progressive involvement

Pentecost 5 ::: Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30

‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another, 
¹⁷“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
   we wailed, and you did not mourn.” 
¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; ¹⁹the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’

Translation:  "But to what will I compare this generation?  It is like children sitting in the marketplaces who call out to the others, saying, 'We piped to you, and you did not dance.  We wailed and you did not lament.'  For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.'  The son of humanity came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Behold, a glutinous person and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'  And wisdom has been justified from her deeds."

Background and situation:  The section is mostly Q.  See the parallel in Luke (7: 31-35, 10: 21-22).  The closing words--"come unto me..."--have a partial parallel in the Gospel of Thomas (90).  

The lection is part of the third major section of Matthew's gospel, the main theme of which is opposition to Jesus and the struggle between faith and doubt.  

The section begins with the doubts of John the Baptist (11:2), followed by Jesus' response to John and then a paean to John, one which contains a swipe at the Temple bureaucracy.  John was not one to waltz around in fancy robes, said Jesus, but we certainly know the ones who do (11:8).

At the time Matthew was written, the "Jesus movement" was still quite fragile and far from unified.  They were still small in number, and had various frictions, both within the church and outside it. 

They worried about defections from their movement, and not without reason.  "Falling away" from the church is not a new phenomenon.  What's more, the people were still recovering from a particularly bloody war.  Into that situation, Matthew tells us of the "Jesus movement," which, though popular and with widespread support in Galilee, nevertheless had its share of problems. 

Children call to "the others":  Jesus compares "this generation" to children.  Most commentators seem to read verse 17 as children squabbling with each other.  The children are portrayed as engaged in a mindless back-and-forth.  They respond neither to the harsh message of John nor the gracious message of Jesus.

One's interpretation depends on how you read eterois--"the other ones."  The children "call out to the other ones," which could mean the other children, in which case the children are portrayed as bickering and out-of-sync with each other.  No matter what we did, says one group to the other, you wouldn't go along.  We tried being joyous, and that didn't grab you.  Then, we tried being funereal, and that didn't grab you either.

Or, one might also read the verse as children calling to "the others," who could be anyone other than children, i.e. their elders, the people who really run things.  In that case, the children seem to have some life in them, both joy and sorrow, but can't get any reaction from the people in charge, who are portrayed as out-of-touch and lifeless.  This latter interpretation seems to make more sense.

Damned if you, and damned if you don't:  Rather than respond to the real life and needs of the people, the elders condemn the peoples' leaders.  John the baptizer came as an ascetic.  Yet, his opponents called him a "demon."  Jesus came "eating and drinking" but that didn't suit his opponents either so they attacked him personally as well, calling him a "glutton and a wino." 

This is typical of the approach the powers-that-be often use to manipulate public opinion.  When someone criticizes you, attack them personally.  Assault their character.  Drag their name through the mud.  Accuse them of insufficient piety--"demon"--or some variation of libertinism--"glutton and wino."  Ad hominem attacks are nothing new, it seems.  If you can't engage your opponents' arguments, then attack them personally.  It's the oldest trick in the book.

This is a common failing on all sides.  When the orthodox church felt pressure from gnostic groups in the second and third centuries, they quite often accused their gnostic opponents of being sexually perverse.  Yet, there is no evidence, from gnostic sources, of anything of the kind.  If anything, the gnostics were ascetics, not libertines.  (In other words, some of the early church fathers lied about the gnostics.)

Wisdom issues in deeds:  "And wisdom has been justified--edikaiothe--from her works."  In Proverbs 8, wisdom is associated with the works of God.  Wisdom labored side-by-side with God in the creation of the universe.  "The Lord created me (wisdom) at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago...I was beside him like a master worker."  (Prov 8) 

Matthew is associating the works of Jesus with the wisdom of God.  The works of Jesus we have seen in Matthew's gospel--gender equality, open table fellowship, non-violent resistance to Rome, critique of heirarchy--demonstrate God's true wisdom in action in the world. 

Matthew is concerned about the real.  Do words issue in deeds?  Do words actually make a difference?  Where does the rubber actually hit the road, and how can you tell?  

Consider, for example, how Matthew tells a true prophet from a false one.  Matthew says you can tell by their "fruit," by what they do and what they produce (7: 15).  True prophets produce good fruit, and false prophets don't.  "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit."  (7:18)

In today's lection, God's wisdom, which created the world, is justified by Jesus' actual "works" in the world.  His works are a fulfillment of wisdom's (and thus God's) intention in creation.

The Father's gracious purpose: 

At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; ²⁶yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. ²⁷All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

28 ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

Translation:  In that time, Jesus answered (and) said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to children.  Yes, Father, for in this manner gracious purpose happened before you.  All things have been delivered over to me by my father.  And no one knows the Son except the Father, (and) no one knows the Father except the Son and to whomever the Son might wish to reveal."

"Come to me, all the ones who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for your lives, for my yoke is lovingkindness and my burden is light."

The intervening verses--20-24, not included in the lection--express condemnation toward cities which opposed the Jesus movement, specifically Bethsaida, Chorazin, and Capernaum.  

In the face of this opposition, however, we have a kairotic moment.  "At that time," Matthew says.  The word for time here is kairos, which means special time, the important moment, the time of God.  In this moment of special revelation, in this kairotic moment, Jesus speaks.

He begins with thanks.  The word is exomologoumai, which means:  "I thank you."  One notes that exomologoumai is composed of ex, plus homo, plus logos--literally, "out of the same word."  It has a sense of celebration and joyous affirmation. 

It is also in the middle voice, which means that subject and object are in relationship to each other and affect each other.  Jesus says, essentially, "I give and am being given joyous affirmation of the Father, the Lord of heaven and earth."

"For you have hidden these things from the wise--sofown--and intelligent, and revealed--apocalypto--them to children."  True wisdom, as we have seen, issues in following the way of Jesus.  This way has been "hidden" from those who are "wise and intelligent," but "revealed" to the insigificant. 

This was true, of course, in the historical ministry of Jesus.  He was leading a non-violent peasant-based movement--a "childrens' crusade," after a certain manner of speaking--and he was opposed by the rich and powerful.  It is also apparently true for the community of Matthew in AD 80.  It is still a peasant-based movement.

Verse 26:  "...for in this manner gracious purpose happened before you..."  In hiding things from the wise and revealing them to children, God's eudokia happened.  Eudokia is formed from the prefix eu--"good"--and doxa, which means "glory"--hence, "good-glory." 

Eudokia means a freely chosen desire that issues in a good design.  It may be translated as "good pleasure," or "well-pleased."  NRSV translates it as "gracious will."  Eudokia definitely does have the sense of "graciousness" to it, but "will" sounds too stern and juridical.  The word is gentler than that.  It has a sense of delight and pleasure to it.  I have "gracious purpose." 

The sentence opens with an affirmation to God--"Yes, Father".  The word "Father," while not a complete innovation from Jesus--(Isaiah had used the word)--nevertheless underlines the close relationship of God to the "children."  It is God's "gracious purpose" to reveal the ways of the kingdom to the children, i.e. the lowly.  This is yet another affirmation of what, today, we call "preferential option for the poor."

Despite the opposition they face, the sense of Jesus' speech is joyous.  "All things have been delivered over to me by my Father," he says.  The "Lord of heaven and earth" has delivered over "all"--panta, everything, the entire universe and everything in it--to Jesus. 

Jesus then goes on to say that "no one knows the son except the father, and no one knows the father except the son."  The word "know" is ginosko, which means intimate knowledge.  This kind of exalted, mystical "knowing" is reminiscent of the fourth gospel.  (Was the author of the fourth gospel acquainted with the author of Matthew?) 

This close identification of son and father comes to human beings by revelation--"to whomever the son reveals."  As in the fourth gospel, the intimate knowledge between Father and Son is not exclusive to the Father and the Son, but may also be shared with the children.  From that position, Jesus issues his appeal:

"Come to me":  The closing two verses are unique to Matthew, though there is a passage that is vaguely similar in Sirach (51: 26-27).  As noted above, there is a partial parallel in Thomas, verse 90. 

Most of our translations over-spiritualize this passage, in my humble opinion.  Jesus is specifically addressing those who are over-worked and carrying a heavy load.  In first century Israel, that group consisted of poor people in a condition of political and religious oppression. 

He encourages them to take up his "yoke."  "Yoke" was a common image for Torah and the Mosaic Law.  Instead of Torah, however, we are encouraged to take up Jesus' yoke and "learn" from him.  (The word is mathete, from which comes the word for "disciple."  Matthew continues his emphasis on Jesus as teacher by the exhortation to "learn from him.")  

The "yoke" of Jesus is to learn his Way and follow it.  In marked contrast to earthly rulers, both political and religious, Jesus is "meek and lowly of heart."

NRSV has "and you will find rest for your souls."  That sounds too pious and too passive for the words anapausin tais psuxais humown. Anapausin, which appears also in verse 28, means not only rest, but sabbath rest, the kind of rest that puts a person on the road to recovery.  It has a sense not only of rest, but also refreshment.

Also, psuxais refers to the essence of a person's life.  It is more than "soul," which, in any case, calls to mind images more related to Greek philosophy than Christian theology, which was almost surely not Matthew's intent.  Frankly, I like my translation better:  "...and you will find rest for your lives..."  Following the Way of Jesus--open table fellowship, etc.--will set you on a path of true life.

"For my yoke is lovingkindness."  The word is xrestos--"goodness, benevolence, pleasant, worthy, loving, kind," or, even better, "active benevolence in spite of ingratitude."  "Easy" is OK, but, given the richness and importance of the word in this context, I'm going with "lovingkindness."

This truly wonderful text should not be pietized into worship of Jesus as if he were some kind of idol.  It thoroughly intends to encourage people along the Way of Jesus, to "learn" that Way and follow it, from which will come a truer and better life. 

Egalitarian living is "lighter" than hierarchical living.  Living in light of the freedom and dignity of every person, and especially the poor, is not a "burden" but is, in fact, the way of true rest and true refreshment. 

Image:  19th century, "Learn from me."     

 

‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another, 
¹⁷“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
   we wailed, and you did not mourn.” 
¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; ¹⁹the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’

Translation:  "But to what will I compare this generation?  It is like children sitting in the marketplaces who call out to the others, saying, 'We piped to you, and you did not dance.  We wailed and you did not lament.'  For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.'  The son of humanity came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Behold, a glutinous person and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'  And wisdom has been justified from her deeds."

Background and situation:  The section is mostly Q.  See the parallel in Luke (7: 31-35, 10: 21-22).  The closing words--"come unto me..."--have a partial parallel in the Gospel of Thomas (90).  

The lection is part of the third major section of Matthew's gospel, the main theme of which is opposition to Jesus and the struggle between faith and doubt.  

The section begins with the doubts of John the Baptist (11:2), followed by Jesus' response to John and then a paean to John, one which contains a swipe at the Temple bureaucracy.  John was not one to waltz around in fancy robes, said Jesus, but we certainly know the ones who do (11:8).

At the time Matthew was written, the "Jesus movement" was still quite fragile and far from unified.  They were still small in number, and had various frictions, both within the church and outside it. 

They worried about defections from their movement, and not without reason.  "Falling away" from the church is not a new phenomenon.  What's more, the people were still recovering from a particularly bloody war.  Into that situation, Matthew tells us of the "Jesus movement," which, though popular and with widespread support in Galilee, nevertheless had its share of problems. 

Children call to "the others":  Jesus compares "this generation" to children.  Most commentators seem to read verse 17 as children squabbling with each other.  The children are portrayed as engaged in a mindless back-and-forth.  They respond neither to the harsh message of John nor the gracious message of Jesus.

One's interpretation depends on how you read eterois--"the other ones."  The children "call out to the other ones," which could mean the other children, in which case the children are portrayed as bickering and out-of-sync with each other.  No matter what we did, says one group to the other, you wouldn't go along.  We tried being joyous, and that didn't grab you.  Then, we tried being funereal, and that didn't grab you either.

Or, one might also read the verse as children calling to "the others," who could be anyone other than children, i.e. their elders, the people who really run things.  In that case, the children seem to have some life in them, both joy and sorrow, but can't get any reaction from the people in charge, who are portrayed as out-of-touch and lifeless.  This latter interpretation seems to make more sense.

Damned if you, and damned if you don't:  Rather than respond to the real life and needs of the people, the elders condemn the peoples' leaders.  John the baptizer came as an ascetic.  Yet, his opponents called him a "demon."  Jesus came "eating and drinking" but that didn't suit his opponents either so they attacked him personally as well, calling him a "glutton and a wino." 

This is typical of the approach the powers-that-be often use to manipulate public opinion.  When someone criticizes you, attack them personally.  Assault their character.  Drag their name through the mud.  Accuse them of insufficient piety--"demon"--or some variation of libertinism--"glutton and wino."  Ad hominem attacks are nothing new, it seems.  If you can't engage your opponents' arguments, then attack them personally.  It's the oldest trick in the book.

