 11:25-27 (Luke 10:21-22) is a saying concerning good news revealed to the simple. Jesus expresses thanksgiving and adoration. [34] Jesus offers a prayer that begins with offering thanksgiving to his Father, and the reason for his thankfulness, paraphrasing Psalm 8:2, is that the Father has hidden the truths he is preaching from the wise and intelligent but revealed them to those of childlike, untutored faith who see the signs Jesus performs as anticipations of the rule of God. Typical of the wit of Jesus is his castigation of the scholars, yet Jesus acknowledges his failure to reach the scholarly class. Acknowledging the gracious will of the Father, Jesus speaks the truth regarding the relationship between the Father and the Son in its divine mystery and revelation. The saying denotes the special dignity of Jesus. We cannot think of the Father apart from the Son.[35] Jesus of Nazareth has already received the power other texts assign to the exalted Lord. Because the royal rule of the Father is present in and through Jesus, because the eternal Son has taken human form in him, the power of the Father has also been imparted to him.[36] God is infinitely above all that is human and creaturely. One may know God only through the Son. To know the incomprehensible God we must hold fast to the Son.[37] Even the pre-Easter Jesus can claim that the Father gives him all things.[38]Only here is the concept of revelation set forth as a formal principle of the knowledge of faith.[39] Ignatius expresses the thought of the self-revelation of God by the Son becomes a concept related to the Incarnation.[40] Irenaeus could also say that the Son reveals the Father by his manifestation to us.[41] Justin argued that the preexistent Son revealed the Father, the Son becoming visible to us.[42] The same basic thought occurs in Athanasius, where he says the Logos appeared in the flesh in order that we might attain the knowledge of the invisible God.[43] However, in contrast, the Son is the mediator of revelation, but not the revelation of the Father. The function of the Son corresponds to that of the angel in the receiving of revelation by the apocalyptic seer. In essence, Christ gives a revelation he has received from the Father.[44] Any knowledge people have has its origin in the movement between Father and Son. God was always a partner with humanity. The Father was the partner of the Son, and the Son of the Father. The closed circle of the knowing of the Son by the Father and the Father by the Son is penetrated only from within as the Son causes people to participate in this knowledge by revelation from the Son.[45] There is privileged knowledge shared by Father and Son, and there is privileged communication between Son and follower. Knowledge is not simply intellectual but is a personal bond. Note the exclusiveness with which only one, the Son, is chosen by God to know him. The danger is that no one will recognize him. Knowledge of the Son is incomplete, never total. The exclusive‑sounding language of the verse is not to restrict access to God. Rather, this verse describes the basis for Jesus' authority. As God's chosen one, Jesus has exclusive knowledge of God's will for the coming kingdom. Likewise, only God fully realizes Jesus' future eschatological role. Because Matthew's discussion here is on Jesus' role as the Messiah, the reader will need to understand the verse in those terms. The intimate connection between Jesus and God described here relates to how it impacts Jesus' function as Messiah. This text shows the confidence of Jesus has its basis in the intimate relationship between Son and the Father.
Matthew 11:28-30 (unique to Matthew) is a saying with the theme of the yoke and burden. Having offered thanksgiving to the Father, Jesus offers an invitation to be in relationship with him. The saying echoes the invitation of Jesus ben Sirach (180-175 BC, Ecclesiasticus or Book of Sirach 51:23-27) when he urges the uneducated to draw near to him, rather than rigid adherence to the Law, and dwell in the house of instruction, putting their neck under the yoke of wisdom and let their souls receive instruction, noting his example of laboring little and finding for himself much serenity. Jesus has become personified Wisdom, urging his listeners to come within the circle of relationship with him. He denounces teachers of the Law in Matthew 23:1-4 and Luke 12:45-46, saying they have loaded people with burdens hard to bear (see also Acts 15:10). The easy yoke and light burden could also connote the promise of forgiveness for those bowed under the weight of their sin, who turn to Jesus in repentance and faith. The “rest for your souls” mentioned in verse 29 is not a cessation from labor, but the assurance and confidence that may result from relationship with Christ and the knowledge that we belong to him. He is the one who gives rest. [46] Jesus becomes the Sabbath rest advocated in the fourth commandment. Coming to him fulfills the obligation of that commandment. Because he is “gentle and humble in heart,” never haughty or demanding, Jesus assures this restless, childlike generation that the “yoke” of this relationship will be “easy” and “light.” People do not come to some abstract legal system or doctrine, but “to me,” to divine wisdom in person. The affinity of Jesus is with those unassuming in their relationship with God.
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 (Year A July 10-16) is the parable of the sower and its explanation (Mark 4:1-9, 13-20, Luke 8:4-8, 11-15). The use of threes in oral performances of this parable functioned as an aid to memory and served to stabilize the structure of the parable. Matthew has retained this triadic structure, while reversing the order of the yield. The sower is not overly cautious, throwing seed everywhere, confident there will be a harvest despite the losses. He keeps sowing his seed, believing growth will come. The wise farmer knows that not all the seeds will fall on fertile ground, that not all the sprouted seeds will grow to fruition. The farmer also knows, however, if he sows abundantly, he can overcome expected losses. As applied to the ministry of Jesus, he keeps sowing. the word of the rule of God, even though it lands on religious people who wonder if he is possessed (12:22-24), on disciples who struggle to understand him (16:21-26) and on at least one young rich man who cannot part with his possessions to follow Jesus (19:16-22). The response to the ministry of Jesus ranged from hostility to a lack of response. However, some seeds fell on good soil, some 100 bushels, some 60, and some 30, although the average good harvest would yield 10 bushels of wheat for every bushel of seen planted. There were already signs of an abundant harvest. The word of the rule of God is fruitful. The point is the surprising and outlandish results, which could only be the result of divine activity. God will cause an abundant harvest in the end. The sower will not sow in vain, for Jesus is Victor, even if the victory is not self-evident. [47] Such an eschatological interpretation of the parable has the merit of focusing on the abundant harvest. Despite the obstacles, the success of the preaching of Jesus is assured. We as listeners are to have the same careless abandon as those who follow Jesus. We are to speak the gracious and judging word without calculating its potential for success. Everything depends upon what God will do.[48] He concludes with a saying from common lore that anyone with ears is to listen. Those who hear have responsibility to receive the word and let it produce fruit. The Word goes out as the one message and summons to humanity, has concern with the hearers of the Word, and the strangeness of the truth to the world as shown in the response to the Word. What we have here is reception, acceptance, appropriation, and comprehension. Beyond hearing and understanding is true knowledge that appropriates and does.[49]Discipleship may well be that wonderful adventure in sharing in the confidence of the farmer. Yes, the world remains fickle, resistant, and hostile. In the short term, this means willingness to fail. It also means focusing upon hope and resilience. It means deep trust that that by the grace of God at least some of our work will bear fruit. Listen to the story of the Sower and learn that Jesus is incredibly generous in the way that he shares the word of the kingdom with all the people of the world. Listen and learn that God's Word is incredibly fruitful, and that a great harvest is guaranteed. Listen and learn that the coming of the rule of God is not something that we can control. Everything depends on what God will do. The interpretation of the parable in verses 18-23 differs from Mark in minor ways. The interpretation shifts our attention to the soil, with the message that we can all be good soil, people who hear the word of the rule of God and understand it. We need to resist turning the interpretation into a judgmental parable concerning the hearer of the word. The encouragement here is to be active listeners to the word of the rule of God.
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, (Year A July 17-23) is a text unique to Matthew that contains the parable of the weeds and its allegorical interpretation. The focus is on the discovery of weeds sown by the personal enemy of the farmer. The presence of the enemy is a reminder of the Lord’s Prayer in 6:13, where the disciples are to as the Father to for rescue from the evil one. The focus is also upon the farmer’s intent to let the weeds grow until the harvest, when there will be enough time for separating wheat from weeds. While such weeds would be expected, it was typical to remove them at various stages of the growing season. Thus, this farmer offers a surprising response to the presence of the weeds. The patience and grace of the farmer in the present time, the time between sowing the seed and the harvest, becomes the focus of this parable. His concern is to tend the field patiently, despite the mixed crop growing in it. Rather than endanger the wheat growing up with the weeds, the farmer chooses to let both weeds and wheat continue to grow side by side. The farmer refuses to do anything that might injure the wheat just to rid himself of the weeds. His concern is to tend the field patiently, despite the mixed crop growing in it. Furthermore, he might be implying a level of distrust in the ability of his slaves to separate properly the weeds from the wheat. The expectation of the parable is that we will sow seeds despite affliction, trial, and difficult people that evil may use to impede us. In the ministry context of Jesus, it would represent a strong protest of the practice of groups like the Pharisees, the Qumran community, and the Zealots. They had as a goal a pure community defined by their obedience to the Law. Jesus will demonstrate how this parable works. Judas was among the Twelve. Jesus spends much of us time with people whom the righteous might consider weeds. He reserved his harshest words to the self-righteous and judgmental. He would have no sympathy with a moral crusade to uproot evil. Jesus is saying that the time before the harvest of the anticipated end of human history is a time for patience and grace by those who devoted to the rule of God. The reason is that even as the farmer sows good seed, the enemy, Satan, is sowing bad seed. Only God can see the heart. The time before the end is an ambiguous time. In other words, Jesus' presentation of the rule of God in these parables indicates that it is both "already" and "not yet."[50] The danger in trying to create a pure community is greater than being patient and graceful. The parable and the interpretation of it call into question the idea of anyone other than God separating "authentic members of the covenant community from false members."[51] It acknowledges that we live in an imperfect world and therefore an imperfect community of faith, so be patient and gracious, and do not even try to put oneself in the judgment seat that belongs only to God. The interpretation warns against false security. The Son of Man replaces the patient farmer. The unrestricted flow of time as we experience it meets here the eschatological expectation of Christ as oriented to an end of this time.[52] Matthew leaves no doubt as to whom the world belongs. Evil will be cast into a furnace of fire and the righteous will be vindicated, shining as the sun in the kingdom (13:41-43). Thus, neither evil nor the evil one has the last word. Indeed, in this parable Matthew suggests that the prayer of 6:13 "rescue us from the evil one" (NRSV) will be answered. In his depiction of future judgment, Matthew assures his readers of the certainty of divine rescue. The church remains a provisional community, remaining open to the future of God and the divine judgment.[53] Concluding with a piece of common wisdom, let anyone with ears are to listen.
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 (Year A July 24-30) contain a set of parables that provide a good example of what it was like to learn from Jesus. The text is primarily a set of parables concerning the rule of God. Our image of the rule of God and the image of the rule of God in these parables may not be the same. Thus, although the rule of God is difficult to see today, Jesus invites us to see and then act appropriately. Such response would mean with joy and total commitment. As we learn in his ministry, Jesus invited people to follow him by leaving behind everything. These parables will invite us to consider what we value in an ultimate way. Jesus calls us to make a total commitment to something that we will not easily see or observe. The difficulty we will have in seeing is something like the difficulty many people have with wisdom. Part of our difficulty is that we lose ourselves in the trivialities and distractions that so often tempt us their direction. We may hear wise words from a person, but to hear in a way that leads to an insight or enlightenment that affects the way they live is a different matter. Such an observation also invites us to reflect upon the way we treat people who do not see what we see. Regardless of the truth we think we see clearly, we need to remember that truth has a hidden quality to it. Making our way through life is not easy. We know incompletely as if through a poor reflection in a mirror (I Corinthians 13:9, 12). We have some light, but only the dim light just before dawn (John Locke). We do not see clearly or distinctly (in contrast to the hopes of Rene Descartes). Jesus is hinting at such difficulty in these parables. Is the rule of God already present? If so, the rule of God is hardly obvious and tangible. In what sense is the rule of God present? Should I give myself to something that is not clearly observable? Many scientists would answer in the negative. Many poets and novelists would answer in the positive. Jesus seems to side with the latter. If the rule of God is so intangible, what type of influence will it have upon individuals and society? If the rule of God is present in this hidden way, in the natural processes of human life, then God must have much patience, grace, and respect for us to allow for the influence of the rule of God to spread in this way. If so, then we as those who learn the lessons of the parables must have the patience and grace with each other when we see little evidence of that rule in self, others, church, or society. Let us explore such matters for a moment.
This is no theological treatise Jesus gives us. It is more like a pile of snapshots.
Jesus will teach the lesson of the mustard seed (31-32, Mark 4:30-32, Luke 13:18-19). The rule of God is like a mustard seed. In a proverbial sense of his time, the mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds. The weed was an annual shrub that would grow from two to six feet tall. One could cultivate it for spices.[54] In unusual cases, it might get 9 to 15 feet high, so “tree” might be appropriate. Birds will make their nests in the branches. Jesus is drawing on imagery from the Old Testament. Ezekiel 17:22-23, 31:6 refers to the mighty cedar providing shade for the birds. Daniel 4:12 has a similar image that finds its interpretation in the king providing protection to people in verses 20-22. The distinctiveness of Jesus at this point shows itself in the image of the rule of God as a shrub rather than the mighty cedar or oak. The image may even be a critique of the arrogance of the image in Daniel. The arrogance to which the image appeals in Daniel gives way to the modest affair of the rule of God as proclaimed by Jesus. The rule of God offers little by way of earthly reward, and thus contrasted his view of the rule of God from the typical hope human beings have for greatness. The rule of God is inconspicuous, growing in its ability to provide shelter for others.[55]
Jesus will teach the lesson of the leaven or yeast (verse 33, Luke 13:20-22). The rule of God, for Jesus, is like the yeast a woman works into flour. The yeast is present, working its influence, even though hidden from sight. Just as the woman intentionally hides the yeast, so also God intentionally planned the hidden quality of divine rule within humanity. Jesus takes a simple image of domestic life and turns it into an image of the rule of God. The small amount of yeast contrasts sharply with the large amount of flour. The smallness of the amount is an indication of the profound affect it will have. This hiddenness is the result of the divine plan. The rule of God will not appear to succeed. A surprising element here is that Jesus takes an image he uses for evil and now uses it in a positive sense. The New Testament customarily regarded leaven as a symbol for corruption and evil. In Matthew 16, his followers are to beware the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees. Mark 8:15 refers to the leaven of Herod. I Corinthians 5:6-9 refers to leaven as well. Thus, such a positive use of the image of leaven would be striking and provocative. Jesus might even suggest that the rule of God has dubious moral value. If so, he would be contrasting the values of the rule of God with the values of human authority. The difficulty of this image is whether humanity will be able to discern the working of the rule of God at all. Yet, according to Jesus, the rule of God is near, in the natural relationships and processes of a human life.[56]
Jesus taught the lesson of a hidden treasure (verse 44), a parable unique to Matthew. The rule of God is like a jar with coins or jewelry hidden in a field. Given the nature of the oppressive rule of the Romans, hiding household valuables like this would be common. It was also a way to protect against thieves. Surprisingly, someone finds it, hides it, and has joy, which is the focus of the parable, and sells everything he has to buy the field. The treasure is the real actor in the story. Jesus could point to the dubious moral quality of the act of the finder, but a focus upon that would seem to miss the point. The rule of God is like a hidden treasure that one finds, has immense joy in finding, and is willing to sell everything one has to possess it. If one would put forth such effort for an earthly treasure, should one not give up everything if one finds the rule of God? The finder has joy because of the presence and nearness of the rule of God. Such joy and commitment reflect the call of Jesus for his audience to respond to the nearness of the rule of God.[57] Those who see the rule of God will spare no effort to attain it. The point is the joy and sacrifice of the finder.
Jesus taught a lesson involving the merchant as the finder of an excellent pearl (verses 45-6), which we find uniquely in Matthew. The pearl was a common image for something precious. Jesus used it to refer to wisdom in Matthew 7:6. The rule of God is like one of the few of the upper middle-class entrepreneurs of the day, a merchant, who is searching for excellent pearls. In this case, he finds one of immense value, sells everything he has, and buys it. As a practical matter, such an act would do nothing for the merchant. The merchant seems silly. Yet, Jesus invites us to reflect upon what we value. Jesus implies the excitement and joy of the merchant, but also stresses the sacrifice and commitment of the merchant to possess the pearl. Jesus also viewed his ministry as proclaiming what is of ultimate value, the nearness of the rule of God before people who are searching. Jesus calls his hearers to make the type of total commitment the merchant makes here for something that is of only finite and earthly value.[58]
Jesus taught a lesson of the fishnet (verses 47-50), which we find uniquely in Matthew. The rule of God is like anglers who drew into their nets fish of every kind. Only at the end will they separate the good from the bad. Jesus would eventually face such a bad fish in Judas, of course. The fellowship of the church will always include some bad fish. The fellowship is always a mixture.[59] The point here would appear to be patience until the end. Human beings do not have enough knowledge or wisdom to make the decision while they are fishing for people.
As Matthew ends this collection of parables (verses 51-52), he has one more thing to add about parables. The disciple has a responsibility to interpret the parables. Matthew wants people to “understand.” The disciple is the new scribe schooled in the rule of God. Draw upon old and new images. One needs to understand the claim the rule of God has upon our lives. The rule of God as Jesus understood it draws upon images from the Old Testament, but in the light of Jesus, the follower of Jesus will see the rule of God in a separate way than did Israel. The way to wisdom in the present is the unfound door, the lost lane, and the forgotten language of the past. Remembering it will be the key to our enlightenment today.
Matthew 14:13-21 (Year A July 31-August 6) relates the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17, John 6). It speaks of those who recognized in Jesus the One promised by the religious tradition of Israel. This is the one miracle story that all four gospel writers saw fit to include in their works ‑‑ the feeding of the 5,000. The early church prized this story, undoubtedly because the story shows a mighty work of Jesus that had a symbolic relevance to the Eucharist and to the promise of the Messianic banquet. Popular historical explanations abound, such as Jesus inspiring people to share their meager portions of food with others or that they survive on meager rations. They have their moral value. Yet, they tend to miss the point. Let us see if we can capture the point of the story, for it is a revelatory moment. It challenges the reader to see truly the risen Lord, who is present in an unexpected way. It invites us to consider possibilities beyond common sense. The point is not showing how Jesus breaks the laws of physics and biology, but of seeing truly the possibilities of this moment as we consider the reality and presence of the risen Lord. Albert Einstein famously said, “The way I see it you have two ways to live your life: the one as if no miracles exist and the other as though everything is a miracle.” To be open to the miraculous is to be open to impossible things becoming possible. It is a stance toward life that is fundamentally hopeful. Contained within a miracle story is the challenge to truly see the possibilities inherent in faith, hope, and love.
