Mark 3
Mark 3:1-6: Here again is a combination of a healing story with a controversy story, continuing a discussion of what kinds of actions are appropriate on the Sabbath. Please see the comments on Sabbath controversy in the previous blog (Mark 2:23-28). Mark’s use of “immediately” in verse 6 is ironic. Some of the leaders are upset by Jesus doing good on the Sabbath, but they can plot his demise on that same day.
Mark 3:7-12: This is a nice summary of the ministry of Jesus and of the popular following he was gaining. Part of the way our churches grow is by being places where people encounter Jesus in ways that provide for their healing and well-being.
Mark 3:13-19: Twelve apostles (meaning “one sent”) are chosen by Jesus from among his followers. They are to have a special relationship with Jesus. They will be sent out to teach and will have “authority” to cast out demons. Peter, James and John seem to be especially important in this group. As Christians, we are to be “apostle-like” in our lives. We cultivate a relationship with Jesus and then go out in his name to share good news and to help touch people’s lives in a positive and healing way.
Mark 3:20-30: Crowds continue to press in upon Jesus even as he is at home in Capernaum. But not all the reports about him are positive. Some say that he has gone out of his mind, and that rumor gets to his family. They seek to restrain him. Scribes who are in town from Jerusalem accuse Jesus of being possessed. Mark tells us Jesus responded using parables. In Greco-Roman rhetoric, a parable was a brief comparison or metaphor used to illustrate an argument. In the Hebrew tradition, parables could be brief writings/sayings in the forms of riddles, proverbs, fables, symbolic acts. Here Mark seems to be using the word in the Greco-Roman sense. Jesus uses images of a house divided, a kingdom divided, and of plundering the house of a strong man to illustrate the foolishness of those who attribute his work to the very forces he is working against. When one attributes positive action of God’s Spirit to something evil and negative, one cannot be open to that movement of God’s Spirit. That is the primary meaning of the caution about sinning against the Holy Spirit. Remember, that the first announcement here is that all will be forgiven. One needs to be open to that forgiveness.
Mark 3:31-34: These verses are quite challenging for people who want to simply equate Jesus and Christian faith with country, family, home and apple pie. In Mark’s gospel “kin and blood family are generally presented in a very negative light” (New Interpreter’s Study Bible). Remember we have already read that Jesus’ family is concerned about him, wondering if he has indeed gone out of his mind in some way. Could this reflect some of the concerns present in Mark’s Jesus community. If Mark’s “church” is primarily Gentile, the families of those in that community may have thought their relatives had gone out of their mind to associate with this Jewish sect. Sometimes following Jesus can be difficult, even within families. Being a person of faith is about having one’s life transformed, and sometimes our families like us better if we don’t change.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Mark 1-2
A Thought for Reading: The actions of our savior are so rich in meaning that every soul that ponders them finds in them its own share of spiritual food to nourish it and bring it to salvation. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
The Gospel According to Mark
As previously noted, Mark is probably the earliest of the gospels composed. Both Matthew and Luke rely on material found in Mark’s gospel. However, when moving from Matthew to Mark, we find a distinct change in style. Musician Nick Cave in Revelations shares these thoughts about Mark. Scholars generally agree that Mark’s was the first of the four Gospels to be written. Mark took from the mouths of teachers and prophets the jumble of events that comprised Christ’s life and fixed these events into some kind of biographical form. He did this with such breathless insistence, such compulsive narrative intensity, that one is reminded of a child recounting some amazing tale, piling fact upon fact, as if the whole world depended upon it, which of course, to Mark, it did (243). Mark is action-packed. It contains fewer long teaching moments than Matthew. The disciples are portrayed in a much less flattering light than in Matthew. Jesus, though identified as “the son of God” from the first, keeps this identity close to his vest. Mark, leanest of the Gospels, composed around 70 A.D., when the Jewish War saw the destruction of the temple by the army of Titus, was written in a climate of misery and apocalypse. Mark invented the form of the gospel, which means ‘good news.’ Yet much of his work countenances despair, doubt, treachery, and death. (novelist Barry Hannah in Revelations, 247). From The New Interpreters Study Bible: How could such a story of fear, betrayal, suffering and death also be “the good news of Jesus Christ”?... The Gospel of Mark is above all else an apocalyptic story, promising those presently in suffering and degradation that the much desired end is coming when all of God’s enemies, human and demonic, will be defeated and the present cruel world of suffering for God’s chosen will be no more. In the meantime, Mark portrays Jesus’ own example of how to live faithfully through these harrowing final moments and the disciple’s counterexample of how not to do so. The story that the Gospel of Mark tells is clearly suited to the needs of Christians under persecution, either in actuality or in potential. Partly because of this association, both the early Church tradition and most modern biblical scholars have tended to date the composition of the Gospel to the decade of 65 CE – 75 CE, when Nero’s persecution of Christians in Rome was soon followed by the first disastrous Jewish-Roman War (66 CE – 74 CE) in which Jerusalem and the Temple itself were destroyed by the Romans. Given all of this, Rome has often been considered the place where the Gospel was composed, though some argue for a place nearer Palestine, such as Syria. The intended audience was probably Gentile Christians and perhaps others who were interested in knowing more about this faith. “The Gospel of Mark, like the other canonical Gospels, probably originally circulated anonymously among Christian groups” (New Interpreters Study Bible). “The Gospel was not written as a ‘book’ to be circulated and sold in bookstores. It was written to be read aloud in the worship service of early Christian communities” (The People’s New Testament Commentary, 105). Two final thoughts as we begin reading this new gospel together. “The essential humanness of Mark’s Christ provides us with a blueprint for our lives, so that we have something that we can aspire to, rather than revere, that can lift us free of the mundanity of our existences, rather than affirming the notion that we are lowly and unworthy” (Nick Cave, Revelations, 246). In this fast-paced narrative the apostle Mark reveals what it cost Jesus to do this work…. Mark also outlines the cost of following Jesus…. We are also called to be like him as servants, reconciling those around us to God. Just as Jesus spoke the truth to the confused and the corrupt, so must we. Just as he addressed the physical needs of the crowds who followed him, so must we. Just as he sought to heal the broken places of people’s hearts, so must we. As you read this account, let the forward momentum of Mark’s narrative instill within you a sense of urgency. The time to follow Jesus is now. As you read about Jesus’ words and works, ask what God is calling you to be and do. What do you need to know about the power of Jesus and the servant heart of Jesus in order to be conformed to his image for the sake of others? (The Spiritual Formation Bible).
Mark 1:1: Yikes, only one verse – how long is this commentary going to be. Not long, I hope. You have already been patient enough. The narrator, Mark, has good news he wants to share about one Jesus Christ (Greek for “Messiah”) – “the Son of God.” The last title was, as we have said, used for the emperor. It was a typical Greek/Roman title for a person of special divine power and role. As we read along we may wonder, as the first readers/hearers probably did how the narrator might make such a claim, especially as things turn really ugly late in the story.
Mark 1:2-8: The story begins before Jesus, though, in the hopes and dreams of God’s people as recorded in their Scriptures. The quote here is not from Isaiah, or only partially so. It is one piece of evidence that the author of the Gospel may have been Gentile. John the baptizer is quickly brought on stage. He is baptizing and teaching, proclaiming that forgiveness of sins is possible with repentance outside the temple rituals. “Repentance” means reorienting life toward God, returning to God. It can also mean “to go beyond the mind that you have” (Borg, Jesus, 219). John asks for change. So will Jesus. We continue to ask ourselves where we may need to change. That people came to hear John and be baptized by him indicates a hunger for reconnecting with God, a hunger that perhaps was not being met by some of the more traditional religious practices. John, in addition to proclaiming repentance, forgiveness and baptism, also spoke of one more powerful to come.
Mark 1:9-11: “In those days”… Mark is the master of the quick transition. John’s story is told briefly, and a new character comes into the scene, except that this is Jesus, the main character of the story as we have already been told in verse 1. Jesus is baptized by John. Mark has no theological problem with this, as do other gospel writers. As he comes out of the water, the heavens are torn open, the Spirit descends and a voice tells Jesus that he is a beloved Son. The tearing open of the heavens and coming of the Spirit were signs within Judaism of the coming of God’s kingdom, God’s reign, God’s dream for the world. Within Greco-Roman thought, the appearance of certain birds could connote a special standing or fate.
Mark 1:12-13: “Immediately” – another quick transition. Jesus is driven into the wilderness which he experiences as a place of temptation, testing, and also of blessing – he is with the wild beasts but not harmed by them; he is waited on by angels. Jesus has two powerful experiences of the divine in quick succession.
Mark 1:14-15: John, the one who baptized Jesus is arrested. Jesus comes to Galilee to begin his work. He proclaims: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” In the New Testament, the verb “believe” has less the meaning of “give intellectual assent to” and more the meaning of “trust.” To believe, to have faith, is to trust, and the object of our trust is God. In this instance we trust that God’s kingdom, and thus God in God’s self, has come near, inviting us to live in a new way.
Mark 1:16-20: Just as people responded to John by coming out to be baptized, so Jesus invites disciples to follow him and share his work. Jesus continues to call, to invite to new life, to the “Jesus life.”
Mark 1:21-28: Jesus makes Capernaum his home base in Mark’s gospel. Capernaum, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, was a village where fishing, agricultural products and trade drove the economy. The town was located on a major trade route leading to Syria. All that means is that it would have been a place where Jews and non-Jews interacted, and where the presence of the Roman empire was probably felt. Synagogues were popular in first century Judaism and were a place to study the Scriptures. Jesus goes to teach, and people are astounded by his teaching (though Mark provides little content just now). He heals a man with an unclean spirit (a spirit that recognizes Jesus as “the Holy One of God”). Words and actions combine to make Jesus teaching about the nearness of the kingdom powerful and authoritative. Here are a few words about exorcisms from Marcus Borg’s book Jesus. Even more than extraordinary cures, possession and exorcism are alien to the modern world…. Within the framework of the modern worldview, we are inclined to see possession as a prescientific diagnosis of a condition that must have another explanation, perhaps as a psychopathological state that includes among its symptoms the delusion of believing oneself to be possessed…. Whatever the modern explanation might be, and however much psychological or social factors might be involved, we need to recognize that Jesus and his contemporaries (and people in premodern cultures generally) thought that people could be possessed by a spirit or spirits from another plane. Their worldview took for granted the actual existence of such spirits. Perhaps the shared convictions were in part responsible for the phenomenon. In any case, the participants – possessed, exorcist, on-lookers – did not simply think of these as cases of possession and exorcism, but experienced them that way. Jesus’ healings and exorcisms attracted crowds…. Indeed, it was his reputation as a healer and exorcist that generated an audience for him as a teacher. (150) In the time frame in which Mark was written, Jesus would have had to have been one who healed and exorcised for him to be seen as a credible sign of the coming near of God’s kingdom. In our day, the power of Jesus needs to be seen as one that makes a positive difference in people’s lives for the good news about him to be credible.
Mark 1:29-34: Here a healing of the mother-in-law of one of the disciples leads to groups of people being brought to him for healing and exorcism. Jesus forbids the demons to speak, because they know who he is. This “secrecy” about Jesus is an important feature of Mark’s gospel.
Mark 1:35-39: Mark’s is an action-packed and fast-moving gospel, but it is also one in which Jesus seeks out time alone to pray. Just as he experienced God in the wilderness, so he seeks out quiet time in the early darkness of the morning. The disciples search for him and when they find him he tells them they need to take their work on the road. There is almost the sense that this direction emerges out of the praying. In our own lives, a sense of direction can emerge out of prayer.
Mark 1:40-45: A leper comes to Jesus looking for healing, and “moved with pity” Jesus heals him. As mentioned before, lepers not only suffered physically, but were ostracized. Their healing involves reincorporation into the community. Jesus encourages this by asking him to show himself to the priest. Jesus also warns him to keep quiet, which the man does not do. Jesus fame spreads so that he hast to avoid town. It is interesting to note that this story probably helped encourage Mark’s Jesus community to “proclaim freely” the good news about Jesus in a time when doing so could get one in serious trouble with the authorities. Nevertheless, they shared the good news. How hesitant we are to do the same, that is, to share our own experience of how Jesus touches our lives with love, care, compassion and healing?
Mark 2:1-12: Jesus returns to Capernaum (home) after a few days. Crowds gather, so large they no longer fit into the doorway to the house. Jesus was teaching, but some sought to have him help a paralyzed friend. Not finding a way to Jesus, they made one – though the roof. They lowered their friend, and when Jesus saw their faith, he offered a healing word to the paralytic. The word is about forgiveness. Mark has inserted a story over the controversy to forgive in the middle of a healing story. Jesus as “the Son of Man” – a different title from the one Mark has used previously (son of God) has the authority to forgive and to heal. The kingdom of God has come near! The end results are amazement and wonder and glory given to God.
Mark 2:13-17: Again, two stories are linked here, a call story and a story about a controversy regarding “sinners.” Jesus calls Levi from his tax booth. Levi follows, and invited Jesus to dinner. The dinner guests include many tax collectors and sinners, as well as disciples, and this offends the scribes of the Pharisees – some of the religious leaders. Jesus is eating with people who are religiously suspect, religiously marginal. But Jesus will have none of their criticism. Who should he be teaching and eating with if not those who seem outside the scope of God’s community, to bring them into its heart? Jesus was opposed to much he saw in the imperial way of life, yet he was willing to associate with the tax collectors.
Mark 2:18-22: One set of questions leads to another. People see the disciples of John and the Pharisees fasting and wonder why the disciples of Jesus do not. On the Pharisees: Pharisees were an important reform group within Judaism who were attempting to revive religious observance by making some of the purity rules usually reserved only for the Temple to be part of the daily home life of the people, especially in regard to meals. Many of their beliefs were quite similar to those of Jesus and the early Christians, probably making them one of the chief competitors of the early Christians. (New Interpreters Study Bible). So two “competing groups” fast, but the disciples of Jesus do not. John’s disciples and the Pharisees fast to help the kingdom come. Jesus is saying that it is already here. It is a time to celebrate. He also indicates that there will be time for fasting – a practice that has been a part of Christian spiritual disciplines for centuries and one we may want to examine again in our day and time. The other illustrations are additional ways Jesus affirms that God is up to something new in his ministry.
Mark 2:18-24: This story is very similar to the one in Matthew 12, as is the one which will begin the next chapter. Remember, in the Judaism of Jesus’ day keeping the Sabbath was one central element of faithful Jewish practice. It was also generally agreed at that time that human good took precedence over strict interpretation of Sabbath practices. However, there was debate about the exact application of this notion. Jesus weighs in on the debate by making a strong case that concern for persons trumps strict observance. At the heart of Sabbath practice is mercy and justice. If mercy and justice are at the heart of Sabbath, shouldn’t Sabbath practice reflect this, allowing for feeding the hungry? The story not only takes a position on debates about the meaning of Sabbath, but asserts the authority of Jesus to make such interpretation. This was a threat to other religious authorities, as will be seen shortly. Another note in The New Interpreter’s Study Bible helps us understand this passage. “For Jesus in Mark, even a ritual as important as the Sabbath is subordinated to the needs of people, for it was created for their benefit, and Jesus is also the master (lord) of the Sabbath.”
