I. Matthew 14:1 – 16:20 Jesus withdraws from Israel

14:1 – 33 The Murder of John the Baptist and Jesus’ First Withdrawal
This has got to be a pivotal point in the story; so too with Mark’s story. Things start to get really serious at this point; there is blood on the mat. In 11:1ff., the question had been asked: “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?” This provoked comparison between Jesus and John: now the choice is down to one – the Son of Man who will soon go up to Jerusalem.

John is put to death (14:1-12)
The issues of interpretation that jump out of this text include: which Herod do we have here, does the story fit in with history and all those parallels between the death of the Baptist and the death of Jesus.

Herod the Great was great at building/restoring, significant buildings, great at having children and great at killing them. We know of at least 15 of his children, of which 10 were sons. Five of his ten wives produced children who outlasted him. Three of this next generation of Herods, Archelaus (Judea), Antipas (Galilee) and Philip (Ituraea), inherited a share of the Kingdom. The will was immediately contested before Caesar Augustus who divided the former kingdom, making Archelaus “Ethnarch”(ruler of the nation) of Judea, Samaria and Idumea. Within a very short period of time, his Jewish and Samaritan subject appealed to Augustus over his brutality. His decision reduced the area to a province under a “Procurator” (one of which was Pontius Pilate). Herod Philip, son of Herod and Cleopatra, was made “Tetrarch” (ruler of a fourth) of a group of small areas and we don’t hear much about him.

Herod Antipas, the “Herod” of the Gospels, was Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. He founded Tiberius, his capital, on a burial site and hence had to populate the city with Gentiles.

Herod and his women. Herodias, daughter of Aristobulus, was originally married to (the other) Herod Philip, the son of Herod and Mariamne II, with whom she had a daughter Salome, the dancer in the story. Antipas had divorced his first wife and married his brother’s (former?) wife while the brother was still alive. Salome later married her uncle Philip the Tetrarch! (“Like sand through the hourglass, so …”)

Confusion with the Baptist. The “mighty words” done by Jesus are attributed to the powers of (the raised) John the Baptist. The parallels between the stories of Jesus and the Baptist will be set out below.

John’s imprisonment. (i) Where was he imprisoned? Josephus says it was in the fortress palace at Machaerus, northeast of the Dead Sea. (ii) Why was he imprisoned? Again, Josephus gives a different reason: he incited the people to riot. The Gospels say it was because he married his (living) brother’s wife (Lev. 20:21). Are they incompatible?

The birthday party. Which palace hosted the guests? Not necessarily Tiberius. Matthew omits Mark’s guest list and the reference to Herodias’ grudge against the Baptist. Suffering, no doubt, from a sudden rush of blood to the head, Herod makes a promise from which he cannot back down. (It has allusions to the stories of Jezebel and Esther.) Omitted also is Mark’s reference to Herod’s “fear of John” and his fondness for listening to him; Matthew just says he was grieved but wanted to put him to death. For Matthew, the whole action against the Baptist is ultimately attributable to the fact that “he was a prophet” and “a prophet is without honor …”(13;57).

The execution of John. Where did this take place? We don’t know. The story seems to assume that it was somewhere close at hand. What was going on with the whole “head on a platter” thing?

The story time of the story within a story (within a story?). There is a flashback from the story of Herod hearing reports about Jesus, to the previous story of the birthday bash execution. While we as readers hear the report of the circumstances of the killing, while we are present at the trade off of the Baptist’s life for an alcoholic/lustful boast, we are intended to see the implication that this event occurred some time ago. This has implications for 14:13 (“when Jesus heard this …”). Matthew has been less than smooth in assembling his sources.

The passion of John the Baptist. Davies and Allison set out the parallels between John and Jesus

John the Baptist4 - Upload a Document to Scribd

Jesus withdraws and feeds 5000 or so with 5 loaves and 2 fish (14:13-21)
The first withdrawal was to a lonely place on the edge of the Sea of Galilee.

This is the first of Mark’s two feeding miracles, performed on the Jewish side of the lake. He alone will repeat (15:32-39) Mark’s second feeding (4000 men, 7 loaves) that Mark balances off on the Gentile side of the lake (Mk. 8:1-10).

The feeding by Jesus contrasts with the banquet of Herod Antipas: healing, trust and sharing of feed so that everyone has enough contrasts with the arrogance and scheming of the ostentatious and overfed.

The feeding story of Jesus has overtones of the feeding by Elisha (2 Kgs 4:42-44), the four-fold action of the Christian liturgy (take, bless, break, share) and the Messianic banquet of Is. 25:6.

An epiphany, a rescue and a confession (14:22-33)
The separation of the disciples from Jesus allows Jesus to dismiss the crowd and also to “appear” to the disciples in the storm. The exact details of the destination of the journey across the 5 mile-wide lake are not essential to the story. The epiphany of Jesus echoes Scripture at several points: (i) Jesus walking on the water, is a creation theme of God walking on the spirits of the deep (Job 9:8); (ii) the picture of Jesus effecting a rescue at sea and subduing the storm echoes Psalm 107; (iii) “It is I” identifies the divine figure (Is 43:10f); (iv) Peter’s walking on the water is his attempt to share in the powers of the divine one; (v) Peter’s cry for help echoes the call to God to rescue his people from the perils of the deep (Ps. 69); (vi) Jesus, in stretching out his hand and rescuing Peter, does what God does (Ps 144:7). The narrator shows this epiphany, manifests Jesus doing what God does, for the benefit of Matthew’s group. Their claims for Jesus are set forth in this story. Matthew’s heroes, the “little ones”, take their first steps and then fall over. They are rescued to see another day. Jesus is their “Lord”, the anointed of God.

14:34 – 15:39 Controversy over True Purity and Jesus’ Second Withdrawal

Mark’s Transitional Summary (14:34-36)
The landfall of Jesus and his ones of “little faith” at Gennesaret is met by the crowds who “recognize him”. He is outed! What is recognized is not what we have been privy to in the epiphany but his ability to do sheer works of power. The fringe-touchers are healed. The transitional summaries typically show Jesus providing “bang for the buck” (so to speak) to “all”.