We see Jesus retreating to a deserted place to be alone. We see the crowd finding him. We can see a contrast with the meal of Herod who, filled with evil jealousy, kills the prophet John the Baptist. Jesus will have a joyful, thankful, eschatological meal. In contrast to political leaders like Herod, who used violence to keep the people oppressed and to take away popular leaders like John the Baptist, Jesus showed compassion upon the people and healed them. Jesus wants to be alone to reflect upon the significance of the death of John the Baptist. We can see the hesitant way of Jesus with the crowds, recognizing their longing for political deliverance, a longing from which clearly Jesus wanted to keep his distance.[60] The crowds have come to a deserted place somewhere in Galilee to be with Jesus. We are not sure why they come. They may have awareness of their spiritual need. They may have curiosity. They may have political concerns. Jesus does not seem to care why they came. The disciples inform him that the crowds need something to eat, but Jesus invites them to feed the crowds. Such a story about Jesus recalls a story of Elisha II Kings 4:1-7, 42-44). During a famine, he invited a man carrying 20 loaves of barley to serve the people and let them eat. The servant of Elisha wonders how such a small amount will feed so many people, but Elisha assures him that the people will eat and have some left over. Many people think that this story about Jesus is a Midrash on this Old Testament story. In addition, in I Kings 17:8-16, Elijah allows the meager rations of the widow of Zarephath to provide enough food. We are also to think of Exodus 15 (manna provided in the wilderness) and Numbers 11 (quail). Such stories indicate the promise of heavenly nourishment, which in the time of Jesus would have an eschatological import. The people of God receive nourishment today that contains within it a promise of eschatological abundance. Jesus becomes the one sufficient to meet the needs of those who follow. The disciples believe they are out of resources. The only solution is for the hungry to provide for themselves. The disciples do not believe they have anything to offer. Their response is that Jesus needs to send the crowds away, a response that creates distance. When Jesus blessed the meager food, blesses and breaks the loaves, and has the disciples distribute the food, we are to think of the Lord’s Supper, even though the story does not have anything comparable to the cup of wine. Jesus does not ask the crowds their views on Herod or the Romans occupying their homeland. He does not ask their views on John the Baptist. He does not ask them about the differences between Jesus and the Pharisees. To put it in modern parlance, he does not ask if they are progressives, conservatives, or another political brand. He does not ask about their views on the hot topics of the day, such as abortion or gun control. At some point, we need to have enough spiritual awareness that our political issues are petty when placed alongside the Infinite and Eternal. The late hour, a place set apart, arriving on foot, a time set apart are all reminiscent of the later cultic act of the faith community. Yet, the crowd is not only satisfied, but they have plenty of leftovers. The needs of the crowd may overwhelm us, but they do not overwhelm the risen Lord. Our meager offering of our time, talent, and treasure is what the risen Lord blesses to meet the needs of the crowds. One places confidence in God always and is especially confident when all other sources have run out. When the faithful begin to act with faith, sharing our resources with others, miraculous things begin to happen. Trusting in God, and acting with compassion, scarcity is transformed into abundance. The story also wets our appetite for the eschatological and Messianic banquet, where we will set aside the finite issues that seem so important now and find ourselves satisfied by what Jesus gives us.
Matthew 14:22-33 (Year A July 7-13) is the story of the miracle of Jesus walking on the sea (Mark 6:45-52, John 6:16-21, with verses 28-31 unique to Matthew). It speaks of those who recognized in Jesus the One promised by the religious tradition of Israel. Jesus will show his personal need to spend time alone with his heavenly Father. Granted, Jesus may need separation from the crowds. Granted, he may feel the need to isolate himself from the murderous designs of Herod Antipas. However, the key point is that Jesus nourished his relationship with the Father by this time alone in prayer. We assume this time of prayer in the account of the temptation in the wilderness in 4:1-11, along with the explicit statements in Mark 1:35 and Luke 5:16. Of course, Jesus on the night after his last supper with the disciples will have time alone in prayer in Matthew 26:39-44. Although such references are rare, we can assume it was his custom to do so. Jesus experienced the immediacy of the filial relation to his Father. Those who follow Jesus share in this immediacy and filial relation. Paul suggests this familial relation in Romans 8:15, where, as adopted children of God we have the privilege of the immediacy of the presence of the Spirit who inspires us to call out, “Abba, Father.” In I Corinthians 14:15-16, he refers to praying with the spirit and mind. Part of following Jesus will always deal with the quiet prayer of individuals alone with God.[61] The Christological focus of this miracle story, this revelatory moment, is the most important part. The sea is a common symbol of chaos, evil, and demonic power, identified as a god or a serpent. The power to still the sea is an attribute reserved for God, where God calmed the sea (Job 26:12), stirred up the sea (Isaiah 51:15), and the Lord calmed the sea after sailors through Jonah into it (Jonah 1:15). Raging waters in the Old Testament are important metaphors for the power of the lord, who controls the seas and subdues storms, who rules the sea (Psalm 89:8-90, who is mightier than the raging sea (Psalm 93:3-4). Such power reminds us of the passing of the Hebrew people through the Red Sea, commanding the Sea to dry up like a desert in Psalm 106:9. Quite likely, Israel historicized this myth in the story of the crossing of the Sea of Reeds. Storms are also metaphors for evil forces active in the world, evil forces from which only God can save. Thus, we see in Psalm 69:1-2, 14-15 that the waters threaten to overwhelm the writer like a flood, where he is sinking into the deep water and mud. Thus, the stormy sea is much more than an uncontrollable, unpredictable action of nature. The sea is a malevolent expression of the power of a destructive force that stalks the created world. The sea is a force of chaos that moves against the divine will. We see this in Genesis 1:1-2, where the Spirit or wind from God hovers over the deep waters of chaos (tehom, etymologically related to Tiamat, the mythical dragon of the Babylonian creation myth, whose slaying was necessary to bring forth creation), where God walks calmly on the waves of the sea in Job 9:8, and where God made a road through the raging waters in Psalm 77:19. Interpreting this story as a walk of Jesus on the Sea of Galilee misses all this by focusing upon breaking the laws of physics. The authors of this story were aware of the background to which I have pointed and were aware of what the disciples faced in terms of chaotic, destructive forces as they traveled with Jesus. The chaos creates a problem for the disciples in the boat, but the walk of Jesus on the water shows he has authority even over the chaos. Most importantly, interpreting this story as history misses the overlapping images of the appearance narratives. Thus, it was early in the morning that Jesus is walking toward them, as in the appearance stories, on the sea, and the disciples see him, as in the appearances narratives, and in their terror think they are seeing a ghost, which is also like the appearance narratives. The appearance stories suggest the difficulty of recognizing that whom they saw was the risen Lord. When the risen Lord urges them not to be afraid and to have courage, for “it is I,” the story echoes Exodus 3:14 and the revelation of Elohim as Yahweh. The presence of Jesus in the chaos is to give the disciples confidence and help them overcome their fear. The text says nothing about Jesus himself ordering the seas to calm. And while this text admits the disciples' boat is making little headway in its journey, it does not claim their lives are endangered by the stormy conditions.
In the material unique to Matthew, the focus turns to Peter. We might think of this as an Easter narrative that expresses something of what the appearance to Peter meant. Peter asks the one who conquers chaos to command him to walk on the chaotic waters. We learn an important aspect of discipleship here. When Peter trusted and obeyed the word or command of Jesus to join him on the chaotic waters, he provided an example for us. The call to discipleship binds us to the Christ who calls us. Discipleship will not exist without obedience and trust.[62] Peter is an example of the stumbling around nature of following Jesus as well, occasioned by his doubt in the leadership and authority of Jesus amid chaos. We can identify with Peter's panic attack, for the fear of falling‑‑of sinking‑‑has hit everyone at one time or another. Yet, in his doubting condition, he is aware enough to know Jesus could save him. Further, despite the failure of Peter to trust, the risen Lord does not give up on Peter. The risen Lord lifts Peter out of the chaotic waters. When they enter the boat, the disciples worship him and offer a corporate confession of faith that he is the Son of God, replacing the conclusion in Mark that focuses upon their remaining doubt. In the synoptic gospels, this is the only occasion when the disciples, as distinct from crowds, opponents or demons, acclaim Jesus as Son of God. At Jesus’ baptism, according to Matthew (3:13-17) the heavens were opened, and the Spirit/Breath/Wind of God descended upon him and a voice from heaven declared Jesus “my Son, the Beloved” (3:17). In Jesus’ baptism, water has been completely transformed, through the Spirit/Breath/Wind of God, into the instrument of Jesus’ new (public) identity: He is God’s Son, exactly as he is declared to be by the disciples when the Spirit/Breath/Wind of God transforms the water across which he walks into an occasion of revelation. Such a confession of faith by the disciples becomes a model for an event that has occurred countless times in the lives of people throughout history. We as readers have an invitation to allow such a transforming event occur in our lives as well. If we do, such a moment will be the defining event in our lives. Such a statement reflects the post-Easter affirmation of the church. With this addition by Matthew, a story in Mark that ended with the doubt of the disciples ends with a confession of faith in Jesus. We might best think of the story as Matthew tells it as something like a post-Easter appearance of the risen Lord and the coming to faith of the disciples, with special attention to Peter.
Matthew 15:10-28 (Year A August 14-20) contains sayings on the theme of points of Jewish law (beginning in verse 1 and continuing to verse 20), and an example of Jesus encountering ritual uncleanness outside of the land of Israel. The source is Mark, with a few additions and significant alterations from Matthew. The mode of a disputation is the cast of the whole episode like those that took place between Pharisees and Christians after 70 AD. We best understand the entire reading as Jesus innovating by setting his words and deeds in contrast to certain points of Jewish Law. In doing so, Jesus invites us to consider the mission of the people of God in the world.
Jesus was not going to maintain a rigid adherence to the code, even if that is what faithful Jews of the time did, if it hindered accomplishing the larger purposes of God. He is opening a discussion of right and wrong. Jesus makes it clear that the path to solid, supportive, healthy relationships, self‑respect and a quality life starts with the usually painful decision to do the right thing. One way to think of what it was like to learn from Jesus is that he encouraged a focus upon development of character, courage, and conscience. He saw that the Judaism of his time was not accomplishing the mission God had for it to be a light to the nations. The primary obstacle was its adherence to ritual code in the changed environment of Hellenistic and then Roman occupation. The Jewish people show much enthusiasm for the ritual tradition, their code, so much so that they are no longer cherish the mission God gave to the people of God to be a witness to the nations.
Verses 10-11 (Mark 7:14-15) challenges Jewish law of what goes in. . Part of the concern for ritual cleanliness focused on food, and thus, what went into the mouth could make one clean or unclean. Jesus directly assaults this tradition in a way that assaults a way of life. It would appear to assail kashrut and thus the continuing significance of a crucial element of the Torah and the oral tradition. Such a view explains in part why Jesus could so easily cross boundaries that Torah and its oral tradition had established. In uttering the aphorism that what comes out of the is what defiles, Jesus rejects the laws governing pollution and purity of the Jewish tradition. What defiles people is not what they eat but what they do. Jesus is abrogating the Torah concerning clean and unclean meats. In Leviticus 11:43-44, we read: “You shall not make yourselves detestable with any creature that swarms; you shall not defile yourselves with them, and so become unclean. For I am the LORD your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” The laws of purity were an essential feature of Israel’s piety. Jesus’ statement, therefore, is a radical notion. However, he responds in the tradition of the prophets that challenges the practice of ritual considering the practice of ethics.
Verses 12-13, unique to Matthew, has the theme of the plant rooted out. It relates an exchange between Jesus and the disciples, in which the disciples inform Jesus that he has offended the Pharisees by his statement regarding ritual cleanliness and purity. His response is simple. In a saying, common lore or a common proverb, he says that anything God does not sponsor will fail, dismissing the threat of the religious authorities. Taking a stand as Jesus does inevitably invites the opposition to stand up.
Verse 14 (Luke 6:39) contains two sayings from common lore, Jesus warning his followers that Pharisees are like a blind leader leading blind people, causing both to fall into the pit. The biting and edgy comment refuses to acknowledge the Pharisees as those who see clearly and can lead the spiritually blind. Paul also refers to Jews in the congregation who are sure that they are sure guides for the blind, light to those in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, and a teacher of children (Romans 2:19-20). Such a saying foreshadows the developing and deadly relationship between Jesus and religious leaders.
Verses 15-20 (Mark 7:17-23) has the theme of what comes out and represent an explanation and development of the view of Jesus on ritual purity in verse 11. Jesus’ pronouncement that nothing ingested can contaminate a person is a statement explained by pointing out the purgative role of the alimentary tract. One should be able to see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer. Our bodies will eventually expel the food we eat. The body purges itself of any impurity that might come from food. It will do so naturally. However, what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart or conscience, if it is full of evil intentions reflected in disobedience to the moral concerns related in the second table of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:13‑16), will pollute everything to which we relate. Such a list is like what we find in Romans 1:28-32, where Paul will refer to degrading passions, coveting, envy, murder, strife, deceit, gossips, slanderers, as well as other expressions of wickedness and evil. The moral element of the Ten Commandments remains in play for Jesus, the earliest Christian community, and Paul. We might also think of the list in Colossians 3, where if we are to live authentic lives we will not lie to each other. We will bear the burden of the other. We will practice love and forgive. We are at peace. We live gratefully before God and each other. We might also think of Galatians 5:22-23, focusing our lives on love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Our words and actions arise from who we are. Jesus shows little interest in how we feel about ourselves. He wants us to develop proper character, conscience, and values, and have the courage to live that way. If the heart can be a cesspool, it can also be the peaceful, flowing stream that encourages the development of virtue, character, and a clear conscience. Followers of Jesus are to focus upon the real wrongs human beings do toward each other and therefore against God. These moral infractions make one impure and unclean; they arise from our hearts. Jesus focuses upon doing the right thing, which is difficult in a culture that is uncertain if truth or falsity exists or if right and wrong exist. Yet, avoiding the question would lead us down a self-destructive path. That life is one that is like -- to God -- a sweet-smelling sacrifice of praise! "For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing" (II Corinthians 2:15). We live like Christ, and "walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Ephesians 2:15).
Matthew 15:21-28 (Mark 7:24-30) has the theme of the healing of the daughter of the Canaanite woman, with significant alterations from Matthew. Peter, then later James, led the Palestinian branch of the early church. Paul, on the other hand, understood the focus of his missionary work on gentiles. Paul was closer to Jesus on this point than Peter or James. Yet, for us to reach this conclusion, we have some difficult sayings of Jesus to consider. Leaving Galilee, Jesus leads the disciples to Tyre and Sidon. Food grown in Galilee was disbursed in the markets of Tyre. [63] This visit foreshadows the Gentile mission, being an example of the way Jesus challenged notions of ritual purity. While Jesus wants to avoid crowds, human need finds him. A Canaanite, a people who had long been enemies of the Jewish people, considered pagan. A woman breaks the strict behavioral codes of decency in approaching Jesus because of her need, an act that makes her character questionable. The point is that these exterior matters do not make the encounter unclean, but pollution could arise if zeal for ritual purity led to a failure to do the right thing. She approaches Jesus in a theologically correct way, addressing him as Lord and asking for mercy. She refers to him as Son of David, a title offered by the common folk who were able to see Jesus as the Messiah of Israel. Her request involves a demon tormenting her daughter. Verses 23-25 are unique to Matthew, where Jesus lresponds with silence, which give the disciples an opportunity to give the advice to Jesus that he send her away, and Jesus says with theological correctness that he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He affirms the primacy of the covenant of God with Israel, despite a form of disobedience that makes them more like lost sheep. Jesus will not abrogate the promises of God to Israel for the sake of this woman. his concern was not so much with ritual purity. He was open to the non-conforming elements of Israel. He would have had regular contact with Gentiles in Galilee. Jesus did not view himself as forming a remnant in contrast with Israel. His movement was open to Israel as a whole.[64] Biblical tradition ordained that to save all humanity the message must first go to Israel so that the Jews could then witness to the rest of the world. Jesus testifies to the continuity of God's special covenant relationship with Israel, even though disobedience, hard-heartedness and legalistic nit-picking may have made them little more than "lost sheep" in divine eyes. Jesus is not about to abrogate God's promises or redefine his divine mission simply to quiet a single disruptive Canaanite woman. However, she worshipped him and asked the Lord to help her. The woman responds by coming to Jesus again in a theologically appropriate way. She properly kneels before him in reverence, the sign of faithfulness in the Gospel story. She again addresses him with the theologically correct term, Lord. She offers a pathetic plea for help. She is tenacious. She has enough faith that she turns Jesus from his view of his mission. Verse 26-28 returns to Mark. In response to her begging on bended knee for deliverance, not for herself, but for her daughter, the response of Jesus, if read the way most readers would seems curt, cold and cutting. I can imagine Jesus wanting to teach a lesson to his disciples. Jews often referred to Gentiles as dogs and themselves as children of God.[65] The statement may well be ironic rather than dismissive. The statement becomes a direct invitation to the woman to engage him in some intellectual banter. Jesus may want to see a response of faith in this woman. Jesus had a smile, as if chiding those in the room to consider whether the woman really is what Jewish attitudes say she is. He looked at his Jewish disciples as he referred to offering food to the children (of Israel) before offering food to (Gentile) dogs. He looked at the woman and said it in a way that made her feel acknowledged as a person. Thus, if Jesus is engaging in teasing banter or sparring, then his comment that she is like a puppy is an invitation to be his sparring partner. He is honoring her with this invitation, for rabbinical sparring is a role explicitly denied to women in that time. She accepts the invitation to engage Jesus in a sparring match. She has humility, faith, trust, confidence, love, persistence, and cheerfulness. Hearing the remark of Jesus, she responds with playfulness and wit, using an ironic sense of humor. We see evidence in the exchanges in the gospels that Jesus had with his contemporaries that he could appreciate such humor. She acknowledges her secondary position in the mission of Jesus, but she has her place as well. Her response impresses Jesus. Her clever use of Jesus' own image demonstrates to him that there is still a way that she might receive a portion of God's bread. The woman is in a lengthy line of biblical examples of those who engage God in a debate. I think of Hannah (I Samuel 1), Abraham (Genesis 18), Jacob (Genesis 32), Moses (Exodus 3-4), Gideon (Judges 6), and the book of Habakkuk, as part of the biblical background for such an interpretation of this exchange. It makes one wonder what would have happened had Noah had the argumentative spirit of this woman and the other biblical cases. Questioning, pushing back, expressing doubt, showing irreverence, and arguing are not out of bounds. We need not fear that we will offend God. God will have the final word, but we may receive insight, inspiration, understanding, and blessing -- or if not those things, at least the comfort that comes from having aired our grievances, even if the answer is not that for which we had hoped. Speaking plainly to God about the things that nag us about God and the will of God is still an act of faith. That she would not only speak out but also cleverly and incautiously talk back to this man Jesus while asking for his help is even more outrageous. If this is the case, then the woman is not beating Jesus in this verbal contest of wits so much as rising to the challenge Jesus has given her. Jesus teasingly insulted her by calling her a dog, and she twisted the reference to place herself among those who would be part of God’s eschatological banquet. Thus, the second quality we see in the woman is humility. She had a humble spirit. Jesus is testing her faith. Jesus is setting up a chance to level the playing field between the Jews and Gentiles, like the way he eliminated clean and unclean food items earlier in this chapter. Either way, the woman responds with a humble spirit, and instead of being defensive, she is contrite. She might be a cultural dog, but she will gladly accept that position if it means receiving the food she seeks. Such humility opens the door for the reception of great gifts and graces. Her humble response meant that grace and honor were on the way.[66] She is persistent and determined, and Jesus respected that in her. Yet, the humor or cleverness of the woman is not what impresses him. Rather, he focuses upon her faith. Jesus defines the new qualification for admission to the table -- faithfulness. The faith, trust, and confidence of this woman becomes an example of why external barriers of ritual purity need to be abrogated to accomplish the mission of the people of God to be a light in the world. While religious tradition is valuable, lit must not get in the way of doing the right thing in this moment and in this encounter.