This is a common failing on all sides.  When the orthodox church felt pressure from gnostic groups in the second and third centuries, they quite often accused their gnostic opponents of being sexually perverse.  Yet, there is no evidence, from gnostic sources, of anything of the kind.  If anything, the gnostics were ascetics, not libertines.  (In other words, some of the early church fathers lied about the gnostics.)

Wisdom issues in deeds:  "And wisdom has been justified--edikaiothe--from her works."  In Proverbs 8, wisdom is associated with the works of God.  Wisdom labored side-by-side with God in the creation of the universe.  "The Lord created me (wisdom) at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago...I was beside him like a master worker."  (Prov 8) 

Matthew is associating the works of Jesus with the wisdom of God.  The works of Jesus we have seen in Matthew's gospel--gender equality, open table fellowship, non-violent resistance to Rome, critique of heirarchy--demonstrate God's true wisdom in action in the world. 

Matthew is concerned about the real.  Do words issue in deeds?  Do words actually make a difference?  Where does the rubber actually hit the road, and how can you tell?  

Consider, for example, how Matthew tells a true prophet from a false one.  Matthew says you can tell by their "fruit," by what they do and what they produce (7: 15).  True prophets produce good fruit, and false prophets don't.  "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit."  (7:18)

In today's lection, God's wisdom, which created the world, is justified by Jesus' actual "works" in the world.  His works are a fulfillment of wisdom's (and thus God's) intention in creation.

The Father's gracious purpose: 

At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; ²⁶yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. ²⁷All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

28 ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

Translation:  In that time, Jesus answered (and) said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to children.  Yes, Father, for in this manner gracious purpose happened before you.  All things have been delivered over to me by my father.  And no one knows the Son except the Father, (and) no one knows the Father except the Son and to whomever the Son might wish to reveal."

"Come to me, all the ones who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for your lives, for my yoke is lovingkindness and my burden is light."

The intervening verses--20-24, not included in the lection--express condemnation toward cities which opposed the Jesus movement, specifically Bethsaida, Chorazin, and Capernaum.  

In the face of this opposition, however, we have a kairotic moment.  "At that time," Matthew says.  The word for time here is kairos, which means special time, the important moment, the time of God.  In this moment of special revelation, in this kairotic moment, Jesus speaks.

He begins with thanks.  The word is exomologoumai, which means:  "I thank you."  One notes that exomologoumai is composed of ex, plus homo, plus logos--literally, "out of the same word."  It has a sense of celebration and joyous affirmation. 

It is also in the middle voice, which means that subject and object are in relationship to each other and affect each other.  Jesus says, essentially, "I give and am being given joyous affirmation of the Father, the Lord of heaven and earth."

"For you have hidden these things from the wise--sofown--and intelligent, and revealed--apocalypto--them to children."  True wisdom, as we have seen, issues in following the way of Jesus.  This way has been "hidden" from those who are "wise and intelligent," but "revealed" to the insigificant. 

This was true, of course, in the historical ministry of Jesus.  He was leading a non-violent peasant-based movement--a "childrens' crusade," after a certain manner of speaking--and he was opposed by the rich and powerful.  It is also apparently true for the community of Matthew in AD 80.  It is still a peasant-based movement.

Verse 26:  "...for in this manner gracious purpose happened before you..."  In hiding things from the wise and revealing them to children, God's eudokia happened.  Eudokia is formed from the prefix eu--"good"--and doxa, which means "glory"--hence, "good-glory." 

Eudokia means a freely chosen desire that issues in a good design.  It may be translated as "good pleasure," or "well-pleased."  NRSV translates it as "gracious will."  Eudokia definitely does have the sense of "graciousness" to it, but "will" sounds too stern and juridical.  The word is gentler than that.  It has a sense of delight and pleasure to it.  I have "gracious purpose." 

The sentence opens with an affirmation to God--"Yes, Father".  The word "Father," while not a complete innovation from Jesus--(Isaiah had used the word)--nevertheless underlines the close relationship of God to the "children."  It is God's "gracious purpose" to reveal the ways of the kingdom to the children, i.e. the lowly.  This is yet another affirmation of what, today, we call "preferential option for the poor."

Despite the opposition they face, the sense of Jesus' speech is joyous.  "All things have been delivered over to me by my Father," he says.  The "Lord of heaven and earth" has delivered over "all"--panta, everything, the entire universe and everything in it--to Jesus. 

Jesus then goes on to say that "no one knows the son except the father, and no one knows the father except the son."  The word "know" is ginosko, which means intimate knowledge.  This kind of exalted, mystical "knowing" is reminiscent of the fourth gospel.  (Was the author of the fourth gospel acquainted with the author of Matthew?) 

This close identification of son and father comes to human beings by revelation--"to whomever the son reveals."  As in the fourth gospel, the intimate knowledge between Father and Son is not exclusive to the Father and the Son, but may also be shared with the children.  From that position, Jesus issues his appeal:

"Come to me":  The closing two verses are unique to Matthew, though there is a passage that is vaguely similar in Sirach (51: 26-27).  As noted above, there is a partial parallel in Thomas, verse 90. 

Most of our translations over-spiritualize this passage, in my humble opinion.  Jesus is specifically addressing those who are over-worked and carrying a heavy load.  In first century Israel, that group consisted of poor people in a condition of political and religious oppression. 

He encourages them to take up his "yoke."  "Yoke" was a common image for Torah and the Mosaic Law.  Instead of Torah, however, we are encouraged to take up Jesus' yoke and "learn" from him.  (The word is mathete, from which comes the word for "disciple."  Matthew continues his emphasis on Jesus as teacher by the exhortation to "learn from him.")  

The "yoke" of Jesus is to learn his Way and follow it.  In marked contrast to earthly rulers, both political and religious, Jesus is "meek and lowly of heart."

NRSV has "and you will find rest for your souls."  That sounds too pious and too passive for the words anapausin tais psuxais humown. Anapausin, which appears also in verse 28, means not only rest, but sabbath rest, the kind of rest that puts a person on the road to recovery.  It has a sense not only of rest, but also refreshment.

Also, psuxais refers to the essence of a person's life.  It is more than "soul," which, in any case, calls to mind images more related to Greek philosophy than Christian theology, which was almost surely not Matthew's intent.  Frankly, I like my translation better:  "...and you will find rest for your lives..."  Following the Way of Jesus--open table fellowship, etc.--will set you on a path of true life.

"For my yoke is lovingkindness."  The word is xrestos--"goodness, benevolence, pleasant, worthy, loving, kind," or, even better, "active benevolence in spite of ingratitude."  "Easy" is OK, but, given the richness and importance of the word in this context, I'm going with "lovingkindness."

This truly wonderful text should not be pietized into worship of Jesus as if he were some kind of idol.  It thoroughly intends to encourage people along the Way of Jesus, to "learn" that Way and follow it, from which will come a truer and better life. 

Egalitarian living is "lighter" than hierarchical living.  Living in light of the freedom and dignity of every person, and especially the poor, is not a "burden" but is, in fact, the way of true rest and true refreshment. 

Image:  19th century, "Learn from me."     

Pentecost 4 ::: Matthew 10: 40-42

⁴⁰“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Translation:  The one receiving you receives me and the one receiving me receives the one who sent me.  The one receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward.  And the one who receives justice in the name of a just person will receive a reward of justice.  And whoever might give a drink of cool water alone to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, that one might surely not destroy his reward.

Background:  Matthew was writing around AD 80-85, which means that Matthew is literature from the post-war period.  It follows the devastation of the Roman-Jewish War of AD 66-70 when blood ran in the streets of Jerusalem and the Temple was destroyed. 

Matthew is at a few years remove from Mark, his primary source.  (Mark wrote during or just after the devastation.)  While Matthew's over-all "mood" is not as dark as Mark's, it is clear that Matthew's church saw themselves as fragile, vulnerable, and under threat.

Most of chapter 10 consists of sayings from Q which Matthew uses to argue that followers of Jesus may expect to meet the same resistance met by Jesus.  The final three verses of this section--those included in our lection--appear to be not Q.  10:40 is quite similar to John 13:20, 10:41 is found only in Matthew, and 10:42 has a near parallel in Mark 9:41.

The immediate situation:  Chapter 10 begins Book Two of Matthew's gospel, the focus of which is mission.  It begins with Jesus calling the Twelve, giving them authority, and naming them.  They are sent to do the same things Jesus had been doing--"Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons" (10:8)--everything Jesus had been doing, with the exception of teaching.  

More than any other gospel, Matthew values Jesus as Teacher.  The disciples have begun their period of instruction under Jesus, but they're just getting started.  They don't know near enough yet in order for them to be able to teach others.  Only in chapter 28, when the entire gospel is completed, do the disciples finally get the go-ahead to teach others.  Only then are they enjoined to "teach all that I have commanded."  (28:16)  As for now, eighteen chapters yet remain in Matthew's gospel and Jesus has much more to teach.

Then follows frank acknowledgement of the trials and difficulties of their mission.  They may be handed over to councils, flogged, and turned in to the secular authorities (10:17-18).  There may be family disruptions, persecution, hatred, even death.  (10:19-23).  They may expect, in short, the very same treatment meted out to Jesus.  (10:24).

Nevertheless, they are repeatedly encouraged not to be afraid--three times in the section from 10:26-31.  They are assured that nothing will happen that is not known to the Father, who is, Jesus pointedly states, also "your Father" (10:29).  He assures the disciples that God cares even about small animals and surely cares about them as well.

Then, the mood darkens once again.  The Jesus movement will inspire opposition--not peace, but a sword!  Again, families will be disrupted.  Jesus quotes from Micah 7:6--"for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  your enemies are members of your own household."

Jesus is not advocating violence, of course.  He is a bringer of peace, and his disciples are to be "peacemakers" (5:9).  It was also true, however, that, especially in the period in which Matthew was writing, there was considerable division within families due to the Christian faith.  (Some Jesus followers were kicked out of synagogues in the region of Galilee/Syria in the period after the Roman-Jewish war.)

Then, for the first time in Matthew's gospel, the cross is mentioned.  "Whoever does not take hold of his cross and follow after me is not..."--and here it gets tricky.  The word is axios, and it seems to me that the best expression for it here would be "tried and found wanting."  It means "like," "befitting," or "congruent."  The sense is "measuring up."  (I'm avoiding the use of the word "worthy" here, which NRSV has, because we tend to think of that word in terms of moral judgment.) 

"Tried and found wanting" seems to be the sense that Matthew intends.  Jesus has set an example of suffering for the cause.  Disciples are not greater than their master and such a fate may come to any follower.  Followers should continue to expound the Way of Jesus, and follow it.  If they do not, then they are not at the level of their master.  (Matthew was no Lutheran.)

Our three verses:  Three specific ministries are mentioned, followed by a surprise fourth.  First, apostles.  People who receive the disciples receive Jesus and, in so doing, also receive the Father.  John Meier likens this to the figure of the shaliah, who is a messenger with power to act for his sender.  "The shaliah of a man is as the man himself."  Apostles are like that.

Prophets are then acknowledged--"the one receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward."  Considering that many prophets ended up out of public favor, to say the very least, this "reward" may be a mixed blessing.  Prophets are respected and honored only in retrospect.

Third, the "just" are mentioned, and justice is promised to those who honor them.  

It should not be surprising that apostles, prophets, and the just would be lauded.  Matthew, however, is building to an even greater concern, that of concern for "these little ones"--tone mikrone toutone.    

And whoever might give a drink of cool water alone to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, that one might surely not destroy his reward.

This is the first reference to "little ones" in Matthew's gospel.  Here, it probably refers to the Twelve themselves.  They are just beginning in mission.  They are just beginning to be taught.  They are, at present, "little ones."  

Later, in chapter 18, the ones who are "little ones" now will be teaching other "little ones."  Jesus will tell the Twelve that "little ones" should not face "stumbling blocks" (18:6), should not be "despised" (18:10), and should not be lost (18:14).  In both cases, "little ones" appears to refer to new followers of Jesus.  By chapter 25, however, the idea of "little ones" will be expanded to include anyone seen to be "small" by worldly standards.

The smallest act of help to these "little ones" is noted.  Here, it refers to the slightest assistance for the Twelve.  In chapter 25, at the separation of the sheep and the goats, even the smallest act of help for social outcasts will be seen to have cosmic import.

⁴⁰“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Translation:  The one receiving you receives me and the one receiving me receives the one who sent me.  The one receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward.  And the one who receives justice in the name of a just person will receive a reward of justice.  And whoever might give a drink of cool water alone to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, that one might surely not destroy his reward.

Background:  Matthew was writing around AD 80-85, which means that Matthew is literature from the post-war period.  It follows the devastation of the Roman-Jewish War of AD 66-70 when blood ran in the streets of Jerusalem and the Temple was destroyed. 

Matthew is at a few years remove from Mark, his primary source.  (Mark wrote during or just after the devastation.)  While Matthew's over-all "mood" is not as dark as Mark's, it is clear that Matthew's church saw themselves as fragile, vulnerable, and under threat.

