4:18-22 The Paradigmatic Calling

The Gospel of Mark (1:21-22) is the source of Matthew at this point. Two sets of brothers are called to be disciples (“follow me”) and to function as disciples: the fishing metaphor used for the activity of preaching and healing that will be spelt out later (Matt. 10:1 cf. Mk. 3:14f where it is put much better. Why change it?) The immediate response to the call reminds us of the call of Elisha by Elijah (1 Kings. 19:19-21): ”passing … saw … called … left … followed …” The word of Jesus is both compelling and effective. The call to follow Jesus spells disruption to these families; the disciples walk away from their kin and their responsibilities. “Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.” We have few, if any, points of contact with the trauma of such a move away. The constituting of the new family, “my mother and my brothers” is not spelt out until Matt.12:46-50.

Matt 4:23-25 The Crowds Gather

The final act of preparation for the ministry is to gather the people together who will be the fictive audience for the Sermon on the Mount. Before we get to the first of the five blocks that will present Jesus the Teacher, we are reminded of the sorts of things Jesus, and his disciples, did by way of preaching the kingdom of heaven. Superlatives abound: every, all, various, great. We are left in no doubt that Jesus was a healer of renown: there was nothing he couldn’t and didn’t do, there was nowhere his fame didn’t spread. Women and children played a key part in this “gossip network” (Malina & Rohrbaugh, pp. 45f.) that spread his fame throughout the Roman province of Syria. Surrounded by such a crowd, we are now ready to see and hear Jesus. The crowd will be “astounded at his teaching” (7:28).

Matthew 4:12 - 25 The beginning of the ministry of Jesus

Matt 4:12-17 The Arrest of the Baptist and the Beginning of the Preaching

Following Mark, Matthew sets the arrest of the Baptist as the pivotal event that begins the ministry of Jesus. He too will tell us about the arrest and death of John at a later date (Matt. 14:1-12). At the present point, the arrest of John is ominously foreshadowed as he too is “handed over” (4:12, cf. 26:2). Here also the summary of the message of Jesus is identical to that of the Baptist: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is come near”. There is continuity between these two eschatological preachers.

There are also immediate differences. In the next pericope Jesus will call his own disciples. Here he moves further away from the locale of John, departing Nazareth for Capernaum. We are not prepared as readers for the move out of the wilderness into the heart of upper Galilee, but as with the move to Nazareth (2:23), scriptural warrant is found (Is 9:1-2) for the memory (?) that Capernaum was “home base” for Jesus in Galilee. It is strange that Matthew has Jesus “withdraw” to Galilee, the territory of Herod Antipas who kills the Baptist. Elsewhere Matthew uses “withdraw” as a term for fleeing for refuge, e.g. 2:13, 14, 23 away from Herod the Great or from Herod Antipas. and for the Magi giving Herod the slip (2:12). Jesus is not running for cover from Herod: If we can borrow a metaphor from Luke 13:32, “that fox” will one day be bearded.

Matthew will use “kingdom of heaven” where Mark and Luke use “kingdom of God” for the dawning reality of the rule of God in this world, actualized in the parables, teaching and healing power of Jesus and experienced in the open and abundant table of God. The summary statement of preaching of John and Jesus may be identical, their fates may be similar, but their roles in bringing in the kingdom turn out to be different. All this we remember and look forward to exploring again.

4:1-11 The Testing of the Son of God

Having been designated “Son of God” by the heavenly voice, Jesus is lead out to that specially evocative place, "the wilderness", to be tested, as was that other “Son of God” Israel (Hosea 11:1). That is where the focus of Matthew at this point, not on a set of moral hoops through which Jesus is made to jump by the tempter. All of this is under the control of the Spirit, which as a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, Israel was lead in the wilderness.

The “wilderness” is not so much a geographical location as it is an evocation of a scriptural experience: the wilderness is: (i) the place where God formed his chosen people, (ii) the place where God was alone with his “beloved son” Israel, (iii) the place where God’s Son Israel was tested (Deut 8:2), and failed the test.

Jesus is tested by the devil, the minor functionary, the Satan, who tested Job to see if he would buckle. The testing comes at the end of forty days of fasting, such as Moses endured after smashing the tablets of stone (Deut. 9). The life of Moses continues to serve as a template, or counterpoint, for Matthew’s Jesus. We will soon see Jesus ascend a mountain and teach the people (5:1)

In preparation for his ministry, Matthew’s Jesus is tested to see whether as God’s Son he has an unwavering trust in God’s support and provision for his ministry to Israel. If not, he might as well call the whole deal off now. Mark’s two-verse testing of the new Adam, becomes an eleven verse testing of the Son of God, principally by the addition of the three tests for the newly designated Son of God. The three tests are addressed to issues of hunger, protection and homage. The tests are answered by reference to the wilderness story from the book Deuteronomy.