Matthew 16:13-20 (Year A August 21-27) is a story of the confession of faith by Peter (verses 13-16, 20, Mark 8:27-30, Luke 9:18-21, verses 17-19 unique to Matthew). Peter offers an affirmation of faith that becomes a model for others. Historically, some scholars see no problem as to the possibility that the disciples might have wondered if Jesus were the Messiah. The disciples would hardly have left everything if this were not the case.[67] The affirmation of faith by Peter occurs in an area well known for its many temples, especially to Pan.[68] The Cave of Pan is at the foot of Mount Hermon, north of the Golan Heights. Greek and Roman myth identified it as one of the entrances to Hades, though the other caves are in Greece. The geographic symbolism of moving from the northerly point in the mountains north of Galilee to the southern mountain on which Jerusalem rests becomes clear. [69] Jesus asks the disciples who people are saying the Son of Man is (whereas Mark has who “I am”). People are speculating that he might be John the Baptist, Elijah, and Matthew adds Jeremiah to this list, or one of the prophets. The disciples, the first readers, and even us as modern readers, can sense that while these attributions are complementary, especially since in the Jewish thinking of the time the age of prophecy was over until the Messiah came, they are also incomplete and therefore are missing the mark. Hope arises as Jesus asks the disciples whom they think he is, and Peter responds that he is the promised Jewish Messiah. Messianic expectations were primarily triumphalist, promising political deliverance of Israel and its restoration to power. At times it is translated “Messiah”; other times “the Christ.” The title harkens back to the Jewish understanding of “the Anointed One” — one who had been anointed by God for a special purpose. In the Old Testament, one sees this primarily in relation to kings and priests and carries the connotation that not only has God chosen the person, but God has also empowered the person. It can refer to the anointing of Aaron and his sons (Exodus 29:21), the anointing by the Lord of Saul (I Samuel 10:1, 6), David (I Samuel 16:13), and the anointing by the Lord of the prophet (Isaiah 61:1). It was a title of honor and majesty. A warrior prince would conduct a crusade that would liberate the nation and lift Jerusalem to eminence for the entire world to see. The anointed one anticipated the triumph of Israel over its foes. “God’s Messiah” was the name of the prince in the Psalms of Solomon (50 BC). Jewish people welcome him as a conquering hero.[70] In Mark this profession of faith is dramatic because the tension of the story of Jesus builds to this point, becoming the first time the disciples comprehend the identity of Jesus. This memorable statement becomes a model for others. Peter affirms his faith only in the presence of Jesus and the other disciples. It would have been a confession or witness had he done so on the night of the arrest of Jesus.[71]These verses have parallels in other passages. In John 6:66-69, many disciples turned away from Jesus because of the difficulty of his teaching. Jesus asked the twelve if they also wished to turn away from following, but Simon Peter said they had no one else to whom to turn, for he had the words of eternal life. “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” In John 11:25-27, Jesus informs Mary, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Mary responds, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” In Mark, the Christological question posed answered, his gospel will focus upon the fulfillment of the messianic mission of Jesus as he moves toward the cross and resurrection. Matthew adds to Mark that he is the Son of the living God, like the response of the disciples in 14:33.
Returning to the Mark source in verse 20, the response of Jesus to the affirmation of faith, surprisingly, is that they tell no one he is the Messiah. The reason, undoubtedly, is that the term had political implications Jesus did not share. The fact that Peter has a wrong‑headed notion of what messianic duties are will come soon enough. He did not understand the job description of Messiah in the same way as Jesus did. Jesus tried to stop people from telling about his deeds or magnifying his person. Mark, however, refers to the regard that the work of Jesus evoked and that led to the post-Eater awareness of his divine sonship. Such an account contains traces of a traditional realization that Jesus was aware of the ambivalence into which his message thrust him and that he tried to counteract it.[72]
The church understands itself historically as the people of God who profess Jesus of Nazareth as the coming of the promised Jewish Messiah. This profession is what makes Christians who they are. What the church as is one who came in Jewish flesh and one through whom God saves and redeems. He was the son of a Jewish carpenter, he lived briefly, he died violently at 30, and he unexpectedly rose from the dead. The church believes it has seen as much of God it hopes to see in this life. One may study the documents and conclude differently from that of the church. He may have been a Jewish revolutionary figure who died a disappointed failure (Reimarus, 1691-1768), showing how this is the case by removing miraculous element from the gospels (David Friedrich Strauss, 1808-74). By focusing upon him as an apocalyptic preacher of the immanent rule of God, one could view him as one dying with disappointment in the end not coming when anticipated (Johannes Weiss, 1863-1914, and Albert Sweitzer). One might tell the story of Jesus as a romantic figure, a strange, sweet, spirited poet, moral teacher, and example (Ernest Renan, 1823-1892). One might portray Jesus as a moral philosopher of timeless ethical truth (H. J. Holtzmann, 1832-1910). Such authors have their reaction to the question asked by Jesus, who do you say I am? Our images of Jesus often reflect our aspirations. Yet, the risen Lord keeps breaking free of our images.
The incomprehensible and ineffable nature of truth and reality will make many persons hesitate to offer such an affirmation of faith that here, in Jesus, we have encountered such truth and reality. It seems arrogant to make such an affirmation. Many Christians, desiring not to give offense, will back away from the uniqueness of the saving work of Christ. As science shifted from a geocentric view of the solar system to the heliocentric one, an enlightened theology recognizes Christology as an anachronism. It may well be that an absolute center does not exist.[73] Yet, the affirmation of this nonexclusive particularity of salvation in Christ may well be the condition for genuine respect from others.[74] The secularity of this age lends itself to becoming perpetual tourists of religious claims, refusing to land anywhere as your home. The church that seeks to remain faithful to the apostolic witness still asks, “However, what do you believe? On what will you bet your life? What commitment, which attachment, will determine how you live, move, and have your being?”
We have developed far more complex affirmations of faith than we see from Peter. The Council of Chalcedon in 431 adopted its creed. The creed defines that Christ is “acknowledged in two natures,” which “come together into one person and one hypostasis.” The formal definition of “two natures” in Christ sides with Western and Antiochene Christology and diverges from the teaching of Cyril of Alexandria, who always stressed that Christ is “one.” Regarding the person of Christ and the Hypostatic union, Chalcedonian Creed affirmed the notion that Christ is “One Person,” having “One Hypostasis.” The creed states explicitly the Christological notions of “One Person” (monoprosopic — having one prosopon / Greek term for “person”) and “One Hypostasis” (monohypostatic — having one hypostasis) to emphasize the Council’s anti-Nestorian positions.
Verses 17-19, unique to Matthew, have Jesus affirming the affirmation of Peter, recognizing it, against an apocalyptic background as a revelation normally reserved for the future by the Father choosing to reveal to Peter now. Assuming the church already exists, the rock of this affirmation of faith will be the basis upon which the risen Lord will build the church. We find a similar statement in John 1:35-42, where John the Baptist identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God. The two disciples follow Jesus. After spending time with Jesus, Andrew tells his brother Simon that we have found the Messiah. He brings Simon to Jesus, who also renames him Cephas or Peter. The task of the church is to rescue people from the forces of evil that lead people to sin and death. Binding and loosing is the power of excommunication, giving Peter as an authorized teacher of the community the function of allowing only those worthy to enter. A misunderstanding and misapplication of this text would be to refer to a form of church discipline in which certain individuals, even a Pope, has a part in determining who are true Christians and who are not.[75] Peter and the disciples have a unique and unrepeatable role in the life of the church.
The passage gives us an opportunity to reflect upon the role of Peter in the early church. John 21:15-19 gives to Peter a special role in feeding the sheep of Jesus and promises Peter will follow the path of Jesus toward suffering and crucifixion. Galatians 2:11ff indicates that Peter left Jerusalem and moved to the Syrian church at Antioch for his missionary work, as in I Corinthians 9:5. Paul seems unafraid to stand against Peter when he was clearly in the wrong. In Corinth, some groups in the church identified with Peter as their authority (I Corinthians 1:12). This at least hints that the role the authority of Peter in the early church had a contested element in it. Paul famously stated in I Corinthians 3:11 that the only foundation to the church is Jesus Christ. Some scholars think Paul is arguing against the tradition we find reflected in Matthew. We also need to remember that Peter will lead the disciples in opposing Jesus in his journey to Jerusalem. He will lead the way in deserting Jesus at his arrest. Thus, Peter represents their disloyalty and weakness as well as provides a model affirmation of faith. The interpretation of this passage that led to the Pope claiming he inherited the keys to which Jesus refers to here has led to clerical pride and arrogance. Peter and the apostles have significance only as they embrace the path of suffering that Jesus will follow.[76]
Matt 16:21-28 (Year A August 28-September 3) consider the importance of the cross in Christian discipleship. After every reference to his approaching death, Jesus begins a new lesson on discipleship. The Synoptic Gospel story divides the ministry of Jesus into two stages, one in Galilee, and one on a journey toward Jerusalem.
Matt 16:21-23 is the first prediction of the passion. The source is Mark 8:31-33 with a shorter form in Luke 9:22. It is a post-Easter statement of the faith of the early church regarding the end of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. It reflects a summary of the core beliefs of the early church. The moment of the confession by Peter that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God in the previous passage becomes the hinge moment. The Rabbi Jesus shows, not teaches, that there is a divine necessity upon his life. Both "show" and "must" are terms frequently emphasized in apocalyptic writings. A sequence of events is about to unfold whose outcome is part of the divine plan‑‑not the choice of Jesus. In this case, the sequence of events is the movement of Jesus toward Jerusalem and the undergoing of great suffering there through the actions of the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, but God affirming his life and ministry by raising him from the dead.
Paul in I Cor 15:3-4 wrote a summary of the core beliefs he received, undoubtedly soon after his conversion, which would have been about three years after the death of Jesus. It contains a summary that relates the death of Christ for our sins “in accordance with the scripture,” and of God raising him to life “in accordance with the scripture.” Luke uses similar terms. In Acts 2:23-24, Jesus the Nazarene received death through the power of the Jewish leaders and the foreknowledge of God, crucifying him through Gentile powers, but God raising him to life, freeing him from Hades, for Hades did not have the power to hold him. In Acts 3:15, Peter again says that they killed the prince of life, but God raised him from the dead. In Acts 3:18, God said through the prophets that the Christ would suffer. In Acts 13:27-31, Paul relates that the people of Jerusalem and their rulers fulfilled the prophets. Jesus was innocent, but they condemned him and asked Pilate to have him put to death. They carried out scripture foretold. Then, they took him down from the tree and buried him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead. He appeared to his companions, and they became witnesses. We can see that the early tradition behind the passion story recognizes the divine necessity of the innocent suffering and death of Jesus in fulfillment of the prophetic testimonies of scripture. We can contrast this early tradition with later theological interpretations that give the death of Jesus an expiatory significance.[77]However, this view of the death of Jesus corresponds well with Galatians 5:2, which says that Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. The crucifixion is not so much the goal of his message and ministry as the result of his faithfulness to his prophetic call.[78] However, some scholars believe Jesus concluded that the Son of Man and Messiah must suffer. Thus, although Mark (and Matthew accepting it) has framed the prophecy that reflect post-Easter faith, there is no reason to think Jesus could not have thought creatively about his own fate, considering the prophets, the death of John, and the hostility of Jewish leaders. Jesus may have surmised his fate, but the details may come from the early preaching of the church. Under this view, Jesus prepared the disciples with the concept of Messianic suffering and later exaltation. This would mean that Jesus made the unique combination of the Isaiah 53 passage with the apocalyptic hope regarding the Son of Man. In this view, the Son of Man, even as Isaiah 53 points to the later victory of the suffering servant, would find God exalting him.
Returning to the text, Jesus speaks of the approaching suffering plainly and openly. Jesus presents the passion as a cold and difficult fact. This is a private revelation to the disciples. This lesson of Jesus is one that flies in the face of conventional concepts of success and gain, of winning and losing. Thus, Peter steps out of his tenuous identity as a disciple and rebukes his rabbi. He may have wanted to protect Jesus from pain or to keep Jesus focused upon being a prophet, teacher, and healer. The popular mindset was the arrival of the Jewish Messiah was to herald the defeat of Israel's enemies, the victory of God's chosen people over all their oppressors. The Messiah was to be a powerful figure with a military answer to Israel's problems. The Messiah was not to be an unarmed teacher killed in the most shameful, humiliating form of execution the Romans had at their disposal. It seems hardly surprising that Peter takes exception to the scenario Jesus outlines. So soon after expressing his insight into who Jesus is, Jesus deflates his expectations by referring to a demeaning path toward death. Jesus responds strongly by urging Peter to accept his proper role as a disciple and get out of the way of the plan of God, referring to Peter in this moment as Satan, as if some temptation he experienced in the wilderness (Matt 4) is coming back through Peter. The text reinforces this by saying that Peter is becoming an obstacle to him, setting his mind on human things rather than divine things. Peter has focused upon what is finite and temporal when eternal matters are at stake. The temptation is always present to think in an ill-informed and earthly way, the way human beings usually think of things, rather than think from the perspective of eternity. The point is that what the early church expressed in its kerygma, its core teaching regarding Jesus, was a movement of divine necessity. The temptation to trust the way human beings usually think, focusing upon the power equation of economics, the political order, or domination through violence, is always present. For most of us, the temptation is through soft forms of devotion to a political ideology to which we find ourselves drawn. We might do so for what we have convinced ourselves is the best of reasons, but it is always a trust in human things rather than the divine movement through Jesus.
Matt 16:24-28 contains sayings on discipleship. They have to do with loyalty and fidelity by the followers of Jesus when faced with circumstances that call for courage and sacrifice. We learn some hard lessons about discipleship here. Yes, salvation is free and a gift. Yet, discipleship will cost you your life.[79] At this point, it becomes quite clear that theology is necessary to make preaching as hard for the preacher as it must be.[80] I will not try to soften the blow. Instead, I will try to make the point as sharp as I can.
In Matt 16: 24-26, Jesus offers discipleship advice for his followers to carry with them on this journey to Jerusalem. Having spoken to the disciples about his identity, he will now share them their identity as disciples and the cost of following him. This instruction occurs while they are on the way to Jerusalem. They are on the way to the cross. This road is one that every group of disciples in every generation must walk.[81] Let us remember that Jesus called the disciples, saying, “Follow me.” Jesus will now articulate some of the harsh realities that define a discipleship that has the cross in its sights.
In Matt 16: 24 has sources in Mark 8:34, found also in Luke 9:23, and in the material common to Matt 10:38 and Luke 14:27. For some scholars, it has the historical problem that no evidence suggests that the cross became a symbol for self-denial or suffering outside of the later Christian context. Christians were facing persecution and martyrdom for their faith. Jesus provides the condition for following him. The first condition to following Jesus is to deny the self. To deny self, which received its definition from the family group with which one identified, would have been to give up your world as you knew it, to give up that which defined you. It also meant that your identity, which is always forming in a human life, receives its definition by your relationship to Jesus and the company of persons whom you join in following Jesus. We must renounce, withdraw, and annul our natural primary loyalty to self, leave the self constituted by yesterday and the person we had become, give up our previous form of existence, and step into the open, into the freedom that a moment can bring in following Jesus, regardless of the cost.[82] The second condition was to take up the cross, a familiar form of public execution by the Romans, designed to keep conquered people submissive. The pain, brutality, and degradation of a death by crucifixion ‑‑ including the spirit‑stripping practice of making the condemned "take up his cross" on this final death march to the execution site ‑‑ was a torture reserved for only the most despised of state criminals. Yet this is the very image Jesus chooses to represent as the fate of his most devoted disciples. This means that each disciple has a cross to take up, rather than to fear, hate, avoid, evade, or escape the affliction that falls on the disciple. Discipleship becomes a matter of each Christian carrying one’s own cross, suffering one’s own affliction, bearing the definite limitation of death that in one form or another falls on one’s own existence.[83] Paul said he died every day (I Corinthians 15:30). Jesus is already suggesting that to follow him means co-crucifixion, a theme we find in Paul as he refers to his own crucifixion so that his life is a matter of Christ living in and through him (Galatians 2:19-20). The focus is on discipleship as identification with the destiny of Jesus. Thus, it pulls individuals even further away from the safety of a self that the kinship group defines.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said in his Cost of Discipleship, that when Christ calls us, he bids us to come to him and die. Thomas à Kempis wrote,
In the Cross is salvation;
in the Cross is life;
in the Cross is protection against our enemies;
in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness;
in the Cross is strength of mind;
in the Cross is joy of spirit;
in the Cross is excellence of virtue;
in the Cross is perfection of holiness.
There is no salvation of soul,
nor hope of eternal life,
save in the Cross. (The Inner Life)
"If you bear the cross gladly, it will bear you"
(The Imitation of Christ, 2.12.5).
C.S. Lewis wrote (The Four Loves) that if you would love you would suffer. We cannot even love a dog without at one point or another feeling the pain of loss, assuming we outlive the dog. The greatest of all things-love-is itself most intimately bound with suffering. It is a poignant irony, I think. In our attempt to avoid suffering, we cut ourselves off from the one thing that can mitigate it: each other. Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering, because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice, because, given temperamental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain. When we know that the way of love, this exodus, this going out of oneself, is the true way by which man becomes human, then we also understand that suffering is the process through which we mature. Anyone who has inwardly accepted suffering becomes more mature and more understanding of others and becomes more human. People who have consistently avoided suffering do not understand other people. They become hard and selfish. We have no literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy. We have only moral answers. Yes, in the face of suffering at the hands of other human beings we may despair. Yet, hope also comes from other human beings.[84]
The third condition is to follow Jesus. Peter must be the first to do this, but the way of the cross is for the multitudes through all generations and cultures. We dare not separate Christology and discipleship. We may find our purpose in life as we take up the symbol of punishment, the cross. We may find our true self as we lose ourselves in following Jesus. The lessons we learn in life may lead to nothing other than the crowning discovery of Christian life, that God is enough.[85] Nothing is of greater value than learning that we will find the purpose of our lives in shifting focus away from protecting ourselves and toward the discipleship process that is following Jesus.
To turn away from all that has defined you, good or bad as it may be, to take up the unique cross that you must carry because you have heard and responded to the call of God upon your life, and re-identify yourself by following Jesus, is an act that gives depth to your life. Have a vocation gives life its motive and purpose, which is the path toward fulfillment and happiness in life. However, it also involves suffering. You may think you have heard a calling, but months or years later, you have doubts as to whether you heard rightly. The mistake is your own, but it still resulted from the belief that it was God who called. The longer you live in that mistaken path, the greater are the limitations upon your life. All this becomes the cross you bear. You may sense a calling to unite yourself with a group within the Christian community: Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, evangelical, liturgical, progressive, anabaptist, and so it goes. You may find fulfillment in that calling, but you will also bear your cross. There will be aspects of your chosen community that will embarrass you, that you will wish were not there, and that you wish were there. There will be people who are part of your group who embarrass you and that you wish were another group. This will be your cross to bear as you if you are to fulfill your calling. If you do not have such responses to the group with which you associate, you have over-identified yourself with your group, making it idol. I hope such reflections clarify that the cross you take up is the result of your embracing of your sense of calling or vocation. Saying Yes to the call will not mean your life will be free of suffering. It may well bring more suffering than if you tried to take the path of least resistance. It will also be the path of your greatest sense of fulfillment and happiness. You may be the type who is thirsty for knowledge and in satisfying that thirst, you see the disjunction between the faith you have embraced and the universe as science sees it. This universe is explainable on its term and thus not need or point to another type of spiritual world to establish it or to give it meaning. Seeking to be a credible and reasonable while being a person of faith becomes a cross one must take up. What I am pointing to here is that the cross one takes up is different from the suffering one experiences by being a human being. This cross does not have to mean a threat to one’s existence, as it clearly did for the first believers. The existential moments that define your life will have a cross to take up, but the rose of that moment will be faith, hope, and love that motivate the decision you make and will lead to fulfillment and meaning.