Most of chapter 10 consists of sayings from Q which Matthew uses to argue that followers of Jesus may expect to meet the same resistance met by Jesus.  The final three verses of this section--those included in our lection--appear to be not Q.  10:40 is quite similar to John 13:20, 10:41 is found only in Matthew, and 10:42 has a near parallel in Mark 9:41.

The immediate situation:  Chapter 10 begins Book Two of Matthew's gospel, the focus of which is mission.  It begins with Jesus calling the Twelve, giving them authority, and naming them.  They are sent to do the same things Jesus had been doing--"Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons" (10:8)--everything Jesus had been doing, with the exception of teaching.  

More than any other gospel, Matthew values Jesus as Teacher.  The disciples have begun their period of instruction under Jesus, but they're just getting started.  They don't know near enough yet in order for them to be able to teach others.  Only in chapter 28, when the entire gospel is completed, do the disciples finally get the go-ahead to teach others.  Only then are they enjoined to "teach all that I have commanded."  (28:16)  As for now, eighteen chapters yet remain in Matthew's gospel and Jesus has much more to teach.

Then follows frank acknowledgement of the trials and difficulties of their mission.  They may be handed over to councils, flogged, and turned in to the secular authorities (10:17-18).  There may be family disruptions, persecution, hatred, even death.  (10:19-23).  They may expect, in short, the very same treatment meted out to Jesus.  (10:24).

Nevertheless, they are repeatedly encouraged not to be afraid--three times in the section from 10:26-31.  They are assured that nothing will happen that is not known to the Father, who is, Jesus pointedly states, also "your Father" (10:29).  He assures the disciples that God cares even about small animals and surely cares about them as well.

Then, the mood darkens once again.  The Jesus movement will inspire opposition--not peace, but a sword!  Again, families will be disrupted.  Jesus quotes from Micah 7:6--"for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  your enemies are members of your own household."

Jesus is not advocating violence, of course.  He is a bringer of peace, and his disciples are to be "peacemakers" (5:9).  It was also true, however, that, especially in the period in which Matthew was writing, there was considerable division within families due to the Christian faith.  (Some Jesus followers were kicked out of synagogues in the region of Galilee/Syria in the period after the Roman-Jewish war.)

Then, for the first time in Matthew's gospel, the cross is mentioned.  "Whoever does not take hold of his cross and follow after me is not..."--and here it gets tricky.  The word is axios, and it seems to me that the best expression for it here would be "tried and found wanting."  It means "like," "befitting," or "congruent."  The sense is "measuring up."  (I'm avoiding the use of the word "worthy" here, which NRSV has, because we tend to think of that word in terms of moral judgment.) 

"Tried and found wanting" seems to be the sense that Matthew intends.  Jesus has set an example of suffering for the cause.  Disciples are not greater than their master and such a fate may come to any follower.  Followers should continue to expound the Way of Jesus, and follow it.  If they do not, then they are not at the level of their master.  (Matthew was no Lutheran.)

Our three verses:  Three specific ministries are mentioned, followed by a surprise fourth.  First, apostles.  People who receive the disciples receive Jesus and, in so doing, also receive the Father.  John Meier likens this to the figure of the shaliah, who is a messenger with power to act for his sender.  "The shaliah of a man is as the man himself."  Apostles are like that.

Prophets are then acknowledged--"the one receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward."  Considering that many prophets ended up out of public favor, to say the very least, this "reward" may be a mixed blessing.  Prophets are respected and honored only in retrospect.

Third, the "just" are mentioned, and justice is promised to those who honor them.  

It should not be surprising that apostles, prophets, and the just would be lauded.  Matthew, however, is building to an even greater concern, that of concern for "these little ones"--tone mikrone toutone.    

And whoever might give a drink of cool water alone to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, that one might surely not destroy his reward.

This is the first reference to "little ones" in Matthew's gospel.  Here, it probably refers to the Twelve themselves.  They are just beginning in mission.  They are just beginning to be taught.  They are, at present, "little ones."  

Later, in chapter 18, the ones who are "little ones" now will be teaching other "little ones."  Jesus will tell the Twelve that "little ones" should not face "stumbling blocks" (18:6), should not be "despised" (18:10), and should not be lost (18:14).  In both cases, "little ones" appears to refer to new followers of Jesus.  By chapter 25, however, the idea of "little ones" will be expanded to include anyone seen to be "small" by worldly standards.

The smallest act of help to these "little ones" is noted.  Here, it refers to the slightest assistance for the Twelve.  In chapter 25, at the separation of the sheep and the goats, even the smallest act of help for social outcasts will be seen to have cosmic import.

Pentecost 3 ::: Matthew 10: 24-39

‘A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; ²⁵it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

Translation:  A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above his lord.  Enough for the disciple that that one may become like his teacher, and the slave like his lord.  If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more the ones of his household?

Background and situation:  The book of Matthew has five major sections, each one featuring an extended teaching by Jesus.  (These five teaching sections mirror the five books of Moses.)  The Sermon on the Mount is the first major speech;  the discourse on missionary activity in chapter 10 is the second.

At the beginning of chapter 10, Jesus gave the twelve disciples authority over unclean spirits.  The disciples are then named, and sent out.  Verses 5-23 have to do with mission strategy and facing opposition.  

Versions of some of the verses in this text appear in Mark, Luke, John, and Thomas.  The section from 10:26-33 has a parallel in Luke 12:2-10;  10:34-36 has a parallel in Thomas.  Verse 39 has a parallel in Mark, Luke, and John.

Slave not above his master:  Our lection this week begins with two proverbial sayings, the purpose of which seems to be to inform the disciples that followers of Jesus should not expect different treatment than what Jesus himself received.  Jesus faced persecution, and, therefore, it should not be surprising that his followers will face persecution as well. 

Matthew was writing around AD 80-85, which means that this is post-war literature.  It follows the devastation of the Roman-Jewish War of AD 66-70 when blood ran in the streets of Jerusalem and the Temple was destroyed.

During and after the war, significant numbers of Jerusalem residents fled to the northern regions (Galilee, Syria) in order to escape the siege of Jerusalem.  In the north, pharisees tended to dominate and took the lead in organizing and settling these war-time refugees.  With the Temple now destroyed, the local synagogue and local rabbis became the focal point of Jewish life.

Matthew was trying to hold together a Jewish-Christian community in a situation that was extremely difficult.  Paul's mission to the gentiles was having a discernible impact on fledgling Christianity, and Jewish Christianity was steadily losing ground within the Christian movement.  

Moreover, the split between Jews and followers of Jesus had reached a tipping point in the late first century, and tensions between the (now) two groups had grown difficult.  It was during this time that followers of Jesus were being exiled from the synagogues in northern Israel.

The dynamics of first century religious development are complex.  The view that Christianity emerged out of Judaism is considered simplistic today.  Rather, the first century produced several religious sparks--Jesus followers, pharisees, zealots, and many others.  It wasn't that Christianity emerged from Judaism, but rather that both Christianity and pharisee-influenced rabbinical Judaism were two new strains that emerged out of the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 and the fall of the heretofore dominant wing of Judaism, the Sadducees.

Matthew is writing at a few years remove from Mark, who wrote during or just after the devastation in Jerusalem.  While Matthew's over-all mood is not as dark as Mark's, it is clear that Matthew's church saw themselves as fragile, vulnerable, under threat, and beset with difficulties.  If Jesus himself has been accused of being a demon--"they have called the master of the house Beelzebul"--then this charge is likely to be levelled also at Jesus' followers.  

Incidentally, Beelzebul is a Hebrew word that means "lord of lofty abode."  Beelzebul was an ancient Canaanite deity.  (Sometimes, Jews changed the word to Beelzebub, which was considered a slam.)

John Meier says that the phrase related "master of the household" and "Beelzebul", is a pun in Aramaic.  If so, that would add a touch of light-heartedness to a very serious condition, and that could well have been Matthew's intent. 

Matthew's message seems to be:  The situation is quite serious.  There are persecutions.  People are hauled before magistrates.  One's life may in danger.  Nevertheless, there is, ultimately, nothing to fear.  Therefore, be bold!

No fear:

26 ‘So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. ²⁷What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.^* 29Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. ³⁰And even the hairs of your head are all counted. ³¹So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Translation:  Therefore, do not fear them, for there is nothing that has been covered which will not be revealed, and a secret which will not be known.  What I say to you in the dark, speak in the light, and what you hear into the ear, proclaim upon the housetops.  And do not fear the ones killing the body, but are not able to kill a life.  But fear more the one able to destroy both life and body in gehenna.  Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?  And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.  But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not therefore.  You are of more value than many sparrows.

The disciples of Jesus are encouraged not to fear three times in five verses.  This is a message for people who feel themselves under seige. 

Yet, despite their difficulties, their movement cannot be stopped, Jesus tells them.  Even if you go to prison, even if you are oppressed, the message will be revealed and "become known"--ginosko, known in the most intimate way.

Jesus continues to speak to his beleaguered community--"what I say to you" is in the present tense--even if "in the dark."  This would indicate a community that must speak in whispers to each other, under threat of real violence from those who can "kill the body."  Nevertheless, keep spreading the message--"tell in the light."

Do not be afraid of the Romans, but do be afraid of the devil because the devil has the power to destroy both body and "life"--psyche.  Literally:  "Fear much more the one having power to destroy body and life in Gehenna."  ("Gehenna" was a burning trash heap in the valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem.)  

The one who is able to "destroy both body and life"--the devil--means that the struggle of Matthew's community should fundamentally be seen as spiritual.  Yes, they were enduring political and social oppression.  Yes, they were under the boot of Rome.  Nevertheless, these earthly powers are doing the devil's work. 

Then, the discourse turns more positive.  Sparrows were the cheapest edible birds.  Two of them could be bought for an assariou, which is one-tenth of a drachma, or one-sixteenth of a denarius.  Yet, "not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father." 

The verb is in the future tense--"will fall"--indicating that these sparrows are alive at present, but even when they die, they will not be "without"--aneu, apart from--your father."  Matthew reminds his readers of God's providential care of all creation, including them.  Again, the exhortation is not to be afraid because--Matthew wryly notes--you are of more value than many sparrows.  Therefore, be bold!

Not peace, but a sword:

32 ‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; ³³but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

Translation:  Therefore, all who will confess me before human beings, I also will confess in that one before my Father, the one in the heavens.  But whoever might deny me before human beings, I also will deny that one before my Father, the one in the heavens.

If Jesus' followers "acknowledge" him--omologesai, literally "speak the same word"--in front of others, then Jesus will do the same on behalf of them "before my Father in heaven."  Note that "your Father" has now become "my Father."  This hints at Jesus' son-ship, and indicates that it is precisely through his son-ship that his followers also become sons and daughters.

Yet, with the olive branch, there is also a threat: Those who "might deny" Jesus--a middle subjunctive--"will be denied" by Jesus to his Father.  As John Meier notes:  "Failure to witness before the earthly tribunal will mean disgrace before the heavenly tribunal, where Jesus will disown the weak disciple as not being truly his brother and therefore not truly a son of the Father."

34 ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 
³⁵For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 
³⁶and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. 
³⁷Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

Translation:  Do not assume that I came to throw peace upon the earth.  I came not to throw peace, but a sword, for I came to divide a person from his father, and a daughter from her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and enemies of a person of one's own household.  The one loving father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and the one loving son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

"Do not assume that I came to throw peace upon the earth.  I came not to throw peace, but a sword."  (The verb balein implies a stronger action than "bring."  "Throw" or "cast" would be better.)

Matthew ratchets up the tension a notch from the parallel in Luke.  In Luke, Jesus is said to bring "division."  Matthew adds color and force by referring not to "division" but to "a sword," and, moreover, one that is about ready to strike.  

Jesus is quoting from Micah 7:6--"for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  your enemies are members of your own household."

Jesus is not advocating violence, of course.  He is a bringer of peace, and his disciples are to be "peacemakers" (5:9).  It was also true, however, that, especially in the period in which Matthew was writing, there was considerable division within families due to the Christian faith.  Will Willimon likes to refer to letters from Roman families that talk of their concern because their son--Celsus, let's say--has run off to join some outfit called the Christians.

Called to the future:  Note also the generational pattern of the division.  In each case of comparison, it is the younger generation which is at odds with the older generation.  This is hardly unusual.  In the history of the world, generational perspectives are quite often different and in conflict.

What is surprising is that Jesus offers no palliative for this situation.  Indeed, he makes it worse.  Jesus has come to sever the ties between a man and his father, and a woman and her mother.  (The word is dixasai, which means to "divide" or "cleave in two.")

Jesus was never much on "family values," the way we understand them today.  One's earthly family is not particularly important since Jesus will go on to say, in chapter 12, that one's true family is the new community of Jesus.

The message of Jesus is about being formed by the future.  The kingdom of heaven is coming, a kingdom in which all relationships will be equal, not hierarchical, as in a family.  Traditional power relationships will be upended, including that of the family where father and mother stand "higher" than son or daughter.  ("The first shall be last, and the last first.") 