In the wilderness, Israel grumbles “Why has God brought us out of Egypt to this place to starve. We were better off where we were” (Exod. 16:3, 17:3, 14:11f). God protects his Son Israel from poisonous snakes and provides water from the rock and mana from the sky. “I fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good”. However, the Son of God Israel forgets God’s care and providence and makes other gods and worships them.

We know, because we are second readers of the Gospel of Matthew that this will not be the end of testing in the story of Jesus. People will plot and conspire against Jesus, put him to the test and try to entrap him. We will recently have heard bandits and chief priests say to Jesus: “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross”. This is the major, fundamental test to Jesus’ integrity and sense of mission. “Surely there is another way?” We know that he passes this test too.

3:13-17 The Baptism of Jesus

We have seen the “people of Jerusalem and all Judea” going out to the Baptist; here Jesus goes out to the Jordan. The “baptism of John” is located at a specific place and administered by John. Dominic Crossan has called this a monopoly, as distinct from the baptism that is administered by all disciples of Jesus, anywhere, which he calls a franchise.

Matthew explicitly indicates that Jesus was baptized by John and against his protest; Mark explicitly has John baptize Jesus (1:9) but has no protest; Luke has the awkward reference to Jesus’ baptism, supposedly by John, after the reference to John being put in prison (3:22), but no protest; the Fourth Gospel does not report Jesus baptism and majors on protest. The embarrassment that gives rise to the protest (“John tried to prevent him …”) could arise from a sense of the superiority of Jesus to John or the nature of John’s baptism “for repentance”. John’s baptism is not a model for Christian baptism. Jesus is marked out with John’s baptism to “bear good fruit” and thus “fulfill all righteousness”.

Following the baptism of Jesus, the heavens are “opened”. On the assumption that Matthew used Mark as a source, Matthew has broken Mark’s closure created by the linking of the ripping of the heavens at the baptism with the ripping of the temple curtain by changing the first “ripping” to “opened”. What he gains (?) is the opening up of communication through the heavens.

We see the Spirit descending like a dove (following the flood?) but who else sees this? He saw probably best goes with Jesus as the subject but it could be John (as in John 1:32). Harrington favours a public event (p. 62).

The focus and point of the whole scene comes with the divine voice, the “bath qol” (daughter of the voice) an echo of a word uttered above and now coming through the opened heavens. “Son of God” is added to “Son of Abraham” and “Son of David” from the genealogy. This allows for the testing of the “Son of God” in 4:1-11 (“If you are the Son of God…”)

The baptism story links backward and forward in Matthew’s story and it links Jesus to the Baptist and places him beyond John. “Treasures old and treasures new” (13:52) does not suggest, or require, a “replacement theology”. The treasures are balanced off by Matthew.

Matthew 3:1 - 4:11 Preparation for the Ministry of Jesus

Matt 3:1-12 Reflections on John the Baptist

All the gospels relate but distance Jesus and John. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist (Explicitly in Matthew and Mark, with some confusion in Luke and there is no reported baptism in John. Jesus is the greater one whose sandals he is unworthy to untie.
Mark has Jesus begins his ministry after John is put in prison. John is the one who prepares the way. Luke’s Gospel has Jesus and John as cousins. Herod, who has had John killed, confuses Jesus’ preaching with that of John and asks whether John has risen from the dead. The Fourth Gospel has Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, as a disciple of John who switches his allegiance to Jesus and tells his brother about it. “One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. “ The Fourth Gospel also says that Jesus baptized disciples. In this Gospel, the Baptist who is called “John” functions like one of those exaggerated big fingers you see at ball games: he points to Jesus and says “he’s the one!”

Why are the gospels at such pains to distinguish Jesus from John the Baptist?