In Matt 16:25-26, Jesus offers those who would confess him to be Messiah a ringing challenge. True disciples must give up their "lives," their primary commitment to a kinship group, and instead willingly make God their final authority. Only this kind of transformation will bring them eternal life. That is the only deal that a disciple can take. Focus on saving your own life and making it easier, and you will lose in the end. Focus on giving away your life by going down this path with Jesus, and you will find real life and not the kind that is artificially and temporarily inflated by the attractiveness of a devilish deal. Verse 25 (Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, John 12:21, the earliest form in Matt 10:39, Luke 17:33), is a paradoxical aphorism regarding those wanting to save their life (psyche, soul, self) will lose it, but those will lose that life for the sake of Jesus will find it. The problem here is that the love of oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance (Oscar Wilde). We have learned how fascinating the self is. We explore the richness and fullness of the self in spiritual formation and psychology. Psychology has also taught us that addictive relationships involve us in losing the self for the sake of a relationship that has no redemptive purpose. We are justly suspicious of any call to self-denial. Yet, preserving the life of what has been will not bring fullness of life. Setting aside what has defined the self for us will lead to happiness and true life. Such a life is meaningful: for it is in dying self that we are born to eternal life (Prayer of St. Francis). Choosing to protect that which has defined the self until now will result in losing what we seek. [86] renouncing what has defined the self occurs in the context of embracing Jesus. [87] Discipleship and finding the desire of the heart will require setting aside the natural tendency to overly focus upon self. [88]The first person to live out this pattern was Jesus. Jesus saved his life at the cost of proclaiming his message of the rule of God. Had he saved his life, he would have made himself independent of God. He would not have been the Son by an unending finite existence. Jesus chose an earthly existence consumed in divine service. He did not cling to his life. He showed obedience to the mission, regardless of the consequences.[89] Verse 26 (Mark 8:36, Luke 9:25), considers the question of what good is. Acquiring the world while losing the soul would be a bad exchange, for it is beyond all value, and one can exchange it for nothing of greater value. The saying suggests the supreme value of the soul or true self. We cannot put a price on it. Adolf Harnack thought with good reason that he had found a Magna Carta of the message of the infinite value of every human soul.[90]We can see a parallel in Plato as he suggested that the upright and good are happy, while the pursuit of happiness for its own sake is egocentric and leads us astray. Only those who seek the good for its own sake will find happiness and identity (Gorgias 491bff, especially 506c.7ff and 470e.9f).[91] Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr has a wonderful prayer with this theme.
O Lord, who has taught us that to gain the whole world and to lose our souls is great folly, grant us the grace so to lose ourselves that we may truly find ourselves anew in the life of grace, and so to forget ourselves that we may be remembered in your kingdom.
Matt 16:27-28 (Mark 8:38-9:1, Luke 9:26-27) refer to the coming Son of Man and to the reminder that every human being will be held accountable for what they do with their lives. Consistent with the apocalyptic expectation of the Jewish scholars of the time, Jesus offers both warning and consolation. The statement that the Son of Man will come with the angels in the glory of the Father, repaying everyone for what they have done, a message that has a parallel in Revelation 22:12, is also consistent with the apocalyptic dimension of first century Judaism. Such a statement is a warning of future judgment for those who reject the Son of Man, but is consolation to those who suffer for the sake of Christ. The warning is puzzling: some standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming to rule. The Son of Man becomes the eschatological judge of humanity. The nearness of the coming rule functions as encouragement to remain faithful, and to follow the path of Jesus. We could consider the possibility that Jesus made a mistake. If we are afraid of the implications of that, we could ponder other possibilities. Does it suggest that the rule of God arrives in the words and deeds of Jesus, especially as he casts out demons? Could the saying refer to the following story of the transfiguration of Jesus? Could it refer to the resurrection? Could it refer to the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost? For what it is worth, I think each of the options has some validity, especially as the early church wrestled with the meaning of the saying.
Matt 18:15-20 (Year A September 4-10) contains sayings on erring brothers and sisters. These regulations reflect a time when the church had to develop procedures for dealing with deviant behavior by its members. Such rules of conduct reflect a life of faith, the love of God, and faithfulness to the Lord and to the apostolic origin of the church, which would view them as valid norms for the lives of Christians. [92] The Roman Catholic Church and Martin Luther find support for the sacrament of penance. Usually, a sacrament has a physical sign attached to it (water, bread, and wine) but we do not find such a sign here.[93] Instead, I would like us to move down a different path of reflection. The passage deals with a difficult topic. It suggests caring enough about the relationship to do something to make things right when they go wrong. The passage should raise a simple question for us. Do we have some action that we need to take to bring healing in any of our relationships? Verse 15 (Luke 17:3) says that if a member of the community sins against you, making sure you are not one who is easily offended, point out the fault when you are alone, and if the member of the community listens, you have regained that relationship. Being too easily offended is a disruption of community, so it is wise to check oneself with the person whom, in your view, has offended you. The passage focuses upon restoration of fellowship. While other New Testament passages have no problem listing sins, this passage leaves it to our imagination as to what the sin might be. The community must take sin seriously. The community is not to ignore it, each member having a responsibility to the other. The person who sins has lost honor in the community and they need to have the ability to have it restored by bringing it to their attention. What matters is reconciliation. If any persons should have readiness to forgive, it should be followers of Jesus.[94] Verses 16-18 (unique to Matt) suggests an additional confrontation that takes place with witnesses. The advice has its basis in Deuteronomy 19:15. which stresses that a single witness does not suffice to convict a person of a crime, but rather, one will need two or three witnesses. The passage elaborates a procedure in Jewish Law and applies it to the fellowship of those who are disciples of Jesus. The reason for witnesses is two-fold. It protects the one who has committed the perceived sin and the one sinned against. If you think someone has sinned against you, you might be wrong. Since you have tried to offer correction to the brother or sister and failed, the witnesses might have the right words. They function as referees and judges. If the private process does not bring restoration of the relationship, the advice is to bring it officially before the church, which, in the first century, would have been a group of 15-40 people. If the offender does not listen, he or she is to be considered by the church as a Gentile or tax collector. If we are not careful, we could interpret this saying as contradicting the behavior of Jesus toward these groups. Given that Jesus associated with these groups, it seems unlikely that the passage refers to a communal practice of shunning. The community must not accept sin as natural, but rather, fight against it. The goal is winning over the sinner. Thus, far from separating oneself, considering such persons in the category of Gentile or tax collector would become part of the church's call to continue Jesus' mission of outreach to these and all outcasts. It could then be both a pronouncement of judgment by the church and a call to renewed missionary effort toward those it has justly ostracized. It is worthwhile to recall Paul's teaching along a similar vein. Such advice is consistent with Paul, who may have been aware of the oral tradition behind this text, who suggested restoring the transgressor in a spirit of gentleness (Galatians 6:1-2). Consistent with such advice, even if you are ready to make a sacrifice at the altar, and you realize that you have been the perpetrator of some sin against another in the community, you are to leave the offering at the altar and seek restoration of that relationship (Matt 5:23-24). Whether you are the one against whom someone has sinned or the one who has sinned, you still have responsibility to swallow your pride, get up, and go to your sister or brother, seeking reconciliation. Individuals and the community need to take sin seriously. Verse 18 (unique to Matt) extends the authority previously given to Peter to all the community, so that what they bind on earth will be bound in heaven and what they loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. The sacrament of penance has its scriptural basis here. Despite such an account of the handing over the power of the keys to the disciples, as here, we cannot speak of the instituting of a penitential rite by Jesus related to the pronouncing of the remission of sins as the sacrament of penance by the church.[95] Recognizing how close we are to a judgmental spirit, we are often afraid of having the confrontational conversations this passage suggests. Such emptying of relationships from moral or virtue considerations will bring death to intellectual discourse and wise discernment. It will bring death to healthy community. It would take a thin approach to reality to suggest that all cultures, all beliefs, and all lifestyles, are the same. Such a stance, while sounding tolerant, is the path to disrespect for differences and isolation of the worst kind. The naming of injustice and hurt, telling the truth, can be an act of deepest love. We love the truth enough to tell it and love each other enough to risk it. Verses 19-20 (unique to Matt), goes back to the procedure before bringing the matter to the church. The Father will recognize the negotiated agreement between members of the church, for where two or three gather in the name of Jesus, the risen Lord is among them, for the language of this passage suggests Jesus has already ascended to the Father. By the Spirit, Jesus Christ is present to the community.[96] The point is the presence of Christ is a vital force in this process of reconciliation that makes the outcome sure in that it will advance the health of the body of Christ. Such presence is a reconciling one. The agreement will lead to the health of the congregation. Christ is not present among them as if a third or fourth member of the group. Christ is present in the center of the relationship. They mutually acknowledge that Christ has gathered them. The objective is to strengthen them for eternal life. They pray with each other.[97]
Aristotle spends about a third of his Nicomachean ethics discussing the virtue of friendship. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that Aristotle bases his entire ethic upon friendship. A good person was inconceivable apart from good friends. Only a friend knows when to press and when to hold back. Only a friend has the right to hurt you. Moreover, truth -telling is inherently painful. We do not easily see the truth, especially when the truth exposes something painful about us. Such a notion is a large distance from a common way we practice friendship. We have given a friendship a bad name. We are open, tolerant, accepting, and gracious, all of which, in the proper context, are good qualities to have. Yet, it can suggest that if you stay out of my life, I will stay out of your life. Is that friendship? The fact that we are friends has become a way for us to excuse immoral behavior. We have developed the term “community” to refer to thin stuff. We have motorcycle, gay, and business communities. Some refer to them as tribes. Yet, and I say this firmly and with love, no community worthy of the name, no genuine friendship, is present without truthfulness. The truthfulness of a friendship and a community carries with it risk and pain in our willingness to confront. Discernment is a gift that involves determining between right and wrong. It acknowledges injustice. It names the hurt. Yet, all of this can arise out of an act of deep love. We love the truth enough to tell it, risk it, and hear it. In this regard, this passage is close to Aristotle in its notion of community. This passage takes seriously the notion of sin interrupting friendship and calling forth accountability to each other. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not about pretending that things are other than they are. We do not pat ourselves on the back and ignore the wrong done. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, and the truth. It could make matters worse, at least for a time. It involves risk. Yet, in the end, the process is worth it. Only an honest confrontation with reality can bring healing. Superficial reconciliation, in fact, may well make matters worse.[98]
Matthew 18:21-35 (Year A September 11-17) contains reflections on forgiveness.
In Matt 18:21-22, is a dialogue between Peter and Jesus on forgiveness. As we reflect upon this matter, let us remember the saying of another wise man: let us remember a wise saying, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”[99] Unique to Matthew, the saying occurs in the context of Peter asking that if a member of the community sins against him, should he forgive as many as seven times? To ask such a question, Peter knows the importance of forgiveness to Jesus. Jesus invited us to pray, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” He wants to know the limits. In rabbinic discussion, rabbis frequently regarded four times as enough times to forgive. Peter's "seven times" may represent an attempt to exceed regulations, but it is not enough within the Christian community. Jesus offers an intensifying revision of contemporary Jewish law, much as he does in his earlier teachings on anger (5:21-26), adultery (5:27-30) and retaliation (5:38-42), to offer but three examples. The response of Jesus has some ambiguity, being either 77 times or 490 times (Luke 17:4). Matthew makes a change under the influence of Genesis 4:24, “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” These verses establish the concern as to whether one’s forgiveness of others must be without limits. Jesus explicitly rejects “seven,” and suggests instead — what? Christians are to forgive one another in imitation of God and Jesus. The point is simple: Don’t keep count at all! There is to be no limit. There is no calibrating forgiveness, no satisfactory line is to be found along the path of calculating numbers of offenses. What are the limits of offering forgiveness? To ask the question is to acknowledge that our hearts are not in a good place. Forgiveness that arises from love for the other person and desire for the flourishing of the other person, regardless of the personal relationship, will not even ask the question. Forgiveness is a form of “self-renunciation,” giving up the right to pay back the person who hurt you.
Today, the feeling that someone has abused you is justification for revenge, wanting to balance the scales. We live in unforgiving times. Public self-righteousness is on the rise and the taste for revenge has never been greater. The capacity to forgive reveals a soul that is free of anxiety, one that is mature and equal to the complexity of human interaction. Forgiveness requires what Aristotle called “a great soul” and is captured in a virtue often ignored and not appreciated. This power of magnanimity lies between the extremes of vanity and timidity. When you forgive, you release yourself as well as the other person. You allow life to go on, to bypass your exaggerated sense of virtue and your worry about being offended. If you sit on your power to forgive, you suppress your joy in life. Forgiveness, if it comes from the right place in you, will free you from the resentment that will eat away at you. Thus, forgiveness is not about how it affects the other person. It could be meaningful to the other person if the other person repents, opening the possibility of reconciliation. However, forgiveness is important because of the benefits it offers to you. It will free you from the demand for justice and instead leave the other person in the hands of God.
All of us have a grievance story involving someone. It might be parents, a sibling, a teacher, a boss, or a neighbor. Your grievance story may be the nation in which you live and the wrongs you may justly feel it has inflicted upon you. Such a grievance story is usually taking something personally that was not necessarily intended that way, and then holding the other accountable for your feelings. When you blame someone for what you feel instead of hold them accountable for what they have done, you keep yourself stuck in victimhood and inaction. The path toward healing is to recognize that the ways you have dealt with the anger over the hurt someone has caused has not worked. It involves developing some level of understanding and compassion toward the offender. This will involve reframing the offender in a way that humanizes rather than demonizes.What has led the person to behave in this way?
An important part of healing my memories of an alcoholic father was the story he shared of when he joined the Navy during WWII. When he told his father, after whom I was named, of his plan, he turned to my grandmother and said, “Look at that, all this work to do here on the farm, and he leaves!” My dad then pounded his fist on the table as if the event happened yesterday and said, “That is all I ever was to him. A hired hand.” It helped me to have some empathy for his life journey. It helped me appreciate what he did give, which was likely all he could give: a roof over our heads, food on the table, and occasional vacations. We can also reframe the event, realizing that through the painful event and its memories we have learned and grown. For me, it meant that as oldest son, I sought to be a good son for my mother and a good brother to my four sisters.
John Newton is the author of some of our most beloved hymns, like “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” and “Amazing Grace.” He contributed to the spirituality vitality of the church through his hymns. Yet, before his conversion, Newton participated for yeas in the cruel African slave trade. When Newton spoke in his hymn of “a wretch like me,” he was not just using poetic hyperbole. He was a wretched offender in the worst sort of way. However, in his conversion, Newton is also a symbol of the amazing grace of God. After his conversion, he became a pastor and worked for the abolition of slavery. Can you not feel the irony? A hymn from the heart of a former slave trader has become beloved by scores of African-American congregations. While Newton wrote the words, we do not know who wrote the tune. Some have said, with some justification, it is probably that the tune evolved from African folk music. Is not this beloved hymn a fitting symbol of Christian redemption and reconciliation?
Matthew 18:23-35 (unique to Matthew) is a parable concerning the unforgiving slave. It illustrates the effect of a limit on forgiveness that Peter proposed. The parable of the unmerciful servant exhibits marks of both oral tradition and exaggerations typical of the stories of Jesus. The fantastic character of the story is also typical of the parables of Jesus. The ambiguity of the story is a feature of many parables of Jesus. Jesus offers another parable that helps us understand the rule of God. A provincial official oversees tax collections, wishing to settle accounts with his slaves. The official has a slave who owes him, for no explained reason, $10 million, ordering him, has family, and his possessions, to be sold as payment. He hardly seems like a nice man. However, the slave begs for patience, and he will repay the debt, although how he could repay such a massive debt does not receive consideration. The exaggeration is designed to provoke laughter. Compassion moves the official, as it moves Jesus in this gospel, and he released the slave from the debt. As listeners, we are happy with this outcome. There was something good in the official. However, the slave soon meets a fellow slave who owes him $100, seizing the slave by the throat and demanding that he pay what is owed. The slave was hardly a good man at this point. He may not have been worthy of the compassion showed him. His fellow slave also begged for patience, but the slave refused and threw him into debtors’ prison until he could pay the debt. The slave surprises us in his meanness since he has just been on the receiving end of compassion from the official. The official was willing to forgive a staggering debt and the slave refuses to cancel a paltry debt. The contrast could hardly be greater. The parable invites the listener to choose the appropriate mode of behavior. The other slaves were distressed upon hearing all this and reported what happened to their master. These slaves do our bidding. They want justice for their friend and punishment for the first slave. Our union with these slaves reveals our vengeful spirit that overrules any mercy and forgiveness we may also have. The official summons the first slaves, calls him wicked, since in receiving forgiveness of debt he did not have mercy (Matt 5:7) on his fellow slave, even as the official showed him mercy. The official was angry, returning to his first instinct regarding the debt of his slave, and has the first slave tortured until he repays his debt to the official. The story gives us as listeners, in the person of the fellow slaves, what we wanted, justice toward the unforgiving slave. The vengeful little servant and the vengeful big ruler exhibit the same qualities. We then realize that neither the ruler nor the unforgiving slave was Mr. Nice Guy! Part of the point is that we are too much like the servant who does not forgive the behavior of others toward us and the ruler who reaches the end of his patience and exacts justice. The powerful official now fails to forgive again by revoking the benefits of the initial act of forgiveness. The official becomes an illustration of what happens if we put a limit on forgiveness. How are we as listeners to respond to this? The parable ends with suggesting that the heavenly Father responds toward people in the ways they demonstrate by their actions that they wish to be treated. Those who demand justice or a limit upon forgiveness should expect the heavenly Father to do the same. Those who move fully into the realm of forgiveness will find the heavenly Father already there forgiving them and helping them find forgiveness in their hearts for others. Do we really want a world in which the demand for justice is primary? Alternatively, do we really want the world of the rule of God that will make forgiveness and mercy primary? Such a conclusion suggests that we best leave justice in the hands of the heavenly Father while we practice mercy and forgiveness. The heavenly Father has cancelled the debt that no human being could repay, so we ought to forgive any debt a human being owes to us. The members of the community need to forgive each other. You as a follower of Jesus have received divine forgiveness, so part of the summons Jesus offers to enter the rule of God now is the readiness to forgive others.[100] We should also note that mercy has a close relationship to the goodness of the heavenly Father and is in fact an expression of that goodness.[101] The rule of God has its basis in mercy and forgiveness rather than a strict demand for justice.