To be dominated by one's family, on the other hand, is to be dominated by the past.  Indeed, considering that a person's DNA goes back hundreds of thousands of years, we are--in a manner of speaking--in "bondage" to our family and in "bondage" to our past in quite literal ways.  The deference we show to father and mother is, partly, the homage we pay to our past.

To the one who had said he wanted to bury his father before he could follow Jesus, Jesus said, "Let the dead bury their own dead" (8: 22).  Jesus would not let people be dominated by their past.  They are to step out from their past, with its hierarchical power relationships and its "bondage" to tradition.  These are "old wineskins" and not able to hold the "new wine" (9:17).  To love one's family "more than me" is to be in love with the past, with one's progenitors.  To "love son or daughter"--your own gene pool--"more than me" is also to love the past.

³⁸and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Translation:  And whoever does not take up their cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.  The ones finding his life will destroy it, and the one losing his life because of me will find it.

Literally:  "and whoever does not take hold of his cross and follow after me is not..."--and here it gets tricky.  The word is axios.  It means "like," "befitting," or "congruent."  The sense of the word here seems to be "tried and found wanting."  The sense is one of "measuring up." 

Most translations of axios wind up with "worthy", which is appropriate, though one should avoid the sense of moral judgment that typically accompanies it.  "Worthy" here does not mean moral worth, but rather "foxhold worth," i.e. hanging in the movement despite tough times. "Tried and found wanting" seems to be the sense that Matthew intends. 

Jesus has set an example of suffering for the cause.  Disciples are not greater than their master and difficult situations may come to any follower.  In spite of the difficulty, followers should continue to expound the Way of Jesus, and follow it.  If they do not, then they are not at the level of their master. 

Verse 38 is, incidentally, the first use of the word "cross" in Matthew's gospel.  The phrase is ton stauron autou--literally, "the cross of him."  It is not entirely clear to whom the "him" refers.  It could mean to take up the cross of Jesus, and this has often been a typical interpretation. 

Or, it could mean the disciple taking up "their own cross."  We might think of "taking up his cross" as referring to taking up the burdens faced in the follower's own life.  In either case, in the context of first century Christianity, taking up the cross could, indeed, mean the cross of Jesus. 

More broadly, in whatever time we live, taking up the cross means living according to the way taught by Jesus no matter what one's condition or circumstance.  For our time today, following Jesus may not mean being executed on a cross.  It may mean trying to live as a Christian in the context of wealth and privilege.  Conversely, what does it mean to live as a Christian in the context of mental illness, or disability, or militarism? 

Image:  His eye is on the sparrow, quilt made by Judy Hand Pitts.

 

‘A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; ²⁵it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

Translation:  A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above his lord.  Enough for the disciple that that one may become like his teacher, and the slave like his lord.  If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more the ones of his household?

Background and situation:  The book of Matthew has five major sections, each one featuring an extended teaching by Jesus.  (These five teaching sections mirror the five books of Moses.)  The Sermon on the Mount is the first major speech;  the discourse on missionary activity in chapter 10 is the second.

At the beginning of chapter 10, Jesus gave the twelve disciples authority over unclean spirits.  The disciples are then named, and sent out.  Verses 5-23 have to do with mission strategy and facing opposition.  

Versions of some of the verses in this text appear in Mark, Luke, John, and Thomas.  The section from 10:26-33 has a parallel in Luke 12:2-10;  10:34-36 has a parallel in Thomas.  Verse 39 has a parallel in Mark, Luke, and John.

Slave not above his master:  Our lection this week begins with two proverbial sayings, the purpose of which seems to be to inform the disciples that followers of Jesus should not expect different treatment than what Jesus himself received.  Jesus faced persecution, and, therefore, it should not be surprising that his followers will face persecution as well. 

Matthew was writing around AD 80-85, which means that this is post-war literature.  It follows the devastation of the Roman-Jewish War of AD 66-70 when blood ran in the streets of Jerusalem and the Temple was destroyed.

During and after the war, significant numbers of Jerusalem residents fled to the northern regions (Galilee, Syria) in order to escape the siege of Jerusalem.  In the north, pharisees tended to dominate and took the lead in organizing and settling these war-time refugees.  With the Temple now destroyed, the local synagogue and local rabbis became the focal point of Jewish life.

Matthew was trying to hold together a Jewish-Christian community in a situation that was extremely difficult.  Paul's mission to the gentiles was having a discernible impact on fledgling Christianity, and Jewish Christianity was steadily losing ground within the Christian movement.  

Moreover, the split between Jews and followers of Jesus had reached a tipping point in the late first century, and tensions between the (now) two groups had grown difficult.  It was during this time that followers of Jesus were being exiled from the synagogues in northern Israel.

The dynamics of first century religious development are complex.  The view that Christianity emerged out of Judaism is considered simplistic today.  Rather, the first century produced several religious sparks--Jesus followers, pharisees, zealots, and many others.  It wasn't that Christianity emerged from Judaism, but rather that both Christianity and pharisee-influenced rabbinical Judaism were two new strains that emerged out of the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 and the fall of the heretofore dominant wing of Judaism, the Sadducees.

Matthew is writing at a few years remove from Mark, who wrote during or just after the devastation in Jerusalem.  While Matthew's over-all mood is not as dark as Mark's, it is clear that Matthew's church saw themselves as fragile, vulnerable, under threat, and beset with difficulties.  If Jesus himself has been accused of being a demon--"they have called the master of the house Beelzebul"--then this charge is likely to be levelled also at Jesus' followers.  

Incidentally, Beelzebul is a Hebrew word that means "lord of lofty abode."  Beelzebul was an ancient Canaanite deity.  (Sometimes, Jews changed the word to Beelzebub, which was considered a slam.)

John Meier says that the phrase related "master of the household" and "Beelzebul", is a pun in Aramaic.  If so, that would add a touch of light-heartedness to a very serious condition, and that could well have been Matthew's intent. 

Matthew's message seems to be:  The situation is quite serious.  There are persecutions.  People are hauled before magistrates.  One's life may in danger.  Nevertheless, there is, ultimately, nothing to fear.  Therefore, be bold!

No fear:

26 ‘So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. ²⁷What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.^* 29Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. ³⁰And even the hairs of your head are all counted. ³¹So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Translation:  Therefore, do not fear them, for there is nothing that has been covered which will not be revealed, and a secret which will not be known.  What I say to you in the dark, speak in the light, and what you hear into the ear, proclaim upon the housetops.  And do not fear the ones killing the body, but are not able to kill a life.  But fear more the one able to destroy both life and body in gehenna.  Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?  And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.  But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not therefore.  You are of more value than many sparrows.

The disciples of Jesus are encouraged not to fear three times in five verses.  This is a message for people who feel themselves under seige. 

Yet, despite their difficulties, their movement cannot be stopped, Jesus tells them.  Even if you go to prison, even if you are oppressed, the message will be revealed and "become known"--ginosko, known in the most intimate way.

Jesus continues to speak to his beleaguered community--"what I say to you" is in the present tense--even if "in the dark."  This would indicate a community that must speak in whispers to each other, under threat of real violence from those who can "kill the body."  Nevertheless, keep spreading the message--"tell in the light."

Do not be afraid of the Romans, but do be afraid of the devil because the devil has the power to destroy both body and "life"--psyche.  Literally:  "Fear much more the one having power to destroy body and life in Gehenna."  ("Gehenna" was a burning trash heap in the valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem.)  

The one who is able to "destroy both body and life"--the devil--means that the struggle of Matthew's community should fundamentally be seen as spiritual.  Yes, they were enduring political and social oppression.  Yes, they were under the boot of Rome.  Nevertheless, these earthly powers are doing the devil's work. 

Then, the discourse turns more positive.  Sparrows were the cheapest edible birds.  Two of them could be bought for an assariou, which is one-tenth of a drachma, or one-sixteenth of a denarius.  Yet, "not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father." 

The verb is in the future tense--"will fall"--indicating that these sparrows are alive at present, but even when they die, they will not be "without"--aneu, apart from--your father."  Matthew reminds his readers of God's providential care of all creation, including them.  Again, the exhortation is not to be afraid because--Matthew wryly notes--you are of more value than many sparrows.  Therefore, be bold!

Not peace, but a sword:

32 ‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; ³³but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

Translation:  Therefore, all who will confess me before human beings, I also will confess in that one before my Father, the one in the heavens.  But whoever might deny me before human beings, I also will deny that one before my Father, the one in the heavens.

If Jesus' followers "acknowledge" him--omologesai, literally "speak the same word"--in front of others, then Jesus will do the same on behalf of them "before my Father in heaven."  Note that "your Father" has now become "my Father."  This hints at Jesus' son-ship, and indicates that it is precisely through his son-ship that his followers also become sons and daughters.

Yet, with the olive branch, there is also a threat: Those who "might deny" Jesus--a middle subjunctive--"will be denied" by Jesus to his Father.  As John Meier notes:  "Failure to witness before the earthly tribunal will mean disgrace before the heavenly tribunal, where Jesus will disown the weak disciple as not being truly his brother and therefore not truly a son of the Father."

34 ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 
³⁵For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 
³⁶and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. 
³⁷Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

Translation:  Do not assume that I came to throw peace upon the earth.  I came not to throw peace, but a sword, for I came to divide a person from his father, and a daughter from her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and enemies of a person of one's own household.  The one loving father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and the one loving son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

"Do not assume that I came to throw peace upon the earth.  I came not to throw peace, but a sword."  (The verb balein implies a stronger action than "bring."  "Throw" or "cast" would be better.)

Matthew ratchets up the tension a notch from the parallel in Luke.  In Luke, Jesus is said to bring "division."  Matthew adds color and force by referring not to "division" but to "a sword," and, moreover, one that is about ready to strike.  

Jesus is quoting from Micah 7:6--"for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  your enemies are members of your own household."

Jesus is not advocating violence, of course.  He is a bringer of peace, and his disciples are to be "peacemakers" (5:9).  It was also true, however, that, especially in the period in which Matthew was writing, there was considerable division within families due to the Christian faith.  Will Willimon likes to refer to letters from Roman families that talk of their concern because their son--Celsus, let's say--has run off to join some outfit called the Christians.

Called to the future:  Note also the generational pattern of the division.  In each case of comparison, it is the younger generation which is at odds with the older generation.  This is hardly unusual.  In the history of the world, generational perspectives are quite often different and in conflict.

What is surprising is that Jesus offers no palliative for this situation.  Indeed, he makes it worse.  Jesus has come to sever the ties between a man and his father, and a woman and her mother.  (The word is dixasai, which means to "divide" or "cleave in two.")

Jesus was never much on "family values," the way we understand them today.  One's earthly family is not particularly important since Jesus will go on to say, in chapter 12, that one's true family is the new community of Jesus.

The message of Jesus is about being formed by the future.  The kingdom of heaven is coming, a kingdom in which all relationships will be equal, not hierarchical, as in a family.  Traditional power relationships will be upended, including that of the family where father and mother stand "higher" than son or daughter.  ("The first shall be last, and the last first.") 

To be dominated by one's family, on the other hand, is to be dominated by the past.  Indeed, considering that a person's DNA goes back hundreds of thousands of years, we are--in a manner of speaking--in "bondage" to our family and in "bondage" to our past in quite literal ways.  The deference we show to father and mother is, partly, the homage we pay to our past.

To the one who had said he wanted to bury his father before he could follow Jesus, Jesus said, "Let the dead bury their own dead" (8: 22).  Jesus would not let people be dominated by their past.  They are to step out from their past, with its hierarchical power relationships and its "bondage" to tradition.  These are "old wineskins" and not able to hold the "new wine" (9:17).  To love one's family "more than me" is to be in love with the past, with one's progenitors.  To "love son or daughter"--your own gene pool--"more than me" is also to love the past.

³⁸and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Translation:  And whoever does not take up their cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.  The ones finding his life will destroy it, and the one losing his life because of me will find it.

Literally:  "and whoever does not take hold of his cross and follow after me is not..."--and here it gets tricky.  The word is axios.  It means "like," "befitting," or "congruent."  The sense of the word here seems to be "tried and found wanting."  The sense is one of "measuring up." 

Most translations of axios wind up with "worthy", which is appropriate, though one should avoid the sense of moral judgment that typically accompanies it.  "Worthy" here does not mean moral worth, but rather "foxhold worth," i.e. hanging in the movement despite tough times. "Tried and found wanting" seems to be the sense that Matthew intends. 

Jesus has set an example of suffering for the cause.  Disciples are not greater than their master and difficult situations may come to any follower.  In spite of the difficulty, followers should continue to expound the Way of Jesus, and follow it.  If they do not, then they are not at the level of their master. 

Verse 38 is, incidentally, the first use of the word "cross" in Matthew's gospel.  The phrase is ton stauron autou--literally, "the cross of him."  It is not entirely clear to whom the "him" refers.  It could mean to take up the cross of Jesus, and this has often been a typical interpretation. 