A Thought for Reading: The actions of our savior are so rich in meaning that every soul that ponders them finds in them its own share of spiritual food to nourish it and bring it to salvation. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
The Gospel According to Mark
As previously noted, Mark is probably the earliest of the gospels composed. Both Matthew and Luke rely on material found in Mark’s gospel. However, when moving from Matthew to Mark, we find a distinct change in style. Musician Nick Cave in Revelations shares these thoughts about Mark. Scholars generally agree that Mark’s was the first of the four Gospels to be written. Mark took from the mouths of teachers and prophets the jumble of events that comprised Christ’s life and fixed these events into some kind of biographical form. He did this with such breathless insistence, such compulsive narrative intensity, that one is reminded of a child recounting some amazing tale, piling fact upon fact, as if the whole world depended upon it, which of course, to Mark, it did (243). Mark is action-packed. It contains fewer long teaching moments than Matthew. The disciples are portrayed in a much less flattering light than in Matthew. Jesus, though identified as “the son of God” from the first, keeps this identity close to his vest. Mark, leanest of the Gospels, composed around 70 A.D., when the Jewish War saw the destruction of the temple by the army of Titus, was written in a climate of misery and apocalypse. Mark invented the form of the gospel, which means ‘good news.’ Yet much of his work countenances despair, doubt, treachery, and death. (novelist Barry Hannah in Revelations, 247). From The New Interpreters Study Bible: How could such a story of fear, betrayal, suffering and death also be “the good news of Jesus Christ”?... The Gospel of Mark is above all else an apocalyptic story, promising those presently in suffering and degradation that the much desired end is coming when all of God’s enemies, human and demonic, will be defeated and the present cruel world of suffering for God’s chosen will be no more. In the meantime, Mark portrays Jesus’ own example of how to live faithfully through these harrowing final moments and the disciple’s counterexample of how not to do so. The story that the Gospel of Mark tells is clearly suited to the needs of Christians under persecution, either in actuality or in potential. Partly because of this association, both the early Church tradition and most modern biblical scholars have tended to date the composition of the Gospel to the decade of 65 CE – 75 CE, when Nero’s persecution of Christians in Rome was soon followed by the first disastrous Jewish-Roman War (66 CE – 74 CE) in which Jerusalem and the Temple itself were destroyed by the Romans. Given all of this, Rome has often been considered the place where the Gospel was composed, though some argue for a place nearer Palestine, such as Syria. The intended audience was probably Gentile Christians and perhaps others who were interested in knowing more about this faith. “The Gospel of Mark, like the other canonical Gospels, probably originally circulated anonymously among Christian groups” (New Interpreters Study Bible). “The Gospel was not written as a ‘book’ to be circulated and sold in bookstores. It was written to be read aloud in the worship service of early Christian communities” (The People’s New Testament Commentary, 105). Two final thoughts as we begin reading this new gospel together. “The essential humanness of Mark’s Christ provides us with a blueprint for our lives, so that we have something that we can aspire to, rather than revere, that can lift us free of the mundanity of our existences, rather than affirming the notion that we are lowly and unworthy” (Nick Cave, Revelations, 246). In this fast-paced narrative the apostle Mark reveals what it cost Jesus to do this work…. Mark also outlines the cost of following Jesus…. We are also called to be like him as servants, reconciling those around us to God. Just as Jesus spoke the truth to the confused and the corrupt, so must we. Just as he addressed the physical needs of the crowds who followed him, so must we. Just as he sought to heal the broken places of people’s hearts, so must we. As you read this account, let the forward momentum of Mark’s narrative instill within you a sense of urgency. The time to follow Jesus is now. As you read about Jesus’ words and works, ask what God is calling you to be and do. What do you need to know about the power of Jesus and the servant heart of Jesus in order to be conformed to his image for the sake of others? (The Spiritual Formation Bible).
Mark 1:1: Yikes, only one verse – how long is this commentary going to be. Not long, I hope. You have already been patient enough. The narrator, Mark, has good news he wants to share about one Jesus Christ (Greek for “Messiah”) – “the Son of God.” The last title was, as we have said, used for the emperor. It was a typical Greek/Roman title for a person of special divine power and role. As we read along we may wonder, as the first readers/hearers probably did how the narrator might make such a claim, especially as things turn really ugly late in the story.
Mark 1:2-8: The story begins before Jesus, though, in the hopes and dreams of God’s people as recorded in their Scriptures. The quote here is not from Isaiah, or only partially so. It is one piece of evidence that the author of the Gospel may have been Gentile. John the baptizer is quickly brought on stage. He is baptizing and teaching, proclaiming that forgiveness of sins is possible with repentance outside the temple rituals. “Repentance” means reorienting life toward God, returning to God. It can also mean “to go beyond the mind that you have” (Borg, Jesus, 219). John asks for change. So will Jesus. We continue to ask ourselves where we may need to change. That people came to hear John and be baptized by him indicates a hunger for reconnecting with God, a hunger that perhaps was not being met by some of the more traditional religious practices. John, in addition to proclaiming repentance, forgiveness and baptism, also spoke of one more powerful to come.
Mark 1:9-11: “In those days”… Mark is the master of the quick transition. John’s story is told briefly, and a new character comes into the scene, except that this is Jesus, the main character of the story as we have already been told in verse 1. Jesus is baptized by John. Mark has no theological problem with this, as do other gospel writers. As he comes out of the water, the heavens are torn open, the Spirit descends and a voice tells Jesus that he is a beloved Son. The tearing open of the heavens and coming of the Spirit were signs within Judaism of the coming of God’s kingdom, God’s reign, God’s dream for the world. Within Greco-Roman thought, the appearance of certain birds could connote a special standing or fate.
Mark 1:12-13: “Immediately” – another quick transition. Jesus is driven into the wilderness which he experiences as a place of temptation, testing, and also of blessing – he is with the wild beasts but not harmed by them; he is waited on by angels. Jesus has two powerful experiences of the divine in quick succession.
Mark 1:14-15: John, the one who baptized Jesus is arrested. Jesus comes to Galilee to begin his work. He proclaims: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” In the New Testament, the verb “believe” has less the meaning of “give intellectual assent to” and more the meaning of “trust.” To believe, to have faith, is to trust, and the object of our trust is God. In this instance we trust that God’s kingdom, and thus God in God’s self, has come near, inviting us to live in a new way.
Mark 1:16-20: Just as people responded to John by coming out to be baptized, so Jesus invites disciples to follow him and share his work. Jesus continues to call, to invite to new life, to the “Jesus life.”
Mark 1:21-28: Jesus makes Capernaum his home base in Mark’s gospel. Capernaum, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, was a village where fishing, agricultural products and trade drove the economy. The town was located on a major trade route leading to Syria. All that means is that it would have been a place where Jews and non-Jews interacted, and where the presence of the Roman empire was probably felt. Synagogues were popular in first century Judaism and were a place to study the Scriptures. Jesus goes to teach, and people are astounded by his teaching (though Mark provides little content just now). He heals a man with an unclean spirit (a spirit that recognizes Jesus as “the Holy One of God”). Words and actions combine to make Jesus teaching about the nearness of the kingdom powerful and authoritative. Here are a few words about exorcisms from Marcus Borg’s book Jesus. Even more than extraordinary cures, possession and exorcism are alien to the modern world…. Within the framework of the modern worldview, we are inclined to see possession as a prescientific diagnosis of a condition that must have another explanation, perhaps as a psychopathological state that includes among its symptoms the delusion of believing oneself to be possessed…. Whatever the modern explanation might be, and however much psychological or social factors might be involved, we need to recognize that Jesus and his contemporaries (and people in premodern cultures generally) thought that people could be possessed by a spirit or spirits from another plane. Their worldview took for granted the actual existence of such spirits. Perhaps the shared convictions were in part responsible for the phenomenon. In any case, the participants – possessed, exorcist, on-lookers – did not simply think of these as cases of possession and exorcism, but experienced them that way. Jesus’ healings and exorcisms attracted crowds…. Indeed, it was his reputation as a healer and exorcist that generated an audience for him as a teacher. (150) In the time frame in which Mark was written, Jesus would have had to have been one who healed and exorcised for him to be seen as a credible sign of the coming near of God’s kingdom. In our day, the power of Jesus needs to be seen as one that makes a positive difference in people’s lives for the good news about him to be credible.
Mark 1:29-34: Here a healing of the mother-in-law of one of the disciples leads to groups of people being brought to him for healing and exorcism. Jesus forbids the demons to speak, because they know who he is. This “secrecy” about Jesus is an important feature of Mark’s gospel.
Mark 1:35-39: Mark’s is an action-packed and fast-moving gospel, but it is also one in which Jesus seeks out time alone to pray. Just as he experienced God in the wilderness, so he seeks out quiet time in the early darkness of the morning. The disciples search for him and when they find him he tells them they need to take their work on the road. There is almost the sense that this direction emerges out of the praying. In our own lives, a sense of direction can emerge out of prayer.
Mark 1:40-45: A leper comes to Jesus looking for healing, and “moved with pity” Jesus heals him. As mentioned before, lepers not only suffered physically, but were ostracized. Their healing involves reincorporation into the community. Jesus encourages this by asking him to show himself to the priest. Jesus also warns him to keep quiet, which the man does not do. Jesus fame spreads so that he hast to avoid town. It is interesting to note that this story probably helped encourage Mark’s Jesus community to “proclaim freely” the good news about Jesus in a time when doing so could get one in serious trouble with the authorities. Nevertheless, they shared the good news. How hesitant we are to do the same, that is, to share our own experience of how Jesus touches our lives with love, care, compassion and healing?
Mark 2:1-12: Jesus returns to Capernaum (home) after a few days. Crowds gather, so large they no longer fit into the doorway to the house. Jesus was teaching, but some sought to have him help a paralyzed friend. Not finding a way to Jesus, they made one – though the roof. They lowered their friend, and when Jesus saw their faith, he offered a healing word to the paralytic. The word is about forgiveness. Mark has inserted a story over the controversy to forgive in the middle of a healing story. Jesus as “the Son of Man” – a different title from the one Mark has used previously (son of God) has the authority to forgive and to heal. The kingdom of God has come near! The end results are amazement and wonder and glory given to God.
Mark 2:13-17: Again, two stories are linked here, a call story and a story about a controversy regarding “sinners.” Jesus calls Levi from his tax booth. Levi follows, and invited Jesus to dinner. The dinner guests include many tax collectors and sinners, as well as disciples, and this offends the scribes of the Pharisees – some of the religious leaders. Jesus is eating with people who are religiously suspect, religiously marginal. But Jesus will have none of their criticism. Who should he be teaching and eating with if not those who seem outside the scope of God’s community, to bring them into its heart? Jesus was opposed to much he saw in the imperial way of life, yet he was willing to associate with the tax collectors.
Mark 2:18-22: One set of questions leads to another. People see the disciples of John and the Pharisees fasting and wonder why the disciples of Jesus do not. On the Pharisees: Pharisees were an important reform group within Judaism who were attempting to revive religious observance by making some of the purity rules usually reserved only for the Temple to be part of the daily home life of the people, especially in regard to meals. Many of their beliefs were quite similar to those of Jesus and the early Christians, probably making them one of the chief competitors of the early Christians. (New Interpreters Study Bible). So two “competing groups” fast, but the disciples of Jesus do not. John’s disciples and the Pharisees fast to help the kingdom come. Jesus is saying that it is already here. It is a time to celebrate. He also indicates that there will be time for fasting – a practice that has been a part of Christian spiritual disciplines for centuries and one we may want to examine again in our day and time. The other illustrations are additional ways Jesus affirms that God is up to something new in his ministry.
Mark 2:18-24: This story is very similar to the one in Matthew 12, as is the one which will begin the next chapter. Remember, in the Judaism of Jesus’ day keeping the Sabbath was one central element of faithful Jewish practice. It was also generally agreed at that time that human good took precedence over strict interpretation of Sabbath practices. However, there was debate about the exact application of this notion. Jesus weighs in on the debate by making a strong case that concern for persons trumps strict observance. At the heart of Sabbath practice is mercy and justice. If mercy and justice are at the heart of Sabbath, shouldn’t Sabbath practice reflect this, allowing for feeding the hungry? The story not only takes a position on debates about the meaning of Sabbath, but asserts the authority of Jesus to make such interpretation. This was a threat to other religious authorities, as will be seen shortly. Another note in The New Interpreter’s Study Bible helps us understand this passage. “For Jesus in Mark, even a ritual as important as the Sabbath is subordinated to the needs of people, for it was created for their benefit, and Jesus is also the master (lord) of the Sabbath.”
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Matthew 28
Note: Here are some additional thoughts on the significance of the death of Jesus. They come from the book What You Don’t Have To Believe To Be A Christian. It is a book written by George Riker, a retired United Methodist pastor from Texas. The blood of Jesus represents his suffering, not just on the cross but all the sufferings in his lifetime…. When we read such texts [Biblical passages about the blood of Jesus] and sing some of the hymns of the Church that extol the power of the blood, we must transvaluate the language and see the meaning behind the words. Jesus’ blood is Jesus’ life. Christians are united by this life, a life poured out for humanity, a life of involvement in humanity, which means entering the sufferings of our day. We cannot really help another unless we enter the other’s life. One who suffers is not helped by aloofness. On the other hand, to be involved in a life of loneliness, despair, sickness, and pain is to risk experiencing the discomfort in our own hearts and even losing some of our peace of mind. Jesus entered the sufferings of his time. His followers are called to do the same. (63, 64)
Matthew 28:1-10: Two women, both named Mary go to the tomb site on the day after the Sabbath to continue their vigil. That the first witnesses to the resurrection were women is surprising given the first century view of women. There is an earthquake, and an angel. The angel frightens the guards, but assures the women with the words, “Do not be afraid.” The angel tells them that Jesus who had been crucified is not there, but has been raised from the dead, just as promised. They are told to go and share this amazingly good news with the disciples. They are told that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee and there they will see him. As they leave with fear and great joy, Jesus himself appears to them. He does not wait to meet them in Galilee. He tells them to share the good news with the disciples. He tells them to tell the disciples to go to Galilee where they will meet Jesus.
Matthew 28:11-15: The women become witnesses to the resurrection. The guards, whose experience was similar in some ways, are bribed to tell a different story. The empire must be kept safe. The status quo must be insured. The way Matthew places these stories side-by-side is meant to illustrate a stark contrast between a faithful response to what God does in Jesus (though afraid, joy predominates and the women share good news) and an unfaithful response (fear and fear again, concerns with wealth and status getting in the way). This entire story is unique to Matthew and the line in verse 15 about the story continuing to be told among the Jews needs to be read in the context of the on-going tensions between Matthew’s Jesus Community and others in the Jewish community.
Matthew 28:16-20: This is Jesus only appearance to the disciples in Matthew’s gospel. It takes place on a mountain in Galilee, thus echoing his earlier teaching ministry and bringing to mind God’s communication to Moses on Sinai. That the disciples have gathered here indicates that they trusted the testimony of the women who shared with them the good news that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Nevertheless, Matthew notes, “some doubted.” Doubt need not be contrary to a faithful response to Jesus. How often in our lives is there some mixture of faith and doubt, faith and questioning. Sometimes faith is even enhanced when we are willing to ask questions. To this faith-filled yet doubting group, Jesus offers “the great commission.” He has authority to do so – he is the authoritative one, not the emperor and his representatives, nor the religious leaders who sought to end Jesus ministry. Here are some comments from The New Interpreters Study Bible. “Various scenes exist in Rome’s literature in which gods commission Rome to worldwide domination and military superiority. Matthew’s community is given a similar goal, not by Jupiter and the gods, but by Jesus. And its means are very different. Instead of military power, it employs compassionate power, healing, mercy, an inclusive community and life-giving words to proclaim and enact God’s empire.” Here is Eugene Peterson’s rendering of part of the great commission. Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day, right up to the end of the age.
Notes on the resurrection: Many Christians will admit, even if only to themselves in the quiet of their own minds, that they struggle some with the story of the resurrection of Jesus. This situation is not helped terribly much by other Christians who assert boldly that unless you believe very specific things about the resurrection (that it was a literal bodily event that might have been captured on video were the technology available) you are not a faithful Christian. What is really essential about the resurrection of Jesus? I would like to offer some thoughts.