Allow me to add that Jesus is the notable example of forgiveness. The unjust trial, the unjust labeling of him as a blasphemer of God and a potentially violent rebel, the abandonment by his closest friends in his time of need, and the torture that would end with the cross, were plenty of reason to end his life on a note of revenge and hatred. Yet, as the risen Lord taught us, he forgave his friends, and he forgave the religious leaders, and forgave the sin of humanity that placed him there, on that cross. The cross is a symbol of the extent of human sin, but it has become for those who believe the symbol of the lengths to which love and forgiveness must go.
Matthew 20:1-16 (Year A September 18-24) contains a parable (verses 1-15, unique to Matthew) and in verse 16 a saying of Jesus.
The title of the parable is usually something like “parable of the workers in the vineyard.” One might call this parable “The parable of the generous vineyard owner.” The repetition of the owner’s activity and the play on words and themes are evidence of oral transmission. It expresses an aspect of the rule of God. It The parable exaggerates the actions of the vineyard owner as he goes into the marketplace repeatedly to hire workers for the harvest. The owner begins at daybreak and continues to the last two hours of the workday in order to hire his workers. The normal workday was sunrise to sunset, for obvious reasons. Since he goes himself to hire workers, he is a moderately well-off and hands-on type of owner. That so many were available to hire would have connected with the listeners, for unemployment was part of life in Israel. The daily wage he paid would have been a denarius. A turn in the parable occurs when evening comes, and the owner has the manager bring the workers to give them their pay. He paid the last hired first, giving them a full days’ wage. The parable does not explore why the last hired were not hired sooner. Here is the point of the parable, cutting against the social and economic grain. Such an act is surprising. As listeners, we know trouble is coming. It also reverses expectations. It invites us to enter the world of the parable to ponder what the rule of God is like if the story Jesus tells is true. The first hired expected to receive the normal pay for the work they did for a day, and those hired later expected to receive less. We as listeners expect the same. Yet, when the owner in the world of the parable gives the last hired the same wage as the first hired, we think something odd and strange happens. The owner is generous with them. Thus, we as readers and listeners of the story feel some kinship with the first hired when they did not receive more than they expected to receive, pointing out that they worked during the scorching heat. All hired are elevated to the level of the first hired, doing so through the payment of the daily wage. The nature of the complaint points to the fact that the story concerns something more than economics, proper business practice, and money. The complaint also reminds us that the work itself in the vineyard of the owner is hard. The work is not for the faint of heart in this vineyard. The complaint suggests the first hired elevate the sacrifice they have made in comparison with the lack of such sacrifice the last hired have made. Rather than celebrate the generosity of the owner in this act, the first hired show their preference for what they view as just and fair. The behavior of the owner invites us to consider that we need and rely upon divine mercy in the rule of God more so than divine justice and fairness. The owner does not have to respond to the complaint, but another surprise is that the owner does respond to it. He addresses those who complain as friends. He has been fair with the first hired, since he paid what was promised and expected. He grants he has been generous with the last hired, but has someone passed a law against it? The parable ends with the owner asking the first hired if they are envious because he as an owner choose to be generous with what he has. We as listeners and as readers do not know whether those who complain will change their attitude. It points to a need in the first hired for a change of mind, heart, or perspective on what the owner has done. The parable invites us to consider that the rule of God means that while the Father gives good things to those who ask, the Father does so without regard to merit.[102] Jewish teachers used a similar parable to describe the day of divine judgment, but used it to make precisely the opposite point that Jesus was making. Israel, who had worked hard and been faithful for the long haul, would receive high wages while the Gentiles, who had come in much later, would receive little.[103] The parable is about grace. In the world of the parable, the wages are a sign of grace. In the world Jesus lived, religious leaders had not been generous with him. Yet, he offers the challenge to his listeners to consider divine goodness and mercy. Such consideration should lead them to treat others differently than they do. The parable is not an economic or business tract. One would not do business in the real world this way. The owner of the vineyard is hardly efficient. He would qualify as eccentric. He would not remain business long. However, in the world of the rule of God, divine generosity works this way. The rule of God contrasts to the world of business. At this point, one can make an interesting parallel between the elder brother of Luke 15 and the grumbling laborers of Matthew 20. Both begrudge the generosity of the father/vineyard owner in his judgment and integrity. Both display pride and a demanding attitude rather than humility. Both parables end with an open invitation to the elder brother/first hired. This parable is a warning against grumbling over the tax collectors and prostitutes being equal to the religious people.
Matthew 20:15, attached to the end of this parable, indicates at the reversal of economic and social standing, as the last will be first and the first will be last, an obvious connection to the first and last hired. However, the parable makes the point of divine grace within the rule of God while the saying focuses on the economic and social reversal within the rule of God.
Matthew 21:33-46 (Year A October 2-8) is the parable of the wicked tenants (Mark 12:1-12, Luke 20:9-19). Matthew clearly contextualizes this parable within Jesus’ string of conflicts with Jewish authorities: the “chief priests,” “scribes” and “Pharisees,” in the surrounding chapters (21:1–24:2). A rich landowner planted a vineyard, which could be metaphor for Israel (Isa 5:1-7). He put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower, leasing it to tenants, which would make of him an absentee landlord. The tenant farmer had a difficult life, entering a contract with the owner, the parable not disclosing if the contract was unfair, fair, or generous. When the time for harvest came, he sent slaves, a metaphor for the prophets, to the tenants, who become a metaphor for religious leadership of Israel, to collect his produce. However, surprisingly, the tenants seized the slaves, beating one, killing another, and stoning another. He sent other slaves, more than the first, and, surprisingly, they treated them the same way. He finally and surprisingly sent his heir, his son, to them, thinking they will respect his son, for in the time of Jesus it would have been time to send in troops and kill the tenants. The landowner does not believe the tenants could be as selfish and cruel as their behavior suggests, and so determined to reject the authority of the landowner. The parable suggests the love and patience of the landowner. Surprisingly, when the tenants saw the son, recognizing him as the heir, they developed a plot to kill him and get his inheritance, so they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. They act resolutely to take possession of the vineyard by getting rid of the only heir, which would have been uncommon behavior. At this point (verse 39), the story ends with a crime. One can compare it to the unjust steward in Luke 16:1-7. The two parables share a basic realism about economic and social conditions in Galilee. Jesus did not provide a conclusion, but left the tale open as a sad and tragic event. The story disturbs. It contains tragedy. It leaves us with some discomfort. Jesus has related a sad and tragic event for us to ponder. It reflects the disturbed conditions of the time, partly due to the economic causes that existed in Palestine preceding the revolt of 66 AD. There were absentee landlords in Galilee in Jesus’ day, and there were peasants who were unhappy with their lot.[104]
I share another shocking and tragic story. A family living in India shared their hut with a mongoose. One day, while extremely hot, the mother placed the child outside. Suddenly, she noticed the mongoose creeping into the hut toward its accustomed bowl of water. Dust covered the sleek rodent, and the mother was shocked to see its jaws stained with blood. In a flash, she guessed that the animal had attacked the sleeping baby. In her horror, she snatched a heavy rice-pounder, and smashed the head of the mongoose. Rushing outdoors to minister to her child, she found the baby peacefully asleep, and beside him the body of a cobra that the mongoose had fought and killed.
The parable continues (verse 40) with Jesus asking when the owner, God, comes to the vineyard, what will he do to the tenants? They respond that he will put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants, who will give the produce of the harvest. This could be a prophetic attack upon certain Jewish leaders, placing Jesus within that tradition, typical of the polemic used between Jewish groups. the parable can illuminate the prophetic critique of authority — especially religious and political authority — so central to the biblical witness. As such, the story becomes a prophetic attack on the behavior of certain Jewish leaders in the time of Jesus who have not faithfully fulfilled their tenant responsibilities of tending the spiritual life of Israel. At this point, we can connect the parable with Isaiah 5:1-7, where the Lord plants a vineyard that yields only wild grapes. The Lord will remove its defenses and allow its destruction. It would have a level of polemic like that of Jeremiah 7, where the prophet challenges the people not to trust deceptive words of safety, but rather, repent and act justly. The Lord will cast them out of sight, even though the Lord wants to dwell with them. They provoke the Lord to their self-destruction. The Lord has persistently sent prophets, but the people of Israel have resisted their message. They do not accept the word or discipline from the Lord. The Lord promises the land of Israel will become a wasteland. In Micah 3, the rulers of Israel should know justice, but they treat the people wickedly. The prophets use words of peace, but the Lord is bringing destruction. Jerusalem will become ruins due to the rulers, who act unjustly and yet expect the Lord to hear their prayers. Jerusalem knew that the prophets and writings in their Scriptures told the story of the consistent disobedience of Israel, despite the repeated wooing and warnings of the Lord. God is patient — long-suffering even — while waiting for his followers to bear the fruit God expects from the people of God. The relationship with God has not been exhausted yet, although an eschatological action of God intrudes, and the wicked will receive what they have coming to them. However, at this moment, those tenants who hear this parable still have time to repent.
The community of faith in the first century applied the parable, considering its belief in Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus refers to Psalm 118:22, where the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, which is the action of the Lord, which makes it amazing in our eyes. The first tenants were rabbis and chief priests, the new tenants are the leaders of the Christian movement, and the son is Jesus. The rule of God is no longer a possession of Israel or Judaism but given to Jew and Gentile alike to produce fruit for the rule of God. To fall on the stone the builders rejected is self-destruction. Such rejection shows the danger of overestimating human judgment in such matters. Divine judgment will always transcend human judgment.[105]The rule of God will be taken away from Jewish leadership and given to a people that produce fruit for the rule of God. The one who falls on this stone will break and it will crush anyone one whom it falls.
The segment concludes (verses 45-6) with the chief priests and Pharisees realizing Jesus was speaking about them. They want to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, who regarded him as a prophet.
I would not be a responsible reader of this parable if I refused to acknowledge the painful history of this parable. It has had a role to play in the anti-Semitism of the church. The standard allegorical interpretation also presents ethical problems for Christians interested in their continued relationship with Judaism. In short, it has generated and supported the central anti-Jewish opinions of Christian history. Through allegorical interpretation, the parable becomes a small, violent version of Christian “salvation history”: God first extends a covenant to the Jews, which they continually violate, and so God takes away their covenant and makes a covenant with a new people, the followers of the crucified Jesus. This view is theological supersessionism, a worldview in which Christians have superseded Jews in a unique covenantal relationship with God. What is more, the allegorical interpretation of the parable of the tenants supports all three aspects of the so-called “teaching of contempt,” which is the classic encapsulation of Christian anti-Judaism.[106] In the “teaching of contempt,” some Christians have understood the Judaism of Jesus’ day as degenerate, here demonstrated by the tenants’ dishonesty and their string of violent murders. Second, some Christians have represented the Jews as the killers of the Son of God, as shown here by the tenants’ murder of the landowner’s son. Finally, some Christians have understood the dispersion of the Jews as divine punishment for their killing of Jesus, a painful teaching that one can interpret here in God’s taking away of the vineyard. Many Christians have worked to reject the “teaching of contempt,” and reinterpretation of this parable is a crucial part of that task. While the parable says that God will take the rule of God away from Israel and give it to a people bringing forth its fruits, the idea of a new people of God is only implicit here. Further, the passage does not contend that Israel was once indeed the people of God.[107]
Reading this story today is a reminder that we need to learn to be good tenants of what God has given us. God has expectations for those who have responsibilities within the kingdom.
This is a parable about stewardship. You know, managing God's stuff on God's behalf. There are two central aspects of stewardship.
First, a central aspect of stewardship is what we are entrusted with. As tenants, we have each been entrusted with two things: the gospel of Jesus Christ and our personal, worldly goods. Both come from God. Both are to be used in service to God. The gospel is the message that despite humankind's universal rebellion against God's authority, God desires a reconciled relationship with us. God has pursued us through the sending of his Son and made reconciliation possible through that same Son's sacrificial death on the cross. Because of the cross, the entire world is now welcome to enter the vineyard and labor under God's love.
God has not only blessed us through that message but has made us the dispensers of it. Paul's command for Timothy to "guard the good deposit" of sound, life-giving teaching applies not only to teachers of the faith but to all those who've been granted the gift of faith (2 Timothy 1:14).
We must also recognize that all things -- the clothes on our backs, the dollars in our wallets and even the rented ceilings above our heads belong to God and are on loan to us from God. The Psalmist reminds us "the earth is the Lord's and everything in it" (Psalm 24:1, NIV) God owns everything. It has simply been leased to us. "We brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world" (I Timothy 6:7). We are renters of everything and owners of nothing.
Second, a central aspect of stewardship is what we do with what we have. However, as we see in the parable, it takes more than simply knowing how blessed you are and who the owner is to be considered faithful. The bad tenants in Jesus' parable understood all that. No, a good tenant, a solid steward does something with the gospel and his goods. He produces a crop. He makes sure that both leave the vineyard in a way that brings blessing to the world at large.
Could Christianity be as simple as learning to be a good tenant? The first step might be that we need to realize that we are tenants. Everything we have is on loan from God. God has entrusted us with the precious gospel message. God has entrusted us with material possessions. We are tenants. It might be that being a disciple of Jesus Christ to transform the world is that simple.
Matthew 22:1-14 (Year A October 9-15) is a parable of the wedding feast (Luke 14:15-24). Jesus spoke to them in parables (Mark 3:23) concerning the rule of God (“the heavens”). The reference in Matthew to “the heavens’ where the other gospels refer to the rule of God is interesting, but it would be unwise to draw a sharp distinction, since both reflect a concern for ultimate questions of existence, meaning, and purpose and their connection to Jesus. He compares the rule of God to a king, God, giving a wedding banquet for his son, sending his slaves, the prophets, a first to call those invited to the wedding banquet, Israel, but they would not come. The invitation goes out a second time, stressing that the ox and calves have been slaughtered and the dinner is ready. In both cases, reflecting the typical exaggeration of parables, no one responded positively to the invitation to the feast. I would like to pause and consider the nature of the evangelical message today. The evangelical ministry of the church today is a matter of inviting people to a feast.[108] The evangelical ministry of the community occurs in the context of the victory of Jesus in the resurrection and ascension that signals the future reconciliation and redemption of the world. For that reason, the feast is ready.[109] On the side of God, everything is ready for people to participate in the wedding banquet.[110] Such an invitation suggests an invitation to joy and a glorious offer of grace (Eduard Schweizer). Thus, one lesson in this parable is that followers of Jesus are inviting others to join them in the feast or festival. You want your friends at the wedding. You are excited when they can be present. Those originally invited have superficial reasons for not coming to the banquet. For Matthew, any failure to accept the invitation is superficial when compared to the banquet. Even so, their intent is to come later. The story suggests that the moment of decision is now (Eduard Schweizer). The invitation should take precedence over everything else. However, others of those originally invited, Israel, seized his slaves, prophets, mistreated them, and them, an example of Israel rejecting Jesus. The king was enraged, sending his troop to destroy the murderers and burned their city, Jerusalem. A third invitation goes out, a feature of oral transmission, but this time those originally invited, Israel, have shown themselves unworthy of entry to the wedding feast, so his slaves, in another exaggeration, are to invite everyone in the streets to the wedding banquet to fill his house. Here is an invitation to joy, an incomprehensible, glorious offer of grace to those who wound never expect it. This invitation reflects a basic respect for all human beings. [111] The parable may allude to the disputed table fellowship of Jesus tax collectors and sinners. The meals Jesus celebrated are anticipatory signs and depictions of the eschatological fellowship of the rule of God. Such meals are the central symbolic action of Jesus in which the message of the nearness of the rule of God and the salvation it offers finds expression.[112] Thus, one lesson this parable teaches us is that God has invited all people to the table. God invites us - the good and the bad and the in between - to be part of the people of God. God calls and invites us all. God has prepared the feast for all.
The parable illustrates that the rejection of Jesus by Israel opens the way for an invitation to others. It becomes an allegory of the history of salvation in the Bible.
A wonderful hymn by Charles Wesley, published in 1747, relates to the theme of the parable. It speaks to the universality of the invitation, the needy condition of all who receive the invitation, the welcome they will find from Christ, the reception of the evangelical message as if God were speaking directly to the hearer, and that now is the moment to respond. I share just a few of the phrases of this long hymn that relate to the parable.
Come, sinners, to the Gospel feast;
Let every soul be Jesus’ guest.
Ye need not one be left behind,
For God hath bid all humankind.
Come, all ye souls by sin oppressed,
Ye restless wanderers after rest;
Ye poor, and maimed, and sick, and blind,
In Christ a hearty welcome find.
My message as from God receive;
Ye all may come to Christ and live.
This is the time, no more delay!
This is the Lord’s accepted day.
Come thou, this moment, at His call,
Matthew 22:11-13 introduce other elements that are important to Matthew, abruptly shifting in emphasis. We move from the gracious gift of entry into the banquet that show respect to all, good and bad, to the selective and uncertain qualifications for entry. In this case, among the guests is one not wearing a wedding robe, showing disdain for the dress code of the king, which displayed lack of appreciation for the party and lack of love for the king. He was not ready to celebrate and join the festival. He shows some kinship with those who rejected the first two invitations. One can be just as rebellious as those who rejected the invitation, but show up to the feast anyway. The king determined who was in and who was out. The man was speechless, so the king had the attendants bind him and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The expansion on the original parable brings it within the orbit of the concern of the early church for who qualifies as a member of the community. This was a practical concern, as the fledgling community expanded its membership from those with a Jewish background to those who came various Gentile backgrounds. Matthew is recognizing that it would be impossible to expect purity of membership. This portion of the parable also focuses upon the accountability inherent in the final judgment, not wanting religious complacency to infect the early communities of faith.
Too much focus on who is in or out of the church has been an obstacle in the witness of the church. Human beings became the “bouncer,” a position all too many people in the history of the church were willing to adopt. Bickering over if the right music is used in worship, if one looks or dresses appropriately, or who has the tightest theology, has hurt witness of the church in the world. The focus of concern ought to be the joy of receiving the invitation. The missionary task is to enjoy and invite.
Matthew 22:14 (IV Ezra 8:3) is an independent saying in which many receive the call, but few are chosen, continuing the warning against overconfidence upon the collective election of a people.
Matthew 22:15-22 (Year A October 16-22) is the pronouncement story on tribute to Caesar (Mark 12:13-17). The context of Matt 22:15-46 is Jewish leadership seeking to discredit Jesus because they perceive him to be a threat to their authority. He presents them in the form of four test questions. In this pronouncement story, the Pharisees, who walked the line between one who strictly obeyed Torah and one who sought good relationship with the political realities of being a province within the Roman Empire, planned to entrap him with a deceitful and deceptive question. They joined forces with those who wanted the continued reign of Herod, seeking to make him choose a side in a controversial political and religious controversy. Jesus has earned the title Rabbi through the success of his public teaching. However, these who gather to ask their question challenge the validity of the title. They continue to flatter him by noting that he is sincere in teaching the way of God in accord with truth and that he treats all people the same, regardless of their social and economic standing. Although all this is true regarding Jesus, their intent is to set him, baiting him to engage in a divisive controversy. Their insincere question is whether Torah allows one to pay taxes to the emperor, or not. To pay the tax was submission to the political reality. To refuse was to engage in treason from a political point of view. Refusal subverted Roman authority. Leviticus 25:23 forbids the sale of land to outsiders, for it belongs to God. Caesar usurped by force the Holy Land. Discontent with Roman rule led to the refusal of people to pay the tax. The deception behind the question becomes clearer when we realize that religious leaders helped to collect the tax (Josephus, Jewish War, 2.403-5).