Or, it could mean the disciple taking up "their own cross."  We might think of "taking up his cross" as referring to taking up the burdens faced in the follower's own life.  In either case, in the context of first century Christianity, taking up the cross could, indeed, mean the cross of Jesus. 

More broadly, in whatever time we live, taking up the cross means living according to the way taught by Jesus no matter what one's condition or circumstance.  For our time today, following Jesus may not mean being executed on a cross.  It may mean trying to live as a Christian in the context of wealth and privilege.  Conversely, what does it mean to live as a Christian in the context of mental illness, or disability, or militarism? 

Image:  His eye is on the sparrow, quilt made by Judy Hand Pitts.

 

Pentecost 2 ::: Matthew 9:35 - 10:8

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. ³⁶When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’

Translation:  And Jesus was going about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease.  And seeing the crowds, he was moved with compassion for them because they were distressed and cast away, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the workmen are few.  Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest that he might send workmen into the harvest."

Background and situation:  The opening verse is pure gospel, and recalls what Jesus had done at the end of chapter 4, right before the Sermon on the Mount:  "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people." (4:23)  This is gospel, and it sets the stage for the Sermon on the Mount which follows.

In 9:35, which begins our reading this week, Jesus does exactly what he had done in 4:23:  "And Jesus was going about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease." 

Matthew has five "books" in his gospel, reflecting the five books of Moses.  Each book is introduced by a speech by Jesus.  In the first book, the speech is the famous Sermon on the Mount.  The second "book" of Matthew's gospel begins at 10:1, and introduces a new section, the theme of which is mission and its difficulties.  As in 4:23, the proclamation of the gospel in 9:35 precedes the next speech and provides the "hinge" from one section to the next.

The primary source for this passage is Mark, but Matthew takes Mark and goes in a different direction.  In Mark 6:6, Jesus goes through villages.  Matthew changes this to "cities and villages".  Why?  Because Mark's purpose is to portray Jesus as being plotted against, mainly by people in cities, which is why Jesus spends most of his time in the countryside and in villages.  In Mark, Jesus is under threat, and a victim.  This is less so in Matthew. 

"Sheep without a shepherd":  The phrase "sheep without a shepherd" is an ancient one.  See Numbers 27:17 as one example.  Mark uses the phrase to introduce his first feeding story (6:34).  Matthew, on the other hand, accents Jesus' emotional reaction to the condition of the sheep.  "He was moved with the deepest compassion."  

The word is esplagnisthe, an exceptionally strong statement.  The word is associated with the bowels, for heaven's sake.  Jesus was moved to the depths of his being by the "skinned" or "mangled" condition--eskulmenoi--of the people, who are also being "thrown down" (ripto).  ("Harrassed and helpless," as the NRSV puts it, seems a bit more tame than is indicated by these strong words of oppression.)

What the people need is a mission!  There may be a play on words here.  In verse 35, Jesus is "healing every disease."  The word translated as "healing" is therapeuon--which is, incidentally, where we get our word "therapy." 

In verse 37, "the harvest is plentiful."  The word for "harvest" is therismos.  The similarity in the sound of the two words therapeuon and therismos leads one  to the thought that the "harvest"--the "gathering in"--is associated with healing.  The harvest will indeed be therapeutic.  Even more, the mission to participate in that harvest is likewise "healing." 

The twelve apostles:

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. ²These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; ³Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax-collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; ⁴Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

Translation:  And having called to him his twelve disciples, he gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every sickness.  And of the twelve apostles, the names are these:  first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, the tax-collector,  James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

After Jesus mentions prayer that "the Lord of the harvest will send laborers," he calls his twelve disciples and gives them "authority"--exousian, also "power, ability, strength"--to do the very mission he has already been doing, casting out unclean spirits and healing disease and sickness.  (Matthew adds healing, which is absent in the Markan parallel, 6:7.) 

In this preparation for mission, Matthew, for the first time, introduces "the twelve."  In actual history, Jesus had a lot more disciples than just twelve.  In other places, 70 are mentioned.  In yet other places (Luke 8), his women disciples are mentioned.  Many people followed Jesus.  We forget:  Jesus was a tribune of the people.  He was popular.  Thousands rallied to him.

"The twelve" is a metaphorical device, meant to recall the twelve tribes of Israel.  These new "twelve" represent the renewal of Israel in the light of God's Christ.  Matthew follows Mark in calling them "apostles."  The word literally means "one sent." 

At the time of Matthew's writing, "apostle" had two meanings.  The first is Pauline.  An apostle is one who has seen Jesus and preaches the gospel.  Another use of the word "apostle" was to refer to an envoy from the churches.  Says John Meier: 

Matthew reflects the usage of the church late in the first century, when a desire to legitimate the authentic tradition of the church against false teachers led to an emphasis on the original guardians of the tradition and their official successors.

To put is slightly different than Meier, Matthew wants to assert the apostolic authority of the Jerusalem church, which is headed by Peter (and James).  This appears to be a concern of Matthew especially.  Peter is looked upon with greater favor in Matthew than in any of the other gospels.  For Matthew, Peter is the "rock" upon whom Jesus builds his church (16:18). 

In accenting the role of Peter, Matthew is lifting up the role of the "head office" of the church in Jerusalem.  It is from there, undoubtedly, that "apostles" would be sent to promote "apostolic teaching" in other early Christian communities, or so Matthew thinks.

Matthew gets his list of "the twelve" from Mark (3: 13-19).  Matthew changes Mark to say that Peter is "first"--protos--which is another reflection of Peter's special position in Matthew, as is Matthew's placement of Andrew, Peter's brother, in second place.  Matthew drops Mark's designation of James and John as "sons of thunder."  Matthew also adds "tax collector" to the name of the disciple Matthew.

Cananaean may reflect an Aramaic word for "zealot" (Meier).  The zealots were first century terrorists who believed in violent action against the Roman occupation.  They appear to have had their beginning in the revolt against the tax census which was called by Cyrenius (Quirinius) in 6 AD. 

Notice that the list of disciples contains a startling juxtaposition.  It includes both a Roman lackey--the tax collector Matthew--and a Roman enemy, Simon the zealot.  The new community of Jesus is broad.  It is able to contain both these disparate people. 

Judas is mentioned last, as per usual.  Whenever Judas' name appears anywhere in the New Testament, there is a disparaging comment appended to his name.  Here, as in Mark, it's "who betrayed him." 

The identity of Judas is still being debated today.  I find intriguing the possibility that his name, "Judas Iscariot," may refer to his hometown--"Judas, from Kerioth."  "Kerioth" was in Judea.  If this is the case, then Judas would be the only member of "the twelve" who was a Judean.  Was Judas a traitor--a Judean spy--all along?

To the lost sheep of the house of Israel, for now:

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, ⁶but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”  ⁸Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

Translation:  These twelve Jesus sent forth, having instructed them, saying, 'Do not go into the way of the nations, and do not enter into any town of the Samaritans.  Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Go and proclaim, saying that 'the kingdom of the heavens has come near.'  Heal the weak ones, raise dead ones, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.  You have taken freely.  Give freely."

"Do not go in the way of the nations (gentiles), and do not go into a city of Samaritans, but go, rather, to the destroyed (lost, ruined) sheep of the house of Israel."  We are beginning chapter 10.  At this point, Matthew understands Jesus' mission to be only in Galilee and to the "destroyed" sheep there.

Matthew presents that, at this point, Jesus saw himself as sent only to oppressed Jews living in Galilee.  That mission will expand rather dramatically following Jesus encounter with the Canaanite woman in chapter 15.  After he loses an argument with a foreign woman--and one associated with Israel's ancient enemy--Jesus appears to expand his own mission beyond Israel.  When Matthew closes his gospel, that mission is expanded to "all nations" (28:19).

Matthew also seems to reacting against the situation in Galilee at the time of his writing, c. AD 80.  During and after the Roman-Jewish war, many refugees fled from the south to the north.  It appears Matthew had some difficulty with the pharisees who took it upon themselves to organize these folks into synagogues.  (Even though Matthew refers to "their synagogues," there is a fair chance that there were no synagogues in Galilee in AD 30, but there were synagogues at the time of Matthew's writing, synagogues which had been organized by pharisees.  Matthew took a dim view of them--see chapter 23.)

"Go and proclaim, saying that 'the kingdom of the heavens has come near.'  Heal the weak ones, raise dead ones, cleanse lepers--(the word is katharizete, where we get our word "catharsis")--cast out demons.  You have taken freely.  Give freely."

Again, "the twelve" are to reflect the ministry of Jesus himself.  Matthew is especially keen on identifying the mission of the church with what Jesus himself did.  Note especially "heal the weak," which is usually translated "cure the sick."  The word is therapeuete again, which means not only "heal" but also "serve."  The word normally translated as "sick" is asthenountas, which, in my view, has a broader definition than "sick."  It means "weak" or "feeble" or "lacking strength."  (The word is used in psychiatry today to refer to weakness and torpor.)  "Serve the weak" would be a perfectly good translation, and one that is thoroughly consistent with Jesus' mission.

That is what the church is to be about--serving the weak, healing the sick, cleansing the unclean.  It is to be about bringing others into the practice of the kingdom, wherein all people are treated with respect and dignity, all tables are open, all people are lifted up, and all are called to higher purpose. 

Funny.  How did we ever get the idea that the mission of the church was to get people to "convert" to something called "protestant theology" whereby they could be "saved"?

Image:  Christ healing the blind man, El Greco

 

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. ³⁶When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’

Translation:  And Jesus was going about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease.  And seeing the crowds, he was moved with compassion for them because they were distressed and cast away, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the workmen are few.  Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest that he might send workmen into the harvest."

Background and situation:  The opening verse is pure gospel, and recalls what Jesus had done at the end of chapter 4, right before the Sermon on the Mount:  "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people." (4:23)  This is gospel, and it sets the stage for the Sermon on the Mount which follows.

In 9:35, which begins our reading this week, Jesus does exactly what he had done in 4:23:  "And Jesus was going about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease." 

Matthew has five "books" in his gospel, reflecting the five books of Moses.  Each book is introduced by a speech by Jesus.  In the first book, the speech is the famous Sermon on the Mount.  The second "book" of Matthew's gospel begins at 10:1, and introduces a new section, the theme of which is mission and its difficulties.  As in 4:23, the proclamation of the gospel in 9:35 precedes the next speech and provides the "hinge" from one section to the next.

The primary source for this passage is Mark, but Matthew takes Mark and goes in a different direction.  In Mark 6:6, Jesus goes through villages.  Matthew changes this to "cities and villages".  Why?  Because Mark's purpose is to portray Jesus as being plotted against, mainly by people in cities, which is why Jesus spends most of his time in the countryside and in villages.  In Mark, Jesus is under threat, and a victim.  This is less so in Matthew. 

"Sheep without a shepherd":  The phrase "sheep without a shepherd" is an ancient one.  See Numbers 27:17 as one example.  Mark uses the phrase to introduce his first feeding story (6:34).  Matthew, on the other hand, accents Jesus' emotional reaction to the condition of the sheep.  "He was moved with the deepest compassion."  

The word is esplagnisthe, an exceptionally strong statement.  The word is associated with the bowels, for heaven's sake.  Jesus was moved to the depths of his being by the "skinned" or "mangled" condition--eskulmenoi--of the people, who are also being "thrown down" (ripto).  ("Harrassed and helpless," as the NRSV puts it, seems a bit more tame than is indicated by these strong words of oppression.)

What the people need is a mission!  There may be a play on words here.  In verse 35, Jesus is "healing every disease."  The word translated as "healing" is therapeuon--which is, incidentally, where we get our word "therapy." 

In verse 37, "the harvest is plentiful."  The word for "harvest" is therismos.  The similarity in the sound of the two words therapeuon and therismos leads one  to the thought that the "harvest"--the "gathering in"--is associated with healing.  The harvest will indeed be therapeutic.  Even more, the mission to participate in that harvest is likewise "healing." 

The twelve apostles:

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. ²These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; ³Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax-collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; ⁴Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

Translation:  And having called to him his twelve disciples, he gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every sickness.  And of the twelve apostles, the names are these:  first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, the tax-collector,  James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

After Jesus mentions prayer that "the Lord of the harvest will send laborers," he calls his twelve disciples and gives them "authority"--exousian, also "power, ability, strength"--to do the very mission he has already been doing, casting out unclean spirits and healing disease and sickness.  (Matthew adds healing, which is absent in the Markan parallel, 6:7.) 

In this preparation for mission, Matthew, for the first time, introduces "the twelve."  In actual history, Jesus had a lot more disciples than just twelve.  In other places, 70 are mentioned.  In yet other places (Luke 8), his women disciples are mentioned.  Many people followed Jesus.  We forget:  Jesus was a tribune of the people.  He was popular.  Thousands rallied to him.

"The twelve" is a metaphorical device, meant to recall the twelve tribes of Israel.  These new "twelve" represent the renewal of Israel in the light of God's Christ.  Matthew follows Mark in calling them "apostles."  The word literally means "one sent." 