The People’s New Testament Commentary notes that “the resurrection of Jesus, i.e., God’s act in raising up Jesus, is central to the Christian faith.” I would agree – but what does that mean? The commentary goes on to say that resurrection is God’s action and that it is “to be distinguished from resuscitation, i.e., the restoration of a dead person to this-worldly life…. Jesus was raised to a new order of being beyond this life.” Resurrection in first century Judaism was a concept that was meant to say something about the ultimate justice of God. In the end, God’s justice would prevail – thus resurrection is an “eschatological” concept and it was sign of the kingdom of God. Another way of saying this is that in the resurrection the Christian community affirms that just as God’s kingdom, God’s dream for the world was breaking into the world in Jesus teaching, healing and feeding, so it continues to break into the world through Jesus even though Jesus was crucified. “The resurrection faith of the earliest Christians was expressed and communicated in several forms: songs, creeds, sermons, and stories.” “The Gospel stories of the resurrection are thus not to be harmonized. They differ on such items as who went to the tomb and when, the nature of the resurrection body of Jesus, and the location and chronology of Jesus’ appearances.” To my mind the very variety in these stories indicates that we may be dealing with something more than an easily identifiable historical event.
Here are some comments from John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, from their book, The Last Week. So Easter is utterly central. But what was it?... When we think about Easter, we must consider several foundational questions. What kind of stories are the Easter stories? What kind of language are they told in, and how is that language being used? Are they intended as historical reports and thus to be understood as history remembered (whether correctly or incorrectly)? Or do they use the language of parable and metaphor to express truths that are much more than factual? Or some combination of the two? (190) We are convinced that an emphasis on the historical factuality of the Easter stories, as if they were reporting events that could have been photographed, gets in the way of understanding them…. Seeing the Easter stories as parable does not involve a denial of their factuality. It’s quite happy leaving the question open. What it does insist upon is that the importance of these stories lies in their meanings. (191, 193) Two themes run through these stories that sum up the central meanings of Easter. Jesus lives. He continues to be experienced after his death, though in a radically new way…. God has vindicated Jesus. God has said “yes” to Jesus and “no” to the powers who executed him. In the words of the earliest and most widespread post-Easter affirmation about Jesus in the New Testament, ‘Jesus is Lord.” And if Jesus is Lord, the lords of this world are not. (204, 205, 206)
Marcus Borg, in his own work Jesus builds on some of the themes already presented in his work with Crossan. While Matthew is the first writing we have in the New Testament, Paul’s letters are earlier. Paul provides the earliest witness to the resurrection, and in his writings (as we shall see) he bundles together his own experience of the risen Christ with those of others who experienced him. It is possible, perhaps even likely, that Paul thought of the appearances of the risen Jesus to others as also visions…. Some Christians are uncomfortable with the thought that the experiences of the risen Jesus were visions…. But not all visions are hallucinations…. Paul’s experience of the risen Jesus changed his life. (277-278) Borg goes on discuss other aspects of the resurrection. But I am aware that a historical question can still be asked: what happened? What I am confident of is this. The followers of Jesus had experiences of him after his death that convinced them that he continued to be a figure of the present. Almost certainly some of these experiences were visions; it would be surprising if there weren’t any…. I think there were nonvisionary experiences of the risen Jesus…. I think his followers felt the continuing presence of Jesus with them, recognized the same Spirit that they had known in him during his historical life continuing to be present, and knew the power they had known in Jesus continuing to operate – the power of healing, the power to change lives, the power to create new forms of community. And I think these kinds of experiences have continued among Christians ever since…. For me, the truth of the claim “God raised Jesus” is gounded in these kind of experiences…. And there is one more thing to say about the experiences that lie at the heart of Easter. They carried with them the conviction that God had vindicated Jesus…. There is a continuity between the post-Easter conviction that God has vindicated Jesus and the message of the pre-Easter Jesus. “Jesus is Lord” is the post-Easter equivalent of Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God. (287, 288, 289) What did Easter mean to the first followers of Jesus?... First, the followers of Jesus continued to experience him after his death. They continued to know him as a figure of the present, and not simply as a figure from the past…. Second, Easter meant that God had vindicated Jesus…. To put these two meanings as concisely as possible, Easter meant “Jesus lives,” and “Jesus is Lord.” (276)
Finally, before I add a few more words of my own, a few words from George Ricker (What You Don’t Have To Believe To Be A Christian). “Christians do not agree theologically, and they never have. The essence of Christianity is not in the literal truth of the story language of the faith. In all of this I am pleading that Christians not be divided over opinions about which obvious differences exist. Christians are united in the love of God revealed by Jesus, whom we call Christ, and not by our opinions.” (69-70) Ricker imagine what an experience of the risen Christ might have been like for the first disciples of Jesus. He pictures them together sharing a meal and in the midst of that sharing they experience Jesus as present. “By the inspiration of God, the intrusion of the Spirit, they suddenly realize that it was not all over. The Lord was with them…. Jesus is dead. Jesus has a new body. They tried to kill the Christ, the activity of God, they could not. The Christ is raised in a new body.” (72-73)
What am I trying to say with all these extended quotes? Am I trying to convince you that your view of the resurrection of Jesus is wrong if you disagree with Crossan or Borg or Ricker? No. With Ricker, I am asking that we give each other permission to ask questions about this important part of our Christian faith. I am asking that we allow that people of deep and genuine Christian faith can disagree about the exact nature of the experiences of the disciples as they proclaimed that God raised him from the dead. I do think that Borg and Crossan are right when they say that the meaning of the resurrection, whatever its precise nature, is to be found in the statements “Jesus lives” and “Jesus is Lord.” How do we now live our lives in light of this?
Transition: With this we come to the end of the Gospel of Matthew. The commentary here has been longer than I anticipate it being with the other gospels because I have tried to address significant issues we will find again and again along the way – the nature of miracle stories, the significance of Jesus’ death, the resurrection. I don’t intend to repeat all these for each gospel – perhaps just remind us of some of what has been said. We turn next to the Gospel of Mark, written earlier than Matthew and for a different audience. While Mark will tell some of the same stories Matthew does (Matthew borrowed a great deal from Mark) he will tell some of them differently. Each gospel paints a slightly different portrait of Jesus, and it is a part of the genius of the New Testament that four gospels were included. Each gospel writer was putting together a picture of Jesus that they thought would be relevant for their own emerging Christian community, whatever its make up and whatever its issues, and perhaps also for a wider audience in the community in which the church existed. I think this is important to remember. We need to share the Jesus story in a way that connects with people in our world today. The other side of the coin is that we also need to be careful we don’t make Jesus so comfortable in our world that we lose all that might challenge us in his story. Jesus, and the God of Jesus. want to connect with our lives. But part of that connection involves changing those parts of our lives that hinder our growth in love and get in the way of our working more fully for God’s dream for the world. How to make Jesus both relevant and challenging was a task undertaken by the gospel writers. It is no less our task today.
Note: Here are some additional thoughts on the significance of the death of Jesus. They come from the book What You Don’t Have To Believe To Be A Christian. It is a book written by George Riker, a retired United Methodist pastor from Texas. The blood of Jesus represents his suffering, not just on the cross but all the sufferings in his lifetime…. When we read such texts [Biblical passages about the blood of Jesus] and sing some of the hymns of the Church that extol the power of the blood, we must transvaluate the language and see the meaning behind the words. Jesus’ blood is Jesus’ life. Christians are united by this life, a life poured out for humanity, a life of involvement in humanity, which means entering the sufferings of our day. We cannot really help another unless we enter the other’s life. One who suffers is not helped by aloofness. On the other hand, to be involved in a life of loneliness, despair, sickness, and pain is to risk experiencing the discomfort in our own hearts and even losing some of our peace of mind. Jesus entered the sufferings of his time. His followers are called to do the same. (63, 64)
Matthew 28:1-10: Two women, both named Mary go to the tomb site on the day after the Sabbath to continue their vigil. That the first witnesses to the resurrection were women is surprising given the first century view of women. There is an earthquake, and an angel. The angel frightens the guards, but assures the women with the words, “Do not be afraid.” The angel tells them that Jesus who had been crucified is not there, but has been raised from the dead, just as promised. They are told to go and share this amazingly good news with the disciples. They are told that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee and there they will see him. As they leave with fear and great joy, Jesus himself appears to them. He does not wait to meet them in Galilee. He tells them to share the good news with the disciples. He tells them to tell the disciples to go to Galilee where they will meet Jesus.
Matthew 28:11-15: The women become witnesses to the resurrection. The guards, whose experience was similar in some ways, are bribed to tell a different story. The empire must be kept safe. The status quo must be insured. The way Matthew places these stories side-by-side is meant to illustrate a stark contrast between a faithful response to what God does in Jesus (though afraid, joy predominates and the women share good news) and an unfaithful response (fear and fear again, concerns with wealth and status getting in the way). This entire story is unique to Matthew and the line in verse 15 about the story continuing to be told among the Jews needs to be read in the context of the on-going tensions between Matthew’s Jesus Community and others in the Jewish community.
Matthew 28:16-20: This is Jesus only appearance to the disciples in Matthew’s gospel. It takes place on a mountain in Galilee, thus echoing his earlier teaching ministry and bringing to mind God’s communication to Moses on Sinai. That the disciples have gathered here indicates that they trusted the testimony of the women who shared with them the good news that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Nevertheless, Matthew notes, “some doubted.” Doubt need not be contrary to a faithful response to Jesus. How often in our lives is there some mixture of faith and doubt, faith and questioning. Sometimes faith is even enhanced when we are willing to ask questions. To this faith-filled yet doubting group, Jesus offers “the great commission.” He has authority to do so – he is the authoritative one, not the emperor and his representatives, nor the religious leaders who sought to end Jesus ministry. Here are some comments from The New Interpreters Study Bible. “Various scenes exist in Rome’s literature in which gods commission Rome to worldwide domination and military superiority. Matthew’s community is given a similar goal, not by Jupiter and the gods, but by Jesus. And its means are very different. Instead of military power, it employs compassionate power, healing, mercy, an inclusive community and life-giving words to proclaim and enact God’s empire.” Here is Eugene Peterson’s rendering of part of the great commission. Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day, right up to the end of the age.
Notes on the resurrection: Many Christians will admit, even if only to themselves in the quiet of their own minds, that they struggle some with the story of the resurrection of Jesus. This situation is not helped terribly much by other Christians who assert boldly that unless you believe very specific things about the resurrection (that it was a literal bodily event that might have been captured on video were the technology available) you are not a faithful Christian. What is really essential about the resurrection of Jesus? I would like to offer some thoughts.
The People’s New Testament Commentary notes that “the resurrection of Jesus, i.e., God’s act in raising up Jesus, is central to the Christian faith.” I would agree – but what does that mean? The commentary goes on to say that resurrection is God’s action and that it is “to be distinguished from resuscitation, i.e., the restoration of a dead person to this-worldly life…. Jesus was raised to a new order of being beyond this life.” Resurrection in first century Judaism was a concept that was meant to say something about the ultimate justice of God. In the end, God’s justice would prevail – thus resurrection is an “eschatological” concept and it was sign of the kingdom of God. Another way of saying this is that in the resurrection the Christian community affirms that just as God’s kingdom, God’s dream for the world was breaking into the world in Jesus teaching, healing and feeding, so it continues to break into the world through Jesus even though Jesus was crucified. “The resurrection faith of the earliest Christians was expressed and communicated in several forms: songs, creeds, sermons, and stories.” “The Gospel stories of the resurrection are thus not to be harmonized. They differ on such items as who went to the tomb and when, the nature of the resurrection body of Jesus, and the location and chronology of Jesus’ appearances.” To my mind the very variety in these stories indicates that we may be dealing with something more than an easily identifiable historical event.
Here are some comments from John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, from their book, The Last Week. So Easter is utterly central. But what was it?... When we think about Easter, we must consider several foundational questions. What kind of stories are the Easter stories? What kind of language are they told in, and how is that language being used? Are they intended as historical reports and thus to be understood as history remembered (whether correctly or incorrectly)? Or do they use the language of parable and metaphor to express truths that are much more than factual? Or some combination of the two? (190) We are convinced that an emphasis on the historical factuality of the Easter stories, as if they were reporting events that could have been photographed, gets in the way of understanding them…. Seeing the Easter stories as parable does not involve a denial of their factuality. It’s quite happy leaving the question open. What it does insist upon is that the importance of these stories lies in their meanings. (191, 193) Two themes run through these stories that sum up the central meanings of Easter. Jesus lives. He continues to be experienced after his death, though in a radically new way…. God has vindicated Jesus. God has said “yes” to Jesus and “no” to the powers who executed him. In the words of the earliest and most widespread post-Easter affirmation about Jesus in the New Testament, ‘Jesus is Lord.” And if Jesus is Lord, the lords of this world are not. (204, 205, 206)
Marcus Borg, in his own work Jesus builds on some of the themes already presented in his work with Crossan. While Matthew is the first writing we have in the New Testament, Paul’s letters are earlier. Paul provides the earliest witness to the resurrection, and in his writings (as we shall see) he bundles together his own experience of the risen Christ with those of others who experienced him. It is possible, perhaps even likely, that Paul thought of the appearances of the risen Jesus to others as also visions…. Some Christians are uncomfortable with the thought that the experiences of the risen Jesus were visions…. But not all visions are hallucinations…. Paul’s experience of the risen Jesus changed his life. (277-278) Borg goes on discuss other aspects of the resurrection. But I am aware that a historical question can still be asked: what happened? What I am confident of is this. The followers of Jesus had experiences of him after his death that convinced them that he continued to be a figure of the present. Almost certainly some of these experiences were visions; it would be surprising if there weren’t any…. I think there were nonvisionary experiences of the risen Jesus…. I think his followers felt the continuing presence of Jesus with them, recognized the same Spirit that they had known in him during his historical life continuing to be present, and knew the power they had known in Jesus continuing to operate – the power of healing, the power to change lives, the power to create new forms of community. And I think these kinds of experiences have continued among Christians ever since…. For me, the truth of the claim “God raised Jesus” is gounded in these kind of experiences…. And there is one more thing to say about the experiences that lie at the heart of Easter. They carried with them the conviction that God had vindicated Jesus…. There is a continuity between the post-Easter conviction that God has vindicated Jesus and the message of the pre-Easter Jesus. “Jesus is Lord” is the post-Easter equivalent of Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God. (287, 288, 289) What did Easter mean to the first followers of Jesus?... First, the followers of Jesus continued to experience him after his death. They continued to know him as a figure of the present, and not simply as a figure from the past…. Second, Easter meant that God had vindicated Jesus…. To put these two meanings as concisely as possible, Easter meant “Jesus lives,” and “Jesus is Lord.” (276)
Finally, before I add a few more words of my own, a few words from George Ricker (What You Don’t Have To Believe To Be A Christian). “Christians do not agree theologically, and they never have. The essence of Christianity is not in the literal truth of the story language of the faith. In all of this I am pleading that Christians not be divided over opinions about which obvious differences exist. Christians are united in the love of God revealed by Jesus, whom we call Christ, and not by our opinions.” (69-70) Ricker imagine what an experience of the risen Christ might have been like for the first disciples of Jesus. He pictures them together sharing a meal and in the midst of that sharing they experience Jesus as present. “By the inspiration of God, the intrusion of the Spirit, they suddenly realize that it was not all over. The Lord was with them…. Jesus is dead. Jesus has a new body. They tried to kill the Christ, the activity of God, they could not. The Christ is raised in a new body.” (72-73)
What am I trying to say with all these extended quotes? Am I trying to convince you that your view of the resurrection of Jesus is wrong if you disagree with Crossan or Borg or Ricker? No. With Ricker, I am asking that we give each other permission to ask questions about this important part of our Christian faith. I am asking that we allow that people of deep and genuine Christian faith can disagree about the exact nature of the experiences of the disciples as they proclaimed that God raised him from the dead. I do think that Borg and Crossan are right when they say that the meaning of the resurrection, whatever its precise nature, is to be found in the statements “Jesus lives” and “Jesus is Lord.” How do we now live our lives in light of this?