Jesus skillfully refuses to take the bait of involving him in a fruitless controversy. One element of this episode to which I direct your attention is the skill with which Jesus does not take the bait to involve himself in a fruitless controversy. Many people have honest questions about life and God. Jesus welcomes such questions. Sometimes, however, our questions are not so honest. Beneath the question are often selfishness and a desire to protect our interests. Yet, even if badly motivated, such questions reveal a deeper need than we know. We have a need for someone to reveal to us our attempts to deceive and accuse others, as well as remove the defenses we have against the truth challenging us. Today, many of us could learn from Jesus the importance of not taking the bait. Baiting people one suspects to be an opponent seems to have become a popular technique. Baiting is a way to draw the other into an angry disagreement and avoid civil discourse. Baiting draws you into a power struggle rather than genuine conversation from which mutual learning can occur. The power struggle can be as simple as showing yourself to be in possession of knowledge or logic the other does not have. Baiting has the goal of escalating a matter into a crisis. Getting people into a power struggle is a way to manipulate people and situations to get what you want. People doing the baiting want to engage the power struggle debate to avoid doing something. If they succumb to the one doing the baiting, they discover that no explanation will satisfy questions. Such baiting is often a way of inviting us into a hurtful and painful dialogue, rather than a potentially therapeutic one. The reason is that the other is trying to do something with their words. Philosophers of language would call this a performative use of words. What they want to do will vary, but it often involves some variation of showing their superiority over you. If you do not take the bait, you can ignore the question while not ignoring the person. People baiting you may not even be aware of how much they have revealed themselves in their attempts. They have revealed a hurt, pain, and anger that does not need the deepening and expansion that taking the bait would mean. Rather, they have revealed their need for healing. They have revealed a deeper level of need that the one at the receiving end of the baiting needs to have enough perception to notice and to re-direct the conversation for the good of both.[113] To move a conversation forward with healing and growth will mean engaging people who look at the world differently from us with dignity and love. It will mean thinking the best of those with whom we disagree, even while acknowledging the darkness in them that has led them to bait us. We need to learn from this episode not to be the one doing the baiting of the other or to take the bait offered by the other. The other is a person and a neighbor. Superficial divisions like skin color, income bracket, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender, nationality, or religion ought not to become an occasion for throwing stones at each other. Learning to build bridges will be a far more helpful conversation than succumbing to the bait. Most of our social discourse already has enough hurt. It might be time for some people to refuse to take the bait.
Returning to the episode, Jesus is aware of the malice contained in their question. As Satan did (Matt 4:7), and as his opponents did on two other occasions (Matt 16:1, 19:3), so these questioners are doing now in testing him. They are hypocrites, which he exposes by asking them to show him a coin used for the tax, and they brought to him a denarius. By having a Roman coin, they have shown they accepted the political reality of Roman domination and they help collected the tax. Careful observance of Torah would have forbidden handling the coin, let alone aiding in collection of the tax. The prohibition against the “graven image” in Exodus 20:4 would have forbidden handling such coins. Along with the image, the words on it might have been “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus.” Their question has behind it an attempt to undermine any prestige and authority Jesus had built up among the people. He responds with another question, asking them to observe whose head is on the coin and whose title is imprinted on it, and they identify it as belonging to the emperor. The pronouncement story concludes with Jesus saying that they ought to give to the emperor the things that belong to him, and to God the things that belong to God. Such a non-answer hints that all those who use the coin receive benefits by participating at some level in the Roman system, so they owe something to Caesar. Paul also sided with the expedience of paying the tax (Rom 13:1-7). Matthew says those who heard this were amazed and left him.
We who participate in the economic, political, and cultural order have some obligation to support it through paying our taxes. Government prints money for its purposes. Money has various images upon it that make it clear that the country considers it valuable. Recognizing such human claims is important for us to live in this world. God has placed us in this social world. The social system of financial exchange, laws, political life, economic life, military life, and civic life do have a claim upon us. We receive much benefit from these arrangements. Through taxation, we experience in quite personal ways the claims of our social world upon us. Yet, that obligation invites us to consider the role of wealth and money.
Jesus does not answer the question. We want to know which side of the political and religious divide he stands. Does Jesus support Jewish separation from Rome or even rebellion? Does he think they should pay the tax? We do not know. He does not tell his contemporaries what to do. He refuses to side with a political agenda. He does not satisfy our curiosity. What belongs to Caesar? What belongs to God? His saying has a puzzling wit about it that invites us to ask further questions as an internal conversation, which may well be the point of much of the teaching of Jesus. It redirects our questioning to the authority of God in our lives. We need to determine for ourselves what belongs to the emperor and what belongs to God. He at least hints that such matters are insignificant when we are discussing political and economic arrangements. They are not necessarily at odds with each other, but we do need to keep them in perspective. We ought not to use obligation to God to avoid obligation to the political and economic arrangements in which we live. Do not use perceived obligation to God as a convenient escape from your obligations to the political, economic, and cultural order in which you live and on which you depend. We might tease out of the saying something more if we play with the notion of an image. All the emperor asks is to return to him the coin he made. You, as listener and reader, bear the image of God (Genesis 1:26). You belong to God. The emperor does not own you. God owns you. That which belongs to the emperor is insignificant in comparison with that which belongs to God, that is, your very self or soul.
Jesus found his allegiance to his Father so significant that any other allegiance was a secondary matter. Yet, Christians today who have made such commitments want some assurance that Jesus is with them. Jesus evades this question, not because it is unimportant, but because something is of much greater importance. Regardless of where your political loyalties reside, does God have your full allegiance and loyalty? Are we playing games theologically and spiritually, keeping our preferred political tribe happy with us rather than pleasing God? When you ridicule and express anger at those who have differing political loyalties than you do, have you revealed where your true allegiance lays? When you call your political opponent fascist, Nazi, white nationalist, is it possible that you have revealed the depth of your commitment to your ideology, a commitment that you do not have to God? The intensity with which a Christian may hold to a political ideology may well reveal a deeper theological and spiritual issue than the person may feel comfortable facing. We too would like to draw Jesus into our controversies and make him decide, but Jesus wisely wants to turn the tables around and prod us toward re-evaluating the standards by which we think and live.
Matthew 22:34-46 (Year A October 23-29) has a dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees stimulated by a question regarding which commandment in Torah is the greatest (Matt 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-34) and a question stimulated by Jesus regarding the Messiah (Matt 22:41-46, Mark 12:35-37). The reference to the law and the prophets and to the Messiah underscores two pivotal themes in this gospel it nears its end.
Matthew 22:34-40 (Mark 12:28-34) is a dialogue on the greatest commandment. The tendency of religious professions is to make religion complex. Spiritual masters have a way of identifying the heart of a religion. This passage concerns the heart of Christianity. It is a familiar passage, but there is power in the familiar (Fred Craddock). Jesus points to the familiar, the Shema and another text from the Torah, as the heart of Judaism and in doing so has lifted it to supreme importance in reflection upon the Christian life. In this little exchange, Jesus names his center. He names the center of his ministry, of his mission, and even the center of the imminent rule of God he came to proclaim. He reveals something about himself, and in the process also reveals something about God. The law of God is the law of love. Religion is that simple – and that difficult.[114]Matthew relates one of the most familiar teachings of Jesus in the context of a controversy with the Pharisees. However, in the context of Matthew, out of a series of three controversies, here is the first time they confront Jesus directly. The Pharisees were pleased that Jesus silenced the Sadducees, since they had their disputes with them as well. However, this does not stop them from wanting to entrap Jesus. A scribe or lawyer, an expert in the interpretation of Torah, asked Jesus a question with the motive of testing him. He addresses Jesus as Rabbi, and his question is simple: which commandment in Torah is the greatest? First-century Judaism had no qualms about determining which of the 613 commandments were weightier, more important than the others are. His response, describing the greatest and first commandment, is to the Shema of Israel in Deuteronomy 6:5, that you shall love the Lord your God will the heart, soul, and mind. Here is what the faithful Jewish person recited every day, as part of prayer and confession at both morning and evening prayer. The Shema of Israel identified the uniqueness of the Lord and the requirement of total commitment to the Lord.[115] The uniqueness of the God who comes to rule excludes all competing concerns. To those who open themselves to this summons, God already comes to rule. The rule of God is imminent, but it also emerges from its future nature as present. The basis is that oneness of God is the content of this future. The divine rule is the outworking of the divine claim to the present life of the creature.[116] In reciting the Shema, we learn that the God of Jesus is none other than the God of Jewish faith, in according to the witness of the Old Testament, the God whom Israel confesses in the Shema.[117] First, it confesses a profound personal response on the part of each who would confess this truth — to love this God. The Shema confesses a profound personal response on the part of each who would confess this truth — to love this God. The original Hebrew had no need to designate both “heart” and “mind.” “Soul” is spirit, self, will, need, desire. “Strength” is physical. The separation of the faculties is not the key, but a complete response to God. To love God is to obey God in Deuteronomy 13:3-4, 30:16-20, Joshua 22:5, I John 2:4-6, and 5:3a. Loving God with all the heart and soul receives emphasis in Deuteronomy 4:29 (=Jeremiah 29:13), 10:12, 11:13, 30:6, 10, and Joshua 22:5. The point of loving God is to honor God by the way we live in harmony with the will of God. One is to love God with the whole self and being. The demands of this command take on life in every aspect of human life ‑‑ heart, soul, mind and strength ‑‑ and are to permeate "all" (repeated each time) corners of that part of human existence. Along with the Jews of his day, Jesus undoubtedly recited the Shema. According to the Mishnah, every Israelite male should recite this verse twice daily.[118]
The love of God summarizes who the children of God are. Jesus addresses the commandment to Israel as part of the covenant and to his followers as part of the people of God. Love alone can correspond to the uniqueness in which God is the Lord. Whatever love may consist in, love will always be the one choice in which a human being chooses God as his or her Lord in the sense in which God has already chosen to be Lord. “You shall,” suggests a commandment from this God. The commandment does not reduce the number of laws but moves against the notion of law entirely. Although we may think it odd to command love only love can make a real demand. The object of the commandment is God. In loving God, humanity has a partner in God, who loves humanity as well. To love means to become what we already are, that is, those whom God loves. To love means to choose God as the Lord, the One who is our Lord because Christ is our Advocate and Representative. To love means to be obedient to the commandment of this God. In every case, love is an accepting, confirming and grasping of our future. In it, this future is identical with the reality of God, who in the fullest sense of the word is for us. This God is our future. People who love God will let themselves be told and will themselves confess that they are not in any sense righteous as ones who love. They are sinners who even in their love have nothing to bring and offer to God. The love of God for them is that God intercedes for them and represents them even though they are so unworthy, even though they can never be anything but unworthy and therefore undeserving of love. How can that have any other meaning than that they are driven to repentance and held there? They can love and will love only as this loving allows this to happen. To love God is to seek God. Now, we cannot seek our own being and activity. Our being and activity as such can only be this seeking. We misunderstand this seeking if we think of it as a special art or striving on the part of those who have already proposed and undertaken the task, or as a wonderful flower of piety that has grown in the garden of those who are already particularly situated and gifted for it. What matters is emphatically not the fact of our seeking, but the direction of our seeking. In all that seeking we are still within the realm of our being sinners. Despite our seeking, we may be rejecting. They rejoice that they have not sought in vain. They are what they are as genuine seekers after God by giving a Yes that comes from the heart, soul, mind, and strength, even when they find God. When the love of God reaches its goal, they hear, feel, and taste afresh that have an incomparable Lord. When they find God, grace meets them, which they then accept into their lives. Grace shows what God does for them. Grace shows that in themselves they are poor, impotent, and empty. It shows that they rebel against God. Grace points them away from self and toward Christ who is the promise of what they can become. Grace does not allow arrogance. Grace reveals the rebellion and imperfection of even the best thoughts and undertakings by humanity. Grace does not allow any arrogance. Grace reveals the lethargy and wildness that lie like a heavy load upon even the best thoughts and undertakings. Grace demands that they live only by grace, and by grace really live. Does the addition “with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength” add anything? The addition is a guarantee against every division and reservation. It means that Christian love is characterized as a total constitution and attitude of humanity. The addition lights up the voluntary obedience given to Christ to love. We shall seek after God only when the commandment to do it has reached all that we are. Such love cannot be lost. Such love is the thankfulness that the believer owes to God in the divine work of revealing and reconciling. [119]
Jesus then offers an unsolicited view that the second commandment is like it, referring to Leviticus 19:18b, that you shall love your neighbor, who is a human being just like you are.[120] Leviticus 19 opens with an emphasis upon the holy God receiving proper respect and then requiring justice and respect to “children of your own people.” The parable of the Good Samaritan shows (Luke 10:25-37) shows that Jesus was expanding the notion of neighbor beyond that of a fellow Jew, erasing national and ethnic considerations in its definition. The saying requires on to have a tender regard for the neighbor. Hillel the Elder was a contemporary of Jesus of whom it is recorded:
“A proselyte approached Hillel with the request Hillel teach him the whole of the Torah while the student stood on one foot. Hillel responded, “What you find hateful (or, What you yourself hate), do not do to another (or, your neighbor). This is the whole of the Law. Everything else is commentary. Now go learn that!”
C.S. Lewis, in his eponymous essay, suggests that one way to carry the “weight of glory” in a practical application is to hold in one’s mind regularly the eternal worth of one’s neighbor. As he puts it, “there are no ordinary people,” for everyone has eternal significance. “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself,” Lewis writes, “Your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” Just as we blaspheme the Holy Spirit if we ascribe the works of God as deeds of the Devil, so we blaspheme the grace of the Most High given for all people when we treat them as means and not as precious creatures in the Lord’s sight.[121]
At a practical level, most of us will freely admit the difficulty of loving the neighbor. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you would presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less." We are to love without exception, even if most people are undeserving of that love. Their true value is their creation in the image of God, to which we owe all honor and love.[122] The point is not warm affection toward the neighbor, but to have caring and thoughtful actions toward the neighbor. We are to think of their creation in the image of God. Since we owe honor and love to God, we also owe such honor and love to that which God has made.[123]
We love to think about love. We think love is the answer. We can sing that love makes the world go around. We can sing that all we need is love. We search for love. We seem convinced that love can save the world and make life worth living. Yet, we have a looser grasp on love than we think. Love springs from awareness of the other. When you genuinely see the other, you have the potential to love. Without seeing truly, we will love only the person of our memory and imagination.[124]
The love of neighbor summarizes the action of the children of God. Love of God is serious only in the context of the love of neighbor. As human beings we live in an historical and social context ordered by God. If we are to love God, we must also love what God has created. We honor and love God when we honor and love what God has created.
Jesus refuses to separate what is inseparable. Jesus ties together two commands that he deemed essential by focusing on the one overwhelming principle that defines God: love. Neither Hillel nor Jesus was by any means the first to tie together the poetic demands of Deuteronomy 6:5, known in the tradition as the Shema, and the compassionate command of Leviticus 19:18.
[Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, around 137-107 BC)
Love the Lord and your neighbor;
Be compassionate toward poverty and sickness. (Testament of Isaacher 5:2)
I acted in piety and truth all my days,
The Lord I loved with all my strength,
Likewise, I loved every human being as I love my children. (Testament of Isaacher 7:6)
They (what distances you from the Law) do not permit people to show mercy to their neighbors. (Testament of Judah 18:3)
Have mercy in your inner being, my children, because whatever anyone does to his neighbor, the Lord will do to him. (Testament of Zebulun 5:3)
Throughout all your life love the Lord,
And one another with a true heart. (Testament of Dan 5:3)
Now, my children, each of you love his brother. Drive hatred out of your hearts. Love one another in deed and word and inward thoughts. (Testament of Gad 6:2)
Of course, the New Testament shares this emphasis on the love of neighbor in Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, and James 2:8.
The dialogue ends with Jesus emphasizing their centrality, for on these two commandments than all the law and the prophets. Jesus did not “come to abolish the law or the prophets;” instead, he came “not to abolish but to fulfill” (5:17). They provide a coherent principle for appreciating and observing the other commandments.[125] They provide us a lens through which we read Scripture. Jesus understood the prophetic tradition and ethical demands considering these two commands. He is aligning his ministry and mission throughout the gospel of Matthew in accord with the two commands.
Jesus speaks of his own harmonious orientation. Jesus joins the two commands, expecting one love expressed in two spheres of life. Such love finds that the Creator points to the neighbor and in the neighbor the one points to the Creator.[126] One cannot withdraw from the neighbor to some special religious sphere. Nor can we allow love of neighbor to absorb love of God, thereby taking away its independent quality.[127] Love to others cannot exhaust itself in love to God. Nor can love to God exhaust itself in love of others. One cannot replace the other. Love to God evokes love to neighbor. One cannot have Christ and not have the neighbor. Therefore, one cannot have God without also having the neighbor. Such love is obedience to the direction God wants to take you.[128]
Here Jesus stresses if not the equality, then certainly the dynamic interrelationship operating between the commands to love God and to love neighbor. Accountability to one is meaningless without accountability to the other. The point is the contrast between Pharisaic legalism and the ethics of love for God and neighbor. The two commandments are not identical. At the same time, the second is not simply appended, subordinate, or derivative. The second is like the first. The passage has reference to God, but also to the neighbor. It has the one dimension, but also the other. It finds in the Creator the One who points to this creature, the neighbor.[129] To love God and to love the neighbor are both commandments of the one God. In both commandments, what concerns us is the claim of the one God upon the whole person. The commandment to love the neighbor in the time and world that now is and passes, we are in fact dealing with a first and a second commandment, a primary and a secondary, a superior and a subordinate, commandment of God. Such love is the only way to maintain faith. There are no higher or impressive ways.
The neighbor is the person within the circle of significant relationships we have as social creatures.[130]The neighbor is also the stranger within the gates, the one ignored by our circles of significant relationships. In the context of Luke’s version of the two great commandments in Luke 10 and 11, we have the example of the love to neighbor in the story of the Good Samaritan and of love to God in the story of Mary and Martha. Clearly, Luke views the two commandments as separate. The story of Mary and Martha reminds us that love to God includes practices of meditation, contemplation, prayer, and worship. My neighbor is an event that takes place in the existence of a definite person marked off from all other people. My neighbor is my fellow human being acting towards me as a benefactor. Every human being can act towards me in this way in virtue of the fact that he or she can have commission and authority to do so. However, not everyone acts towards me in this way. Therefore, not everyone is a neighbor to me. My neighbor is the one who emerges from among all human beings as this one person. I must hear a summons from Jesus Christ. I must be ready to obey the summons to go and do likewise. I have a decisive part in the event by which a human being is my neighbor. That suffering human needing help directs the children of God to the task that God has appointed for them. God does not will the many griefs, sufferings, and burdens under which we people must sigh. God wills their removal. God wills a better world. Therefore, we will this better world, and a true worship of God consists in our cooperation in the removal of these sufferings. Therefore, our neighbor in his or her distress is a reminder to us and the occasion and object of our proper worship of God. To love means to enter the future that God has posited for us in and with the existence of our neighbor. Therefore, to love means to subject ourselves to the order instituted in the form of our neighbor. To love means to accept the benefit that God has shown by not leaving us alone but having given us the neighbor. To love means to reconcile ourselves to the existence of the neighbor, to find ourselves in the fact that God wills us to exist as the children of God in this way. To love means to find ourselves in co-existence with this neighbor, under the direction that we must receive from the neighbor, in the limitation and determination that the existence of the neighbor means for our existence, and in the respecting and acceptance of the mission that the neighbor has in relation to us. One may flee from love to God to a wrongly understood love of the neighbor. The children of God renounce all movements of flight. The life of the children of God is fulfilled in a rhythm of this twofold love, and there is nothing more senseless and impossible than to play off the one against the other. The children of God abide in love. This applies to both, because they know that, once they have fled to God, they can flee to no other place.