At the time of Matthew's writing, "apostle" had two meanings.  The first is Pauline.  An apostle is one who has seen Jesus and preaches the gospel.  Another use of the word "apostle" was to refer to an envoy from the churches.  Says John Meier: 

Matthew reflects the usage of the church late in the first century, when a desire to legitimate the authentic tradition of the church against false teachers led to an emphasis on the original guardians of the tradition and their official successors.

To put is slightly different than Meier, Matthew wants to assert the apostolic authority of the Jerusalem church, which is headed by Peter (and James).  This appears to be a concern of Matthew especially.  Peter is looked upon with greater favor in Matthew than in any of the other gospels.  For Matthew, Peter is the "rock" upon whom Jesus builds his church (16:18). 

In accenting the role of Peter, Matthew is lifting up the role of the "head office" of the church in Jerusalem.  It is from there, undoubtedly, that "apostles" would be sent to promote "apostolic teaching" in other early Christian communities, or so Matthew thinks.

Matthew gets his list of "the twelve" from Mark (3: 13-19).  Matthew changes Mark to say that Peter is "first"--protos--which is another reflection of Peter's special position in Matthew, as is Matthew's placement of Andrew, Peter's brother, in second place.  Matthew drops Mark's designation of James and John as "sons of thunder."  Matthew also adds "tax collector" to the name of the disciple Matthew.

Cananaean may reflect an Aramaic word for "zealot" (Meier).  The zealots were first century terrorists who believed in violent action against the Roman occupation.  They appear to have had their beginning in the revolt against the tax census which was called by Cyrenius (Quirinius) in 6 AD. 

Notice that the list of disciples contains a startling juxtaposition.  It includes both a Roman lackey--the tax collector Matthew--and a Roman enemy, Simon the zealot.  The new community of Jesus is broad.  It is able to contain both these disparate people. 

Judas is mentioned last, as per usual.  Whenever Judas' name appears anywhere in the New Testament, there is a disparaging comment appended to his name.  Here, as in Mark, it's "who betrayed him." 

The identity of Judas is still being debated today.  I find intriguing the possibility that his name, "Judas Iscariot," may refer to his hometown--"Judas, from Kerioth."  "Kerioth" was in Judea.  If this is the case, then Judas would be the only member of "the twelve" who was a Judean.  Was Judas a traitor--a Judean spy--all along?

To the lost sheep of the house of Israel, for now:

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, ⁶but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”  ⁸Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

Translation:  These twelve Jesus sent forth, having instructed them, saying, 'Do not go into the way of the nations, and do not enter into any town of the Samaritans.  Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Go and proclaim, saying that 'the kingdom of the heavens has come near.'  Heal the weak ones, raise dead ones, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.  You have taken freely.  Give freely."

"Do not go in the way of the nations (gentiles), and do not go into a city of Samaritans, but go, rather, to the destroyed (lost, ruined) sheep of the house of Israel."  We are beginning chapter 10.  At this point, Matthew understands Jesus' mission to be only in Galilee and to the "destroyed" sheep there.

Matthew presents that, at this point, Jesus saw himself as sent only to oppressed Jews living in Galilee.  That mission will expand rather dramatically following Jesus encounter with the Canaanite woman in chapter 15.  After he loses an argument with a foreign woman--and one associated with Israel's ancient enemy--Jesus appears to expand his own mission beyond Israel.  When Matthew closes his gospel, that mission is expanded to "all nations" (28:19).

Matthew also seems to reacting against the situation in Galilee at the time of his writing, c. AD 80.  During and after the Roman-Jewish war, many refugees fled from the south to the north.  It appears Matthew had some difficulty with the pharisees who took it upon themselves to organize these folks into synagogues.  (Even though Matthew refers to "their synagogues," there is a fair chance that there were no synagogues in Galilee in AD 30, but there were synagogues at the time of Matthew's writing, synagogues which had been organized by pharisees.  Matthew took a dim view of them--see chapter 23.)

"Go and proclaim, saying that 'the kingdom of the heavens has come near.'  Heal the weak ones, raise dead ones, cleanse lepers--(the word is katharizete, where we get our word "catharsis")--cast out demons.  You have taken freely.  Give freely."

Again, "the twelve" are to reflect the ministry of Jesus himself.  Matthew is especially keen on identifying the mission of the church with what Jesus himself did.  Note especially "heal the weak," which is usually translated "cure the sick."  The word is therapeuete again, which means not only "heal" but also "serve."  The word normally translated as "sick" is asthenountas, which, in my view, has a broader definition than "sick."  It means "weak" or "feeble" or "lacking strength."  (The word is used in psychiatry today to refer to weakness and torpor.)  "Serve the weak" would be a perfectly good translation, and one that is thoroughly consistent with Jesus' mission.

That is what the church is to be about--serving the weak, healing the sick, cleansing the unclean.  It is to be about bringing others into the practice of the kingdom, wherein all people are treated with respect and dignity, all tables are open, all people are lifted up, and all are called to higher purpose. 

Funny.  How did we ever get the idea that the mission of the church was to get people to "convert" to something called "protestant theology" whereby they could be "saved"?

Image:  Christ healing the blind man, El Greco

The Holy Trinity ::: Matthew 28: 16-20

¹⁶Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Translation:   And the eleven disciples journeyed into the Galilee, into the mountain where Jesus had directed them.  And seeing him, they worshiped, but they doubted.  And Jesus came (and) spoke to them, saying, "All power has been given to me in heaven and upon the earth.  As you have gone, therefore, teach all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to keep all as I commanded you.  And behold! I am with you all the days until the consummation of the eternal." 

Background and situation:  These are the closing words of Matthew's gospel.  As is characteristic for Matthew's gospel, Jesus is again presented as Moses-like, yet greater-than Moses.  Like Moses, he speaks on a mountain and gives commandments.  As greater-than Moses, he now commands "all authority."

The Holy Trinity:  This is the gospel reading for Holy Trinity Sunday, the only day of the church year said to be dedicated specifically to a doctrinal position. 

In reality, of course, all church holidays are about some aspect of doctrine.  Christmas, for example, is not at all the "birthday of Jesus," but a holy day of the church dedicated to the incarnation, a doctrinal teaching which counters the heresies of gnosticism and docetism.

The lection is likely chosen because of its reference to "the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."  The saying is anachronistic for the time of Jesus, who, bereft of expensive seminary education, would likely have been thoroughly mystified by something called "trinitarian theology."

The trinity has been perhaps the most controversial and most mysterious of Christian teachings.  As is well known, the word "trinity" does not appear in the Bible, although you can see hints of trinitarianism beginning to develop, like Matthew's mention of the trinitarian name in today's lection, for example, and certain passages of Paul, such as "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you (2 Cor 13: 14)." 

You can easily see the difficulty for first century Jews such as Matthew.  Jews are monotheists.  In fact, at the time of Jesus, Jews were the first and only monotheists in the world.  "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One," said the shema. 

Yet, the earliest Christians, all of them Jews, believed that, somehow, they had encountered God in Jesus of Nazareth.  How could one express that, and still be a monotheist? 

The most challenging theological treatises--over the years, and to this day--have been on the trinity.  It took St. Augustine 15 volumes to describe the trinity.  Here are his seven summary statements:  The Father is God.  The Son is God.  The Holy Spirit is God.  The Son is not the Father.  The Father is not the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is not the Son.  There is only one God.  (Impenetrable, yes, and convoluted, but what can one expect?  The subject is God, after all.)

While I'm no better at understanding the trinity than anyone else, and much less so than many, I find the teaching attractive for these reasons: 

(1)  The trinity's central teaching about God is that God, in God's interior life, is essentially relational.  This is a far cry from the radical monad of Greek philosophy who exists up high in the stratosphere somewhere, disconnected from any one or any thing. 

The trinity understands that relationships within God are dynamic.  They move.  The early theologians used the word perichoresis, which literally means "dancing around."  (We get our word "choreography" from choresis.)   This ever-vital, ever-moving, ever-interweaving of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is essential.  It is an aspect of God's very being.  

No member of the trinity is superior to any other, which means that the interior life of God is not hierarchical.  Here's a helpful exercise:  Try re-arranging the "persons" of the trinity.  Since all "persons" of the trinity are equal, it doesn't make any difference which one is mentioned first.  In fact, in order to at least allude to the anti-heirarchical nature of perichoresis, we should mix them up.  How about opening worship in the name of the Spirit, Son, and Father?

Our actual practice is always to say "Father, Son, and Spirit" in that order.  The Father is always mentioned first, in the pre-eminent position, one "higher" than the Son or Spirit.  Our actual practice supports a hierarchical view of God when the actual trinitarian theology of perichoresis subverts hierarchy! 

(2)  The trinity is radically egalitarian, and embraces all of human experience.  It is precisely the human man Jesus who is the Second Person of the Trinity.  Through Jesus--not the souped-up, supernatural Jesus, but the human Jesus--the entirety of human experience is embraced and taken into the life of God.  Just as God is relationship within God's own self, God relentlessly reaches out and into all human life to reconcile and restore human being's broken relationship with God.  This is good.

(3)  The trinity makes good sense of the cross.  When Jesus died on the cross, he then descended into hell--into the realm of nothingness, absence, and annihilation.  He descended into the "opposite of God."  Where God is presence and relationship, hell is absence and loneliness--"where nothing connects with nothing," as someone has put it. 

According to trinitarian theology of the cross, the Holy Spirit breaches the gap between the "Father in Heaven" and the "Son in Hell."  The Holy Spirit is the bond of love that unites them even across this greatest of all chasms.

(4)  Putting Jesus in the trinity subverts the Emperor as a "son of God."  Throughout history, many rulers claimed to be sired by something supernatural.  Shortly before the time of Jesus, Julius Caesar was said to be "the divine Julius" after his assassination.  A new comet was a sign of his joining the panoply of gods.  After him, his adopted son, Caesar Augustus, claimed to be divi filius (son of a god), proudly stamping his status on coins and distributing them throughout the empire.

Christianity might have been legalized by Constantine in AD 313, but the early Christians were nevertheless suspicious of the government.  It hadn't been that long since they had been victims of persecution (c. AD 280-300).  If Jesus is merely a son of God, how would he be any different from Julius Caesar or Caesar Augustus?  He needed to be in the trinity, equal to God, or risk being lost in the shuffle of the various other (far lesser and often self-appointed) gods.

That's on the one hand.  Here are some reasons not to like the trinity:  

(1)  It was a doctrine imposed.  It was declared the only acceptable Christian doctrine of God by the Emperor Theodosius in AD 380, rubber-stamped by the Council of Constantinople in AD 381, and all opposing views were banned and suppressed.  This hardly seems very Christian.  

What's worse, it had to keep being imposed.  Christianity's biggest problem, ever since Constantine, is that it was implemented from the top down.  The nobility converted in order to get God on their side, and they then converted the peasants.  (One encouraging sign today is the "emergent church," which is bottom-up.)

(2)  The Emperor's trinitarianism had the effect of kicking Jesus upstairs into an object to be worshipped rather than followed.  The historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, had a disturbing tendency to side with people the Emperor liked to push around, and the Emperor certainly didn't want people following that example.

Kicking Jesus upstairs has the unfortunate effect of subverting the doctrine of the incarnation.  It removes Jesus from the realities of human life and tries to re-locate him in the airy and ethereal.  

In effect, most modern day Christian worship assumes a view of Jesus with exalted divinity and a severely truncated humanity.  That is docetism, pure and simple, the idea that Jesus only seemed to be a human being, but wasn't really.  Thus, the "orthodox" position on the trinity tends to subvert the "orthodox" position on the two natures of Jesus.   

The New Community:  Matthew describes two communities in the closing chapter of his gospel.  In the five verses preceding our lection, he mentions the community of guard, priests, elders, and soldiers--a community headed by the governor. 

When Jesus is not in his tomb on Easter Sunday morning, the priests, after conferring with representatives of the ruling families of Jerusalem, bribe the soldiers to say that Jesus' body had been stolen by his supporters.  In return, they offer to cover the soldiers' butt when the governor finds out that Jesus' body is missing.  The community described in verses 11-15 is a community based in greed and lies.

Immediately following we are told of another community, the new community of Jesus.  As he had told them to do, they are going to Galilee.  They are, however, only eleven in number, and not twelve.  One of the twelve, Judas, has committed suicide.  Even the new community has suffered loss and betrayal.  Yet, in spite of their "brokenness," the new community is obedient to Jesus' instruction to go to Galilee. 

In Galilee, they meet Jesus on "the mountain where Jesus had directed them."  It is not at all surprising that Matthew would have Jesus meet the disciples on a mountain.  Mountains as a place of special revelation are quite common in Matthew.  

We don't know which mountain.  Matthew says nothing further about it, and no prior reference says anything about this mountain, or its specific locale.  In any case, that is not the point.  The point is that the disciples followed Jesus' direction.  He "directed" them.  They went.

Doubt:  Verse 17:  "And seeing him, they worshipped but they doubted."  All four gospels deal with the subject of doubt, though they each do it in a different way. 