Clean and unclean (15:1-20)
We have not yet reached Jerusalem but this “official-like” delegation brings Jerusalem and the impending passion out to Jesus, or at least the concerns of these champions of the new ways. The “tradition of the elders” is code for the growing collection of interpretation, explanation, application of the written Torah (“teaching of God”). They way the story was beginning to be told was that there was a two-fold Torah given to Moses on Sinai. The written Torah was the five books of Moses. The oral Torah would first be codified as the Mishnah in the late 2nd century and would be associated with Rabbi Judah the Prince. The Mishnah would in turn itself be adapted and codified as the Gemorah of the Palestinian and Jerusalem Talmuds.

Two issues relating to this young tradition come under debate here: the rinsing of hands before eating and the practice of “korban”. What is at issue with the “rinsing of hands” before eating is not a matter of personal hygiene but of ritual cleanliness, the removal of defilement, from the hands of those, who at the table in the house, would come to represent the priests at the Temple altar. Jesus and his disciples don’t follow this particular tradition. It may not be a mainstream Pharisaic practice prior to the Gospel of Mark (7:1-4) and Matthew does not accept that it is a defining issue of what it is to be Jewish. He removes reference to this being a widespread practice amongst Jews (“and all Jews”) as he also does with Mark’s abolition of Jewish food laws (7:19 “this he declared all food clean”). Matthew and his Jewish-Christian group were in a different place from Mark and his community. In Matthew, these matters are very much still under discussion.

His “you might but we don’t” defence is followed by a refutation of this new “korban” practice. “The charge is that the custom of declaring something sacred and a gift to God has become a device for depriving parents of what they should rightfully expect from their children” (Harrington, 229). Rather than honoring and exemplifying the command of Torah that parents be supported during their “long days in the land which the Lord your God gives you”, this new practice of separating off assets so that they go to the Temple and not to the support of parents makes the commandment null and void. The claim that the assets are “given to God” avoids the claim of the parents “that their days might be long …”. (This smells of a secret trust fund!)

The distinction between what goes into the mouth and what comes out of the mouth allows for the precedence of moral over ritual matters. What comes out of the heart. By way of the mouth, is what defiles. Matthew’s “vice list” seems to have some connection with the Ten Commandments. The image of the shoot planted by God (Is. 60:21), prized within some 1st century Jewish groups is here denied to Matthew’s debating partners: they will be uprooted. Eating with unwashed hands is not a cause of ritual defilement.

The Canaanite woman (15:21-28)
Matthew changes Mark so that the woman is now a Canaanite, she may now be accompanied by her daughter and (most importantly) Matthew’s Jesus now issues a programmatic statement that he “is sent to the lost sheep (of) the house of Israel”. Matthew also removes the reference to feeding the children first. As in Mark, she bests Jesus in the argument; the dogs get fed along with the children. The Gentiles are included within those who come to Jerusalem (Zech 8:20-23), and within Matthew’s group, but there is a precedence for the Jews.

The second withdrawal and a transitional summary (15:29-31)
The generalized healing scene is placed within Israel (“Tyre and Sidon” are removed) illustrating the precedence of Israel but Gentiles might be amongst those healed who “glorify the God of Israel”.

Feeding of the four thousand (15:32-39)
Matthew takes over Mark’s second feeding story (the feeding on the Gentile side of the lake) and makes it his own. We note the key role of the disciples in the feeding; they know how much/little food there is and they are responsible for distribution. Matthew also has the fish drop out of the story altogether instead of forming the substance of a second distribution (Mk. 8:7)

H. Matthew 13:1 - 53 Discourse on Parables

An aside about parables.

What can I say about the parables of Jesus? “Much in every way!” Jesus was not the only teller of parables of his time; his are just the most enduring. They are either a simple (e.g. the parable of the mustard seed), or an extended (e.g. the parable of the father who had two sons) , metaphor. They do not so much give information about, but allow participation in, the Kingdom of God. They are not teaching illustrations. They often tease out, or shock, the mind in order to convey the reality of the kingdom. Parables do not spell out the reality they are conveying: allegories spell out the reality, often in great detail. Allegories are often parables that have gone to seed: they become a code which is to be cracked and then thrown away. Our current chapter in Mark gives an example, the allegory of the seeds. (Who would have ever thought that the Satan is the birds that came and ate the seeds?) St Augustine shows agility for interpreting parables allegorically that beggars belief.

Parables can be echoes of the voice of the historical Jesus and also exercises in the history of interpretation, interpreting away the troubling voice of Jesus. Some parables tell us more about how parables were used at the time of the writing of the gospel; this neither shocks nor worries us.

In recent times, the “Chicago School” of Norman Perrin, John Donahue, Mary Ann Tolbert, John Dominic Crossan, Bernhard Brandon Scott and Robert Funk have been our most helpful guides into the parables.

From a pervious era, CH Dodd has given a definition of parables that is still a good starting point for discussion:“A metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearers by its vividness or strangeness and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought” (The Parables of the Kingdom, p. 5)

Like Mark chapter four, Matthew 13 is not a “Parables 101”course. On the contrary, it contains some of the most difficult text to read intelligently.

13:1-23; the parable of the soils

The parable (13:1 – 9)
The same seed is broadcast over four different types, or qualities, of soils. The parable is not about seed, or for that matter about the sower who disappears from the story after the first sentence, but about the soil where the seed falls. This is reinforced in the explanation. The parable will serve to explain the various receptions of the preaching of the Kingdom. This will be reinforced by the explanation of the reason for speaking in parables.

We notice several things: (i) The rocky ground receives the greater attention; (ii) There are three explanations for the lack of success; (iii) Peter will receive the sobriquet “Rocky” from Jesus. (Do you see where this is heading?) (iv) Matthew has changed the number and sequence of the growth (100, 60, 30) from what he found in Mark (30, 60, 100). The Gospel of Thomas has 60, 120; (v) The parable ends without explanation, like a good joke!

The reason for speaking in parables (13:10 – 17)
How are we to explain the various paths between seeing and believing (to use a Johannine distinction)? How is it that some understand (13:51) and some were just astounded (13:54)? This mystery continues to exercise Matthew’s group as it had those before and after them. What Matthew passes on from Mark is a clarification of Mark’s ambiguous “in order that” (hina clause). Now there is no suggestion of a determinism whereby Jesus teaches in parables so that those who are “outside” will not be able to perceive and understand and turn and be forgiven. In Matthew there is now no suggestion that Jesus was setting out to obscure things. The fact that as a result of Jesus speaking in parables, some people just “do not get it” is a part of the “mystery” hidden in the plan and purposes of God that will be revealed at a later date. We make choices that effect our future: other people make different choices. None of us is locked into the choices we make. There is no determinism here.