Transition: With this we come to the end of the Gospel of Matthew. The commentary here has been longer than I anticipate it being with the other gospels because I have tried to address significant issues we will find again and again along the way – the nature of miracle stories, the significance of Jesus’ death, the resurrection. I don’t intend to repeat all these for each gospel – perhaps just remind us of some of what has been said. We turn next to the Gospel of Mark, written earlier than Matthew and for a different audience. While Mark will tell some of the same stories Matthew does (Matthew borrowed a great deal from Mark) he will tell some of them differently. Each gospel paints a slightly different portrait of Jesus, and it is a part of the genius of the New Testament that four gospels were included. Each gospel writer was putting together a picture of Jesus that they thought would be relevant for their own emerging Christian community, whatever its make up and whatever its issues, and perhaps also for a wider audience in the community in which the church existed. I think this is important to remember. We need to share the Jesus story in a way that connects with people in our world today. The other side of the coin is that we also need to be careful we don’t make Jesus so comfortable in our world that we lose all that might challenge us in his story. Jesus, and the God of Jesus. want to connect with our lives. But part of that connection involves changing those parts of our lives that hinder our growth in love and get in the way of our working more fully for God’s dream for the world. How to make Jesus both relevant and challenging was a task undertaken by the gospel writers. It is no less our task today.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Matthew 27
Note: Sometimes it is a challenge to know what to do with New Testament language that seems to challenge an empire that has long since passed into the dust bin of history. Barbara Rossing, a New Testament scholar and the author of The Rapture Exposed spoke at a recent Associated Church Press convention. In her presentation she made the case that the Book of Revelation was intended to show the bankruptcy of the Roman Empire and to encourage an alternative way of life. But how does that speak to us today? Rossing reportedly told the convention that readers need to avoid the temptation to look at the United States as "the empire." "That's way too simplistic. The empire is in all of us." (United Methodist Reporter, July 6, 2007) A good point to ponder as we read through the New Testament.
Matthew 27:1-2: The Jerusalem elite hand Jesus over to Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. If they really want to see Jesus executed, this seems a necessary step as only Rome exercised the power to execute. This is not a very happy picture of the way religious and political leaders can sometimes come together to take care of “problem people.”
Matthew 27:3-10: One wonders what Judas might have been thinking when he betrayed Jesus, but apparently he did not think the religious authorities would collaborate with the political authorities to see Jesus put to death. Judas regrets what he has done, to the point of ending his own life. In the context of the story in Matthew, both Peter and Judas have betrayed Jesus at some level (so, in fact, have the other disciples by their desertion). Judas ends whatever opportunity he may have had to change his life around by ending it. Peter and other disciples will take a different course.
Matthew 27:11-26: Jesus goes “on trial,” but there seems little opportunity for anything like a fair trial. Jesus refuses to participate in any charade that would give the impression that he is being judged fairly. “King of the Jews” was a title claimed by some who revolted against Rome. Pilate’s question may arise out of a political concern – is this man fomenting violent revolution? That the “revolution Jesus represents is non-violent is emphasized by the story of Barabbas. Barabbas (which means “son of the father”) seems to be some kind of violent revolutionary. In the midst of all this, Pilate’s wife reports to her husband a troubling dream. Something tells her Jesus that Jesus is a “righteous” person. Dreams were often considered a way God communicated with persons. It is as if God were trying to get through to Pilate, but he refuses to pay attention. At the very least, he refuses to act on the idea that Jesus could be a righteous person. His “hand washing” seems an act of cowardice, an evasion. In reality, it is only by his authority that Jesus can be put to death. Matthew also seems to be willing to heighten animosity toward others in the Jewish community, reflecting his own context of struggling with Jews who do not follow Jesus. This chapter has contributed a great deal to Christian anti-Semitism over the years, but to have it function in this way is a misreading. The crowd here does not stand in for all Jews in the first century, let alone all Jews for all time.
Matthew 27:27-31: “Having been handed over to Pilate’s soldiers, Jesus, like so many political prisoners before and after him, is tortured and humiliated” (Crossan and Borg, The Last Week, 144). Jesus is cynically mocked. Where might we cynically mock goodness in the world when it comes from unexpected places?
Matthew 27:32-44: After the mocking and torture, crucifixion – execution. The power of the empire is once again shown in their ability to commandeer an innocent bystander into helping with an execution. Jesus clothing is taken and bargained for. A mocking sign is hung over his head. That this is the death of a political rebel is shown by the fact that he is crucified with others who have broken the law – probably political revolutionaries who also opposed Rome, but violently. Others join in mocking Jesus – passersby, the Jerusalem elite, the criminals with whom he is crucified. Verse 43 is very ironic given that Matthew knows how the story will end. “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now.” God will indeed justify Jesus’ trust, but not in the time frame of those who think they hold the power.
Matthew 27:45-56: From The New Interpreters Study Bible: “Cosmic signs including a new temple, earthquakes, and raised bodies, signal the in-breaking of God’s empire in Jesus’ death, as in his life.” In other words, Matthew uses mythic and symbolic language to say that even in death, Jesus is somehow helping God’s dream for the world come into being – even as Jesus is crying out wondering where God may be Matthew asserts that God is present. Sometimes that is true for our lives as well. We cry out for God, feeling God’s absence yet trusting that God is present in some way we may not fathom for awhile. The symbols Matthew appeals to are both Jewish and Roman. The Roman symbol is found in the words of the centurions – “truly this man was God’s Son.” Son of God was a title for the emperor. In all this Matthew is asserting that God’s dream for the world continues to unfold even though Jesus is dying. In a few moments, I want to speak about the significance of the death of Jesus.
Matthew 27:57-61: A new figure is introduced, Joseph of Arimathea. He lays Jesus in his own tomb (according to Matthew – the other gospels do not make this claim). Joseph is described both as rich and as a follower of Jesus. He is a faithful follower, not abandoning Jesus at this difficult time. Two Marys, who had followed Jesus from Galilee sat opposite the tomb.
Matthew 27:62-66: This story is unique to Matthew’s gospel. In portrays the religious leaders as concerned about a resurrection and asking Pilate for an imperial guard to keep the tomb secure. The most important tomb is the one in which these leaders keep their own hearts – safely tucked away from the transforming power of God as it was embodied in Jesus.
Note on the Significance of the Death of Jesus: All of the gospels report that Jesus was executed by the Roman authorities. “There is no more certain fact in history that the execution of Jesus by the Roman occupational forces in Jerusalem at a Passover festival ca. 30 CE” (The People’s New Testament Commentary, 164). It seems almost as sure that certain of the Jewish leaders at the time collaborated in his execution. There had been an uneasy peace established between Rome and Jerusalem, and some had a stake in maintaining that peace. If Jesus was seen as a threat to that, and he certainly seems to have been, then that threat needed to be taken care of. Historically, then, this is why Jesus died. But the Christian church and Christian faith has been almost unanimous in saying that the death of Jesus had a deeper meaning, a theological and religious significance. We will encounter this again and again as we read through the New Testament. Matthew does not develop any elaborate theology about the death of Jesus (though there are some earlier indications that Matthew understood “forgiveness” as important part of the work of Jesus even in his death – 1:21, 26:28), but asserts its significance by using mythic and symbolic language to describe what went on as Jesus died. But what is this theological/religious significance?
“For all his followers, Jesus’ death was a terrible, unexpected surprise that shattered their hopes” (The People’s New Testament Commentary, 164). But the death of Jesus was not the end of the story. They later experienced Jesus as alive and vindicated by God (more about this after Matthew 28). Their later experience forced them to reevaluate and reinterpret Jesus death. Somehow even his death must be significant. Even here God must have been at work in some way. A variety of interpretations of the significance of Jesus death are offered in the New Testament and in the history of Christian theology (theologically these are referred to as “atonement theories”). “The meaning of Jesus’ death was understood in a variety of ways: as an expression of Jesus’/God’s love, as the means of God’s forgiveness, as an atoning sacrifice, as an act of sealing or eschatologically renewing God’s covenant with his people, as redemptive liberation from slavery or ransom from captivity, and in numerous other concepts and images that express the saving act of God in the death of Jesus” (The People’s New Testament Commentary, 164). There are those in the Christian community of faith who argue that there is only one appropriate way to understand the theological/religious significance of the death of Jesus. It is probably fair to say that substitutionary atonement is the only way that many or even most contemporary Christians understand faith in the sacrificial and salvific death of Jesus…. It is not just that Jesus offered his life in atonement for sin, but that God demanded it as a condition for our forgiveness. (Crossan and Borg, The Last Week, 101). They wonder if there are better metaphors for understanding God and thus for understanding the significance of the death of Jesus. Jesus may be said to have sacrificed his life “for his passion, namely, for his advocacy of the kingdom of God” (The Last Week, 154), but this is a different kind of sacrifice than one required by God so that God might forgive. Walter Wink, in a brilliant book on “the son of man” traditions in the Bible and particularly in the New Testament (The Human Being) writes perceptively about the significance of the death of Jesus and about the theories of his death in the history of Christian theology. Of most views of the significance of Jesus’ death, Wink writes, “All these views share the presupposition that God had Jesus killed in order to redeem the world. None of them makes realistic sense of the fact that Jesus was executed by the religious and political establishment.” (105) Wink then rehearses many of the traditional theories and ends up with the following: There is truth in most of these atonement theories…. The point is that no religious experience can be made normative for all people. God reaches out to us in love wherever we are and instigates what leads us to wholeness. Each response if divinely tailored to meet our situations…. The virtue of multiple images of the atonement in the New Testament is that each communicates some aspect of forgiveness and new life, without a single model being elevated as exclusively correct. Atonement theories are need-specific remedies for the spiritual afflictions that assail us. (110-111)
All of this is to say that the bottom line New Testament affirmation is that the death of Jesus, a brutal execution at the hands of legitimate authorities, has significance for our lives and our relationship to God. Just what that significance is is open to a rich variety of interpretations, and that is perhaps as it should be. Rather than argue that there is only one true way to understand the meaning of Jesus' death for our lives we would do well to listen to others as they share their understandings. Such conversations have the potential to contribute a great deal to our own formation as disciples of Jesus – who trusted God even when he felt God’s absence.
Note: Sometimes it is a challenge to know what to do with New Testament language that seems to challenge an empire that has long since passed into the dust bin of history. Barbara Rossing, a New Testament scholar and the author of The Rapture Exposed spoke at a recent Associated Church Press convention. In her presentation she made the case that the Book of Revelation was intended to show the bankruptcy of the Roman Empire and to encourage an alternative way of life. But how does that speak to us today? Rossing reportedly told the convention that readers need to avoid the temptation to look at the United States as "the empire." "That's way too simplistic. The empire is in all of us." (United Methodist Reporter, July 6, 2007) A good point to ponder as we read through the New Testament.
Matthew 27:1-2: The Jerusalem elite hand Jesus over to Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. If they really want to see Jesus executed, this seems a necessary step as only Rome exercised the power to execute. This is not a very happy picture of the way religious and political leaders can sometimes come together to take care of “problem people.”
Matthew 27:3-10: One wonders what Judas might have been thinking when he betrayed Jesus, but apparently he did not think the religious authorities would collaborate with the political authorities to see Jesus put to death. Judas regrets what he has done, to the point of ending his own life. In the context of the story in Matthew, both Peter and Judas have betrayed Jesus at some level (so, in fact, have the other disciples by their desertion). Judas ends whatever opportunity he may have had to change his life around by ending it. Peter and other disciples will take a different course.
Matthew 27:11-26: Jesus goes “on trial,” but there seems little opportunity for anything like a fair trial. Jesus refuses to participate in any charade that would give the impression that he is being judged fairly. “King of the Jews” was a title claimed by some who revolted against Rome. Pilate’s question may arise out of a political concern – is this man fomenting violent revolution? That the “revolution Jesus represents is non-violent is emphasized by the story of Barabbas. Barabbas (which means “son of the father”) seems to be some kind of violent revolutionary. In the midst of all this, Pilate’s wife reports to her husband a troubling dream. Something tells her Jesus that Jesus is a “righteous” person. Dreams were often considered a way God communicated with persons. It is as if God were trying to get through to Pilate, but he refuses to pay attention. At the very least, he refuses to act on the idea that Jesus could be a righteous person. His “hand washing” seems an act of cowardice, an evasion. In reality, it is only by his authority that Jesus can be put to death. Matthew also seems to be willing to heighten animosity toward others in the Jewish community, reflecting his own context of struggling with Jews who do not follow Jesus. This chapter has contributed a great deal to Christian anti-Semitism over the years, but to have it function in this way is a misreading. The crowd here does not stand in for all Jews in the first century, let alone all Jews for all time.
Matthew 27:27-31: “Having been handed over to Pilate’s soldiers, Jesus, like so many political prisoners before and after him, is tortured and humiliated” (Crossan and Borg, The Last Week, 144). Jesus is cynically mocked. Where might we cynically mock goodness in the world when it comes from unexpected places?
Matthew 27:32-44: After the mocking and torture, crucifixion – execution. The power of the empire is once again shown in their ability to commandeer an innocent bystander into helping with an execution. Jesus clothing is taken and bargained for. A mocking sign is hung over his head. That this is the death of a political rebel is shown by the fact that he is crucified with others who have broken the law – probably political revolutionaries who also opposed Rome, but violently. Others join in mocking Jesus – passersby, the Jerusalem elite, the criminals with whom he is crucified. Verse 43 is very ironic given that Matthew knows how the story will end. “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now.” God will indeed justify Jesus’ trust, but not in the time frame of those who think they hold the power.
Matthew 27:45-56: From The New Interpreters Study Bible: “Cosmic signs including a new temple, earthquakes, and raised bodies, signal the in-breaking of God’s empire in Jesus’ death, as in his life.” In other words, Matthew uses mythic and symbolic language to say that even in death, Jesus is somehow helping God’s dream for the world come into being – even as Jesus is crying out wondering where God may be Matthew asserts that God is present. Sometimes that is true for our lives as well. We cry out for God, feeling God’s absence yet trusting that God is present in some way we may not fathom for awhile. The symbols Matthew appeals to are both Jewish and Roman. The Roman symbol is found in the words of the centurions – “truly this man was God’s Son.” Son of God was a title for the emperor. In all this Matthew is asserting that God’s dream for the world continues to unfold even though Jesus is dying. In a few moments, I want to speak about the significance of the death of Jesus.
Matthew 27:57-61: A new figure is introduced, Joseph of Arimathea. He lays Jesus in his own tomb (according to Matthew – the other gospels do not make this claim). Joseph is described both as rich and as a follower of Jesus. He is a faithful follower, not abandoning Jesus at this difficult time. Two Marys, who had followed Jesus from Galilee sat opposite the tomb.
Matthew 27:62-66: This story is unique to Matthew’s gospel. In portrays the religious leaders as concerned about a resurrection and asking Pilate for an imperial guard to keep the tomb secure. The most important tomb is the one in which these leaders keep their own hearts – safely tucked away from the transforming power of God as it was embodied in Jesus.
Note on the Significance of the Death of Jesus: All of the gospels report that Jesus was executed by the Roman authorities. “There is no more certain fact in history that the execution of Jesus by the Roman occupational forces in Jerusalem at a Passover festival ca. 30 CE” (The People’s New Testament Commentary, 164). It seems almost as sure that certain of the Jewish leaders at the time collaborated in his execution. There had been an uneasy peace established between Rome and Jerusalem, and some had a stake in maintaining that peace. If Jesus was seen as a threat to that, and he certainly seems to have been, then that threat needed to be taken care of. Historically, then, this is why Jesus died. But the Christian church and Christian faith has been almost unanimous in saying that the death of Jesus had a deeper meaning, a theological and religious significance. We will encounter this again and again as we read through the New Testament. Matthew does not develop any elaborate theology about the death of Jesus (though there are some earlier indications that Matthew understood “forgiveness” as important part of the work of Jesus even in his death – 1:21, 26:28), but asserts its significance by using mythic and symbolic language to describe what went on as Jesus died. But what is this theological/religious significance?
