G Matthew 11:1 - 12:50 Deeds of Authority

11:1-19 What makes JB stand out?

More issues with John Baptist: (The other issues include: there may have been hints of a suggestion of a familial likeness between the two that gave rise to the whole cousin thing; Jesus was baptised by JB; he was a disciple of JB; at some point there was a parting of the ways; the beginning of the ministry of Jesus was linked in some way with the imprisonment of JB; there was an ongoing group of devotees who saw JB as the one, not Jesus; the Jesus and the JB movements competed for some disciples.)

So then, more issues with Jesus and JB. (i) Are you the one or shall we wait for another? The Baptist movement was, in part, a movement of expectation. There work, like that of the Essenes, was preparing for the coming one. They stood over against the Temple industry in Jerusalem and they called for acts of repentance and cleansing. (ii) The question can be answered by reference to the template of Isaiah 35:5-6 and 61:1 coupled with simple observation. “What have you seen and heard?” We, as second readers of Matthew, have seen the blind receive their sight (9:27-28), the lame walking (15:30-31), the lepers being cleansed (8:2), the deaf [mute] hearing (9:32-33, 12:22, 15:30-31), the dead raised (9:18-26) and the poor having good news preached to them (10:5-8). We too must answer the question and make our mind up. Bear in mind, there was no one early Jewish idea of the Messiah at the time of Jesus, just as there was no one single form of Judaism. The question is therefore whether Jesus is adding one more conception to the pile or is he distancing himself from the Davidic Messiah of the Psalms of Solomon 17 while not excluding many others?

(iii) What did you go out into the wilderness to see? The suggestion is that the reed, the people in purple and the prophets are all common sights along the Jordan? It would be banal to suggest that that’s what the people were attracted out to see. It is not that JB could be dismissed with these similes: JB was not like any of these. Even ‘prophet’ doesn’t capture him; he is more than a prophet. The implied answer is: “No, you went out to see much more than these.” But, even the “much more” does not make it into the Kingdom of Heaven, even though, for those with eyes to see, he is Elijah who is to come. JB belongs to the era before the Kingdom. There is no human being greater than John but he is ranked lower than the least in the Kingdom. John is the greatest figure from the age that preceded the Kingdom. This is not a judgment on John but a consequence of the dawn of the Kingdom. Is the “least in the Kingdom” an oblique reference to Paul (the least of the apostles) or to the “little ones” of Matthew’s group?

(iv) Elijah who is to come: Elijah as the one preparing the way for God’s Anointed is “a Christian adaptation of Mal. 4:5-6 rather than a direct appropriation of a familiar Jewish pattern”. (Harrington, p. 161)

(v) “From the days of John the Baptist till now the Kingdom of Heaven has suffered violence”: in the days from then until now, people have argued as to what that means. [Luz, vol 2, pp. 140-141] One possibility has to be that Herod’s family and court are the violent and that their treatment of JB is a key part of the violence done to the Kingdom. The complication lies with JB being a part of the stage of history that lies before the Kingdom.

(vi) The children in the market place. The parable has its setting in the market place where the children speaking (the ‘we’) are sitting down: they are acting out the part of judges sitting in judgment on their non-playmates. What had been on offer were two games: the wedding game (piping and dancing) and the funeral game (wailing and mourning). The children under judgment would play neither game. Differences in interpretation come from attempting to link the parable to its context of “this generation” at the beginning and JB and the Son of Man at the end. If we ignore the introduction as introduction we get a popular interpretation where Jesus and JB sit in judgment on this generation. If we take the Introduction to the Parable so that the present generation are the ones who say “We played the flute for you …” then the concluding section (“For John can neither …”) is difficult to fit into the mouths of the present generation: what is their issue with Jesus and John? Luz (2/147) offers a third interpretation. This generation is compared with children in general: they are capricious and cannot decide what to play and the opportunity to play passes them by.

11:20 – 12:14 Various pieces

11:20-24 Blasting a few cities
Using forms and language used by the prophets, Matthew develops a theme of rejection of Jesus by largely Jewish cities in Israel. They are threatened more comprehensively than Israel’s enemies in the past. “The theological assumption of Matt. 11:20-24 is that Jesus’ miracles were not intended merely as displays but rather demanded the response of repentance in the face of the coming kingdom of God.” (Harrington, 165) Israel must not “stand on its spiritual privileges” (Harrington, 166). We do not have to jump to see this as a general rejection of the Matthean preaching by an unrepentant Israel.

11: 25-30 Revelation lite
Verses 25-27, with the public address to the Father and the mutual and focused revelation between Father and Son on the one hand and Son and believer on the other, is so Johannine that this has been referred to as “the Johannine thunderbolt”. I’ve forgotten who coined this phrase but the metaphor is apt

The saying of the yoke (28-30) is found only in Matthew. It is a metaphor that speaks of swapping one yoke for another, not taking the yoke away. The yoke can be of economic domination, of slavery and of crucifixion. The images are collective and not individual, of sharing a task and of learning from Jesus. The promised “rest” for the soul is found by being yoked with Jesus.

12: 1-14 Sabbath controversies
The last two of Mark’s five controversy stories (Mk. 2:1 – 3:6) complete the first three (Matt. 9:1-17). We could view the two Sabbath “controversies” as examples of the “work in progress” (WIP) as to how we are to understand the Sabbath. Our synagogue and their synagogue, our teacher and their teachers (“Pharisees”) discuss the cases that test the consensus: what about getting food and healing non-life threatening illnesses? “Is it permitted” on the Sabbath? That the Sabbath is to be observed is not questioned by Matthew’s group. The theological grounding of Sabbath can be either on the basis of creation (God rested on the seventh day) Ex. 20:11, or on the basis of redemption (you were once slaves in Egypt but now you are free) Deut 5:15.