The explanation of the parable of the soils (13:18 – 23)
The allegory lines up two lists (A, B, C, …& a, b, c, …) and draws lines of correspondence (A corresponds with a, B with b and so on.) once these (often bizarre and non-intuitive) correspondences have been made we have cracked the code; the parable can be thrown away. It has no further use; we have the real kernels and the husks can be dispensed with.

In contrast, the worth of the parable is in the ongoing process it takes us through whereby we see the real world in a new way.

Allowing for parables being multivalent, having more than one meaning, the allegory presents the view that the parable of the sower can, as the allegory of the seeds/soils does, explain the mystery of the preaching of the Kingdom. One such explanation of the attention given to the rocky soil (“… not much soil, …no depth of soil, … no roots …) is that it is a paradigm for the impetuous but shallow behavior of Peter (“Rocky1”)

13: 24 – 30, 36 – 43; the parable of the planted weeds

The parable of the planted weeds (13:24 – 30)
This second agricultural parable addresses a comparable problem; how are insiders to react to the problem of a lack of response, or a negative response, from those who hear the preaching of Matthew’s group. How could this come about? Here it is seen as a negative planting rather than the inevitable result of different soils. Patience is counseled: there will be a sorting out at an appointed time.

The explanation of the parable of the planted weeds (13:36 – 43)
The unanimous conclusion of the Parables Seminar was that this allegorizing was the activity of Matthew’s group. The allegorized code is very clear: A is a and B is b. “The field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; …” The problem is how is it that some fellow Jews accept the preaching of the Kingdom and others reject it.

13: 31 – 50; several short parables

The parable of the mustard seed (13:31 – 32)
This parable of Jesus has gone in several directions: maybe they all work and are therefore all true.

The Gospel of Thomas (“it is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds. But when it falls on tilled soil, it produces a great plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the air.”) is the clearest of the four telling of the parable and may represent a parody of Ezekiel’s metaphor of the noble and lofty cedar tree (Ez 17:22-23)

Mark’s telling has “a bob both ways” with the miraculous smallest – greatest contrast and the parody, but it is a bit of a mess.

Matthew and Luke both seem to want to tidy Mark up. Luke succeeds better than Matthew who has the “greatest of shrubs that becomes a tree”.

It has been suggested (Elizabeth Struthers Malbon) that the mustard seed is like, say, ginger plant that once sown becomes a rampant weed that takes over everything. The kingdom is “a weed that grows out of control”? Live with the pain!

The parable of the leaven (13:33)

There are several points of pain in this “one-liner”:

• The Kingdom on heaven is leaven. It was leaven and not yeast. Yeast is domesticated and lives in a jar in the fridge. Leaven was strange and evil and a symbol of moral corruption. It must be hunted down and expelled from the house before the feast of Unleavened Bread. Paul uses it as a metaphor for the rot and decay that has spread through the Galatian community; his use is akin to the proverb “one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel”.
• The woman hides the leaven. She does not knead it into the flour, she hides it, she is sinister in her actions
• Three measures of flour. Does the measure equate with a (heaped?) tablespoon or with a sack? The best guess put it at an amount that would make a hundred loaves or more. More significant is that this phrase (“three measure of flour”) is associated with a epiphany Abraham and Sarah entertain the three visitors, one of whom is the Lord (Gen 18:6). Gideon prepares to meet the angel of God (Jud 6:19). Samuel’s mother brings food for his dedication at the Temple. (1 Sam 1:24). Negativity gives way to a surprise presence.
• Until all is leavened. Whatever she was hiding it for has now had its way with the huge mass of flour. We have a giant loaf that befits a children’s story.
• All of this, the corruption, the impurity, the secrecy; all this negativity, is put before us as a metaphor of the kingdom
• A contemporary Jewish hearing of the parable sees the contrast between the leavened and unleavened bread as between the splendid and the insipid. Even in the midst of hardship we can receive a token of the love of God. The woman’s task is to nurture her family and ensure that things don’t get too dark for them. She sneaks in a little leaven. (Rabbi Johanna)

The parable of the treasure hidden in the field (13:44)
The Kingdom of Heaven is the treasure hidden in a field. A man found it, he hid it, he sold all, he bought the field. Where does that leave him?

• Why was treasure hidden in fields? In the face of the ever-present reality of war and robbery, it was simply the safest place to store it. The location was often kept such a secret that in time the treasure became lost. Thus, discovering a “treasure trove” was not an uncommon experience
• What was involved in the person “selling all that he had”?It indicates that this character was almost certainly a peasant farmer. Ancestral land was involved in the “all” and thus the extended family was involved. Land is not a commodity: the land is the family and the family is the land. He thus cuts himself off from his world and makes himself materially and spiritually vulnerable
  

So, he finds hidden treasure, he covers it up, he goes and sells all and then buys the field. What do we know?

• He is setting out to dupe the owner of the field. There is really no other explanation of his act of covering up the treasure
• Having seemingly gotten away with his scurrilous plan, he now has nothing in the world - except the piece of land where he has re-hidden the treasure”
  

There is an extensive literature involving treasure trove stories from the Mediterranean world, particularly stories from early Jewish literature. (See Finding is the First Act by Dominic Crossan)

• If the treasure shows signs of being intentionally planted in the ground, e.g. stacked, or in a pot, then it is not ownerless. If it is scattered randomly about then it is ownerless
• This stash is not ownerless, and in such cases the find is to be declared and the owner sought
• Sometimes, stories show that a good, upright, pious finder might get to keep some of the find
• Sometimes, stories show that it is OK to defraud a scoundrel or a fool
• Certainly the popular playground rule “finders keepers, losers weepers” does not operate here.

The man’s action of re-hiding the treasure shows us that he does not rate his chances of being granted ownership if he goes down the route of announcing his find. He elects to play the part of the rogue

• If the treasure belongs to the finder by right of finding then buying the field is unnecessary.
• If the treasure does not belong to the finder, then buying the land, as this fellow does, is scurrilous
• The man has totally boxed himself in
• He cannot realize anything of his “windfall” as that would expose him, he would be “outed”
• He cannot afford not to – he has nothing else, no plan B

He chooses to go it totally alone: no preparation, no training in the way of wisdom and virtue, no forethought, no family, no morality. He owes no one anything, he will share nothing with anyone, he will play the entrepreneur. There is narcissism in finding: it can lull us into thinking “it’s all about me!”