Further, the living out of this faith is the witness to which the neighbor has a claim and which I owe the neighbor. It will be as well not to connect the concept of witness with the idea of an end or purpose. Witness in the Christian sense of the concept is the greeting with which I must greet my neighbor, the declaration of my fellowship with my own brother or sister. I do not will anything that I may not will anything in rendering this witness. I simply live the life of my faith in the specific encounter with the neighbor. The strength of the Christian witness stands or falls with the fact that with all its urgency this restraint is peculiar to it. Neither to myself nor to anyone else can I contrive that someone will give help to one in need. Therefore, in my testimony I cannot follow out the plan of trying to invade and alter the life of my neighbor. A witness is neither a guardian nor a teacher. A witness will not intrude on the neighbor. A witness will not handle the neighbor. The witness will not make the neighbor the object of activity, even with the freedom of the grace of God, and therefore respect for the other person who can expect nothing from me but everything from God. It is in serious acknowledgement of the claim and our responsibility that we do not infringe this twofold respect. I only declare to the other that in relation to him or her I believe in Jesus Christ, that I do not meet the neighbor as a stranger but as my brother or sister, even though I do not know that he or she is such. I do not withhold from the neighbor the praise that I owe to God. In that way, I fulfill my responsibility to my neighbor. I want to offer three forms of this witness. One is that I do not grudge my neighbor the word as a word of help in his or her need, nor in my need. We can fail to bear true witness. One way to do so is to talk about our own sin and need as such, for I am not saying anything helpful to the neighbor at that point. In fact, the narration of such a story runs the risk of placing myself at the center of witness rather than Christ. Another way to fail in witness is to focus upon some experience of help, rather than upon the God who provided the help. In both cases, we are never at a loss for words when we come to speak of our sin and our positive experiences. Either way, we have a rich and certain knowledge. How easy to confuse this knowledge of ourselves with the much less intimate and tangible knowledge of the help itself. Any help we give to the neighbor has the objective of directing people to the God who has helped us. I substantiate to my neighbor by my attitude, the disposition and mood by which I meet my neighbor, which need to be the evangelical attitude of bearing witness to Jesus Christ, what I have to say to the neighbor by word and deed.
All law seeks to make a form of life that achieves permanence and may even declare a regulation to be normative, so that it must deal with new situations by casuistic extensions or expositions. Freedom characterizes the work of love. Thus, we misunderstand the creative nature of love if, appealing to this passage, we think of Jesus as abrogating the Old Testament law by a new Christian law. Love does not despise orientation to given rules. Yet, agreement with them is always a free act because one does not accept them in every situation. For love, each new situation is an appeal to its inventive powers. In this fact, we find the contrast to the mere following of a law.[131] Love will find a way. Indifference will find an excuse.
Since fellowship with God along the lines of the love of God commanded in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 is possible only in connection with personal participation in the movement of love of God toward the world, Jesus could directly link the command to love our neighbor in Leviticus 19:18 with the love for God that is the supreme commandment.[132] We find here two commands, but primarily, love is not commanded, but living reality, an impulse proceeding from the love of God for the world that lays hold of us and catches us p into its movement. Participation in the kindness of God as Creator ought to be the natural consequence of thankful acceptance of this kindness. To command love and to practice it as the fulfillment of a command is thus self-contradictory because free spontaneity is a constituent of all turning to others in love. With Augustine, love is a motivating force that differs in nature from a command and its observance. Love is a gift of grace that enables us for the first time to respond in our own conduct to the kindness of God as Creator and to the redeeming love of God to participate in them. Yet, if Christian love is participation in the love of God for the world, then we must ask whether we can distinguish at all between love of God love of neighbor. Does not true love consist of sharing in the love of God for the world? In the depth of turning to the co-human Thou do we not also love God?[133] The Scholastic thesis concerned the unity of the act of love in such a way that primarily love of God is an implication and transcendental basis of love of neighbor. Explicit love of neighbor is the primary act of love of God, which in the love of neighbor God is truly if nonthematically in view, and even explicit love of God is still carried by that trusting and loving opening to the totality of reality that takes place in love of neighbor. This does not mean reduction of love of God to love of neighbor. Instead, we free explicit love of God from falsely seeming to represent an exceptional phenomenon of only marginal importance. Because God as silent incomprehensibility is at work in all the relations of humanity, however secular, we can see thematically in the explicit act of love of God what is always already the concern in all human life in co-humanity. The question remains, why this reference must become thematic in and for itself.[134] In any case, many voices in Protestant theology have tended to answer affirmatively that one can identify love of neighbor with love of God. The problem with this is that equating love of God and love of neighbor can easily lead to a moralistic interpretation of Christianity. The relation to God can fade out as a distinct theme, losing it in co-humanity. With Jesus in this statement, one can find no support for absorbing love of God into love neighbor.[135]
Yet, in this command to love God, is faith implicit already, the emphasis that Paul would bring to light? Ritschl thinks so based on the idea that faith is itself a form of love. He did so because he moved in a critically against Pietism and the medieval Catholic theology that had defined the relation of faith and love. Yet, in doing so, he did not want in the least to say that love of God must merge into love neighbor. His point was to make a careful distinction between our religious relation to God in faith on the one said and love as the essence of moral action on the other. Yet, the act of trust does not contain all aspects of love, for love does not just link up with the object of trust as trust itself does but is also the power of recognizing what is different, making fellowship possible.[136]
Are we here to find happiness? In a certain sense, we can answer positively. Love is a relationship, and relationships take time. John Wesley connected happiness, holiness, and love, based on this text. What is the source of unhappiness? It may well come from setting our love of creation above our love the creator, our love of self above our love of neighbor.[137] If so, the source of unhappiness is misdirected love. Thus, genuinely following Jesus is neither more nor less than love, for love fulfills the law and is the end of the commandments. Genuine religion is the love of God and the neighbor, by which we mean, every person under heaven.[138] If we can properly understand Christian perfection, love will sum up such a life. Of course, love to God with all that we are, and then love of neighbor in inseparable connection with the first. [139]
Matthew 22:41-46 (Mark 12:35-7) is a dialogue concerning the Son of David. The dialogue both reveals and conceals the Messiah, a result Jesus would have liked. The saying is an obscure reference to the question messiahship.[140] The dialogue occurs as Jesus engages the Pharisees by asking them the question of whom they think the Messiah is and whose son is he? The question has in the background that some first century Jews associated the biblical promises of a delivering descendant of King David with the Messiah (Anointed One). The idea was one anointed by the Spirit of God for divine purposes. The equivalent Greek term is “Christ.” Matthew uses the expression “son of David” as a synonym for Messiah in Matthew 1:1; 9:27; 12:23, in conjunction also with “Lord” in 15:22; 20:30-31; and 21:9. The question implies the Messiah is a descendent of David. Isaiah 9:2-9 refers to the throne of David having a child who will have authority over Israel. His name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. His reign will be one of endless peace. Righteousness will establish his rule. Isaiah 11:1-9 looks forward to a descendent of Jesse, the father of David, on whom the Spirit of the Lord rest, granting him wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, and the knowledge and fear of the Lord. He will judge the poor with righteousness and decide for the meek of the earth. He shall judge the wicked. Yet, wolf and lamb will coexist, as will other natural enemies in nature. The reason is that the earth will become full of the knowledge of the Lord. Jeremiah 23:5-6 says that out of the descendants of David comes a righteous Branch, who reigns wisely, justly, and righteously. Israel will live in safety. Jeremiah 33:14-18 offers a similar promise, adding that David shall never lack a descendant who will sit upon the throne. Ezekiel 34:23-24 and 37:24 promise a shepherd, the servant of the Lord, David, who shall feed them and be their prince. The New Testament asserts that Jesus was a descendent of David in Romans 1:3, II Timothy 2:8, Matthew 1:17, and Luke 3:23-25. Thus, when Jesus asks the Pharisees whose son the Messiah is, no one would be surprised with their response that he is the son or descendant of David. The surprise comes when Jesus refers to Psalm 110:1, in which he assumes the common authorship of the psalm to David. David calls him Lord, by the Spirit, and the Lord will have him sit at the right hand of God and put all his enemies under his feet. Asked differently, since fathers do not customarily address their sons, grandsons or any descendant as “my Lord,” to whom was David referring in Psalm 110:1? Jesus carries a polemic against the notion of a Davidic Messiah. Yet, could this interpretation have truth? I do not think so. Jesus may well question the assumption that the Messiah was a nationalist. In fact, it seems likely that Jesus invites his opponents to question the assumption that the Messiah must be a nationalist who seeks to rally popular support for his military victory. Regardless of the scriptural support, Jesus uses another Scripture to suggest that the Messiah is more than a son of David, for the Messiah is also Lord. It suggests that his opponents must think much higher in their view of the Messiah if David calls him Lord. Messianic hopes must rise above the earthly plane. As Matthew makes clear — from the opening genealogy, the birth announcement to Joseph, God’s call of his son out of Egypt, and Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist so that all righteousness might be fulfilled — Jesus is the son of God, the Messiah, which justifies even King David calling him “my Lord” (cf. Matthew 1:1, 14, 18-25; 2:15; 3:13-17).
The brief dialogue ends in a paradox for the entire section, for those who came to trap Jesus were trapped by him.
Matthew 23:1-12 (Year A October 30-November 5) are a collection of sayings regarding the status of the Pharisees. This conflict has profound theological significance. The rule of God drew near in Jesus, and Jesus wanted Israel to draw near to him, but an immovable barrier was present as Israel through its religious leaders repudiated and resisted him as he suffered and received execution in Jerusalem. [141] They wanted to think of themselves as examples of exceptional spirituality. Yet, they missed its heart. These leaders have all the appearance of piety, but none of the action. In this episode, in contrast to the virtues of authenticity and humility, Jesus charges these leaders with hypocrisy and arrogance. Scribes were low level, local, administrative officials. Since they could read and write they conducted much of the official and legal business. They were the clerks and local bureaucrats. Pharisees were those who have knowledge of Torah and provided authoritative interpretation of it. Jesus acknowledges a special link between the occupation of these leaders and the treasured Torah.
In Matt 23: 2-3 (unique to Matthew), Jesus refers to them as sitting in the seat of Moses, so he urges his followers to do what they say but do not follow the way they live, since they do not practice what they teach. They have the appearance of piety, but do not back it up with their lives. They know Torah but fail to live it properly. They possess head knowledge but fail to allow that knowledge to transform their lives. He will accuse them of hypocrisy in verses 13, 15, 25, 27, and 29. This saying substantiates that charge. Hypocrisy is one of the most nerve-wracking vices to have. It needs an unceasing vigilance. To cultivate this vice is a full-time job. One cannot practice it in spare moments.[142] The point Jesus is making is that under certain circumstances, the follower of Jesus should consider seriously what the scribes and Pharisees say, but do not take as seriously what they do. Interestingly, this would suggest that Torah is still in force for followers of Jesus. An interesting tension occurs between this saying and the accusation that they are “blind guides” in 23:16. Why are we to listen to what they say in some circumstances and recognize them as blind guides in another? Are the crowds to listen to them or are they not? Although such counsel seems contradictory, wisdom teaching is often like that. Contradictions are present only when abstracted from the context. My suspicion is that both statements are “true,” in that you should, in one circumstance, consider them as blind guides, and in another circumstance, consider seriously what they say and avoid what they do. The saying substantiates their hypocrisy and assumes the teaching of Jesus regarding humble service in the rule of God. Since Torah remains in force for Jesus, the disciples, and those who would follow him, at least in the distinctive interpretation it receives from Jesus, the saying is less critical of the position of the religious leaders.
In Matt 23:4 (Luke 11:46b) is a saying on the heavy burdens scribes and Pharisees put upon others through their instruction on minutely observing the Torah, telling others what to do, using the metaphor of placing a large cargo on their shoulders that will make it harder from them to live their lives. The people have become victims of the authoritative teaching of these religious leaders regarding Torah. The result is diminished effectiveness in being the people of God, reducing their influence in the world. The contrast is the life of freedom of the children of God to which Jesus calls his followers. [143]
In Matt 23:5-7 (Mark 12:38-39, Luke 11:43, 20:46) points to the privileges of the scribes and Pharisees. Given Roman occupation, the learned had little political power or wealth. Jesus will accuse them of putting their piety on parade, enjoying the privileges that accompanied their piety too much. Their actions are for the sake of being seen by others, thereby masking who they truly are. The point is that the actions of the follower of Jesus are to be visible, but never done for the sake of their visibility. Followers of Jesus let their light shine and cultivate the right behavior without paying too much attention to how right that behavior will appear to others.[144] An example of such masking involves their typical attire. A successful first-century scribe wore a long linen robe with a long white mantle, a symbol of importance and prestige, decorated with beautiful long fringes. It identified one as a teacher or philosopher. Phylacteries were small receptacle containing the most important words of Torah, which they attach to forehead or arm, carrying out the injunction of Exodus 13:9, 10, Deuteronomy 6:8, 11:18. Numbers 15:39-40 explains the reason for wearing the fringe: “You have the fringe so that, when you see it, you will remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and not follow the lust of your own heart and your own eyes. So, you shall remember and do all my commandments, and you shall be holy to your God.” For Jesus, what they wore became a sign of their condemnation. Jesus mocks the irony of their appearance. Another example of their love of visibility is that they liked being invited by a well-heeled host to a banquet who would then show off his own importance and good taste by having a learned scribe and his pupils sitting in the best and easily viewed seats. Jesus was concerned enough with this that he crafted a parable regarding it (Luke 14:7-11). They love the visibility of the best seats in the synagogue, which would be in the front, next to the scrolls of the ark containing the scrolls and facing the congregation. They liked the visibility of receiving respected greetings in the marketplaces fitting of their position, including the title of Rabbi. Tradition dictated that common people should respectfully rise to their feet when a scribe walked past. They excused only certain skilled tradesmen working in the marketplace from this social gesture of respect. In matters of spirituality, the greatest danger is striving for others to see you as exceptional. Little steps add up. Do one little thing, one average thing, every day, out of your commitment to Jesus Christ. Over time, it will make a difference.
In Matt 23:8-10 (unique to Matthew) Jesus focuses upon the danger of attachment to a title. Jesus uses the practices of the scribes and Pharisees to tell his followers that they should look at each other as students who have one rabbi or teacher. Jesus reminds us of the power of viewing the communal nature of following Jesus as the communion of saints.[145] Followers of Jesus are to shape a different form of communal life than he finds exhibited in the Jewish society of his time. The focus his community is service rather than status. It also suggests, considering later theology, that the Word of God becomes the master and teacher that shapes the lives of those who follow Jesus. As followers today, we are always students of the Word, receiving its instruction in a prayerful way and under the direction of the Spirit.[146]
In Matt 23:11 (unique to Matthew) Jesus restrains ambition in that those who follow Jesus are to serve. In his epic poem, Paradise Lost, John Milton includes these famous words, spoken by Satan:
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n. (lines 254-263)
In Matt 23:12 (Luke 14:11, 18:14) the focus is on the virtue of becoming humble. Jesus urges the crowds and disciples to understand that the kingdom is marked by humility. The rule of God involves God exalting what God exalts and humbling what God humbles, suggesting that God and human beings will have contrasting views. It suggests the reversal of roles. Some epistemological humility needs to characterize followers of Jesus. Humility is a sign of self-confidence. Humility suggests that we are secure enough in who we are that we can alter our views as we gain added information and face new circumstances. If all we want to do is confirm what we already believe, if we engage in debates with only a view to winning, then we have missed an important part of humility, that of achieving a greater understanding of truth. Humility will value collective wisdom. We are better off if we have within our orbit people who see the world different than we do. . Humility is a virtue that once we notice it in ourselves, we have less of it. If we become aware of the depth of our humility, pride is already beginning. The reason for this is that any virtue has the design of lessening our interest in self and increasing our interest in others. Humility does not mean a low opinion of our talents our character. Humility will lead to a proper evaluation of our gifts and passions and place them in the service of the rule of God. Humility will lead to proper love of self as a creation of God and gratitude for the time God has given us. Humility will also lead to proper love of and gratitude for others.[147]
Matthew 25:1-13 (unique to Matthew) is the parable of ten maidens. I am going to interpret it as if Jesus told the parable.[148] Some background might help us. This parable obviously draws on the customs of Jewish marriage in Roman-era Palestine. Arland Hultgren provides a concise summary of what little we know about such customs at the time of Jesus. The first state was betrothal, as the parents arrange the marriage of the couple. The arrangement was legally binding, broken only by divorce. The second stage was the wedding feast, usually occurring a year later. The couple consummates the marriage by their co-habitation. The parable we are considering is at this stage. A festival procession precedes the marriage celebration, as in Psalm 45:13-15, where attendants lead the princess to the king and I Maccabees 9:37-39, where a large escort brings the bride to the groom with much baggage and the groom greets her with music and weapons.[149]
The parable reflects a dimension of the rule of God. It uses an image of the Jewish tradition. The banquet depicts the eschatological future of fellowship in the rule of God. Here, the marriage feast depicts future fellowship with God and with the people of God.[150] It reminds us that human life has an unurgent and decisive quality that seems lost in a time of ever-lengthening lifespans. The wedding day has come. The banquet is ready. The story is a loving but genuine warning. The parable has some unique twists. It reveals nothing about the bride, focusing immediately upon the ten bridesmaids. It will distinguish between half of them being shortsighted and therefore foolish and the other half being wise. In their shortsightedness, the foolish did not bring extra oil for their lamps, while the wise did. The oil becomes a symbol of the good works and obedience.[151] The bridegroom was delayed because of the last-minute animated negotiations that often accompanied the final visit of the groom to the family of the bride (Joachim Jeremias and Eduard Schweizer). Significantly, since all of them sleep, no one looking at them could distinguish between the wise and foolish. All appear faithful in their waiting for the bridegroom. Since our time is valuable, most of us do not like waiting. Since the return of the risen Lord was not as quick as many anticipated, it was easy to be skeptical, and it has only become more so in the two millennia since Jesus told this parable. There will always be tomorrow. The eventual arrival of the bridegroom needs to challenge us to consider what we are doing with our today. The arrival of the bridegroom comes suddenly and with a shout, suggesting the suddenness of the arrival of the rule of God. The eschatological crisis is near.[152] None of the bridesmaids knew the timeline for the arrival of the bridegroom, which should discourage any follower of Jesus from even trying to decipher when the arrival will happen. The precise date does not matter, but what does matter is to take seriously the lordship of Jesus Christ, who will come and will be the one whom we meet. Consistent with other parables and sayings of Jesus, we need to orient our lives to the fact that our time is expiring quickly. We do not know when our end will come, but we know it will. Whether or not we use this time before our end wisely, our time will be gone suddenly.[153]Someone urges all the bridesmaids to come out to meet him. At the beginning of the 1900s, an account of a wedding includes torches used to illuminate the wedding procession at night. The torches consisted of sticks wrapped with rags soaked in olive oil. Girls danced until the flame died. In any case, at the invitation, all ten trim their lamps, but, in a difficult part of the parable, the foolish ask the wise for oil, since their lamps were burning out, and the wise replied there would not be enough for both, advising them to leave the wedding procession and go to the dealers and buy some for themselves. The ethical issue raised here is that the response of the wise seems selfish. Yet, as we move through the parable, we will see that this may not be the case. I might also offer the reminder that the parables of Jesus often contain a questionable ethical element. It may even point to the harsh reality that we cannot expect others to be of much help. As the foolish do what the wise suggest, the attention in the parable shifts to the bridegroom, who finally arrives and brings those who were ready with him into the banquet, and then the words that have so much finality to them, the door was shut. We feel the pain and fear of the shut door. We do not have the responsibility of defining who is in and who is out. The parade passes by. We get hints of this reality in our lives when the moment comes for the preacher when the sermon must be given or we must arrive at work. Such recognition of a human life is a dimension of wisdom. It also reflects the nature of the rule of God. Are we ready? Will we commit? This parable is saying that we need to take the lordship of Jesus Christ seriously. Time has an end for us. Time has a fulfillment of our actions. We must decide now if we want to be part of the end to which this parable invites us. Do we want to be part of the wedding feast? Will we make decisions now that make us ready for that feast? We should want to, of course. Few people do not like a good party. On the personal side, disciples of Jesus, if they invite people at all today, do so as if they are inviting people to a funeral. Worse, some seriously think inviting people to an IRS audit of their lives will inspire them to come. Followers of Jesus need to have the mentality of inviting people to the party. We need to do all we can to help other people be ready to enter the banquet, for there is plenty of room. There will always be enough food for the feast. Everyone can be a friend of this groom. Those ready for the arrival of the bridegroom enjoy fellowship with God and with the people of God. People have present access to this life.[154] Not being part of the process, not participating at the crucial moment, when the foolish finally arrive, knock on the shut door, asking the lord to open the door for them, but the lord replied that he does not know them. The wise bridegrooms showed their wisdom in in living a life of obedience, and thus, they could not transfer this life to someone else. The foolish did not truly anticipate the banquet. The point is the present life of believers and of the community. Are disciples active in relation to the coming of the Lord? Our lamps of faith and life need to burn and shine at the decisive moment. If we do not, we do not enjoy the party.[155] Thus, the parable looks to the future while warning against speculation as to the precise moment in human history when the end of human time comes. The wise do not know the precise time of the end. They had the oil and prepared for a long wait. Thus, the point of the apocalyptic language here is not to focus our attention upon the future. Rather, considering the future, we are to give all due attention to the decisions we make in the present. Followers of Jesus need to attend the matter at hand and the decision of each moment. Followers of Jesus will stand before the Lord with the world. The cause of God does not rest in our hands. Followers of Jesus are handmaidens of the Lord. Followers of Jesus bear witness to Jesus. All people are accountable to God.[156] Thus, this parable transforms the imagery of Jewish apocalyptic into conformity to the message of Jesus.[157] The challenge of Jesus here is whether followers of Jesus understand their present existence under the lordship of Jesus in relation to their future. The end is the consummation of the coming of the Lord the glory, the liberation, and the judgment toward which history now moves. Thus, the future of Jesus Christ weighs in the balances the present life and action of humanity in general and the followers of Jesus in particular.[158] We may well need to re-think our lives considering this future. For example, in thinking of eternal fulfillment, if we do not see it in the present, we will not see it all.[159] The listener or reader is to always be ready, by taking the reality of God so seriously that one can come to terms with the sudden appearance of the reality of God at any moment within our lives.