This is Matthew's way:  The disciples have followed Jesus' direction without yet seeing him.  As a result of following his direction, they have come to a place of special revelation where they do "see" him.  They respond with worship, even in the face of their own doubt.  Doubt is frankly acknowledged.  Says Matthew:  Let the church be instructed.  Jesus is followed and worshipped in spite of doubt.

Jesus then "came" to them.  He does not remain distant from his community, but approaches and comes to them.  This is reminiscent of the Transfiguration--another mountaintop experience--when Jesus "touched" Peter, James and John (17: 7).

Final teaching:  Unlike the other three gospels, Matthew makes no mention of Jesus' physicality, or his wounds, or any special post-resurrection abilities.  Matthew is the gospel that places emphasis on the teaching of Jesus, and so, here, Jesus only speaks. 

He announces his universal and cosmic authority--"all power in heaven and upon the earth."  "Therefore"--precisely because of his universal authority--he can compell a universal mission, a mission to "all nations."  Indeed, the word "all" appears four times in these five verses--"all authority," "all nations," "all I have commanded," "all the days"--a striking expression of universality.

The text is often called "the great commission," an expression which appears nowhere in scripture.  (We do have, however, a "greatest commandment" in Matthew, and also a second greatest commandment, love for God and love for neighbor (22:35-40).) 

The disciples are told to "go"--poreuomai, which is passive, and carries the sense of "being led forward on a journey," a journey to make disciples of "all the nations"--ethne, "peoples."

The new community is to baptize "them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."  Matthew did not invent this formula.  He likely took it from the liturgy of the early church.  Some baptisms in the early church were "in the name of Jesus"--Acts 2:38, 10:48.

The saying continues with one final instruction:  "teaching them to observe as much as I have commanded you."  More than any other gospel, Matthew emphasizes Jesus' role as teacher.  Jesus inaugural speech, in Matthew, is nothing less than the Sermon on the Mount, and that was only the beginning!  Everything Jesus has taught to the disciples is to be taught throughout the new community.

The final "emanuel":  Kai idou--And behold!  "I am with you"--ego meta humon eimi.  Note how "with you" is sandwiched between ego and eimi.  (Ego eimi is the "divine name," the Greek version of YHWH, the name of God.)

At Jesus' birth, Matthew had proclaimed that Jesus is "emanuel"--God with us.  Now, in Jesus' final proclamation to his disciples in Matthew, he asserts the divine name--"I am!"--but, this time, "with you" is placed within the divine name itself!  

In the way Matthew has grammatically constructed the sentence, the new community of those who follow Jesus are within the very life of God.  God with us indeed!  (It's a plural "you" incidentally, i.e. the whole catholic flock is held within God, and not just your own splendid self.)

"I am with you all the days until the sunteleias tou aionos."  Suntelaias combines the words sun with telos.  Sun means "together," telos means "the goal."  The sense of the word is a "gathering up into the goal," rather reminiscent of St. Iraneus who spoke of the anakephalaiososthai ta panta--the "summing up of all things into the head."  Thus ends Matthew's gospel.

Matthew tells of two communities.  One is based in the Temple, influenced by the ruling families of Jerusalem, headed by the governor.  This community is about power, greed, payoffs, deception, and lies. 

The new community is headed by Jesus, not the governor.  It follows his teaching as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, not the corrupt practices of the Temple, or the oppressive practices of the Roman occupation.  This new community is for "all peoples," not merely the political and economic elite.

Image:  "The Holy Trinity," El Greco

 

¹⁶Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Translation:   And the eleven disciples journeyed into the Galilee, into the mountain where Jesus had directed them.  And seeing him, they worshiped, but they doubted.  And Jesus came (and) spoke to them, saying, "All power has been given to me in heaven and upon the earth.  As you have gone, therefore, teach all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to keep all as I commanded you.  And behold! I am with you all the days until the consummation of the eternal." 

Background and situation:  These are the closing words of Matthew's gospel.  As is characteristic for Matthew's gospel, Jesus is again presented as Moses-like, yet greater-than Moses.  Like Moses, he speaks on a mountain and gives commandments.  As greater-than Moses, he now commands "all authority."

The Holy Trinity:  This is the gospel reading for Holy Trinity Sunday, the only day of the church year said to be dedicated specifically to a doctrinal position. 

In reality, of course, all church holidays are about some aspect of doctrine.  Christmas, for example, is not at all the "birthday of Jesus," but a holy day of the church dedicated to the incarnation, a doctrinal teaching which counters the heresies of gnosticism and docetism.

The lection is likely chosen because of its reference to "the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."  The saying is anachronistic for the time of Jesus, who, bereft of expensive seminary education, would likely have been thoroughly mystified by something called "trinitarian theology."

The trinity has been perhaps the most controversial and most mysterious of Christian teachings.  As is well known, the word "trinity" does not appear in the Bible, although you can see hints of trinitarianism beginning to develop, like Matthew's mention of the trinitarian name in today's lection, for example, and certain passages of Paul, such as "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you (2 Cor 13: 14)." 

You can easily see the difficulty for first century Jews such as Matthew.  Jews are monotheists.  In fact, at the time of Jesus, Jews were the first and only monotheists in the world.  "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One," said the shema. 

Yet, the earliest Christians, all of them Jews, believed that, somehow, they had encountered God in Jesus of Nazareth.  How could one express that, and still be a monotheist? 

The most challenging theological treatises--over the years, and to this day--have been on the trinity.  It took St. Augustine 15 volumes to describe the trinity.  Here are his seven summary statements:  The Father is God.  The Son is God.  The Holy Spirit is God.  The Son is not the Father.  The Father is not the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is not the Son.  There is only one God.  (Impenetrable, yes, and convoluted, but what can one expect?  The subject is God, after all.)

While I'm no better at understanding the trinity than anyone else, and much less so than many, I find the teaching attractive for these reasons: 

(1)  The trinity's central teaching about God is that God, in God's interior life, is essentially relational.  This is a far cry from the radical monad of Greek philosophy who exists up high in the stratosphere somewhere, disconnected from any one or any thing. 

The trinity understands that relationships within God are dynamic.  They move.  The early theologians used the word perichoresis, which literally means "dancing around."  (We get our word "choreography" from choresis.)   This ever-vital, ever-moving, ever-interweaving of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is essential.  It is an aspect of God's very being.  

No member of the trinity is superior to any other, which means that the interior life of God is not hierarchical.  Here's a helpful exercise:  Try re-arranging the "persons" of the trinity.  Since all "persons" of the trinity are equal, it doesn't make any difference which one is mentioned first.  In fact, in order to at least allude to the anti-heirarchical nature of perichoresis, we should mix them up.  How about opening worship in the name of the Spirit, Son, and Father?

Our actual practice is always to say "Father, Son, and Spirit" in that order.  The Father is always mentioned first, in the pre-eminent position, one "higher" than the Son or Spirit.  Our actual practice supports a hierarchical view of God when the actual trinitarian theology of perichoresis subverts hierarchy! 

(2)  The trinity is radically egalitarian, and embraces all of human experience.  It is precisely the human man Jesus who is the Second Person of the Trinity.  Through Jesus--not the souped-up, supernatural Jesus, but the human Jesus--the entirety of human experience is embraced and taken into the life of God.  Just as God is relationship within God's own self, God relentlessly reaches out and into all human life to reconcile and restore human being's broken relationship with God.  This is good.

(3)  The trinity makes good sense of the cross.  When Jesus died on the cross, he then descended into hell--into the realm of nothingness, absence, and annihilation.  He descended into the "opposite of God."  Where God is presence and relationship, hell is absence and loneliness--"where nothing connects with nothing," as someone has put it. 

According to trinitarian theology of the cross, the Holy Spirit breaches the gap between the "Father in Heaven" and the "Son in Hell."  The Holy Spirit is the bond of love that unites them even across this greatest of all chasms.

(4)  Putting Jesus in the trinity subverts the Emperor as a "son of God."  Throughout history, many rulers claimed to be sired by something supernatural.  Shortly before the time of Jesus, Julius Caesar was said to be "the divine Julius" after his assassination.  A new comet was a sign of his joining the panoply of gods.  After him, his adopted son, Caesar Augustus, claimed to be divi filius (son of a god), proudly stamping his status on coins and distributing them throughout the empire.

Christianity might have been legalized by Constantine in AD 313, but the early Christians were nevertheless suspicious of the government.  It hadn't been that long since they had been victims of persecution (c. AD 280-300).  If Jesus is merely a son of God, how would he be any different from Julius Caesar or Caesar Augustus?  He needed to be in the trinity, equal to God, or risk being lost in the shuffle of the various other (far lesser and often self-appointed) gods.

That's on the one hand.  Here are some reasons not to like the trinity:  

(1)  It was a doctrine imposed.  It was declared the only acceptable Christian doctrine of God by the Emperor Theodosius in AD 380, rubber-stamped by the Council of Constantinople in AD 381, and all opposing views were banned and suppressed.  This hardly seems very Christian.  

What's worse, it had to keep being imposed.  Christianity's biggest problem, ever since Constantine, is that it was implemented from the top down.  The nobility converted in order to get God on their side, and they then converted the peasants.  (One encouraging sign today is the "emergent church," which is bottom-up.)

(2)  The Emperor's trinitarianism had the effect of kicking Jesus upstairs into an object to be worshipped rather than followed.  The historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, had a disturbing tendency to side with people the Emperor liked to push around, and the Emperor certainly didn't want people following that example.

Kicking Jesus upstairs has the unfortunate effect of subverting the doctrine of the incarnation.  It removes Jesus from the realities of human life and tries to re-locate him in the airy and ethereal.  

In effect, most modern day Christian worship assumes a view of Jesus with exalted divinity and a severely truncated humanity.  That is docetism, pure and simple, the idea that Jesus only seemed to be a human being, but wasn't really.  Thus, the "orthodox" position on the trinity tends to subvert the "orthodox" position on the two natures of Jesus.   

The New Community:  Matthew describes two communities in the closing chapter of his gospel.  In the five verses preceding our lection, he mentions the community of guard, priests, elders, and soldiers--a community headed by the governor. 

When Jesus is not in his tomb on Easter Sunday morning, the priests, after conferring with representatives of the ruling families of Jerusalem, bribe the soldiers to say that Jesus' body had been stolen by his supporters.  In return, they offer to cover the soldiers' butt when the governor finds out that Jesus' body is missing.  The community described in verses 11-15 is a community based in greed and lies.

Immediately following we are told of another community, the new community of Jesus.  As he had told them to do, they are going to Galilee.  They are, however, only eleven in number, and not twelve.  One of the twelve, Judas, has committed suicide.  Even the new community has suffered loss and betrayal.  Yet, in spite of their "brokenness," the new community is obedient to Jesus' instruction to go to Galilee. 

In Galilee, they meet Jesus on "the mountain where Jesus had directed them."  It is not at all surprising that Matthew would have Jesus meet the disciples on a mountain.  Mountains as a place of special revelation are quite common in Matthew.  

We don't know which mountain.  Matthew says nothing further about it, and no prior reference says anything about this mountain, or its specific locale.  In any case, that is not the point.  The point is that the disciples followed Jesus' direction.  He "directed" them.  They went.

Doubt:  Verse 17:  "And seeing him, they worshipped but they doubted."  All four gospels deal with the subject of doubt, though they each do it in a different way. 

This is Matthew's way:  The disciples have followed Jesus' direction without yet seeing him.  As a result of following his direction, they have come to a place of special revelation where they do "see" him.  They respond with worship, even in the face of their own doubt.  Doubt is frankly acknowledged.  Says Matthew:  Let the church be instructed.  Jesus is followed and worshipped in spite of doubt.

Jesus then "came" to them.  He does not remain distant from his community, but approaches and comes to them.  This is reminiscent of the Transfiguration--another mountaintop experience--when Jesus "touched" Peter, James and John (17: 7).

Final teaching:  Unlike the other three gospels, Matthew makes no mention of Jesus' physicality, or his wounds, or any special post-resurrection abilities.  Matthew is the gospel that places emphasis on the teaching of Jesus, and so, here, Jesus only speaks. 

He announces his universal and cosmic authority--"all power in heaven and upon the earth."  "Therefore"--precisely because of his universal authority--he can compell a universal mission, a mission to "all nations."  Indeed, the word "all" appears four times in these five verses--"all authority," "all nations," "all I have commanded," "all the days"--a striking expression of universality.

The text is often called "the great commission," an expression which appears nowhere in scripture.  (We do have, however, a "greatest commandment" in Matthew, and also a second greatest commandment, love for God and love for neighbor (22:35-40).) 

The disciples are told to "go"--poreuomai, which is passive, and carries the sense of "being led forward on a journey," a journey to make disciples of "all the nations"--ethne, "peoples."

The new community is to baptize "them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."  Matthew did not invent this formula.  He likely took it from the liturgy of the early church.  Some baptisms in the early church were "in the name of Jesus"--Acts 2:38, 10:48.