• He has lost our support as readers
• There are no concluding comments about virtue being rewarded with prosperity and happiness
• The parable of Jesus gives us no indication that we are to excuse the fellow.The parable shows the dark, corrupting side of the Kingdom

The parable of the pearl (13:45 – 46)
The merchant is out looking for the perfect pearl. Finding it is not a surprise. He ends up with a single asset, the priceless pearl. He is asset rich and cash poor. How will he meet his cashflow crisis? This is the corrupting power of the Kingdom. The “Hymn of the Pearl” is a Gnostic poem. The Gospel of Thomas comes out of a Gnostic background and, surprise surprise, it also has this parable: “The Kingdom of the Father is like a merchant who had a consignment of merchandise and who discovered a pearl. That merchant was shrewd. He sold the merchandise and bought the pearl alone for himself.”

The parable of the net (13:47 – 50)
A variation on the mixing of the weeds and the wheat within the field of the church. In the present case it is the good /fresh fish that are sorted into the pots and the undesirable/the rotten that are thrown away. The original parable could have begun and ended with verse 47. We probably remember the sorting of the sheep and the goats from our first encounter with 25:31ff. Good Matthew stuff!

13:51 – 58 Conclusion to the parables discourse
I am left wondering as to whether there is an intentional contrast between those who have understood these things and those who are his hometown folk who take offense at him and do not honor him.

Have you understood these things? (13:51 – 53)
“These things” are the parables. These understanding ones are those to whom it has been given to understand the mysteries of the kingdom and to whom more is given (13:11ff). In contrast to those who hear the parables but who do not listen and do not understand (13:13), these ones are blessed because their eyes see and the ears hear (13:16). Eminent amongst them is Matthew, the scribe who has been trained (mathe teuein) for the Kingdom. From his treasures he selects and hold up both the old and the new.

Have you not understood? (13:54 – 58)
A Matthean doublet (cf. 12:46 – 50) that includes, or brackets, the parable teaching. The true family of the teacher Jesus are those who understand the parables

We have now come to the end of this discourse.

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?

F. Matthew 9:35 - 10:42 Discourse to the Twelve.

9:35 – 10:4 Introduction

The metaphor of the shepherd and his sheep is powerful in Israel’s developing understanding of its relation to its God YHWH. The story of its first national king David as a shepherd boy, protective of his sheep and his family tribe could not have been stage managed better. The Psalms, of which David becomes the patron, are one of the places this metaphor of “the Lord” as the shepherd of the devout flock, is explored. A part of the common fund of experience and wisdom about sheep and shepherds was the high level of intimacy between Sheep and shepherd, the very high worth of the individual sheep and the high level of danger and risk associated with being a shepherd. The two Christian Jewish gospels develop the metaphor, Matthew here the “compassionate shepherd” and John 10 the good/noble shepherd who is also the door of the sheep.

The metaphor mixing begins here with the sheep being a harvest and the trainee shepherds becoming labourers for the harvest. It will continue throughout this discourse.

Matthew’s contribution to the listings and naming of the twelve occurs here. His listing is characterized by pairing up list members, Simon and Andrew, James and John, …

Lists

What Matthew’s list shares with the list in Mark and the two Luke-Acts lists is that Peter’s name comes first and that there are twelve names in the list (this may appear to be contradicted by the list in Acts 1 but the whole point of that list is to say it is lacking one member following Judas’ death and that lack must be made up immediately.) The names and the order of names is not consistent. Perhaps what was remembered most clearly was that there was a group of twelve selected from the disciples and that Peter played a special role amongst them. The calling and naming of the group also differs. Mark has Jesus call those whom he wanted from which he selects twelve to a special task; he also calls them “apostles” (also in 6:30 when they return). Luke also has the sequence calls … 12 … apostles. Matthew cuts to the chase and has Jesus call twelve apostles. Some of the twelve never occur in stories in the Gospel. The Gospel of John has six of the named disciples but has its own inner group of disciples Lazarus, Mary & Martha. There are clearly women among the group of disciples and some of them accompany him to his grave. All of this goes to show that the traditional equation of Jesus’ disciples with the twelve tells us very little.

10:5 – 15 Mission to Israel

The ministry of Jesus was centred on Capernaum on the north west of the Galilee. As with any contemporary new religion or philosophy, if it were to spread and gain a footing beyond this small localized area it was going to be through the work of travelling missionaries. For the word of Jesus to get out, the word of the Kingdom and the word of healing, it was going to have to be by carried by wandering charismatic preachers, carried into Syria and Palestine. The conduct of such preachers had to be controlled. The principles laid out here are:

• It is to be confined to Israel. Others would go to the Gentiles (e.g. Luke 10 has a parallel set of instructions for such a mission).
• It was to be supported locally and a dramatic sign of this was that they were to take no provisions with them, no money or food or clothing or weapons.
• Go to one house in a village and stay there until you leave the village. (Luke’s Gentile instructions say eat what is put in front of you – no shopping around.) The contemporary Christian writing called the “Didache” (teaching), from the church in Syria, says that anyone who stays longer than three days is a false prophet. Clearly there was a recognized danger of a fraudulent exploitation of religion or philosophy by its missionaries.
• How do you know when it is time to move on? If you don’t get even a toe hold in the door, so to speak, if hospitality is refused by a house, if they don’t even return your “shalom” then move on to another house but register your disdain by treating that house as a foreign land and shaking off its insult like dust from your feet. If they do return your peace and welcome you in then stay put there until it is time to leave that village.
• The simply lifestyle was to exemplify the urgency of the proclamation of the Kingdom and to distinguish wandering Christian preachers from wandering Cynic philosophers. The kingdom of God has been ushered in and time is a wasting.

The fixed home base and extended family local based on ancestral land, the illiteracy of peasant existence would all have to be replaced by a new family, with new skills and with a new set of loyalties (Mk 3:31-35 “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother”). It differs too from the world of Paul, the literate, educated travelling artisan who would found churches in towns and cities in the Greco-Roman world outside of the land of Israel. In time, this would be the world that would become most fertile for the growth of this new way of being the people of God.

But that time had not yet come for the church of Matthew who still saw themselves as a part of the one flock under the one shepherd. That metaphor was still powerful and it was still calling out for more apprentice shepherds to go out amongst the wolves to preach and heal.