• The Fourth Gospel says that Jesus is the true light and John is not: “there was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” To say that John the Baptist “was not the light” suggests that many were saying that he was the light. Similarly, to have him say “I am not the Christ, I am just the messenger pointing to Christ” carries the implication that some were confessing him to be the Christ. Would we have ever thought that this strange man was the Christ if we had not had it suggested to us?
• Hindsight is wonderfully clear. When you have to work hard to make a distinction after the event, there was probably a great similarity there at the time. Were Jesus and John actually all that different? Was there a familial likeness between them that allowed Christian tradition to paint them as cousins?
• It would seem that Jesus and John came out of the same environment. Jesus went out to John and was baptized by him. Matthew has the Baptist say that he is unworthy of this honor: “I should be baptized by you!” Nevertheless, John baptized Jesus, as embarrassing as this may have been to admit.
• The fact that Jesus was baptized by John is not a trivial matter. It puts the stamp of John’s movement on him. John could have had some association with the purification movement of the Essenes at Qumran on the Dead Sea. We know quite a bit about this early form of Judaism because we read their writings and their scriptures. They saw themselves as in opposition to the Jerusalem Temple and as people who were preparing the way of the Lord in the desert by interpreting Scripture. Ritual purification played a central part in their way of being Jewish: John’s baptism, as we see it in the Gospels, is different.
• Jesus was, initially, a disciple of John; baptism and ethical purity were central keys along with a conviction that these were significant times within the big strategic plan of God. Jesus moved on from this, away from the radical, hermit, recluse movement of John towards his own form of radicalism that had more in common with the Pharisees.
• John’s baptizing movement was a monopoly – people had to come to where John was; Jesus’ Kingdom movement was a franchise – his disciples could preach, heal and baptise. (JD Crossan)
• The Baptist in his Elijah clothes was a precursor to Jesus.
• The attempt to distinguish Jesus from John, and the attempt to rank them – John prepares the way for Jesus and no more – raises the implication that during the first century, the early Christian movement was competing for adherents with the Baptist movement just as they were with other Jewish groups. Jesus attracted adherents away from John, people represented by the character Andrew in the Fourth Gospel.
• There was not one way of being early Jewish in the first century of the Common Era. So too, there was no one, unified, powerful, victorious entity known as the Christian church for several centuries. Things are very fluid, particularly within the first century, despite what the story of the “Acts of the Apostles” would have us believe.
• Yet, there are some lines being drawn in the sand by the time the Gospels were being assembled and written in the last quarter of the first century. The Fourth Gospel is saying: we are different from the followers of the Baptist and we are different from the members of the Synagogue. We know stuff about Jesus. We know where he came from and where he went. He was not from Nazareth; he was from above.
• The Gospel of Matthew, as we will see, is nuancing things a little differently and allowing for a tension. It will involve “something old and something new”. "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old." (Matt 13:52)
• The readers of the Gospels are not given a moment’s peace. They are constantly being pushed into making a decision. In this morning’s Gospel this choice is beginning to shape up as a choice for Jesus or a choice for John the Baptist.
• So, we have moved on from the story of Jesus’ beginnings – the genealogy and the Magi. We are seeing the preparation for Jesus’ preaching and healing and feeding “Kingdom of Heaven”. We are seeing that there is continuity and discontinuity with John the Baptist.

If we have read through the Gospel of Matthew then this will be starting to make sense.

2:13-23 Herod seeks to kill the King of the Jews

There are many things happening in the story and we can order the picture by asking what various characters do: what does Herod do? In contrast what does Joseph do? What part did the Magi play? How is God stage directing the whole play? What does the narrator tell us about scripture and how does this add to Matthew’s birth story?

What does Herod do? He provides the occasion for the cast to go to Egypt. We, and Joseph already know why they go and for how long. He launches a broadcast attack on all the boys under two in the hope of catching one. The reference to a calculation based on a conversation with the magi falls over since we do not know how long ago the conversation took place. It adds a history-like element to the story but it is not history – no blood is left on the pages of history. (Brown, p. 204, mentions population calculations that lead to a number of about 20 boys in this age group.) Herod also models Pharaoh and therefore allows Jesus to model Moses and Joseph to model the original Joseph who went down from Canaan to Egypt. Egypt is the land of refuge as well as the land of plenty (Brown, p. 203).

What does Joseph do? He models a pious obedience. Just as the angel of the Lord says, so he does: he gets up, takes the child and its mother and goes (e.g. 2:20f.)

What do the magi do? They set everything in motion by leaving, having been “warned in a dream” (2:12). I find this strange, the warning coming through a dream. Has something changed since they gave homage to the child? Herod perceives that they have tricked/mocked him. We know that Jesus will be mocked by the soldiers (27:31 “Hail King of the Jews!”) and by the Jerusalem leaders (27:41 “He saved others …”)

What does the angel of the Lord do? He warns Joseph to flee and to return ( “those who are seeking the child’s life are dead”) He is a source of information and advice

What does Matthew do? He interprets what is happening to us by means of the narrator and he provides the reflection on Scripture that links the birth story to:

• Egypt. He takes us there with the original Joseph “Out of Egypt I have called my Son” We have heard Son of Abraham, Son of David, and now we are alerted to the designation Son of God which we will hear at the baptism. Exodus from Egypt - a significant marker, pointing to a new exodus and a new redeemer, a new Moses. Moses will continue to provide a model for Jesus, fasting 40 days in the wilderness and going up a high mountain and returning with teaching
• Exile. Ramah, near Bethlehem, thought to be the site of the tomb of Rachel “Rachel weeping for her children” The link doesn’t appear as tight to us as it does to Matthew. The exile allows for a return (Isaiah 40, 52), providing another point of formation of the people of God and another sign of God’s love and protection. This doesn’t happen at the expense of the children: it is not “in order to fulfill scripture”.
• Nazareth A traditional link that is conveniently/necessarily made; Jesus of Bethlehem needs to become “Jesus of Nazareth”, the son of Mary and Joseph, the carpenter’s son.

Matthew will continue to say “these things took place in order to fulfill the scriptures” We will be on the watch for them