“For all his followers, Jesus’ death was a terrible, unexpected surprise that shattered their hopes” (The People’s New Testament Commentary, 164). But the death of Jesus was not the end of the story. They later experienced Jesus as alive and vindicated by God (more about this after Matthew 28). Their later experience forced them to reevaluate and reinterpret Jesus death. Somehow even his death must be significant. Even here God must have been at work in some way. A variety of interpretations of the significance of Jesus death are offered in the New Testament and in the history of Christian theology (theologically these are referred to as “atonement theories”). “The meaning of Jesus’ death was understood in a variety of ways: as an expression of Jesus’/God’s love, as the means of God’s forgiveness, as an atoning sacrifice, as an act of sealing or eschatologically renewing God’s covenant with his people, as redemptive liberation from slavery or ransom from captivity, and in numerous other concepts and images that express the saving act of God in the death of Jesus” (The People’s New Testament Commentary, 164). There are those in the Christian community of faith who argue that there is only one appropriate way to understand the theological/religious significance of the death of Jesus. It is probably fair to say that substitutionary atonement is the only way that many or even most contemporary Christians understand faith in the sacrificial and salvific death of Jesus…. It is not just that Jesus offered his life in atonement for sin, but that God demanded it as a condition for our forgiveness. (Crossan and Borg, The Last Week, 101). They wonder if there are better metaphors for understanding God and thus for understanding the significance of the death of Jesus. Jesus may be said to have sacrificed his life “for his passion, namely, for his advocacy of the kingdom of God” (The Last Week, 154), but this is a different kind of sacrifice than one required by God so that God might forgive. Walter Wink, in a brilliant book on “the son of man” traditions in the Bible and particularly in the New Testament (The Human Being) writes perceptively about the significance of the death of Jesus and about the theories of his death in the history of Christian theology. Of most views of the significance of Jesus’ death, Wink writes, “All these views share the presupposition that God had Jesus killed in order to redeem the world. None of them makes realistic sense of the fact that Jesus was executed by the religious and political establishment.” (105) Wink then rehearses many of the traditional theories and ends up with the following: There is truth in most of these atonement theories…. The point is that no religious experience can be made normative for all people. God reaches out to us in love wherever we are and instigates what leads us to wholeness. Each response if divinely tailored to meet our situations…. The virtue of multiple images of the atonement in the New Testament is that each communicates some aspect of forgiveness and new life, without a single model being elevated as exclusively correct. Atonement theories are need-specific remedies for the spiritual afflictions that assail us. (110-111)
All of this is to say that the bottom line New Testament affirmation is that the death of Jesus, a brutal execution at the hands of legitimate authorities, has significance for our lives and our relationship to God. Just what that significance is is open to a rich variety of interpretations, and that is perhaps as it should be. Rather than argue that there is only one true way to understand the meaning of Jesus' death for our lives we would do well to listen to others as they share their understandings. Such conversations have the potential to contribute a great deal to our own formation as disciples of Jesus – who trusted God even when he felt God’s absence.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Matthew 26
Matthew 26:1-5: “When Jesus had finished saying all these things…” Jesus time of teaching is coming to an end. The Passover is just around the corner and Jesus tells the disciples that he will be crucified. There is an inevitability to Jesus’ death, but no reason is given. Matthew has prepared us by sharing a variety of stories about Jesus conflict with authorities, religious and political. That he has offended leaders is made clear in verses 3-5, where a conspiracy is developing involving chief priests, elders and the high priest, Caiaphas. They were concerned about the timing however, given Jesus popularity.
Matthew 26:6-13: All four gospels tell a version of this story, but Mark and Matthew place it in the context of the events leading up to the crucifixion. An unnamed woman pours a jar of expensive ointment on Jesus while he is sitting at table. Her actions anger the disciples who know how costly the ointment was. Couldn’t the ointment have been sold and the money used to help the poor? Jesus, instead, commends the woman’s good service, remarking that they will have other opportunities to help the poor. Why commend this woman, especially in such lavish terms (“wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her”)? Crossan and Borg in The Last Week write that this woman is really the first “believer,” the first “Christian.” She gets it. She understands that going to Jerusalem means death for Jesus and she responds with extravagant generosity. Our own response to Jesus, and our response to others may include occasions for such extravagant generosity, a generosity that goes beyond a more narrow calculation of the monetary worth of an action. How many of us criticize extravagant gifts given to a cause, knowing that if we had such resources we would dole them out more wisely? Maybe on message in this story is that we should appreciate generosity when we encounter it.
Matthew 26:14-16: One woman uses he resources to pour expensive perfume on Jesus. She is not terribly interested in narrow calculations. Another disciple figures out that there is money to be made by betraying Jesus. He settles on a price – thirty pieces of silver. The conjunction of the story of the woman and Judas is intentional, presenting us a contrast and inviting us to respond to Jesus with extravagant generosity.
Matthew 26:17-30: In these verses we have the telling of the story of the Last Supper. Here it is a Passover meal with the disciples. During the meal, Jesus announces that one will betray him and Matthew makes clear that Jesus knows this is Judas. No doubt the telling of this story is shaped by the worship practice of the early church – and the words have been passed from generation to generation as Christians the world over remember this meal. For some, these words about “body” and “blood” are uncomfortable, archaic. While the placement of these events in close proximity to the physical death of Jesus suggests an uncomfortable literal reading, we need to remember that Jesus is speaking symbolically. He does not offer a bite from his arm or cut open a vein. This final meal that Jesus shared with his disciples has multiple resonances of meaning. It connects backwards into the public activity of Jesus and forward into his death and the post-Easter life of Christianity. (The Last Week, 113). Crossan and Borg identify for such resonances of meaning: a continuation of the meal practice of Jesus (where people were fed and where many traditionally excluded were included); a echo of the feeding of the five thousand (where what is present is used, multiplied in wonderful ways and shared); a Passover meal (in which the Israelites remembered that once they were slaves in Egypt and God set them free – this meal is about freedom as well, freedom to live in a way different from the empire, freedom from sin through forgiveness); a foreshadowing that Jesus death will have significance for their lives (how we talk about the significance of the death of Jesus is important and Christians have discussed it significance in a number of ways – the bottom line is that it is significant). In my own pastoral practice I try and recognize the variety of meanings in the rich symbolism of communion/the Lord’s supper/the Eucharist. Sometimes that means using different words than those offered in the tradition to celebrate the meal in worship and sometimes it means letting the traditional words be there for all of us to grapple with. Where do you find deep meaning in this important practice of the Christian faith?
Matthew 26:31-35: Not only will Judas betray Jesus, but Jesus tells the disciples that they will all desert him, even Peter “the Rock.” This story must have been a poignant one in the early church for the temptation to hide one’s identify as a Christian would have been strong, and I imagine that some who were part of the church had, in fact, denied their faith at some point in time. The story would have been encouraging to such folks – look, even the disciples, even Peter, deserted at one time.
Matthew 26:36-46: Jesus takes three disciples with him and goes to pray. The disciples cannot stay awake – the heroes of Matthew’s Jesus community are all very human. Jesus prays a deep prayer, hoping that things might be different, but open to whatever will happen as he continues to be faithful to the God he addresses as abba. Some words from Crossan and Borg about Jesus’ prayer offer an important insight. It is never God’s will that the righteous suffer. It was not God’s will that Jesus died, any more than it was the will of God that any of the martyrs before and after Jesus were killed. Yet we may imagine then handing themselves over in the way that Jesus did, from Peter and Paul to Thecla and Perpetua to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the nuns in El Salvador. The prayer reflects not a fatalistic resignation to the will of God, but a trusting in God in the midst of the most dire of circumstances (The Last Week, 123).
Matthew 26:47-56: A crowd comes with Judas, a crowd armed with swords and clubs. Jesus is betrayed by Judas, whom Jesus still calls “friend” by a kiss. A follower of Jesus draws a sword and begins to resist violently, but Jesus disavows this action. “All who take the sword will perish by the sword,” Jesus says. From The People’s New Testament Commentary: The way of nonviolence, nonresistance, and nonretaliation, love of enemies is to be pursued to the end…. Violence is self-destructive and futile, resulting only in a vicious spiral of violence. Matthew has Jesus make unspecified references to Scriptures being fulfilled, but offers no citations.
Matthew 26:57-68: Jesus is brought to the high priest, Caiaphas. He is questioned and by his answers accused of blasphemy. He quotes Daniel 7 – a text that presents a vision of a different kind of kingdom of God than people had experienced. In the story, Jesus associates his person and work with this dream of God for a new world. This threatens both the imperial authorities and their collaborators among the Jewish elite. Because his accused of blasphemy he is mocked, struck and spat upon. Apparently, God’s new world is not always received warmly.
Matthew 26:69-75: This story of Peter’s denial is heart-rending. One who had been so close to Jesus, heard him teach, saw what happened to others, saw his own life change, denies ever knowing him, denies it in the strongest terms. In the end, he weeps bitterly. Again, in the context of Matthew’s Jesus community (or Christian community) this story must have been of some comfort to those who had done something similar. Being a disciple may be difficult sometimes and we can only hope for the courage to hang in there if and when the going gets tough.
Matthew 26:1-5: “When Jesus had finished saying all these things…” Jesus time of teaching is coming to an end. The Passover is just around the corner and Jesus tells the disciples that he will be crucified. There is an inevitability to Jesus’ death, but no reason is given. Matthew has prepared us by sharing a variety of stories about Jesus conflict with authorities, religious and political. That he has offended leaders is made clear in verses 3-5, where a conspiracy is developing involving chief priests, elders and the high priest, Caiaphas. They were concerned about the timing however, given Jesus popularity.
Matthew 26:6-13: All four gospels tell a version of this story, but Mark and Matthew place it in the context of the events leading up to the crucifixion. An unnamed woman pours a jar of expensive ointment on Jesus while he is sitting at table. Her actions anger the disciples who know how costly the ointment was. Couldn’t the ointment have been sold and the money used to help the poor? Jesus, instead, commends the woman’s good service, remarking that they will have other opportunities to help the poor. Why commend this woman, especially in such lavish terms (“wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her”)? Crossan and Borg in The Last Week write that this woman is really the first “believer,” the first “Christian.” She gets it. She understands that going to Jerusalem means death for Jesus and she responds with extravagant generosity. Our own response to Jesus, and our response to others may include occasions for such extravagant generosity, a generosity that goes beyond a more narrow calculation of the monetary worth of an action. How many of us criticize extravagant gifts given to a cause, knowing that if we had such resources we would dole them out more wisely? Maybe on message in this story is that we should appreciate generosity when we encounter it.
Matthew 26:14-16: One woman uses he resources to pour expensive perfume on Jesus. She is not terribly interested in narrow calculations. Another disciple figures out that there is money to be made by betraying Jesus. He settles on a price – thirty pieces of silver. The conjunction of the story of the woman and Judas is intentional, presenting us a contrast and inviting us to respond to Jesus with extravagant generosity.
Matthew 26:17-30: In these verses we have the telling of the story of the Last Supper. Here it is a Passover meal with the disciples. During the meal, Jesus announces that one will betray him and Matthew makes clear that Jesus knows this is Judas. No doubt the telling of this story is shaped by the worship practice of the early church – and the words have been passed from generation to generation as Christians the world over remember this meal. For some, these words about “body” and “blood” are uncomfortable, archaic. While the placement of these events in close proximity to the physical death of Jesus suggests an uncomfortable literal reading, we need to remember that Jesus is speaking symbolically. He does not offer a bite from his arm or cut open a vein. This final meal that Jesus shared with his disciples has multiple resonances of meaning. It connects backwards into the public activity of Jesus and forward into his death and the post-Easter life of Christianity. (The Last Week, 113). Crossan and Borg identify for such resonances of meaning: a continuation of the meal practice of Jesus (where people were fed and where many traditionally excluded were included); a echo of the feeding of the five thousand (where what is present is used, multiplied in wonderful ways and shared); a Passover meal (in which the Israelites remembered that once they were slaves in Egypt and God set them free – this meal is about freedom as well, freedom to live in a way different from the empire, freedom from sin through forgiveness); a foreshadowing that Jesus death will have significance for their lives (how we talk about the significance of the death of Jesus is important and Christians have discussed it significance in a number of ways – the bottom line is that it is significant). In my own pastoral practice I try and recognize the variety of meanings in the rich symbolism of communion/the Lord’s supper/the Eucharist. Sometimes that means using different words than those offered in the tradition to celebrate the meal in worship and sometimes it means letting the traditional words be there for all of us to grapple with. Where do you find deep meaning in this important practice of the Christian faith?
Matthew 26:31-35: Not only will Judas betray Jesus, but Jesus tells the disciples that they will all desert him, even Peter “the Rock.” This story must have been a poignant one in the early church for the temptation to hide one’s identify as a Christian would have been strong, and I imagine that some who were part of the church had, in fact, denied their faith at some point in time. The story would have been encouraging to such folks – look, even the disciples, even Peter, deserted at one time.
Matthew 26:36-46: Jesus takes three disciples with him and goes to pray. The disciples cannot stay awake – the heroes of Matthew’s Jesus community are all very human. Jesus prays a deep prayer, hoping that things might be different, but open to whatever will happen as he continues to be faithful to the God he addresses as abba. Some words from Crossan and Borg about Jesus’ prayer offer an important insight. It is never God’s will that the righteous suffer. It was not God’s will that Jesus died, any more than it was the will of God that any of the martyrs before and after Jesus were killed. Yet we may imagine then handing themselves over in the way that Jesus did, from Peter and Paul to Thecla and Perpetua to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the nuns in El Salvador. The prayer reflects not a fatalistic resignation to the will of God, but a trusting in God in the midst of the most dire of circumstances (The Last Week, 123).
Matthew 26:47-56: A crowd comes with Judas, a crowd armed with swords and clubs. Jesus is betrayed by Judas, whom Jesus still calls “friend” by a kiss. A follower of Jesus draws a sword and begins to resist violently, but Jesus disavows this action. “All who take the sword will perish by the sword,” Jesus says. From The People’s New Testament Commentary: The way of nonviolence, nonresistance, and nonretaliation, love of enemies is to be pursued to the end…. Violence is self-destructive and futile, resulting only in a vicious spiral of violence. Matthew has Jesus make unspecified references to Scriptures being fulfilled, but offers no citations.
Matthew 26:57-68: Jesus is brought to the high priest, Caiaphas. He is questioned and by his answers accused of blasphemy. He quotes Daniel 7 – a text that presents a vision of a different kind of kingdom of God than people had experienced. In the story, Jesus associates his person and work with this dream of God for a new world. This threatens both the imperial authorities and their collaborators among the Jewish elite. Because his accused of blasphemy he is mocked, struck and spat upon. Apparently, God’s new world is not always received warmly.
Matthew 26:69-75: This story of Peter’s denial is heart-rending. One who had been so close to Jesus, heard him teach, saw what happened to others, saw his own life change, denies ever knowing him, denies it in the strongest terms. In the end, he weeps bitterly. Again, in the context of Matthew’s Jesus community (or Christian community) this story must have been of some comfort to those who had done something similar. Being a disciple may be difficult sometimes and we can only hope for the courage to hang in there if and when the going gets tough.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Matthew 24-25
Matthew 24:1-2: Jesus is leaving the Temple with his disciples and they remark on the buildings. Jesus responds by telling them that the entire structure will be thrown down. By the time Matthew is composing his gospel, the Temple had indeed been destroyed. In 66 CE, a massive Jewish revolt against Rome was launched, and for awhile it was successful – but only for awhile. Jerusalem was the center of the resistance movement, and it took Rome four years to recapture it, but they did. When they did, Roman troops offered sacrifice to the emperor in the Temple and then destroyed the Temple and the city. All of the gospels were composed with this war as a part of their context. For Matthew the war and its tremendous suffering for the Jewish people, including Jewish Christians, is definitely in the past. The historical scars remained.
All that follows in the next two chapters needs to be read within the context of that war and its aftermath. How many of the sayings and stories reported in these chapters go back to Jesus is a matter of scholarly debate. Whether they do or not, Matthew puts the sayings and stories together in such a way as to speak to his context – a post-70 Jewish Christian community. I want the focus of my notes on the New Testament to be formation rather than information, though I know I have included quite a bit of the latter. In order to help the words in the coming chapter be more formative, I think it is important to get some information on the table.