10:16 – 25 Future Sufferings

As it was with the master Jesus, so it will be with the twelve and so in turn it will be with the members of Matthew’s community. The language of the persecution is the language of Mk 13 and Matt 24: it is the language of eschatology, the period of the end of this age and the ushering in of the next. The mission of Matthew now becomes one of the features of this transition.

Danger will come from being arraigned before local councils and kings and from within the family (Micah 7). It would be anachronistic to see this as evidence of a widespread and systematic persecution of Christians by Jews in the late first century. It need reflect no more than an inner-Jewish squabble. Matthew’s Christian-Jews may have experienced this as short and violent but we probably don’t want to blow it out into a general and irrevocable split.

The disciples are given assurance of support from God (“will be given you” taken as an instance of the “divine passive”). This will take the form of the giving of the Spirit and the coming of the Son of Man. Who is he, when does he come, and what is the extent of the “cities of Israel”? Was Matthew’s Jesus mistaken?

10:26 – 42 Other Instructions

• The disciple is not above the master. If they have called the master of the house … how much more will they malign those of the household. This is an example of an “a fortiori argument” (sometimes referred to by the Hebrew label “qal wahomer,” meaning light and heavy) This example may not be persuasive to us because they might only be interested in the master. A better example might be that of the sparrows (see below).
• What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light. Though the context now may require a degree of secrecy, the teaching is ultimately public property, not secret teaching. Luke uses the saying in the context of unmasking hypocrisy and Mark makes the context the teaching in parables.
• Two sparrows sold for a penny. The cheapest meat available in the market. Here the light and the heavy argument comes into its own. If (you Father is concerned for something as lowly as a sparrow) how much more (will he take care of you). Therefore don’t be afraid. We can understand the argument without necessarily being persuaded by it. The sparrow get killed and become someone’s dinner. How convincing is this to someone starving in Zimbabwe, facing today’s (June, 27th) sham of an election?
• Not peace but a sword. The larger context of Matthew, with the beatitude for the peacemakers (5:9) and the command to love enemies (5:43-48) and his refusal to allow arms to be taken up in his defence (26:52), requires that this metaphor of the sword be fully explained as a reference to the choices and consequences forced on the would-be disciple. His call forces a choice that severs what, in an agrarian society, was the ultimate loyalty to the family and its land.
• Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Luke ultimately says the same thing but it is dressed up in what is, to us, a stumbling block: “…and does not hate father and mother … cannot be my disciple”(Lk. 14:26). “Hate” means “to love less than …”
• Welcomes you … welcomes me … welcomes him who sent me. Underlying this is the law of agency: the agent is as the one who sent him. To see and hear the agent is to see and hear the one who sent him. To insult or mistreat the ambassador is to insult or mistreat the king who sent him. This is the stuff of diplomacy: we represent Jesus and speak on his behalf.
• What is the prophet’s reward? What is the righteous one’s reward?
• One of these little ones. A favorite expression of Matthew, seemingly referring to the members of his community. Check it out!

So then, what are we seeing? A community of “little ones” that sees itself as under threat. As the notables, Peter and the rest of the twelve represented Jesus as the carriers and performers of the kingdom while Jesus was here, how much more do we represent Jesus now in the time of his absence? If Jesus and the twelve received stick, it would be totally unrealistic to think that we are going to get anything less, now at the end of the first century. “But,” says Matthew’s Jesus, “don’t be afraid of them!” Be afraid rather of those who can destroy body and soul, those people and things that can gnaw away at our sense of integrity, desensitizing us little by little, so that we are not capable of standing up for what is right.

9:2 –17 Three conflict stories

Matthew follows Mark in presenting three “conflict stories” that are set in the midst of two sets of miracles stories. “Conflict stories” (and if you want to see a full discussion of this type of story, see Arland Hultgren, Jesus and his Adversaries) follow this pattern: (i) Jesus does something (or doesn’t do something) e.g. he forgives sins, he eats with tax collectors and sinners or his disciples don’t follow the practice of the twice weekly fast. (ii) Representative opponents get upset and take him to task: why is he doing this e.g. why does he forgive sins, or why does he eat with the tax collectors and sinners, or why do your disciples not fast. (iii) Finally Jesus comes back with a wise or memorable saying that ends the sequence e.g. the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, or “Those who are well have no need for a physician” or “The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is present”.

(i) He forgives sins (9:2 – 8)
Who are ‘they’ Matthew has cut off the detail of Mark’s “Five guys on a roof” story. The confidence of the paralytic’s associates that Jesus will heal him, despite all the trouble they have to go to, exhibits great faith. The scribes, who can write and therefore can create and copy documents, are like law clerks. Their particular hot button is “who authorized this?” Why do the scribes say Jesus is blaspheming? God alone can forgive sins. Jesus is acting as a source, not merely as a channel for forgiveness.

Why does Jesus forgive the man first? The simple answer is “so that the story will work”. (The paralytic comes looking for a healing and instead he gets a forgiving! The punchline of the conflict story is about the Son of Man being authorized to forgive sins on earth. Issues of authority aside, forgiving sins is the easier task since it is not verifiable – unlike telling him to get up and walk. Carrying out the more difficult healing serves to underscore the power that has been given to the Son of Man. The view that sickness proceeds from sin does not play a part in this story. The healing is a vehicle for the controversy/conflict. “Son of Man” here is equivalent to “I”: “I have been given authority in earth …”

(ii) He eats with sinners (9:9 – 13)
Why are “tax collectors and sinners” linked? Toll collectors are well known sinners because of their need to handle unclean material as a part of their job. Who are the Pharisees? The Pharisees are the lay religious order who, with a lot of popular support, seek to bring the religious distinctiveness out of the Temple and into the home. The father at the table is as the priest in the Temple. The sanctity of table fellowship is a hot button for the Pharisees. What is the issue with eating with tax collectors and sinners? It’s an issue of identification: we don’t just invite anyone to share our table, do we?

Why do they talk to Jesus’ disciples? They ought to be able to explain what Jesus is about. Why does he eat with sinners? There are three pronouncements Did the first one attract the second and so on? (i) Those who are well have no need of a physician, do they? How can you argue with that? (ii) Go and learn what God desires. (iii) I have come to call …Is one more original than the others?