The saying continues with one final instruction:  "teaching them to observe as much as I have commanded you."  More than any other gospel, Matthew emphasizes Jesus' role as teacher.  Jesus inaugural speech, in Matthew, is nothing less than the Sermon on the Mount, and that was only the beginning!  Everything Jesus has taught to the disciples is to be taught throughout the new community.

The final "emanuel":  Kai idou--And behold!  "I am with you"--ego meta humon eimi.  Note how "with you" is sandwiched between ego and eimi.  (Ego eimi is the "divine name," the Greek version of YHWH, the name of God.)

At Jesus' birth, Matthew had proclaimed that Jesus is "emanuel"--God with us.  Now, in Jesus' final proclamation to his disciples in Matthew, he asserts the divine name--"I am!"--but, this time, "with you" is placed within the divine name itself!  

In the way Matthew has grammatically constructed the sentence, the new community of those who follow Jesus are within the very life of God.  God with us indeed!  (It's a plural "you" incidentally, i.e. the whole catholic flock is held within God, and not just your own splendid self.)

"I am with you all the days until the sunteleias tou aionos."  Suntelaias combines the words sun with telos.  Sun means "together," telos means "the goal."  The sense of the word is a "gathering up into the goal," rather reminiscent of St. Iraneus who spoke of the anakephalaiososthai ta panta--the "summing up of all things into the head."  Thus ends Matthew's gospel.

Matthew tells of two communities.  One is based in the Temple, influenced by the ruling families of Jerusalem, headed by the governor.  This community is about power, greed, payoffs, deception, and lies. 

The new community is headed by Jesus, not the governor.  It follows his teaching as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, not the corrupt practices of the Temple, or the oppressive practices of the Roman occupation.  This new community is for "all peoples," not merely the political and economic elite.

Image:  "The Holy Trinity," El Greco

¹⁶Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Translation:   And the eleven disciples journeyed into the Galilee, into the mountain where Jesus had directed them.  And seeing him, they worshiped, but they doubted.  And Jesus came (and) spoke to them, saying, "All power has been given to me in heaven and upon the earth.  As you have gone, therefore, teach all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to keep all as I commanded you.  And behold! I am with you all the days until the consummation of the eternal." 

Background and situation:  These are the closing words of Matthew's gospel.  As is characteristic for Matthew's gospel, Jesus is again presented as Moses-like, yet greater-than Moses.  Like Moses, he speaks on a mountain and gives commandments.  As greater-than Moses, he now commands "all authority."

The Holy Trinity:  This is the gospel reading for Holy Trinity Sunday, the only day of the church year said to be dedicated specifically to a doctrinal position. 

In reality, of course, all church holidays are about some aspect of doctrine.  Christmas, for example, is not at all the "birthday of Jesus," but a holy day of the church dedicated to the incarnation, a doctrinal teaching which counters the heresies of gnosticism and docetism.

The lection is likely chosen because of its reference to "the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."  The saying is anachronistic for the time of Jesus, who, bereft of expensive seminary education, would likely have been thoroughly mystified by something called "trinitarian theology."

The trinity has been perhaps the most controversial and most mysterious of Christian teachings.  As is well known, the word "trinity" does not appear in the Bible, although you can see hints of trinitarianism beginning to develop, like Matthew's mention of the trinitarian name in today's lection, for example, and certain passages of Paul, such as "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you (2 Cor 13: 14)." 

You can easily see the difficulty for first century Jews such as Matthew.  Jews are monotheists.  In fact, at the time of Jesus, Jews were the first and only monotheists in the world.  "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One," said the shema. 

Yet, the earliest Christians, all of them Jews, believed that, somehow, they had encountered God in Jesus of Nazareth.  How could one express that, and still be a monotheist? 

The most challenging theological treatises--over the years, and to this day--have been on the trinity.  It took St. Augustine 15 volumes to describe the trinity.  Here are his seven summary statements:  The Father is God.  The Son is God.  The Holy Spirit is God.  The Son is not the Father.  The Father is not the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is not the Son.  There is only one God.  (Impenetrable, yes, and convoluted, but what can one expect?  The subject is God, after all.)

While I'm no better at understanding the trinity than anyone else, and much less so than many, I find the teaching attractive for these reasons: 

(1)  The trinity's central teaching about God is that God, in God's interior life, is essentially relational.  This is a far cry from the radical monad of Greek philosophy who exists up high in the stratosphere somewhere, disconnected from any one or any thing. 

The trinity understands that relationships within God are dynamic.  They move.  The early theologians used the word perichoresis, which literally means "dancing around."  (We get our word "choreography" from choresis.)   This ever-vital, ever-moving, ever-interweaving of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is essential.  It is an aspect of God's very being.  

No member of the trinity is superior to any other, which means that the interior life of God is not hierarchical.  Here's a helpful exercise:  Try re-arranging the "persons" of the trinity.  Since all "persons" of the trinity are equal, it doesn't make any difference which one is mentioned first.  In fact, in order to at least allude to the anti-heirarchical nature of perichoresis, we should mix them up.  How about opening worship in the name of the Spirit, Son, and Father?

Our actual practice is always to say "Father, Son, and Spirit" in that order.  The Father is always mentioned first, in the pre-eminent position, one "higher" than the Son or Spirit.  Our actual practice supports a hierarchical view of God when the actual trinitarian theology of perichoresis subverts hierarchy! 

(2)  The trinity is radically egalitarian, and embraces all of human experience.  It is precisely the human man Jesus who is the Second Person of the Trinity.  Through Jesus--not the souped-up, supernatural Jesus, but the human Jesus--the entirety of human experience is embraced and taken into the life of God.  Just as God is relationship within God's own self, God relentlessly reaches out and into all human life to reconcile and restore human being's broken relationship with God.  This is good.

(3)  The trinity makes good sense of the cross.  When Jesus died on the cross, he then descended into hell--into the realm of nothingness, absence, and annihilation.  He descended into the "opposite of God."  Where God is presence and relationship, hell is absence and loneliness--"where nothing connects with nothing," as someone has put it. 

According to trinitarian theology of the cross, the Holy Spirit breaches the gap between the "Father in Heaven" and the "Son in Hell."  The Holy Spirit is the bond of love that unites them even across this greatest of all chasms.

(4)  Putting Jesus in the trinity subverts the Emperor as a "son of God."  Throughout history, many rulers claimed to be sired by something supernatural.  Shortly before the time of Jesus, Julius Caesar was said to be "the divine Julius" after his assassination.  A new comet was a sign of his joining the panoply of gods.  After him, his adopted son, Caesar Augustus, claimed to be divi filius (son of a god), proudly stamping his status on coins and distributing them throughout the empire.

Christianity might have been legalized by Constantine in AD 313, but the early Christians were nevertheless suspicious of the government.  It hadn't been that long since they had been victims of persecution (c. AD 280-300).  If Jesus is merely a son of God, how would he be any different from Julius Caesar or Caesar Augustus?  He needed to be in the trinity, equal to God, or risk being lost in the shuffle of the various other (far lesser and often self-appointed) gods.

That's on the one hand.  Here are some reasons not to like the trinity:  

(1)  It was a doctrine imposed.  It was declared the only acceptable Christian doctrine of God by the Emperor Theodosius in AD 380, rubber-stamped by the Council of Constantinople in AD 381, and all opposing views were banned and suppressed.  This hardly seems very Christian.  

What's worse, it had to keep being imposed.  Christianity's biggest problem, ever since Constantine, is that it was implemented from the top down.  The nobility converted in order to get God on their side, and they then converted the peasants.  (One encouraging sign today is the "emergent church," which is bottom-up.)

(2)  The Emperor's trinitarianism had the effect of kicking Jesus upstairs into an object to be worshipped rather than followed.  The historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, had a disturbing tendency to side with people the Emperor liked to push around, and the Emperor certainly didn't want people following that example.

Kicking Jesus upstairs has the unfortunate effect of subverting the doctrine of the incarnation.  It removes Jesus from the realities of human life and tries to re-locate him in the airy and ethereal.  

In effect, most modern day Christian worship assumes a view of Jesus with exalted divinity and a severely truncated humanity.  That is docetism, pure and simple, the idea that Jesus only seemed to be a human being, but wasn't really.  Thus, the "orthodox" position on the trinity tends to subvert the "orthodox" position on the two natures of Jesus.   

The New Community:  Matthew describes two communities in the closing chapter of his gospel.  In the five verses preceding our lection, he mentions the community of guard, priests, elders, and soldiers--a community headed by the governor. 

When Jesus is not in his tomb on Easter Sunday morning, the priests, after conferring with representatives of the ruling families of Jerusalem, bribe the soldiers to say that Jesus' body had been stolen by his supporters.  In return, they offer to cover the soldiers' butt when the governor finds out that Jesus' body is missing.  The community described in verses 11-15 is a community based in greed and lies.

Immediately following we are told of another community, the new community of Jesus.  As he had told them to do, they are going to Galilee.  They are, however, only eleven in number, and not twelve.  One of the twelve, Judas, has committed suicide.  Even the new community has suffered loss and betrayal.  Yet, in spite of their "brokenness," the new community is obedient to Jesus' instruction to go to Galilee. 

In Galilee, they meet Jesus on "the mountain where Jesus had directed them."  It is not at all surprising that Matthew would have Jesus meet the disciples on a mountain.  Mountains as a place of special revelation are quite common in Matthew.  

We don't know which mountain.  Matthew says nothing further about it, and no prior reference says anything about this mountain, or its specific locale.  In any case, that is not the point.  The point is that the disciples followed Jesus' direction.  He "directed" them.  They went.

Doubt:  Verse 17:  "And seeing him, they worshipped but they doubted."  All four gospels deal with the subject of doubt, though they each do it in a different way. 

This is Matthew's way:  The disciples have followed Jesus' direction without yet seeing him.  As a result of following his direction, they have come to a place of special revelation where they do "see" him.  They respond with worship, even in the face of their own doubt.  Doubt is frankly acknowledged.  Says Matthew:  Let the church be instructed.  Jesus is followed and worshipped in spite of doubt.

Jesus then "came" to them.  He does not remain distant from his community, but approaches and comes to them.  This is reminiscent of the Transfiguration--another mountaintop experience--when Jesus "touched" Peter, James and John (17: 7).

Final teaching:  Unlike the other three gospels, Matthew makes no mention of Jesus' physicality, or his wounds, or any special post-resurrection abilities.  Matthew is the gospel that places emphasis on the teaching of Jesus, and so, here, Jesus only speaks. 

He announces his universal and cosmic authority--"all power in heaven and upon the earth."  "Therefore"--precisely because of his universal authority--he can compell a universal mission, a mission to "all nations."  Indeed, the word "all" appears four times in these five verses--"all authority," "all nations," "all I have commanded," "all the days"--a striking expression of universality.

The text is often called "the great commission," an expression which appears nowhere in scripture.  (We do have, however, a "greatest commandment" in Matthew, and also a second greatest commandment, love for God and love for neighbor (22:35-40).) 

The disciples are told to "go"--poreuomai, which is passive, and carries the sense of "being led forward on a journey," a journey to make disciples of "all the nations"--ethne, "peoples."

The new community is to baptize "them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."  Matthew did not invent this formula.  He likely took it from the liturgy of the early church.  Some baptisms in the early church were "in the name of Jesus"--Acts 2:38, 10:48.

The saying continues with one final instruction:  "teaching them to observe as much as I have commanded you."  More than any other gospel, Matthew emphasizes Jesus' role as teacher.  Jesus inaugural speech, in Matthew, is nothing less than the Sermon on the Mount, and that was only the beginning!  Everything Jesus has taught to the disciples is to be taught throughout the new community.

The final "emanuel":  Kai idou--And behold!  "I am with you"--ego meta humon eimi.  Note how "with you" is sandwiched between ego and eimi.  (Ego eimi is the "divine name," the Greek version of YHWH, the name of God.)

At Jesus' birth, Matthew had proclaimed that Jesus is "emanuel"--God with us.  Now, in Jesus' final proclamation to his disciples in Matthew, he asserts the divine name--"I am!"--but, this time, "with you" is placed within the divine name itself!  

In the way Matthew has grammatically constructed the sentence, the new community of those who follow Jesus are within the very life of God.  God with us indeed!  (It's a plural "you" incidentally, i.e. the whole catholic flock is held within God, and not just your own splendid self.)

"I am with you all the days until the sunteleias tou aionos."  Suntelaias combines the words sun with telos.  Sun means "together," telos means "the goal."  The sense of the word is a "gathering up into the goal," rather reminiscent of St. Iraneus who spoke of the anakephalaiososthai ta panta--the "summing up of all things into the head."  Thus ends Matthew's gospel.

Matthew tells of two communities.  One is based in the Temple, influenced by the ruling families of Jerusalem, headed by the governor.  This community is about power, greed, payoffs, deception, and lies. 

The new community is headed by Jesus, not the governor.  It follows his teaching as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, not the corrupt practices of the Temple, or the oppressive practices of the Roman occupation.  This new community is for "all peoples," not merely the political and economic elite.

Image:  "The Holy Trinity," El Greco