January 17, 2014: Matthew Chapter 17

The Gospel According to Matthew Chapter 17

Originally posted January 22, 2008

Matthew Chapter 17:1-13 The Transfiguration

In this chapter we are faced with the unusual experience of three of Jesus' disciples, Peter, James and John. Jesus calls the experience a vision. Matthew, adapting the text from Mark's Gospel, tells us Jesus was transfigured in front of them, his appearance changed. His face shines and his clothes become dazzling white - as an angelic being. Jesus is joined by Moses and Elijah. Peter's response is the suggestion to build 3 commemorative booths (thatch huts), one for each. A bright cloud descends on all of them, including the disciples and there is a voice (God's) repeating the words from Jesus' baptism, "This is my Son, the Beloved;...listen to him."

What are we to make of this scene? We live in a technologically based world. Science and empirical reasoning generally prevail in our thinking. Most of us probably don't know anyone who has had a vision or seen a ghost. Dreams yes, but waking state visions? In more recent times we are aware of the visions of Nat Turner, several Popes, and the many visions of Mary in Europe and South America. A particularly powerful vision - in its affect - was that of 1858, seen in Lourdes, France by a shepherd girl, now Saint, Bernadette.

The Bible reports a number of visions. Moses sees a burning bush that is not consumed; Elisha sees Elijah taken up into heaven; Amos sees visions of Judgment as did Daniel; Ezekiel sees a new Jerusalem and a revived Israel and the Prophets of old "see" the words God gives them to proclaim. In the New Testament we read of Paul's vision of being caught up into the 3rd heaven and, of course, the visions of John of Patmos. Jewish and Hellenistic literature of the ancient world have many examples of visions. It was not considered unusual in the prevailing world view and no one was committed to an institution for having a vision.

Why visions appear and from whence they come, these may be questions we cannot answer with any certainty or clarity. What we can do is to interpret how Matthew uses this experience and what it meant to the early Church. Moses and Elijah represent the Law and the Prophets, the totality of Jewish scriptural authority. Moses brings Torah, Elijah is the forerunner of the coming of God's Kingdom, and both were rejected by Israel.  Peter's suggestion of "booths" is reminiscent of the annual Feast of Tabernacles (The Feast of Booths), sometimes associated with the coming of God's Kingdom. The heavenly cloud of light is the Shekinah, the brilliant presence of God's Glory abiding with Israel, as it was in the desert Tabernacle (Exod. 40:34-36) and later in the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 8:10-11). God's words, heard by the disciples, suggest the central truth of this experience for Matthew: "...listen to him," to Jesus. "Listen" is emphatic and means to obey him. Why Jesus? because, as Matthew will write, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, and as John's Gospel will make clear, Jesus has replaced the Temple in and through which the Shekinah - the presence of God, will be seen. I cannot over emphasize the importance of this theological truth. It tempts me to run to John's Gospel and plumb the mystery he will unfold for us. But that is for another day. For now, and for us, it is but a simple phrase, as Paul so eloquently writes, "...Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ,God was reconciling the world to himself..." (from 2 Cor. 5:16-20).

The closing verses of this section link the disciples' experience to Jesus' death and resurrection. Only in this context, with the resurrection as a backward looking lens, will the disciples or anyone else understand the full meaning of this "mountain top" event. Not before then will the disciples speak of it. Matthew ends with a reprise of Jesus' words in MT 11:13-15 about the link between John the Baptist and Elijah, the forerunner who prepares the repentant and restores all things for the coming Kingdom (Mal. 4:5-6). That Elijah is said to be coming and has already come, while it doesn't fit with our idea of time moving in one direction, does fit in Messianic expectations, where events already have begun but are not yet fully revealed, e.g. we speak of God's Reign beginning in Jesus' ministry (the already), but will be fully present only in the New Age (the not yet).

Matthew 17:14-21 The Boy with a Demon

This is the last healing/exorcism in Matthew's Gospel. Yet the meaning of the story has less to do with the healing itself, similar to those we have already read. Rather this is more a story of the disciples lack of faith and Jesus' teaching. Having come down from the ecstatic experience of the transfiguration, bathed in the light of God's presence, they have entered the real world of suffering. Though Jesus has previously commissioned them to heal the sick, cast out demons and proclaim the Kingdom of God as near (MT 10:5-15), they have not been able to defeat this demon. The boy's father has exhibited enough faith in their ability to heal his son, but they cannot. Jesus admonishes the disciples who lack the father's faith and fail. He wonders aloud whether these disciples whom he has chosen and given authority to battle the Kingdom of demons, will be strong enough in faith to avoid lapsing into this "perverse generation." In the usual Jewish style of hyperbole, Jesus invokes the tiny mustard seed, telling his disciples that a faith as small as this could not only heal this boy but could move a mountain. The question at hand is whether or not they (and Matthew's community)have enough trust in God's power working through them to carry forth Jesus' mission in the world.

Matthew 17:22-23 The Gathering

This brief piece represents the second of Jesus' predictions of his death and resurrection. As the Son of Man, the meek suffering servant, he has benn rejected by the religious establishment and will be betrayed, killed and be raised from the dead. The importance here is the reference to the gathering of the disciples in Galilee. In this part of the Gospel, now looking toward the journey to Jerusalem, the gathering represents the community that will carry forth his mission once he is no longer present with them. His prediction causes great distress among them. Do they now understand? Have they grown enough to accept their role, not as Jesus' replacement, but as an extension and reflection of his life and God's presence still abiding with them? Will they be the Church Jesus has called into existence? There is time yet, and on the journey ahead there will be more teaching, more questions, and more discussion of their role and place in the Kingdom, the Reign of God already begun but not yet here.

Matthew 17:24-27 The Temple Tax

The Temple tax was the didrachma or silver half Shekel, in the time of Jesus, minted in Tyre. Every Jewish male, beginning at age 20, was required to pay this tax for the upkeep of the Temple and support of its Priests (Exod. 30:11-16), although the amount and who was required to pay it or whether or not is was voluntary, was part of a lively debate in the pre-Temple period.

Peter has spoken on Jesus' behalf telling the tax collector Jesus does pay the Tax - a precursor to Peter's later role in the early Church as the chief spokesperson for the risen Christ. More important than the miraculous way Peter obtains the coins to pay the tax for Jesus and himself, is the interchange between them about who needs to pay the tax. Jesus concludes that the children of the King are free of the need to pay it (in this case meaning God's children, Israel and later, Jewish Christians). However, to show no offense he has Peter pay the tax. This probably reflects the real situation for Matthew's community, in a time after there was no Temple in Jerusalem (it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE). The Jewish historian Josephus writes that the Temple tax, a Jewish tax, was replaced by a new, equivalent Roman tax for all Jews, including by extension, Jewish Christians. for the support of the Temple of Jupiter in Rome. No doubt there were powerful objections against such a payment for a pagan temple. The Jews had no choice in the matter. This text indicates that, for Matthew, it would be less risky to pay it, recognizing as Christians of his time did, that the gods represented by such temples had no power or existence; they were just so much stone and wood. it also reflects Paul's teaching that freedom should be used with discretion. It may also have had  some value in demonstrating to the Synagogue leaders that their Christian adversaries would stand with them in this small matter.