(iii) He does not fast or mourn (9:14 – 17)
Who are the disciples of John? Their hot button was preparing for the end of the age, the parousia. Why do they and the Pharisees fast? Why do the disciples of Jesus not fast? Is it a matter of capturing the moral high ground, ducking the onus of proof? Jesus no longer numbered himself among the disciples of John. As great as the Baptist was, Jesus had moved on. He was no longer into baptizing or fasting. There will be a time for that later. It is now honeymoon time, time for partying.

We are to learn from the two metaphors. (i) What is the wedding guest metaphor saying? Who is the bridegroom: presumably Jesus? With the advent of the “absence of Jesus”, things have changed. Is fasting and mourning now appropriate in a way it wasn’t when Jesus was about? (ii) Matthew makes a total hash of the piece of cloth metaphor: it is unclear what is of value. Luke gets the wineskin metaphor totally right and makes the spoiling of the old cloak flow on from this.

As Luke reminds us “the old wine is best”. There is a hierarchy of values at work here: new wine is rubbish and can easily be replaced. Of more value are the new wine skins whose sole function is to flex and expand under the pressure of fermentation. Of much greater value is the old wine which is lip smacking good. It gets that way by being stored within the articles of greatest value, the old wineskins that are brittle with age but encrusted with all the goodies of vintages past. Prima!

Is Jesus sighting himself alongside the good old wine from the past and dismissing his opponents as mere new wine? Maybe yes!

9:18 – 34 Three more healings

(i) The two daughters (9:18 – 26)
This story occurs in all three (synoptic) gospels. Mark has the most detail and Matthew the least – Luke is in between. Mark and Luke call the synagogue leader “Jairus” and hence it is the story of the healing of Jairus’ daughter. In Matthew he is just an unnamed ruler and the daughter is already dead: the supplicant has great faith and he is not located in the synagogue. In every case, this raising from the dead story, for that is what it is, thoroughly intertwined with a story of the healing of a woman who has had bleedings for twelve years. It looks like they have always been linked together. Matthew leaves out a great deal of detail, including the secret touching of the hem of Jesus’ garment (which is almost the longest part of the whole story). Jesus’ perceives her interior dialogue (“If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well”) and says “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well”. In Matthew, he doesn’t touch an unclean person.

In going through Mark a couple of years ago [check out the Mark blog: http://www.interactive-mark.blogspot.com/ on Mark 5] I noted evidence for suggesting that this woman was Jairus’ wife, and hence the mother of the young girl and that she had been suffering from vaginal bleeding since the birth of the young girl twelve years ago. In this case, the two stories really do belong together because a family is healed and brought back together. The two daughters are healed.

(ii) The two blind men (9:27 – 31)
This story is a “doublet”, not meaning a doublet of finest Lincoln green but a story that occurs twice. Let me explain. Mark has two distinct giving of sight stories and he places them at the beginning and end of the centre piece of his story, on following Jesus.

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Mark uses these two separate stories as metaphors for coming to faith. The first story is set in Bethsaida and the man is unnamed: we can call him “Bethsaida guy”. This story shows us that coming to faith is a multistage affair. The second story, which is placed at the end of the central section, takes place at Jericho and involves a man called Bartimaeus who, when his eyes were opened, gets up and joins Jesus “on the way” – he becomes the archetypal disciple of Jesus. Matthew and Luke don’t use the story of “Bethsaida guy”, they ignore him completely. Luke uses the Bartimaeus story, but leaves the man unnamed, (“Jericho guy”) when he gets to the point where Mark uses Bartimaeus. Matthew does the same thing.

But in addition, Matthew uses this story a second time, much earlier in the story, in the section of the story we are currently reading. So the Bartimaeus story is used twice; it’s a doublet. But that’s not all. Instead of talking about a single character called Bartimaeus, Matthew has two, unnamed blind men. He doesn’t do this because “in the real world” there were actually two people whom Jesus healed. No, Matthew has used Mark’s story and he has changed it. (He creates other doublets 9:13, 12:7. See Luz, Vol 1pp. 6f for a full list and discussion of doublets.) So Matthew adds to the mystery of the big story of the healing of two women with the small story of two men who receive their sight – in neither story in the doublet do they follow Jesus on the way. The mystery deepens.

(iii) The two demons (?) 9:32 – 34)
In the case of the third story we have a man who, for whatever reasons, was mute, unable to speak. The story attributes this disability to the presence of a demon. Demons don’t form a part of our mental furniture and particularly they don’t play a part in our medical diagnoses. But in the first century Mediterranean world they did: remove the demon and the man can now speak. Matthew’s details are very skimpy because he wants to get to the slander at the end of his story:”By the ruler of demons he casts out the demons”. Social anthropologists have a grand name for this: “deviance labeling”. We might call it “negative stereotyping” or “bad mouthing” and we might say “give a dog a bad name and hang him” (and we might even recall our parents saying the opposite “Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you”). Each culture and each generation has its own set of “bad names”, mud that gets thrown and sticks forever.

This story is also a doublet, so if we look over to Matt 12:22-30 we see Jesus pursuing some of the options available to him to reject this deviance label, this sticky little demon of a bad name. He launches a multi-pronged attack on the gainsayers:

• To attribute Jesus’ activity to the “master demon” would imply a civil war, a kingdom divided against itself, which would be a recipe for disaster
• Do you say the same thing about your own exorcists, “your sons” who cast out demons
• Jesus has already “bound up the strong man” in the “temptation stories”. What you see now is Jesus plundering his house
• In fact, what you are seeing is the activity of the Spirit of God ushering in the reign of God
• To speak against the activity of this Spirit by name calling then it’s blasphemy.

Is it stretching too long a bow so say we are intended to see a “second demon” here, the bad mouthing of the activity of the coming of the reign of God. This second demon, this bad naming, will also cut off all speech and render us mute – if it is not cast out, if it is not refuted. Reflect on that, if you will.

Two daughters bonded by blood, two blind men waiting to come to faith and now two demons of which the more insidious is the negative stereotyping that can crush us into silence.: arithmetic rules!

E. Matthew 8:1 - 9:35 In Galilee

8:1 Introduction
This verse brings us back down from the mountain and back into the crowds, seeking healing from “every disease and every sickness” (4:23 – 5:1). The framework around the SM is closed.