Such a parable invites us to take spiritual inventory of our lives. For example, are we short of oil? The oil could represent kindness, compassion, patience, and instruction in discipleship. Is the oil ready for us in our devotional life, places of work, family, and friends? If we live in anticipation of the bridegroom, our focus does shift to others as well. The banquet is large enough for everyone. We need to do all we can to help other people be ready to have a place at the table. Just to re-emphasize, we are inviting people to a wedding banquet. We are inviting people to a party. Followers of Jesus live with a beautiful hope. We look forward to that future in a way that enlivens our present.
Matthew 25:14-30 (Luke 19:11-17) (Year A November 13-19) is a parable of money held in trust. Someone is going on a trip and is generous in entrusting wealth to his servants, distributing to three servants varying amounts consistent with their abilities. He gives no instructions or guidelines. Yet, each servant took the distribution as inviting them to definite action, the first two engaging in business transactions that resulted in doubling the amount but the last receiving the least hid the wealth he received in the ground. Thus, two engage in risk and the risk paid off, while the third, with good intentions, took the safe path of protecting and conserving the wealth given him. The master returns, but only after a long time, to settle accounts with them. The first two receive a word from the mater that they have done well as good and trustworthy servants, and since they have been trustworthy in a few things, he will put them in charge of many things, so they can enter the joy of their master. The fact that the master can refer to the wealth given them as few things, an amount equal to the daily wage for 15 years, shows how wealthy the master was. In contrast, the one third servant says he knew the master was harsh, reaping where he did not sow, gathering where he did not scatter, thereby basing his action on the character of the master, which he views as greedy and unjust. Although this servant could know things about his master that the parable only now reveals, there is nothing in the parable to suggest it is true. In fact, the lord has just finished praising and rewarding some of his servants. He seems magnanimous up to this point. Moreover, the audience has heard about no shadiness on the part of this master. Instead, the parable depicts the master as giving according to the ability of the servants. He knows what his servants can do and entrusts them with just that much responsibility. Moreover, the master has given out his possessions to the servants. He is not staking a claim upon something that is not his but is simply asking for the productive return of his own property. Therefore, even though the servant claims to know the master, his assessment of the master’s character does not line up with what Jesus told the readers about him earlier in the parable. The third servant admits that his fear of the master led him to hide the wealth given him and now he is returning it. His fear distorted his perception of his situation. The freedom the master gave him became a snare waiting to catch him in failure. He chose the option of faithless inactivity. Those willing to risk nothing risk losing everything. His fear motivated him not to do well but to act impetuously and irrationally. Instead of working extra hard to please the master who he thought was harsh and demanding, he does nothing productive with the wealth his master gave him. The master condemns the prudent slave who acts out of fear and does the safe and secure thing with the wealth given him. The harsh words of the master reveal that what is a safe action as described by the third servant is a selfish action, which reveals the servant as evil and lazy, qualities that describe how he has acted in this parable. He is evil to believe something that is not true about the master and lazy in that he did nothing with that with which the master entrusted him. If his fear were justified, it should have led him to at least place the wealth given him in a bank and receive the interest. The master then takes the wealth given the third servant and gives it to the first servant, who had received the most wealth, saying that to those who have more will be given and those who have little will have it taken away (Matthew 13:12, Mark 4:25, Luke 8:18 and 19:26). In the parable, even though the master entrusted the third servant with little because of his ability, the master takes it away from him because of his misguided and lazy action. Hence, at least in this instance, the parable helps to explain the aphorism. Those who have, those who have not, the giving, and taking that one associates with each group is not random but has its basis in the beliefs and actions of each. The exhortation for Jesus’ disciples and for Matthew’s readers is twofold. Not only should they be diligent with what the master has given, knowing that the time is short, but they should also seek to understand the character of the master they serve. He will punish those who do not serve him rightly — because he is just rather than unjust. They can trust that if they are faithful servants, they, too, God will reward them with an invitation into the rule of God. In the context of eschatological waiting described by Jesus, we find an inextricable link between his teachings and the meaning of faithfulness. Those who listen, pay attention, and then actively seek to further the interests of the Master will receive the reward in the coming kingdom. Thus, the last servant is worthless, so he has him thrown into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. What the servant believed about the master has now come true. The master not only rebukes the slave for his lack of use and return on the money. He punishes harshly those who treat his property carelessly. Just as there is the joy of the master there is a place of outer darkness. The note of judgment is overwhelming. The characterization of the master as a hard man by the third servant seems justified at this point. Clearly, the master desires not security, but activity, not conservatism, but initiative. Even so, the rebuke seems unduly harsh with words like wicked, lazy, and worthless, and the ultimate punishment seems out of proportion to the offense. The parable pictures God as an oriental despot enjoying punishing failure and gloating over the death of enemies.
What do we do with the shift in the parable from the generosity of the master to the harshness of the master? What do we do with the contrast between the joy of the master and outer darkness? The text is eschatological, so it has a dimension of an accounting of our lives in eternity. Yet, as with most such parables of Jesus, in has another dimension that applies to our experience today. The master is generous in the distribution of wealth, generous in giving time, and generous in the invitation to the servants to the joy of the master, but harsh in removing the wealth given to the third servant, giving it to the one who had the most wealth, and placing him in another place apart from the master, a place of darkness, where he weeps and gnashes his teeth in disappointment. We receive foreshadowing of this eschatological disappointment in some of the decisions we make throughout our lives. The moment arrives for an accounting of what we have done. It might be the result of a test, such as a key moment in a job, the moment for an important speech, deciding to marry this person, pursuing one vocation rather than the other, to be with this community rather than that community, and the rest of our lives will be a judgment upon whether we have decided well. We may not realize until retirement, where we might have time to pause and reflect upon the pattern we have weaved with our lives, or even until we stand before Death itself, and we have remorse or regret for what we have done with this one life. We have lived in lost time. Our only hope is the redemption of the time.
I came across the image a long time ago of the sandbox and the adventure trail. Individually and collectively, we may need the safety, security, and boundaries of the sandbox. Sometimes, God calls a people to get out of the sandbox and onto the adventure trail. We have times in our day, week, and life when we need the environment of safety and security. Yet, other times come into our lives when we need to explore unfamiliar territory and take risks that we might not normally take.[160] This parable is an invitation to the adventure trail that is your life.
What God has entrusted to the church are the gospel and the Spirit. The Word that belongs to it seeks new hearers. It must not cease to pass it on to others. The Spirit seeks new dwelling places and new witnesses. This is the whole purpose of the witnessing time, the time of the church. It is not a time when it can be content to guard and keep what it has received. Of course, it cannot fritter away its heritage. The servant who buried his talent made it safe but did not put it beneficial use. His conduct is lazy and wicked. It was a refusal of service and rebellion. It represents the community that refuses its missionary calling. The community will stand in the end only if it sows its faith, hope, and love. The community must recognize the character of this time. It knows what the world cannot know.[161]
Faithful discipleship will accept with gratitude the gifts of life, talent, and passion God has given us, and invest our lives in ways that demonstrate that we follow him. Investing your life is much more serious than investing your money. You may lose money and replace it with wiser investments. You have only one life. Investing your life involves family and neighbors, the poor and those in prison. Such investment is love. Love is always a risk. Love for a community of people who want to follow Jesus is always a risk. Love led Jesus to a cross. What is not acceptable is for us to hide our talent for loving in the ground and refuse to take the risk of loving.
What does it mean to wait faithfully? The parable addresses this question and leaves the listener strangely uncertain about how to wait for the Parousia in the time between the ages. Caution and conservatism, values that people often laud as positive and healthy, in this case result in the dismissal and condemnation of the master’s servant who only seeks to preserve what is his master’s property. If not careful protection of the master’s goods, what is it then that Jesus expects? The return of the master will not necessarily be immediate and predictable. Upon the master’s return, the slaves who build his capital are “good” and “faithful” and the master trusts them with many more things, partaking of joy that is more than earthly joy. In contrast, the servant who buried the lone talent is not only negligent, but also “wicked” and “lazy” (v. 26) and “worthless” (v. 30), and attendants are to throw him into a darkness that is more than earthly pain.
Jesus as Matthew portrays him has a tough love to him, warning of the responsibilities and dangers that come with discipleship. This is a parable of faithful and unfaithful servants. The rich master gives his slaves responsibility over a portion of his goods. This is not a legally binding contract, but freely given. It is a chance for unsupervised activity. The chief emphasis was originally on the gift God gives each person, which must be made use of now, because in the coming judgment the individual will be lost who seeks to secure his or her own state instead of using what God has given. Whoever is anxious about their own continuance, rather than extending oneself and taking risk, is in danger of losing the gift of God. The master is an extravagantly gracious master whose grace becomes judgment for those disciples who do not respond in kind to the incredible sacrifice of the master.[162]
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14] (Gerald G. May, Addiction and Grace).
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20] Inspired by John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 59-60.
[21]
[22]
[23]
[24]
[25]
[26]
[27] Elie Wiesel
[28]
[29]
[30] (
[31]
[32] Thomas Ogletree, Hospitality to the Stranger: Dimensions of Moral Understanding (Westminster John Knox, 2003), 2-3.
[33]
[34]
[35]
[36]
[37]
[38]
[39]
[40] Magn. 8.2.
[41] Adv. Haer. 4.6.3 and 4.6.5.
[42] Dial. 127.3-128.2.
[43] SCG 54; PG, 25, 192.
[44]
[45]
[46]
[47]
[48] Juel, Donald H. "Encountering the Sower." Interpretation, July 2002. 277, 282.
[49]
[50] (M. Eugene Boring, "The Gospel of Matthew, "New Interpreter's Bible Commentary [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995], 299; cf. C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961]; Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972]).
[51] (M. Eugene Boring, "The Gospel of Matthew," New Interpreter's Bible Commentary [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995], 311).
[52]
[53]
[54] (M. Eugene Boring, "The Gospel of Matthew", New Interpreter's Bible Commentary [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995], 309, Craig Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999], 388; H. L. Ellison, "Matthew" New International Bible Commentary[Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979], 1136).
[55] (Warren Carter, "Matthew", New Interpreter's Study Bible [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003], 1770).
[56]
[57]
[58]
[59]
[60]
[61]
[62]
[63] Gerd Theissen (The Gospels in Context [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991], 72-80).
[64] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 310.
[65] A common interpretation of the passage is that “children” refers to the children of Israel and “dogs” being a reference to Gentiles. Interestingly, rabbinic writings contain a tradition of Gentiles as dogs at an eschatological banquet where God would allow them to eat, but not as well as the children of the household.
[66] Bernard of Clairvaux
[67] Others, such as Bultmann, view the passage as a profession of faith in the risen Lord. For the Jesus Seminar, it becomes a stylized scene shaped by Christian motifs. In their view, Jesus rarely initiates dialogue or refers to himself in the first person.
[68] (Sherman E. Johnson, Matthew; Interpreters Bible [New York: Abington, 1951], 449).
[69] (R.T. France, The Gospel of Mark, [Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002], 327).
[70] (Ralph P. Martin, Mark [John Knox Press, 1981], 45).
[71]
[72]
[73] —B.A. Gerrish, “What do we mean by faith in Jesus Christ?” The Christian Century, October 6, 1999, referring to Ernst Troeltsch.
[74] J. A. DiNoia, “Jesus and the World Religions,” First Things, June/July 1995.
[75] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [62.2] 698.
[76]
[77]
[78]
[79] Dietrich Bonhoeffer
[80] Gerhard Ebeling (Word and Faith, p. 424.)
[81] Paul Minear
[82]
[83]
[84] Elie Wiesel
[85] Hannah Whitall Smith, God Is Enough, 1.
[86]
[87]
[88]
[89]
[90]
[91]
[92] Systematic Theology Volume 3, 78.
[93] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 339.
[94] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 246.
[95] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 365-6.
[96] Systematic Theology Volume 3, 123, 323.
[97] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [67.2] 658, [67.4] 699-706.
[98] --Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (Random House, 2009), 218.
[99] Mohandas Gandhi
[100]
[101]
[102] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 432.
[103] Keener, Craig. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. IVP Academic: 1994.
[104] C. H. Dodd, Parables of the Kingdom
[105] Barth Church Dogmatics II.2 [38.1] 640.
[106] (Jules Isaac, The Teaching of Contempt: Christian Roots of Anti-Semitism [New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964]).
[107] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 470.
[108] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [72.4] 851.
[109] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [69.3] 246.
[110] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71.1], 490.
[111] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.4 [55.1] 347.
[112] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 285-6.
[113] Bruce, Michael. "Don't take the bait! Philosophy and / of power struggles." Psychology Today, February 1, 2011, psychologytoday.com. Retrieved March 25, 2017.
[114] Lose, David J. “Homiletical Perspective: Matthew 22:34-40.” Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew Vol. 2 (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 203-205.
[115]
[116]
[117]
[118] (Adela Yarboro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia, [Fortress Press, 2007], 573).
[119]
[120] Amy-Jill Levine. If she is right, then we do not need to go down an explanation I have often heard, where people will say that the second half of Jesus' dual commandment meets us where we stand ‑‑ as self‑absorbed sinners. To "love your neighbor as yourself" means extending to one's neighbor the same self‑centered love and concern we all harbor.
[121] —Michael Fitzpatrick, “What Cannot Be Seen,” Journey With Jesus for June 6, 2021.
[122] John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life.
[123] John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life.
[124] Anthony de Mello, The Way to Love (Doubleday, 1992), 96.
.
[125] Daniel J. Harrington, "The Gospel of Matthew", from the Sacra Pagina Series (The Liturgical Press, 1991),316.
[126]
[127]
[128] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [58.2] 105-107.
[129] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [45.1] 216-7.
[130] Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.2 [18.2] 371-401], [18.3] 401-457.
[131] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 76-7.
[132]
[133]
[134] Rahner, Theological Investigations, VI, 264ff.
[135]
[136] Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, II, 103ff, 116ff.
[137] Albert Outler, Theology in the Wesleyan Spirit
[138] John Wesley, “Wandering Thoughts.”
[139] John Wesley, “On Perfection;” A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.
[140] Why would the community produce a saying so elusive? Bultmann believed it came from a Son of Man section of the Palestinian church or Hellenistic circles. It is likely the text comes from a tension between the messiah as the Son of Man and the messiah as the son of David, though there is little evidence for such tension. Most scholars believe the saying is a product of the early community.
[141] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.3], 261)
[142] W. Somerset Maugham
[143] Barth (Church Dogmatics, IV.1 [59.1], 191)
[144] (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, R. H. Fuller and Irmgard Both, trans. [New York: Touchstone Books, Simon and Schuster, 1995], p. 157.)
[145] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.3, [72.1] 682)
[146] Barth (Church Dogmatics, I.2 [16.2] 265-279)
[147] Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters, Chapter XIV, 63.
[148] If it is an allegory, as some scholars suggest, then it would come from the early church after the death of Jesus.
[149] (Arland Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000], 170-171).
[150] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Volume 3, 285)
[151](See Karl Paul Donfried, "The Allegory of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1 13) as A Summary of Matthean Theology," Journal of Biblical Literature 93:427).
[152] Jeremias (p. 51-53)
[153] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.4 [56.1], 583)
[154] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Volume 1, 398)
[155] Barth (ibid III.2 [47.1] 505)
[156] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.2 [47.2], 510)
[157] Barth (ibid, IV.3 [69.2]
[158] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.2 [47.1] 505
[159] Paul Tillich, The New Being.
[160] in a little book by Charles R. Wilson, Sojourners in the Land of Promise: Planning, Theology, & Surprise (1981).
[161] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.2 [47.1] 506)
[162] Frederick Borsch, Many Things in Parables, 1988.
No comments:
Post a Comment