January 16, 2014: Matthew Chapter 16

January 21, 2008 - The Gospel According to Matthew Chapter 16

General Comment: In Chapter 15 we saw examples of how the many non-Torah rules for keeping the Sabbath and washing of hands before meals, etc. imposed by the Pharisees' Oral Tradition were burdensome. It was virtually impossible for the poor, those working at their trade, and rural farm workers to keep them. Because of that, the Pharisees, as we will see in John's Gospel, held such people in low regard, as "The people of the Land," commoners not fit for God's Kingdom. Yesterday, in Gary's sermon, he mentioned that reality and Jesus' reaction to it in MT 11:28-29 where Jesus invites those who were marginalized by the very "religious" teachers of the time to "take my yoke upon you, and learn from me." I have this image of the Pharisee spending his waking hours with a clipboard on which is a long form, a check-off list of all the rules he must keep each day and for every situation. He believes that if he can get them all done correctly she will qualify for the righteousness prize. He had a great relationship with the clipboard but not with God. 

It would be so easy to have that list, to do just what we have to do to get by. Jesus has been very emphatic in his warnings against such an easy way. "Beware the leaven of the Pharisees," he said, "You have heard it said of old, but I say to you," when he taught his disciples that their righteous must be greater than that of the Pharisees. Do we just try to get by in our Christian life and commitments? Do we use a Check-Off list to define our faith? If the church, our church, hopes to claim the future we believe God is calling us to, we will need go beyond the lists. No, actually we need to burn the list and find another guide. I wonder who or what that might be? 

Matthew 16:1-20 The Demand for a Sign

You will notice that these two paragraphs begin and end with the Pharisees and Sadducees. This is an indication that the writer means for them to be taken together as a doublet, also called bookends.

The first paragraph is parallel to the longer version in MT 12:38-42, with the replacement of the Scribes with the Sadducees and without the emphasis on repentance, e.g. mention of the repentant Ninevites. Again officials from Jerusalem seek out Jesus, not to listen to his preaching, but to test him. The word "test" is also translated as "tempt" as used in the Temptation story of MT 4:1-11. It is appropriate here because the officials are tempting Jesus to prove himself, to establish his authority with miracles - a sign from heaven (God), which he will not do. Instead he exposes their lack of perception. They can interpret the weather by the signs in the sky but they cannot "see," what is happening throughout Galilee, despite all the visible "signs" of Jesus' activity as well as the enthusiastic response he has received everywhere he goes. He will give them a sign, not specifically to them but to this "evil and adulterous generation," where "adulterous" does not refer to broken marriage vows but the broken state of the relationship between Israel and God.

With the addition of the Sadducees to this story, Matthew may be shifting the meaning of the sign of Jonah. In the Chapter 12 version, reference to the Ninevites implies that the sign is one of their repentance. Here there is no similar reference, and because the Sadducees will be part of the Council that condemns Jesus - hands him over to Pilate, we may have a more literal understanding of the Jonah story as an analogy to Jesus' death and resurrection: 3 days in the big fish = Jesus in the tomb, being spit out on the shore = resurrection. However, it is not clear what Matthew's motive would be in the use of the Jonah story in this way. There will be a number of references to death and resurrection in Matthew that are more direct - one of which is in this chapter.

When the disciples join Jesus, he warns them of the "yeast" (leaven) of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They think he is speaking about the bread which they have not brought with them, already forgetting the recent experience of feeding the 5,000 with its large quantity of leftovers (misunderstanding is a writing technique used in the Gospels to frame an opportunity for Jesus to teach some truth).  The passage interprets itself in the last verse where the disciples understand that Jesus is referring to the leaven as the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Leaven, is fermented dough left over from a previous batch. It was used to aid the dough in rising. Because it was "old" and fermented or corrupted, all traces of it had to be removed from the house before Passover - the old and corrupt cannot be carried forth into the day of the celebration of Passover. It became a symbol for corruption and this is how Jesus is using it, as an analogy to the corrupting influence of the teachings of the Pharisees (Sadducees were not teachers). The disciples are to "beware" of their teachings for they are part of the old way; they will corrupt all they have learned from Jesus.

Matthew 16:13-20 Peter's Confession of Faith

Caesarea Philippi is about 20 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. It is an interesting choice of locations, for in Jesus' day it had a large Temple, built by King Herod the Great, dedicated to the Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus, who had the titles of Lord, savior of the world and son of God. It was also the location where celebrations were held after the Roman defeat of the Jewish Army (such as it was) destroyed the Temple and much of Jerusalem in 70 CE. As part of the celebrations many Jewish captives were thrown to the wild animals in the arena. The irony cannot be overlooked: The one who will be declared by early Christianity as Lord, Savior of the world and Son of God stands in the very city built to honor Caesar, the most  powerful man in the world, and acclaimed by all Rome with the same titles. Caesar represented the accepted assumptions that peace came through military victory. Jesus represented an older value system: That peace came through the universal justice of God. We have  been having this struggle of competing kingdoms ever since.