8:2 –17 Three healings
The leper (8:2 – 4)
The leper, who could be suffering from a wide range of skin disfigurements (Lev. 13–14) and not necessarily from “Hansen’s disease”, was a social outcast. His approach to Jesus, with the kneeling down and the homage, reminds us of the magi in chapter 2. The title Sir/Lord does not appear on the lips of outsiders (Luz). Jesus touches him, restoring the social contact and healing him. The one who came to fulfill the Torah then sends the former leper off to the priests to complete the process by certifying the cleanliness.

The centurion (8:5–13)
Entering Capernaum, his base in northern Galilee, Jesus is accosted by a Gentile centurion, serving in Herod Antipas’ garrison, who requests healing for his sick child/servant. Jesus’ response, which can be seen as a question, serves as a rejection: “You can’t expect me to come to your place and do this!” Again, Jesus’ does not abrogate Torah by entering the house of a Gentile. The centurion’s response confirms this and clarifies what the man wants. He is not expecting Jesus to come personally: he is not worthy of the “Lord” doing that and that’s not how things work. A word from Jesus is sufficient, just as his own word accomplishes what he wants. There is an additional possibility. As the centurion sends out soldiers to carry out his commands so too Jesus could send one of his “men” to carry out the healing. The time for that has not yet come in Matthew’s story (10:1) and the mission to the Gentiles is also for a later time. The centurion’s confidence that Jesus’ word could heal, and heal at a distance, is taken by Jesus as an expression of such faith, not seen in Israel. The centurion can thus serve as a Gentile exemplar of faith. The servant/child is healed and the social grouping is restored.

Peter’s mother in law (8:14 – 17)
The trimmings are removed from Mark and Jesus is left alone with the woman, He heals with a touch, as he will cast out with a word. The society of this household is restored and this is demonstrated by the woman offering hospitality to the guest.

The words of Mark’s transitional summary are carried over into Matthew: the three healings are examples of the sort of things that Jesus did. The crowds include a leper, a centurion and his servant/child and an elderly woman. All are healed of their various diseases: society is restored.

8:18 – 9:1 Three words of power
To the scribe and the other disciple (8:18 – 22)
In response to Jesus’ command, the disciples are about to enter the boat and depart to the other side. A potential disciple is warned of the total poverty of the Son of Man and those who follow him. This is a poverty necessitated by being on the move as a “wandering charismatic” (Gerd Theissen, Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity). Jesus does have a home base and we know (because we are not first time readers) of the women from Galilee who minister to Jesus (27:55-56). To this scribe, the word looks like a proverb from the world of the charismatic: “Foxes have dens …”. A comparison of Matthew with Mark shows that Matthew has removed the cushion in the boat so that Jesus has nowhere to lay his head.

To the one who is a disciple, who would like Elisha (1 Kgs. 19:20) go back and attend to the basic religious obligation of burying the dead, the word is a shocking, more basic obligation to the preaching of the Kingdom.

To the storm (8:23 – 27)
Jesus in a boat, on the lake, during a storm, commanding the storm has to evoke the image of creation. The obedience of the wind and the seas recalls the spirit hovering over the waters of the deep in Gen 1:2. In what looks like an enactment of Ps 107:23-32, the crossing shows the lordship of Jesus over the chaos and demonic powers lurking in the seas. The fact that Jesus is asleep (without the cushion on which to lay his head) contrasts with the smallness of faith of the disciples. As we noted in Mark, the sleeping Jesus evokes the absence of Jesus to this small Jewish-Christian community. Their prayer: “Lord save us, we are perishing!” “Little faith” is a favorite designation of the disciples in Matthew. (Go check it out in a concordance.) Their faith is far from perfect (Harrington)

To the demons of the town (8:28 – 9:1)
To those who “sit in tombs and eat swine flesh” (Is 65:4), Jesus says “Go”(into the swine)!” These (gentile) demons recognize Jesus for who he is (“Son of God”) but appear puzzled that he is there ahead of time. Do the evil spirits return to the sea? With their livelihood destroyed and their brand in tatters, the shareholders ask Jesus to leave town.

D. Matthew 5:1 - 7:28 The Sermon on the Mount

Introductory Matters

1. Outline of sections

It wasn’t just thrown together; it made sense to someone! Here is the outline given in H.D. Betz’s commentary. It’s as good a place to start as anywhere.

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2. Recent major researchers on the SM

Since St Augustine gave this part of Matthew the name “Sermon on the Mount” and wrote a commentary on it, the SM has received a lot of attention. The two most significant, recent, critical writers are (I reckon) W.D. Davies and Hans Dieter Betz Read Davies (The Sermon on the Mount, 1964) and you will see him seek to understand Matthew’s SM as a part of a larger presentation of the Christians’ law-giver Jesus as the Second Moses, set out in five books or narrative and discourse, with the same stylized ending, a presentation that engaged current, late post 70CE Jewish expectations within early Judaism. Read Betz (Essays on the Sermon on the Mount, 1985 and The Sermon on the Mount, 1995) and you will see him lay the foundation for understanding the SM as an older Jewish Christian distillation of Jesus’ teaching that can be understood to exemplify the Greco-Roman epitome. Betz then gives us a massive commentary on the SM (1995). See Stanton for a sustained critique of Betz’s stimulating thesis.

3. Purpose of the SM

It has often been assumed that the SM gives us Jesus’ ethical system, his instructions for daily living. Many have seen it as a system that is impossible to follow but which serves to usher in the grace of God.

Betz, in understanding the SM as an epitome, sees the author Matthew creatively condensing Jesus’ teaching, not to produce something that the disciple can then regurgitate, but rather to “enable the disciple to theologize creatively along the lines of the theology of the master. To say it pointedly: The SM is not law to be obeyed, but theology to be intellectually appropriated and internalized, in order then to be creatively developed and implemented in concrete situations of life.” (Essays, 15f.) It is like an “aide memoir”, carried into battle by a soldier that will allow and encourage him to think his way through conflict. Betz sees Paul as “thinking” his way through a problem confronting the “unmarried” in 1 Cor. 7:25).

4. Distinctive point of view

It is the contention of the SM, stated in the four hermeneutical principles, that Jesus “came to fulfill the law and the prophets”. Examples of this are presented in the antitheses, with their distinctive pattern “you have heard that is was said [quotation from Torah] but I say to you [Jesus’ extension, not abrogation, of Torah]”.