The materials in chapters 24 and 25 have to do with eschatology (a semitechnical term that means “the last things, the final things, the end of things”), judgment, and apocalypse (a word meaning “revelation” or unveiling). “Though sometimes equated with ‘the end of the world,’ it is important to realize that biblical eschatology is not about the end of the space-time world, not about the disappearance or vanishing of the earth, but about the transformation of this world” (Marcus Borg, Jesus, 252). The verses in chapter 24 have a lot to do with the end of things, but they speak about them in a particular way. “An apocalypse is a kind of Jewish and Christian literature that reveals or unveils the future in language loaded with images and symbols. Apocalyptic literature speaks of a time of great suffering followed by divine deliverance” (John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, The Last Week, 78). Matthew uses material found in Mark (chapter 13) in constructing chapters 24-25. “Mark’s gospel thus has an apocalyptic eschatology, a technical phrase the refers to the expectation of dramatic and decisive divine intervention in the near future, one so public that even non-believers will have to agree that it has happened” (The Last Week, 82-83). In the coming two chapters of Matthew we will find passages of apocalyptic eschatology along with parables about judgment. In addition, Matthew puts much of this in the context of a coming of the son of man, a “second coming of Jesus.”
So how much of this goes back to Jesus? That is a matter of scholarly debate, but beyond such debate asking the question may help us ask questions that help form us in our faith. If some of the apocalyptic eschatological context helped Jesus’ sayings and stories receive more attention for Matthew’s community, we can legitimately ask whether bracketing such a context helps these stories speak to us in some new ways, ways that aid in our being formed by the Spirit into the image of Christ.
Second Coming: Did Jesus speak about his own second coming? Most mainline scholars do not think that Jesus spoke about his second coming. To suppose that he did would require imagining that he tried to teach his followers about a second coming when they had not really understood his “first coming” very well, including not really understanding that he was going away, that is, the he would be killed…. We think the conviction that Jesus would come again emerged in the post-Easter community. The Jesus whom the rulers of this world had executed and who had been vindicated by God would soon come again to complete what he had begun. (Borg, Jesus, 179, 255). Language describing God’s future is a set of signposts pointing into a mist. The signposts may tell the truth but shouldn’t be mistaken for the reality…. The New Testament often uses the Greek word parousia, frequently translated “coming,” to express this “presence” of Jesus within God’s future recreation of the cosmos. Of course, someone who is present after a time of absence must have “come,” “arrived,” or “appeared.” But the root meaning remains “presence;” the word often used of the “royal presence” of kings and rulers. If we spoke of Jesus’ royal presence within God’s new creation, rather than thinking of his “coming” as an invasion from outside, our talk about the future might make more sense. It would also be a lot more biblical. (N.T. Wright in Wright and Borg, The Meaning of Jesus, 201-202). Language about a second coming of Jesus might best be thought of in terms of a conviction that what God was doing in Jesus, making God’s dream for the world more of a reality, would continue until it wins the day and the world is transformed.
Eschatology: Marcus Borg does a good job in his book Jesus discussing this topic. A theory many scholars maintained throughout the twentieth century was that Jesus believed and taught an “imminent eschatology.” “Imminent eschatology means that Jesus expected a dramatic supernatural intervention by God in the very near future that would establish the kingdom of God” (254). There is some significant and solid biblical evidence for this. One difficulty in holding this position is that it would mean that Jesus was wrong. Borg argues that even if Jesus believed and preached an imminent eschatology, it was a secondary theme. Borg argues that Jesus’ primary theme would have been a “participatory eschatology.” Jesus called people to participate in the coming of the kingdom. There is solid evidence for this position as well. Borg’s own words are helpful. Does participatory eschatology mean that Jesus thought the kingdom of God, God’s dream, would come about through human political achievement? By no means. I do not imagine that he thought that. It is always God’s kingdom, God’s dream, God’s will. And it involves a deep centering in the God whom Jesus knew. So did he think God would bring in the kingdom without our involvement? I do not imagine this either. Indeed, the choice between “God does it” or “we do it” is a misleading and inappropriate dichotomy. In St. Augustine’s magnificent aphorism, “God without us will not; and we without God cannot.” (260) Whatever “the end” looks like finally, and whenever it may come, the important point is that we are invited to work toward God’s dream for the world, not speculate on “end times signs.”
Apocalyptic: Recall that apocalyptic literature had as its central conviction that God’s deliverance will arrive after a time of intense suffering. That is the most important theme. Beyond the symbolic language and metaphoric timetables, there is a deep conviction of faith “namely, what has begun in Jesus will triumph, despite the tumult and resistance of this world” (Crossan and Borg, The Last Week, 83). Again, it seems a misplacement of energy to spend too much time speculating on the meaning of all the symbols (remember this when we get to “Revelation”). We do better to align our lives with what God was up to in Jesus. Many of the stories to come in Matthew make a similar point.
Judgment: I have already quoted this passage once, but it is worth repeating. Granted Jesus used language about a final judgment, did he believe in a last judgment with eternal consequences – that some people would go to hell?... It is possible that Jesus did believe in a final judgment in which some people would go to hell. It is also possible, at least equally so, that the afterlife was not a central concern of Jesus and that he used the language of a final judgment to reinforce the importance of acting compassionately. We can imagine that language working this way: you who believe in a final judgment – what do you think the basis, the criterion will be? His own answers to that question, as reported in the gospels, subvert and undermine widely accepted notions of his time (and perhaps every time). The judgment will not be based on membership in a group, or on beliefs, or on rule keeping, but on deeds of compassion. But whatever Jesus believed about rewards and punishments in a final judgment, his mission and message were much more concerned about life in this world than about our fate beyond death. (Borg, Jesus, 180-181).
Forgive this lengthy introduction, but these are important themes to discuss as we read through the New Testament. There are a number of Christians who argue for very different understandings of the end times, the second coming and judgment. They remain part of the family of faith. Sometimes I find their discussions less helpful as I seek to be formed by God’s Spirit. Focusing on “making it in the end” and on the shortcoming of others has less to do with becoming Christ-like than with reading the words of the gospels and asking how they speak to me about how I should live. It is o.k. to disagree about eschatology – you don’t have to think like I do on these matters. It is more important that we help each other live lives consistent with the love and justice Jesus proclaimed.
Matthew 24:3-26: Jesus has just spoken of the destruction of the Temple, and the disciples ask not only when this will happen, but also “what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age.” Notice how the question does not fit the context all that well. Some of Matthew’s theology and the theology of the community is creeping in. The words Jesus “speaks” are a present reality for Jesus’ community. False teachers have come – some proclaiming a violent revolution against Rome (and Rome had responded by crushing the opposition, and destroying Jerusalem and the Temple). Wars and famines and earthquakes will be but birthpangs. This is a brilliant image. Giving birth is painful (or so I hear!), but the results are miraculous. The community of Jesus followers is living in very difficult times, but they are being asked to see these as birthpangs rather than death throes. Those who followed Jesus were persecuted – as Jews by the Romans and as unfaithful Jews by other Jews. Undoubtedly people fell away. Verses 13 and 14 get to the heart of the matter – “those who endure to the end will be saved,” will remain a part of God’s kingdom; and the good news of the kingdom will continue to be shared. The desolating sacrilege may be a reference to what had already happened in Jerusalem, a sacrifice was offered in the Temple to the emperor before it was destroyed. It reminds the reader of an earlier such desecration in 160s BCE when an alter to Zeus was established in the Temple. Verses 27-28 are words of assurance, mocking Roman symbols (lightening and eagle - a more adequate translation than vulture). Finally God’s purposes will prevail not the imperial ambitions of Rome which were proving so painful for so many.
Matthew 24:29-31: Another vision of the triumph of God’s purposes. Here are a couple of notes from the New Interpreter’s Study Bible that I found helpful. “The present is a time of tribulation for disciples. It requires faithfulness, non-violent resistance, and hopeful anticipation. Ironically and regrettably, the chapters depict God’s future purposes by employing symbols from the imperial world that the Gospel resists…. The irony of this triumphant sign is clear. The Gospel presents the triumph of God’s empire with the very imperial model it resists.” There is a constant struggle in the Christian life, it seems to me, to find ways to relate the message of God’s love, compassion and justice to a culture without letting inappropriate cultural symbols become too predominant. Some of the apocalyptic eschatology in the New Testament does just that. A tyrannical emperor is replaced by a God who seems to rule capriciously rather than by the God of Jesus whose nature is compassion and inclusion. Where to draw the line between creative appropriation of culture and being compromised by culture is a challenge.
Matthew 24:32-35: A metaphor is used – just as you may watch a fig tree to determine when the seasons begin, so rest assured in the midst of these hardships God’s kingdom will make its presence known. Verse 35 is one of those challenging verses reflecting an imminent eschatology – God’s kingdom was going to come soon. The important verse is 35 – Jesus' message will remain valid. Hold on to it.
Matthew 24:36-44: Wonderful images are used in these verses to encourage watchfulness, which should be viewed as faithfulness to Jesus, to Jesus' message and to God’s work in Jesus. Times are difficult – hold on. This is the primary message of the chapter so far, and this is something we can relate to in our own lives. It will not always be easy to live as a Christian, though most of us will not face the kinds of hardship known by Matthew’s Jesus community.
Matthew 24:45-51: The first of four stories in a row – Matthew uses these stories to describe the kind of life that those who follow Jesus and foster the kingdom will live even in difficult times. Some of the details of the stories are rather stark, but that perhaps makes them attention grabbers. In this story the emphasis is on being “faithful and wise.” Slavery is assumed, as is the ability of a master to be cruel to slaves. This is being told as a story to make a point about faithful living.
Matthew 25:1-13: The story, and the stories, continues. Here we have a tale of ten bridesmaids, some of whom are wise and some of whom are foolish. “Oil represents faithful, active, obedient discipleship – deeds of love and mercy” (combined quote from The People’s New Testament Commentary and The New Interpreter’s Study Bible). “Keep awake” is a rather poor ending. All the bridesmaids slept. Nevertheless the story remains an encouragement to faithful discipleship. If we take some of the eschatological judgment out of the context, it is easier to take this parable not as something that should send us worrying about our supply of good deeds (oil), but as a tale told to encourage us to be oil producers.
Matthew 25:14-30: The sense that being a disciple should be a productive enterprise is reinforced in this story of the talents. At talent was a substantial sum of money, equal to fifteen years of wages for a day laborer. Each slave is given talents, but no instructions. Two of the slaves produce more. One slave is afraid and in his fear is unproductive. Even in difficult times, followers of Jesus should be about the work of the kingdom, multiplying good works of love, not letting their fear get the better of them. It would be a shame to let this story which encourages bold action, initiative and risk become a story that makes us afraid.
Matthew 25:31-46: These two chapters which weave eschatology, apocalyptic, judgment through stories and sayings come to a marvelous end with a story that A. N. Wilson calls “perhaps the most haunting passage in the New Testament” (Revelations). Raymond Brown, an important New Testament scholar writes, “the admirable principle that the verdict [of judgment] is based on the treatment of deprived outcasts is the Matthean Jesus’ last warning to his followers and to the church, demanding a very different religious standard both from that of those scribes and Pharisees criticized in chap. 23 and from that of a world that pays more attention to the rich and powerful” (An Introduction to the New Testament, 199). Love involves caring for the least, the lonely, the down and out. My Sunday sermon will focus on why this story is central to Christian faith, but not the sole center of Christian faith, at least as it is sometimes read. Let me end with another quote from The New Interpreter’s Study Bible. This judgment scene (and others like it in chap. 13) has several troubling (and not easily resolved) features. It bullies disciples into faithfulness. It celebrates the imposition of God’s empire while the gospel criticizes imperial strategies. It upholds God’s justice, but the vision of harsh condemnation is at odds with the presentation of God’s inclusive mercy (5:43-48) and with the acknowledgement of God’s covenant faithfulness to save Israel (23:37-39). Some of these tensions are slightly less pronounced if one reads the story as a story, and one primarily wanting to define and encourage faithful action, action consistent with God’s dream for the world as it has been present in Jesus.
Matthew 24:1-2: Jesus is leaving the Temple with his disciples and they remark on the buildings. Jesus responds by telling them that the entire structure will be thrown down. By the time Matthew is composing his gospel, the Temple had indeed been destroyed. In 66 CE, a massive Jewish revolt against Rome was launched, and for awhile it was successful – but only for awhile. Jerusalem was the center of the resistance movement, and it took Rome four years to recapture it, but they did. When they did, Roman troops offered sacrifice to the emperor in the Temple and then destroyed the Temple and the city. All of the gospels were composed with this war as a part of their context. For Matthew the war and its tremendous suffering for the Jewish people, including Jewish Christians, is definitely in the past. The historical scars remained.
All that follows in the next two chapters needs to be read within the context of that war and its aftermath. How many of the sayings and stories reported in these chapters go back to Jesus is a matter of scholarly debate. Whether they do or not, Matthew puts the sayings and stories together in such a way as to speak to his context – a post-70 Jewish Christian community. I want the focus of my notes on the New Testament to be formation rather than information, though I know I have included quite a bit of the latter. In order to help the words in the coming chapter be more formative, I think it is important to get some information on the table.
The materials in chapters 24 and 25 have to do with eschatology (a semitechnical term that means “the last things, the final things, the end of things”), judgment, and apocalypse (a word meaning “revelation” or unveiling). “Though sometimes equated with ‘the end of the world,’ it is important to realize that biblical eschatology is not about the end of the space-time world, not about the disappearance or vanishing of the earth, but about the transformation of this world” (Marcus Borg, Jesus, 252). The verses in chapter 24 have a lot to do with the end of things, but they speak about them in a particular way. “An apocalypse is a kind of Jewish and Christian literature that reveals or unveils the future in language loaded with images and symbols. Apocalyptic literature speaks of a time of great suffering followed by divine deliverance” (John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, The Last Week, 78). Matthew uses material found in Mark (chapter 13) in constructing chapters 24-25. “Mark’s gospel thus has an apocalyptic eschatology, a technical phrase the refers to the expectation of dramatic and decisive divine intervention in the near future, one so public that even non-believers will have to agree that it has happened” (The Last Week, 82-83). In the coming two chapters of Matthew we will find passages of apocalyptic eschatology along with parables about judgment. In addition, Matthew puts much of this in the context of a coming of the son of man, a “second coming of Jesus.”
So how much of this goes back to Jesus? That is a matter of scholarly debate, but beyond such debate asking the question may help us ask questions that help form us in our faith. If some of the apocalyptic eschatological context helped Jesus’ sayings and stories receive more attention for Matthew’s community, we can legitimately ask whether bracketing such a context helps these stories speak to us in some new ways, ways that aid in our being formed by the Spirit into the image of Christ.
Second Coming: Did Jesus speak about his own second coming? Most mainline scholars do not think that Jesus spoke about his second coming. To suppose that he did would require imagining that he tried to teach his followers about a second coming when they had not really understood his “first coming” very well, including not really understanding that he was going away, that is, the he would be killed…. We think the conviction that Jesus would come again emerged in the post-Easter community. The Jesus whom the rulers of this world had executed and who had been vindicated by God would soon come again to complete what he had begun. (Borg, Jesus, 179, 255). Language describing God’s future is a set of signposts pointing into a mist. The signposts may tell the truth but shouldn’t be mistaken for the reality…. The New Testament often uses the Greek word parousia, frequently translated “coming,” to express this “presence” of Jesus within God’s future recreation of the cosmos. Of course, someone who is present after a time of absence must have “come,” “arrived,” or “appeared.” But the root meaning remains “presence;” the word often used of the “royal presence” of kings and rulers. If we spoke of Jesus’ royal presence within God’s new creation, rather than thinking of his “coming” as an invasion from outside, our talk about the future might make more sense. It would also be a lot more biblical. (N.T. Wright in Wright and Borg, The Meaning of Jesus, 201-202). Language about a second coming of Jesus might best be thought of in terms of a conviction that what God was doing in Jesus, making God’s dream for the world more of a reality, would continue until it wins the day and the world is transformed.