Gathering grain from a local field is permitted but what about if it is on the Sabbath? The counter example of dealing to hunger is not a close parallel at all: not on the Sabbath and David had no companions, was not hungry, did not enter the house of the God, did not eat the bread of the presence and did not overlap with Abiathar was high priest. The connection may be in that they both relate to standing down “what is permitted” from an absolute position in order to deal with human hunger. If David can eat the priests’ bread then how much more can the Son of Man allow his disciples to “reap” on the Sabbath? Also, the priests in the Temple work on the Sabbath, e.g. putting out the daily “show bread”. The principle at work here: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”. The enigma here: What is “greater than the Temple”? Is it Jesus or the Kingdom? The overarching theme: The son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.

The second debate is over whether non-urgent healing is lawful on the Sabbath. “They” have the home town advantage: it takes place in “their synagogue” rather than in Matthew’s synagogue. Current debate allows for rescuing an animal that has fallen into a pit (although the Qumran Essenes forbad the rescuing of such an animal). “If a sheep, how much more a human being?” is the light and heavy argument. The debate is the key thing, not the healing, which is almost incidental. Mathew may not know the radical saying: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The principal at work here: “It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath”.

12:15 – 21 Transitional Summary
Jesus’ response to the plotting against his life (12:14) is to say nothing, and to have nothing said. Matthew will say: this was to fulfill the role of the silent servant (Is. 42:1-4)

12:22-37 The Sin against the Holy Spirit
The strong man has already been bound (Matt. 4:1-11) by Jesus led by the Spirit. Now, as a sign of the in breaking Kingdom, Jesus is casting out demons by the Spirit of God. This is a mopping up operation, not the continuing work of Beelzebul. To confuse the two is to insult/blaspheme the Holy Spirit, and to consequently put oneself outside the sphere of influence of the Spirit, outside the reach of forgiveness. It is unforgiveable.

The source of Jesus Power is thus not badness but goodness. The good tree can only bring forth good fruit and viper’s mouth is only full of poison. Your words are you on show and you will be judged by them. The good person has an endless supply of good things that will come out of her treasury of good.

12:33 – 50 Various

12:38-42 Perhaps a sign or two?
It is an “evil and adulterous generation” that asks for a sign, calling in question the covenant love of God, the husband of Israel (Hos. 1-3) Three things you just don’t do: call for a census, seek after a king and hanker after a sign. They are alike, acts of unfaithfulness to God.

Between the three Synoptic Gospels there are three responses to the issue of signs. In Mk 8:11-12 no sign is given at all, maybe in line with the Marcan secrecy motif. In Luke, arguably the more original version of Q, a sign is given, the sign of Jonah, and this sign is the preaching of repentance: to the Gentiles in Jonah and to the marginalized in Luke. In Matthew there is the sign of Jonah but here the sign is the three days Jonah is within the sea creature. Both Jonah and Jesus experience a kind of death-resurrection, even though details vary (after three days, on the third day). Not only do the inhabitants of Nineveh stand in judgment on this generation but so also does the Queen of Sheba. Jesus and Solomon were exemplars of Wisdom. The Queen of the South came all that way to seek out Solomon’s Wisdom whereas Jesus’ is so much greater.

(The tip of the Jesus Wisdom tradition: Matt 5-7; Jn. 1:1-14; 1 Cor. 1:21-24)
You connect up the dots!

Luz (2/223) has a challenging reflection on the contemporary need to reverse Matthew’s interpreting Jonah’s paradoxical sign in the clear light of the unambiguous, non-mysterious sign of the resurrection of Jesus and a consequential reversal of a Day of Judgment scene. (Instead of Jonah’s mysterious sign being clarified by the crystal clear sign of the resurrection of Christ, Jonah’s clear sign interprets Christ’s mysterious resurrection.) Check it out

12: 43-45 The tenants from hell
Into the recently vacated, recently “presented” house tumble the tenants from hell. Are we expected to draw some moral learning from this, such as “not all change is for the better”? Is this intended to be an allegory/parable about the recent history of Israel, following the cleansing and ordering performed by Jesus?

Is it a piece of gnomic wisdom that describes what invariably happens (swallows fly south in the winter)? What are we to conclude? Don’t drive out the first tenant? Don’t clean up after him? Don’t leave it unoccupied? Get a new property manager? Perhaps its application is wider than the individual. Certainly the closing line applies it in some way to “this evil generation”.

Or is it that mightier one can just as easily expel the whole Kelly Gang as young Ned? The language is reminiscent of the conquest of Canaan stories – YHWH drives out seven nations mightier than the nascent Israel (Deut 7:1 which I stumbled on, purely by accident.)

The language of “the resting place” (anapausis) also occurs at 11:29 in the promise to those who are weary and heavy laden. The old occupant of the house doesn’t find such a resting place in the wilderness: the new tenants are offered such a rest in Jesus. What do you think?

In the context of the woes against this evil generation who reject Jesus any parallel between the rejection of Jesus and the ejection of the original demon from the house becomes bizarre. It is no more bizarre to see the new family (in the following section) as the new/alternative/rightful tenants. [Matthew could have made our life a little easier if he had made his intention clearer!]

12: 46-50 New family, new tenants?
Mark’s story, with the family coming to fetch home the crazy son, is more colorful than Matthew’s version where their motives and intentions are unclear; Mark also has the whole “inside-outside” thing going on too. Matthew does not allow for the interpreta­tion of the “intervention” of Jesus’ first family in the light of the narrative’s creation of a new for a new community, as does Mark. Could they be in the narrative as the new tenants after all?