Perhaps we can picture the scene. Jesus and his disciples are walking through the city, expanded by Herod Philip, with its magnificent Roman and Greek temples and other buildings, the statues of Roman heroes and deities wherever one looked, and Roman guards eying them warily. They stop before Caesar's Temple. Jesus asks his disciples who do the people think he is (Son of Man in this context is not the Daniel/Enoch figure that comes at the time of Judgment, but a way of saying "I"). The disciples give the various titles that have been used as people reacted to Jesus' ministry of teaching and healing. John the Baptist (resurrected); Elijah (who will return and usher in the terrible "Day of the Lord"); Jeremiah, or one of the Prophets (promised by Moses in his farewell address). Jesus asks the next question, the emphatic question that all who would claim to be Christians from that time forth must answer, "But what about you! Who do you say that I am?" Without hesitation, Peter responds for all the disciples in what would be a creedal confession of faith in Matthew's Church, "You are the Messiah (Christ), the Son of the living God."

Jesus must have smiled broadly at the answer. How long had the disciples been with him! Now Peter, speaking for them all, had understood, not completely on his own, but through that insight, that "aha" moment that comes upon us in a flash of inspiration from we know not where, when thoughts, impressions, rising speculation coalesce, become something profound in the mind and we can't help but blurt it out at the first opportunity. "God did this," Jesus proclaims. What follows has been a source of disagreement until our own time. Jesus says to Peter, "You are Rock (Petros, a nickname for Simeon or Simon) and on this Rock (Petra) I will build my Church (ecclesia - those called out).

We can best interpret this verse and the one following, through Matthew's understanding. For Matthew, Peter is the foundation upon which Jesus will build his Church. The Church is the new congregation of God and, as Paul before him and John after him would proclaim, the new Israel. Peter, now dead for more than two decades, represents the Apostolic tradition, the collective teachings of the Apostles. Not even the gates of Hades can prevail against it (Hades is the place of the dead, not a place of punishment, similar to Israel's Sheol, the place of shades). Peter, now as the collective name for what will be called "The Great Church" or "Church of the Apostles," receives the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven as the one who has authority as teacher and whose teachings will bind or loose (Isa. 22:20-25).

This section closes with the enigmatic verse 20, in which Jesus "sternly ordered" the disciples not to reveal that he was the Messiah. He has just called blessings upon Peter for the same confession of faith and now he wants to keep it a secret? We have seen this before addressed to those healed by Jesus, and we will look more closely at its use when we read Mark's Gospel from which it was taken by Matthew. For now, we can generally attribute the need for non-disclosure to the prevailing Jewish understanding of the Messiah in nationalistic terms and Jesus' intention to correct that erroneous understanding, at least as it applied to him. Nationalism, the assumed supremacy before God of any nation over others, would be farthest from his understanding of who or what he was as a man of God's peace and justice.

Matthew 16:21-23 Jesus' Foretells Death and Resurrection

This is the first of three "predictions" Jesus' offers regarding his death and resurrection. The wording is shaped in the pattern of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53:1-9 and presupposed in MT 10:38-39. The verse is a turning point in the Gospel as the last journey to Jerusalem will soon begin. We have seen but a brief review of a larger ministry in Galilee and in Gentile territory. We have see the growing opposition and pending danger Jesus faces. It would be easy to attribute Jesus' words to some omniscient foreknowledge, but that would cheapen the experience of human dread he must have felt, walking into the Lion's Den, ruled by those whose authority and power are being challenged by this charlatan who has stirred up the energies of the rabble, the "People of the Land." How could he not know what awaited him if he persisted on this mission he felt so compelled to complete, so driven by a sense of God's own urgency? He could not. He will not.  And no protestations from the recently blessed and declared Rock of the Church deter him from his mission. 

Matthew 16:24-28 The Cross and Self Denial

It is fitting that such a prediction is followed by this daunting excursus on the cost of following Jesus. The words are not meant to ease the path to or of discipleship. They are meant for those who have already professed their faith, for Peter and all disciples, then and now. The NRSV reading "If any want to become my followers," should read, "If anyone would come after me..." (NIV). This an act of choice, a decision made by those who are already followers. "You are my followers. Will you now choose to come after me?," he asks. Is living our lives for ourselves, the only choice? Is self-serving the best life has to offer? Do we fear losing our lives if we share them with others? Matthew's community saw persecution and death in every direction. They chose to "come after" Jesus even at the loss of their comfort. their security, their safety. Somehow they were able to see beyond themselves to other possibilities which gave them courage. We do not face such times as they did. We cannot even image the cost paid by Christians in the first 300 years. But we can measure the degree of our own commitment to the Christian cause. We can appraise our own faithfulness. What did we pledge on that day we stood in front of the congregation? Was it that we "...promise to support the United Methodist Church with our prayers, our presence, our gifts and our service?" Do we find our life in that?