Eschatology: Marcus Borg does a good job in his book Jesus discussing this topic. A theory many scholars maintained throughout the twentieth century was that Jesus believed and taught an “imminent eschatology.” “Imminent eschatology means that Jesus expected a dramatic supernatural intervention by God in the very near future that would establish the kingdom of God” (254). There is some significant and solid biblical evidence for this. One difficulty in holding this position is that it would mean that Jesus was wrong. Borg argues that even if Jesus believed and preached an imminent eschatology, it was a secondary theme. Borg argues that Jesus’ primary theme would have been a “participatory eschatology.” Jesus called people to participate in the coming of the kingdom. There is solid evidence for this position as well. Borg’s own words are helpful. Does participatory eschatology mean that Jesus thought the kingdom of God, God’s dream, would come about through human political achievement? By no means. I do not imagine that he thought that. It is always God’s kingdom, God’s dream, God’s will. And it involves a deep centering in the God whom Jesus knew. So did he think God would bring in the kingdom without our involvement? I do not imagine this either. Indeed, the choice between “God does it” or “we do it” is a misleading and inappropriate dichotomy. In St. Augustine’s magnificent aphorism, “God without us will not; and we without God cannot.” (260) Whatever “the end” looks like finally, and whenever it may come, the important point is that we are invited to work toward God’s dream for the world, not speculate on “end times signs.”
Apocalyptic: Recall that apocalyptic literature had as its central conviction that God’s deliverance will arrive after a time of intense suffering. That is the most important theme. Beyond the symbolic language and metaphoric timetables, there is a deep conviction of faith “namely, what has begun in Jesus will triumph, despite the tumult and resistance of this world” (Crossan and Borg, The Last Week, 83). Again, it seems a misplacement of energy to spend too much time speculating on the meaning of all the symbols (remember this when we get to “Revelation”). We do better to align our lives with what God was up to in Jesus. Many of the stories to come in Matthew make a similar point.
Judgment: I have already quoted this passage once, but it is worth repeating. Granted Jesus used language about a final judgment, did he believe in a last judgment with eternal consequences – that some people would go to hell?... It is possible that Jesus did believe in a final judgment in which some people would go to hell. It is also possible, at least equally so, that the afterlife was not a central concern of Jesus and that he used the language of a final judgment to reinforce the importance of acting compassionately. We can imagine that language working this way: you who believe in a final judgment – what do you think the basis, the criterion will be? His own answers to that question, as reported in the gospels, subvert and undermine widely accepted notions of his time (and perhaps every time). The judgment will not be based on membership in a group, or on beliefs, or on rule keeping, but on deeds of compassion. But whatever Jesus believed about rewards and punishments in a final judgment, his mission and message were much more concerned about life in this world than about our fate beyond death. (Borg, Jesus, 180-181).
Forgive this lengthy introduction, but these are important themes to discuss as we read through the New Testament. There are a number of Christians who argue for very different understandings of the end times, the second coming and judgment. They remain part of the family of faith. Sometimes I find their discussions less helpful as I seek to be formed by God’s Spirit. Focusing on “making it in the end” and on the shortcoming of others has less to do with becoming Christ-like than with reading the words of the gospels and asking how they speak to me about how I should live. It is o.k. to disagree about eschatology – you don’t have to think like I do on these matters. It is more important that we help each other live lives consistent with the love and justice Jesus proclaimed.
Matthew 24:3-26: Jesus has just spoken of the destruction of the Temple, and the disciples ask not only when this will happen, but also “what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age.” Notice how the question does not fit the context all that well. Some of Matthew’s theology and the theology of the community is creeping in. The words Jesus “speaks” are a present reality for Jesus’ community. False teachers have come – some proclaiming a violent revolution against Rome (and Rome had responded by crushing the opposition, and destroying Jerusalem and the Temple). Wars and famines and earthquakes will be but birthpangs. This is a brilliant image. Giving birth is painful (or so I hear!), but the results are miraculous. The community of Jesus followers is living in very difficult times, but they are being asked to see these as birthpangs rather than death throes. Those who followed Jesus were persecuted – as Jews by the Romans and as unfaithful Jews by other Jews. Undoubtedly people fell away. Verses 13 and 14 get to the heart of the matter – “those who endure to the end will be saved,” will remain a part of God’s kingdom; and the good news of the kingdom will continue to be shared. The desolating sacrilege may be a reference to what had already happened in Jerusalem, a sacrifice was offered in the Temple to the emperor before it was destroyed. It reminds the reader of an earlier such desecration in 160s BCE when an alter to Zeus was established in the Temple. Verses 27-28 are words of assurance, mocking Roman symbols (lightening and eagle - a more adequate translation than vulture). Finally God’s purposes will prevail not the imperial ambitions of Rome which were proving so painful for so many.
Matthew 24:29-31: Another vision of the triumph of God’s purposes. Here are a couple of notes from the New Interpreter’s Study Bible that I found helpful. “The present is a time of tribulation for disciples. It requires faithfulness, non-violent resistance, and hopeful anticipation. Ironically and regrettably, the chapters depict God’s future purposes by employing symbols from the imperial world that the Gospel resists…. The irony of this triumphant sign is clear. The Gospel presents the triumph of God’s empire with the very imperial model it resists.” There is a constant struggle in the Christian life, it seems to me, to find ways to relate the message of God’s love, compassion and justice to a culture without letting inappropriate cultural symbols become too predominant. Some of the apocalyptic eschatology in the New Testament does just that. A tyrannical emperor is replaced by a God who seems to rule capriciously rather than by the God of Jesus whose nature is compassion and inclusion. Where to draw the line between creative appropriation of culture and being compromised by culture is a challenge.
Matthew 24:32-35: A metaphor is used – just as you may watch a fig tree to determine when the seasons begin, so rest assured in the midst of these hardships God’s kingdom will make its presence known. Verse 35 is one of those challenging verses reflecting an imminent eschatology – God’s kingdom was going to come soon. The important verse is 35 – Jesus' message will remain valid. Hold on to it.
Matthew 24:36-44: Wonderful images are used in these verses to encourage watchfulness, which should be viewed as faithfulness to Jesus, to Jesus' message and to God’s work in Jesus. Times are difficult – hold on. This is the primary message of the chapter so far, and this is something we can relate to in our own lives. It will not always be easy to live as a Christian, though most of us will not face the kinds of hardship known by Matthew’s Jesus community.
Matthew 24:45-51: The first of four stories in a row – Matthew uses these stories to describe the kind of life that those who follow Jesus and foster the kingdom will live even in difficult times. Some of the details of the stories are rather stark, but that perhaps makes them attention grabbers. In this story the emphasis is on being “faithful and wise.” Slavery is assumed, as is the ability of a master to be cruel to slaves. This is being told as a story to make a point about faithful living.
Matthew 25:1-13: The story, and the stories, continues. Here we have a tale of ten bridesmaids, some of whom are wise and some of whom are foolish. “Oil represents faithful, active, obedient discipleship – deeds of love and mercy” (combined quote from The People’s New Testament Commentary and The New Interpreter’s Study Bible). “Keep awake” is a rather poor ending. All the bridesmaids slept. Nevertheless the story remains an encouragement to faithful discipleship. If we take some of the eschatological judgment out of the context, it is easier to take this parable not as something that should send us worrying about our supply of good deeds (oil), but as a tale told to encourage us to be oil producers.
Matthew 25:14-30: The sense that being a disciple should be a productive enterprise is reinforced in this story of the talents. At talent was a substantial sum of money, equal to fifteen years of wages for a day laborer. Each slave is given talents, but no instructions. Two of the slaves produce more. One slave is afraid and in his fear is unproductive. Even in difficult times, followers of Jesus should be about the work of the kingdom, multiplying good works of love, not letting their fear get the better of them. It would be a shame to let this story which encourages bold action, initiative and risk become a story that makes us afraid.
Matthew 25:31-46: These two chapters which weave eschatology, apocalyptic, judgment through stories and sayings come to a marvelous end with a story that A. N. Wilson calls “perhaps the most haunting passage in the New Testament” (Revelations). Raymond Brown, an important New Testament scholar writes, “the admirable principle that the verdict [of judgment] is based on the treatment of deprived outcasts is the Matthean Jesus’ last warning to his followers and to the church, demanding a very different religious standard both from that of those scribes and Pharisees criticized in chap. 23 and from that of a world that pays more attention to the rich and powerful” (An Introduction to the New Testament, 199). Love involves caring for the least, the lonely, the down and out. My Sunday sermon will focus on why this story is central to Christian faith, but not the sole center of Christian faith, at least as it is sometimes read. Let me end with another quote from The New Interpreter’s Study Bible. This judgment scene (and others like it in chap. 13) has several troubling (and not easily resolved) features. It bullies disciples into faithfulness. It celebrates the imposition of God’s empire while the gospel criticizes imperial strategies. It upholds God’s justice, but the vision of harsh condemnation is at odds with the presentation of God’s inclusive mercy (5:43-48) and with the acknowledgement of God’s covenant faithfulness to save Israel (23:37-39). Some of these tensions are slightly less pronounced if one reads the story as a story, and one primarily wanting to define and encourage faithful action, action consistent with God’s dream for the world as it has been present in Jesus.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Matthew 21-23
Matthew 21:1-11: Entry processions were important occasions during the time of Jesus. Rome was good at pomp and circumstance, and their imperial processions reflected their power and prestige. John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, in their book The Last Week propose that there were two processions entering Jerusalem that day, one an imperial procession in which Pontius Pilate rode into the city to reinforce Roman rule during Passover week and one, the procession with Jesus riding on a donkey. In Matthew’s gospel, unlike in the other three, Jesus rides both a donkey and a colt. Matthew looks at the Scripture text in Zechariah 9:9 a little differently and so constructs his story to better fit his version. What is important is the symbol of humility represented by Jesus riding the donkey. It is a distinct contrast to an imperial procession – which may have been taking place in another part of town. Here there is spontaneous joy at the arrival of Jesus. There is a sense of anticipation that something wonderful will happen. Again, one might contrast this with a sense of fear and foreboding that may have accompanied the imperial procession. Here are a few lines from Crossan and Borg’s book: Pilate’s procession embodied the power, glory, and violence of the empire that ruled the world. Jesus’ procession embodied an alternative vision, the kingdom of God. This contrast – between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Caesar – is central… to the story of Jesus and early Christianity (p. 4-5). Jesus is taking his work and message about God’s dream for the world into the heart of a city that embodied Roman domination and a Jewish collaboration with that system. There has been conflict between Jesus and both religious and political authorities to this point in Matthew. You have to wonder how the authorities might deal with this wandering teacher and healer who arrives in Jerusalem with shouts of “blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” Like Jesus, we are invited to bring good news about God’s love into difficult places, sharing a message that will sometimes challenge the way things are. Where are some of those places in your life or in our world today?
Matthew 21:12-17: The procession which accompanied Jesus into Jerusalem had proclaimed him a king, in contrast to Roman claims. Now Jesus confronts the religious system of his day by engaging in an interruptive act on the temple grounds. It is unlikely that Jesus could have completely disrupted the temple business, given its volume. He could have raised some eyebrows, however, by overturning some tables. Jesus words and actions in verses 12-13 indicate a prophetic criticism not so much of those who sold sacrificial animals or exchanged money, but of a view of the Temple which saw it as a guarantor of God’s favor, no matter how unjust worshippers were in the rest of their lives. Jesus is also criticizing the way the religious elite were collaborating with the Roman authorities. Sometimes certain of our own “religious practices” can get in the way of living out our faith more deeply. What may need to be overturned in our own lives? What may need to be done differently in our churches so that God’s dream for the world might become more real? To provide further contrast with the way God’s dream for the world continued to be made real in Jesus, people come to him for healing. These are people who may have normally been excluded from the Temple.
Matthew 21:18-22: This next story is a puzzling one. Jesus gets upset because there are no figs on a fig tree, he curses it and it withers. In Mark’s gospel, the cursing and the withering are separated in such a way that the story is meant to give meaning to Jesus’ action in the Temple. Here the curse and the withering happen right next to each other. For Matthew, this incident serves as a parable about a productive faith. “Fruit” is used in Matthew as a metaphor for good works (Matthew uses this image more than any other New Testament writer – The People’s New Testament Commentary). A lack of fruit is an indication of a dead spiritual life. An alive spiritual life is marked by an active faith, a faith which makes a difference in lives and in the world. Jesus is critical of Temple worship when it does not lead to changed lives. Jesus is critical of the religious elites of his day whose lives do not produce the kind of fruits of God’s kingdom Jesus expected. Jesus curses a fig tree for not doing what it should be doing, producing figs. The life of faith is meant to issue forth in works of love and compassion. It is meant to change us, enlarge our hearts.
Matthew 21:23-27: Jesus has entered Jerusalem with fanfare. He has disrupted business as usual in the Temple. As he goes to the Temple again, religious leaders ask him his authority for doing what he is doing. He turns the table on them. By what authority did John act? Matthew is making one of his central claims - that God was up to something special in Jesus. In some ways, it is a continuation of what God was up to in John’s ministry. Jesus has a gift for asking questions which make us look deep inside. What questions is Jesus asking you about your life?
Matthew 21:28-32: The conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities at the Temple keeps intensifying, and Jesus tells three parables that indict these religious leaders for their inability to see God at work in Jesus’ work and teaching. The first story is about two sons, one who says he will do what the father asks but doesn’t and the other who says “no” but then does what he has been asked to do. Those who have been religiously marginalized seem to get it before those who have been religiously well-heeled. Even after they saw things happening that were consistent with God’s dream for the world, they did not change their minds. God may be at work in unlikely places and our inability or refusal to see means we miss out.
Matthew 21:33-46: The second story is of a landowner who leases his land to tenants. The tenant refuse to give the appropriate produce (“fruits” which Matthew uses as a metaphor for good works). The landowner keeps sending representatives, and finally his own son to collect. The son is killed and the owner seeks the destruction of the tenants. Matthew’s use of this story lends itself to seeing God as the landowner and Jesus as the son. If we take a step back, the basic message is that those who represent the dream of God keep coming and coming, looking for the kinds of activity that fits God’s dream, God’s kingdom. Those who are not on board enough to produce such fruit miss out. Those who produce such fruit are a part of God’s kingdom. For Matthew, this story was meant as a strong indictment of some Jewish religious leaders, especially those of his own time who wanted to define the way forward in Judaism outside of the Jesus way. For Matthew, his Jesus community was getting Judaism right. The story has been used, then, in Anti-Semitic ways, but we should guard against that. We would do better to takes its basic message to heart. Our lives are intended to produce fruit - we are to be about changed hearts, changed lives that make a difference in the world. The religious leaders of the day begin to understand that Jesus is criticizing them, and they want to use their power to have him arrested, but they also recognize Jesus’ popularity as a problem.
Matthew 22:1-14: The third story in this set is again used by Matthew to makes a negative judgment on the religious leaders of his day, and of Jesus' day. The story has some bizarre elements to it. People bringing an invitation from the king to a wedding banquet are killed. The king, in turn, becomes enraged and kills those who have killed, burning down their city. Matthew’s gospel was composed after 70 C.E. the year in which the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. He may have in mind the idea that the destruction of the Temple was, in fact, God’s judging action against those Jewish leaders who refused to see that God was up to something in Jesus. Again, though, the emphasis is on one’s own willingness to be open to what God is doing. It is terribly ironic that parables meant to criticize self-righteousness often become ground for self-righteousness. “Look, we get it and they don’t!” To take this story to heart is to be willing to look at those places in one’s own life where we have been too busy with other things to pay attention to what God is doing. To take this story seriously is also to be willing to go out and invite those often neglected to God’s banquet. Verses 11-14 are directed toward Matthew’s Jesus community, encouraging them not to let self-righteousness get the better of them.