Matthew ends this chapter with Jesus' promise of an imminent return and the ancient idea of reward and punishment based on our faithfulness and our deeds. It is a message that suited his time of rejection and persecution very well. Matthew's expectation of the swift return of Jesus in his lifetime was shared by Paul's generation, and every generation since. It was their message of hope for the new age of God's Reign, an escape from this evil age. Perhaps what they did not understand in Jesus' teaching and revelation of God was that such an event was not meant as a form of escapism from the struggles of the world but an invitation to join God in the world in pursuit of peace and justice for all God's children until on some day, in some time yet unknown to us, we will gather from the four corners of the Earth to sing together a song we have yet to learn, with words already in our souls, waiting for the tune only God can give.

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Notes

1) The Pharisees were part of a Lay movement of teachers of righteousness, supported by the donations of others. They had no role in the deliberations of the Sanhedrin, the High Council presided over by the High Priest. The Sadducees were of the aristocracy and are not known to have traveled beyond Judea. They are part of the Sanhedrin and will collaborate with the Roman Prefects who governed Judea on behalf of the Roman government. The relationship between the Sadducees and Pharisees was one of distrust and distain. They would not have made good traveling companions. Sadducees will take part in Jesus' final hearing before being turned over to Pilate; the Pharisees will not.

2) Miracles, in Jesus' ministry, represent the dawning of God's Reign in which the world is healed, and harmony exists among the nations, as Isaiah envisions.  They are not meant to bring attention to Jesus, an attention that will lead some to the wrong understanding of his role of the Messiah. It is important to keep in mind that the general expectation in Jesus' time regarding the Messiah was nationalistic in nature. The Messiah, as Son of David, would be a King, a warrior who would rid the land of the Roman oppressors and re-establish Israel to its Golden Age when David was King. There is no doubt that many in the crowds that heard Jesus believed he was that Messiah.

3) The words "heaven" and "sky" are translated from the same Greek word. The way it is translated depends on the context in which it is used. The officials want a sign from heaven (God). They can read the signs of the sky (weather). 

 4) Various titles have been given to Jesus throughout history. The oldest layers of tradition called him The Prophet and Messiah, Son of David. Messiah (anointed one) translated into Greek is Christos (Christ). By the time of Paul's extensive evangelistic effort among the Gentiles, Christ was used more as a surname, Jesus Christ not Jesus the Christ. The preferred title became Son of God. Son of Man also changed from being a self reference, simply meaning a human being. In  primitive post-resurrection Christianity the title referred to Jesus as the one who returns (parousia) as Judge of all humanity. The title "Lord," can mean "sir" and was used by servants and slaves when addressing their master. It was applied to Jesus by Jewish Christians to reflect the use of that term to refer to God, in the sense that God's presence was seen in him. Paul used the title to express that Jesus was the true Lord, not Caesar.

5) By the 3rd century the Western (Roman) Church which would become the Roman Catholic Church, understood verse 18 as the foundation of its own primacy in the Christian Church, passed on by Apostolic Succession from Peter who died in Rome. The Bishop of Rome was called First Among Equals. That was not a unanimous opinion throughout Christendom, particularly in North Africa, nor later in the schism of 1054 CE that created the Eastern Orthodox Church or by emerging Protestantism in post Reformation times.

6) Binding and loosing were terms used to denote the authoritative teachings of the Rabbis (known as Pharisees in Jesus' time).

The Gospel According to Matthew Chapter 17

Originally posted January 22, 2008

General Comment: Jesus told his disciples that if they want to follow him [any farther] they will have to deny themselves and take up their crosses. The challenge is well positioned, placed before the transfiguration experience in which they will "see and hear" a profound witness to Jesus' importance to God's own journey toward a New Age. The disciples are to listen to Jesus, not to the Prophets or Moses. The story also appears before a second prediction of betrayal, death and resurrection.

How do we deny ourselves and take up our cross? For the disciples it has already meant giving up their lives - family, livelihood, as they were before Jesus called them. And the cross was always a price they might have to pay for their witness. It is doubtful - but not out of the question - that we will be called upon to die for our Christian faith, though some are in other cultures. Self denial is another matter. What does it mean to deny ourselves? Certainly not giving up coffee for Lent! The Self is the conscious "I" in who we are that reflects and decides to act, speak even think one way or another. Perhaps denying our Self is to allow something beyond our own desires, urges, compulsions and even needs, to guide us. For the disciples that was their faith in Jesus' teachings about and their personal commitment to his cause of advancing God's Reign. Is that enough for us? Can that influence us, guide us? I suppose only time will tell.