Matthew 22:15-22: Jesus has been involved in some verbal exchanges with the religious leaders. Conflict continues, but here the issue broadens to include competing loyalties to God and to the empire. Some of the religious leaders want to trap Jesus into saying something that will raise the ire of the political authorities. Jesus wisely understands what is going on and responds with wit and intelligence. Should one pay taxes? Jesus provides no definitive answer, only noting that it is the empire that issues the money and that one should give the emperor what is his and God what is God’s. In the context of other things Jesus says, loyalty to God is the highest loyalty. That need not be in total opposition to “governments” but governments can never claim our ultimate loyalty. Our final loyalty is to God and to God’s purposes in the world. The work of governments can be a part of fulfilling those purposes, but they can also overreach. We must decide in our own day and time and in our own lives how we can support God’s purposes and the ways governments might further those purposes, and how we should be critical of those aspects of government and public policy that seem to thwart God’s purposes. By the way, the fact that these religious leaders were carrying imperial money made them a little suspect.
Matthew 22:23-33: Another group of religious leaders comes to raise questions with Jesus, this time about the resurrection. The Sadducees “belonged to the wealthy, conservative, priestly stream of Judaism associated with the temple leadership” (The People’s New Testament Commentary). The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection and so pose a rather absurd scenario to see what Jesus might think of it. Jesus suggests that God’s kingdom, God’s dream for the world, will provide for very different patterns of relationship. “The text is not a devaluation of marriage and family, but a reminder that the nature of God’s transcendent world is a mystery that cannot be captured within the categories of the present human world” (The People’s New Testament Commentary).
Matthew 22:34-40: Some Pharisee again take a turn at testing Jesus on some of the controversial issues of the day (we’ve already had taxes and resurrection). Which commandment is the greatest? Jesus uses two Scriptures to summarize his answer: Deuteronomy 6:5 – love of God, and Leviticus 19:18 – love of neighbor. Love is at the heart of the kingdom of God, God’s dream for the world. It was at the heart of Jesus' ministry. It is intended to be at the heart of our faith.
Matthew 22:41-46: The Pharisees are not the only ones who can ask tough, pointed questions. Jesus turns the table on them, though his question seems rather strange. The bottom line is that Jesus is inviting them to see God at work in his teaching and ministry. He is the one anointed by God (Messiah means “anointed”) for this time. He is a son of David, but also the one in whom the hopes of David’s people will be fulfilled. It is interesting that Jesus again invites those with whom he is engaged in disputes to faith.
Matthew 23:1-36: The controversy between Jesus and the religious elite/leaders comes to a head in these words, which will then lead into Jesus speaking about God’s judgment in broader terms. The next three chapters of Matthew are intended to encourage the followers of Jesus in Matthew’s community to “live an authentic life devoted to deeds of justice and mercy” (The People’s New Testament Commentary). When we read texts that have judgment as a part of them we would do well to use them more as a mirror for our lives than as a commentary on the lives of others. It pains me to hear stories of people who have left the church wounded by the self-righteousness and judgmentalism of those they encountered there. Sometimes that is a convenient excuse, but too often it rings true, and the pain of being the object of harsh judgment and self-righteous put downs is all too real. For those in the community of Jesus, humility (which is not self-debasement, but a gentle and realistic self-understanding) and service are crucial characteristics (verses 1-12). We need to be careful not to lock others out of God’s dream for the world (13). Justice, mercy and faith are the weightier matters (23). We need to pay attention to what is going on inside, and not focus strictly on appearance (25-26). In inviting us to use these texts as self-reflection, I also want to caution against being self-denigrating. We are on a journey of faith. There are times when we will miss the mark. We will do things that belong in the burning garbage dump (Gehenna is the word translated “hell” in the New Testament. Gehenna was the garbage dump of Jerusalem – “garbage, trash, wild animals fighting over scraps of food, a fire burning, a place of waste and destruction” Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, 57). That we will produce spiritual garbage from time to time is no reason to feel like we should just leap into the garbage pit. That’s not what God created us for. We are beloved people of God intended to do good and to have hearts filled with compassion and love. When we are less than this, we are to pick ourselves up, accept God’s forgiveness and move forward. Reading texts of judgment should not be occasions for despair but should motivate us to keep moving forward in our spiritual lives.
Matthew 23:37-39: These movingly beautiful words are a wonderful invitation to open oneself to the work of God’s Spirit, a work that has been powerfully present in Jesus. Again, notice that the invitation comes to all, presumably even the scribes and Pharisees whom Jesus has been criticizing. The words “continue to picture Jesus as identified with transcendent Wisdom, grieved at the rejection of her messengers” (People’s New Testament Commentary). The imagery here for the divine is distinctly feminine.
Matthew 21:1-11: Entry processions were important occasions during the time of Jesus. Rome was good at pomp and circumstance, and their imperial processions reflected their power and prestige. John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, in their book The Last Week propose that there were two processions entering Jerusalem that day, one an imperial procession in which Pontius Pilate rode into the city to reinforce Roman rule during Passover week and one, the procession with Jesus riding on a donkey. In Matthew’s gospel, unlike in the other three, Jesus rides both a donkey and a colt. Matthew looks at the Scripture text in Zechariah 9:9 a little differently and so constructs his story to better fit his version. What is important is the symbol of humility represented by Jesus riding the donkey. It is a distinct contrast to an imperial procession – which may have been taking place in another part of town. Here there is spontaneous joy at the arrival of Jesus. There is a sense of anticipation that something wonderful will happen. Again, one might contrast this with a sense of fear and foreboding that may have accompanied the imperial procession. Here are a few lines from Crossan and Borg’s book: Pilate’s procession embodied the power, glory, and violence of the empire that ruled the world. Jesus’ procession embodied an alternative vision, the kingdom of God. This contrast – between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Caesar – is central… to the story of Jesus and early Christianity (p. 4-5). Jesus is taking his work and message about God’s dream for the world into the heart of a city that embodied Roman domination and a Jewish collaboration with that system. There has been conflict between Jesus and both religious and political authorities to this point in Matthew. You have to wonder how the authorities might deal with this wandering teacher and healer who arrives in Jerusalem with shouts of “blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” Like Jesus, we are invited to bring good news about God’s love into difficult places, sharing a message that will sometimes challenge the way things are. Where are some of those places in your life or in our world today?
Matthew 21:12-17: The procession which accompanied Jesus into Jerusalem had proclaimed him a king, in contrast to Roman claims. Now Jesus confronts the religious system of his day by engaging in an interruptive act on the temple grounds. It is unlikely that Jesus could have completely disrupted the temple business, given its volume. He could have raised some eyebrows, however, by overturning some tables. Jesus words and actions in verses 12-13 indicate a prophetic criticism not so much of those who sold sacrificial animals or exchanged money, but of a view of the Temple which saw it as a guarantor of God’s favor, no matter how unjust worshippers were in the rest of their lives. Jesus is also criticizing the way the religious elite were collaborating with the Roman authorities. Sometimes certain of our own “religious practices” can get in the way of living out our faith more deeply. What may need to be overturned in our own lives? What may need to be done differently in our churches so that God’s dream for the world might become more real? To provide further contrast with the way God’s dream for the world continued to be made real in Jesus, people come to him for healing. These are people who may have normally been excluded from the Temple.
Matthew 21:18-22: This next story is a puzzling one. Jesus gets upset because there are no figs on a fig tree, he curses it and it withers. In Mark’s gospel, the cursing and the withering are separated in such a way that the story is meant to give meaning to Jesus’ action in the Temple. Here the curse and the withering happen right next to each other. For Matthew, this incident serves as a parable about a productive faith. “Fruit” is used in Matthew as a metaphor for good works (Matthew uses this image more than any other New Testament writer – The People’s New Testament Commentary). A lack of fruit is an indication of a dead spiritual life. An alive spiritual life is marked by an active faith, a faith which makes a difference in lives and in the world. Jesus is critical of Temple worship when it does not lead to changed lives. Jesus is critical of the religious elites of his day whose lives do not produce the kind of fruits of God’s kingdom Jesus expected. Jesus curses a fig tree for not doing what it should be doing, producing figs. The life of faith is meant to issue forth in works of love and compassion. It is meant to change us, enlarge our hearts.
Matthew 21:23-27: Jesus has entered Jerusalem with fanfare. He has disrupted business as usual in the Temple. As he goes to the Temple again, religious leaders ask him his authority for doing what he is doing. He turns the table on them. By what authority did John act? Matthew is making one of his central claims - that God was up to something special in Jesus. In some ways, it is a continuation of what God was up to in John’s ministry. Jesus has a gift for asking questions which make us look deep inside. What questions is Jesus asking you about your life?
Matthew 21:28-32: The conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities at the Temple keeps intensifying, and Jesus tells three parables that indict these religious leaders for their inability to see God at work in Jesus’ work and teaching. The first story is about two sons, one who says he will do what the father asks but doesn’t and the other who says “no” but then does what he has been asked to do. Those who have been religiously marginalized seem to get it before those who have been religiously well-heeled. Even after they saw things happening that were consistent with God’s dream for the world, they did not change their minds. God may be at work in unlikely places and our inability or refusal to see means we miss out.
Matthew 21:33-46: The second story is of a landowner who leases his land to tenants. The tenant refuse to give the appropriate produce (“fruits” which Matthew uses as a metaphor for good works). The landowner keeps sending representatives, and finally his own son to collect. The son is killed and the owner seeks the destruction of the tenants. Matthew’s use of this story lends itself to seeing God as the landowner and Jesus as the son. If we take a step back, the basic message is that those who represent the dream of God keep coming and coming, looking for the kinds of activity that fits God’s dream, God’s kingdom. Those who are not on board enough to produce such fruit miss out. Those who produce such fruit are a part of God’s kingdom. For Matthew, this story was meant as a strong indictment of some Jewish religious leaders, especially those of his own time who wanted to define the way forward in Judaism outside of the Jesus way. For Matthew, his Jesus community was getting Judaism right. The story has been used, then, in Anti-Semitic ways, but we should guard against that. We would do better to takes its basic message to heart. Our lives are intended to produce fruit - we are to be about changed hearts, changed lives that make a difference in the world. The religious leaders of the day begin to understand that Jesus is criticizing them, and they want to use their power to have him arrested, but they also recognize Jesus’ popularity as a problem.
Matthew 22:1-14: The third story in this set is again used by Matthew to makes a negative judgment on the religious leaders of his day, and of Jesus' day. The story has some bizarre elements to it. People bringing an invitation from the king to a wedding banquet are killed. The king, in turn, becomes enraged and kills those who have killed, burning down their city. Matthew’s gospel was composed after 70 C.E. the year in which the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. He may have in mind the idea that the destruction of the Temple was, in fact, God’s judging action against those Jewish leaders who refused to see that God was up to something in Jesus. Again, though, the emphasis is on one’s own willingness to be open to what God is doing. It is terribly ironic that parables meant to criticize self-righteousness often become ground for self-righteousness. “Look, we get it and they don’t!” To take this story to heart is to be willing to look at those places in one’s own life where we have been too busy with other things to pay attention to what God is doing. To take this story seriously is also to be willing to go out and invite those often neglected to God’s banquet. Verses 11-14 are directed toward Matthew’s Jesus community, encouraging them not to let self-righteousness get the better of them.
Matthew 22:15-22: Jesus has been involved in some verbal exchanges with the religious leaders. Conflict continues, but here the issue broadens to include competing loyalties to God and to the empire. Some of the religious leaders want to trap Jesus into saying something that will raise the ire of the political authorities. Jesus wisely understands what is going on and responds with wit and intelligence. Should one pay taxes? Jesus provides no definitive answer, only noting that it is the empire that issues the money and that one should give the emperor what is his and God what is God’s. In the context of other things Jesus says, loyalty to God is the highest loyalty. That need not be in total opposition to “governments” but governments can never claim our ultimate loyalty. Our final loyalty is to God and to God’s purposes in the world. The work of governments can be a part of fulfilling those purposes, but they can also overreach. We must decide in our own day and time and in our own lives how we can support God’s purposes and the ways governments might further those purposes, and how we should be critical of those aspects of government and public policy that seem to thwart God’s purposes. By the way, the fact that these religious leaders were carrying imperial money made them a little suspect.
Matthew 22:23-33: Another group of religious leaders comes to raise questions with Jesus, this time about the resurrection. The Sadducees “belonged to the wealthy, conservative, priestly stream of Judaism associated with the temple leadership” (The People’s New Testament Commentary). The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection and so pose a rather absurd scenario to see what Jesus might think of it. Jesus suggests that God’s kingdom, God’s dream for the world, will provide for very different patterns of relationship. “The text is not a devaluation of marriage and family, but a reminder that the nature of God’s transcendent world is a mystery that cannot be captured within the categories of the present human world” (The People’s New Testament Commentary).
Matthew 22:34-40: Some Pharisee again take a turn at testing Jesus on some of the controversial issues of the day (we’ve already had taxes and resurrection). Which commandment is the greatest? Jesus uses two Scriptures to summarize his answer: Deuteronomy 6:5 – love of God, and Leviticus 19:18 – love of neighbor. Love is at the heart of the kingdom of God, God’s dream for the world. It was at the heart of Jesus' ministry. It is intended to be at the heart of our faith.
Matthew 22:41-46: The Pharisees are not the only ones who can ask tough, pointed questions. Jesus turns the table on them, though his question seems rather strange. The bottom line is that Jesus is inviting them to see God at work in his teaching and ministry. He is the one anointed by God (Messiah means “anointed”) for this time. He is a son of David, but also the one in whom the hopes of David’s people will be fulfilled. It is interesting that Jesus again invites those with whom he is engaged in disputes to faith.
Matthew 23:1-36: The controversy between Jesus and the religious elite/leaders comes to a head in these words, which will then lead into Jesus speaking about God’s judgment in broader terms. The next three chapters of Matthew are intended to encourage the followers of Jesus in Matthew’s community to “live an authentic life devoted to deeds of justice and mercy” (The People’s New Testament Commentary). When we read texts that have judgment as a part of them we would do well to use them more as a mirror for our lives than as a commentary on the lives of others. It pains me to hear stories of people who have left the church wounded by the self-righteousness and judgmentalism of those they encountered there. Sometimes that is a convenient excuse, but too often it rings true, and the pain of being the object of harsh judgment and self-righteous put downs is all too real. For those in the community of Jesus, humility (which is not self-debasement, but a gentle and realistic self-understanding) and service are crucial characteristics (verses 1-12). We need to be careful not to lock others out of God’s dream for the world (13). Justice, mercy and faith are the weightier matters (23). We need to pay attention to what is going on inside, and not focus strictly on appearance (25-26). In inviting us to use these texts as self-reflection, I also want to caution against being self-denigrating. We are on a journey of faith. There are times when we will miss the mark. We will do things that belong in the burning garbage dump (Gehenna is the word translated “hell” in the New Testament. Gehenna was the garbage dump of Jerusalem – “garbage, trash, wild animals fighting over scraps of food, a fire burning, a place of waste and destruction” Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, 57). That we will produce spiritual garbage from time to time is no reason to feel like we should just leap into the garbage pit. That’s not what God created us for. We are beloved people of God intended to do good and to have hearts filled with compassion and love. When we are less than this, we are to pick ourselves up, accept God’s forgiveness and move forward. Reading texts of judgment should not be occasions for despair but should motivate us to keep moving forward in our spiritual lives.
Matthew 23:37-39: These movingly beautiful words are a wonderful invitation to open oneself to the work of God’s Spirit, a work that has been powerfully present in Jesus. Again, notice that the invitation comes to all, presumably even the scribes and Pharisees whom Jesus has been criticizing. The words “continue to picture Jesus as identified with transcendent Wisdom, grieved at the rejection of her messengers” (People’s New Testament Commentary). The imagery here for the divine is distinctly feminine.
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