The ghost of an anarchical Paul is often detected behind the label “the least in the kingdom of heaven” given to the one(s) who break the least of these commandments and teaches other to do the same (cf. 1 Cor. 15:9).

The dismissive tone of “do not even the Gentiles do the same?” evokes a time before the community of the Gospel became outward facing, a time in “the mid-first century, when the Jewish-Christian community was still part of Judaism” (Essays, 19.), “The community of the SM is, without a doubt, a Jewish-Christian minority in distress.”(Essays, 21)

5. The SM within Matthew

The SM forms the first of the five discourse blocks of the Gospel. It has been used by Matthew and is marked with favored Matthean language but has it been substantially written by Matthew. No one would seriously see the SM as a cohesive, verbatim piece of Jesus-speak, such as a “sermon”. A piece of the jigsaw is the existence of the much, much smaller “Sermon on the Plain” in Luke 6: 17 – 49. It does not advance things too much further to consign them both to the Q source because the pieces they have in common are so different.

Betz argues that the SM has an integrity that pre-dates Matthew but which Matthew has incorporated and integrated into his Gospel. Wherever it has come from, this Jewish Christian treasure is now a part of a self-consciously Christian community that is looking outward to a Gentile mission field. Its author “Matthew” is the householder “who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old." (13:52). The SM is the precious jewel amongst the old treasure

The Discourse Itself

The Beatitudes (5:3 – 12)

• Betz refers to them as “macarisms”, using the Greek, rather than the Latin, root to bless
• They now exist as members of a list of ten, though originally they existed independently
• They have been arranged with the most important, the signal blessing, at the head and its counterpart in v. 10
• The other eight have their “pay off” in the future
• They exist in four different forms: vv 3 & 10, 4-9, 11, 12.
• `Why have the macarisms been placed at the head of the SM? What is their function?
• Hebrew literature distinguishes at least four types of macarisms: religion secular, the wise man, and satirical.
• The head macarism (5:3) anticipates the verdict belonging to the last judgment (25:34)
• It corrects the notion that it is the economically poor who are to be called blessed: human existence is recognized as miserable.
• It moves far beyond all other forms of macarism to the status of “a fundamental theological definition” (Essays, 35). “It contains everything one must know to pass through this life into paradise.”
• Betz judges that “the first macarism is unfolded, and variously developed, in the following [nine] macarisms… The rest of the SM is nothing else that the concretization and elucidation of the first macarism.”(Essays, 35)

The Hermeneutical Principles (5:17 – 20)

• The authentic Jesus saying exists as a concept in the mind of the reader. “The text is intentionally written so that that the reader cannot simply read-off the correct saying as he can the false one, but he must construct the saying himself out of the the building materials that the text provides.” (Essays, 41) The correct saying is: “I have come to fulfill the law and the prophets”.
• This points to the functioning of the SM as epitome. The non-text of v.17a “compels the reader to compose the intended text from personal knowledge and experience, based on the building materials at hand.”(Essays, 42)
• The author of the SM makes choices, that differ from those made by the later Evangelists, as to what Jesus material he incorporates. One thing that is important is that he refutes the charge of heresy against Jesus by establishing his orthodoxy as a Jewish teacher.
• It is the written, Hebrew text of the Torah that is authoritative but it is also transient. Torah is neither eternally valid nor did it end with the coming of Jesus (as in Paul). It ends when “all things are accomplished”.
• The third principle distinguishes between the true teacher who does and teaches the commandments of Jesus that are about to follow in the SM, and the one (Paul?) who abolishes even the least (not specified) of these SM commandments of Jesus. At first glance, the teachings of Jesus are light and easy to fulfill (11:30), in contrast with those of the Pharisees, but this is only at first glance. Even the teacher who is judged to be “least” is still a part of the kingdom. “This implies that a form of Christian teaching guided by theological principles other than those of the SM is recognized as legitimate in a relative sense, even if it remains excluded for the teachers of the community of the SM.”(Essays, 51)
• The final principle shows that the SM’s take on the common Jewish quest for righteousness: it can only be spoken about in terms of comparison and contrast. More than external observance, more a “turning toward the inner disclosure of the human heart before God. This is the principal reason the commands of Jesus in the SM cannot simply be regarded as legal provisions, subject to outward fulfillment. Rather they are to be regarded as a set of instructions whose purpose is to educate the disciples of Jesus so that they may be able to recognize for themselves the demands of God that apply to them, and thus do justice in their thought and conduct to the will of God.”(Essays, 53) This is recognizable righteousness.

The Antitheses

• Who called them “antitheses”? The second century “heretic” Marcion, that’s who. He saw a contrast between “Law and Gospel”, the old and the new. He was wrong on this, if not on some other things. He would have said what the SM has Jesus say is wrong, viz. “I came to abolish the law and the prophets”
• “Torah” is not “law” it is the teaching of God. The SM has us formulate the correct saying, viz “I came to fulfill the Torah and the Prophets”.
• The formal structure of the six “antitheses”: “You have heard … but I say …” does not turn against the original quotation but rather extends it. It is like a fence put around the Torah.
• It is without parallel in early Christian literature. Christian vice and virtue catalogs (e.g. Mark 7:21-22 cf. Matt 15:9)come from Hellenistic-Christian sources, not Jewish-Christian.
• There is no accepted order in the antitheses.
• The antitheses deal, under the metaphor of the family, with broken relationships.
• Betz sees the antitheses as pre-Matthean but not going back to Jesus.
• Davies & Allison note: (i) Jesus’ words are not set over against Jewish interpretations nor do they contrast with Torah. (ii) They present a new teaching grounded in Jesus’ authority. (iii) They do not offer a set of rules but, rather, they seek to instill a moral vision.
• Walter Wink’s interpretation of 5:38-42 (seen, for example, in Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way) is a gem

Teaching on Piety

• Into the instruction on piety (6:1-6, 16-18) the Lord’s Prayer (6:7-15) has been inserted. The former has a theology of God who is and sees “in the hidden”. The instruction on prayer (6:7-8) emphasizes God’s omniscience.
• The instruction on prayer is woven around assumptions of inconspicuous piety, a doctrine of rewards that eschews all rewards in this world and a contrast of true piety with the piety of the hypocrites and the pagans, a contrast that comes from within Judaism rather than being anti-Jewish.
• There are issues of authorship of the larger piece on piety (6:1-6, 16-18) and of the inner 6:7-15. The Lord’s Prayer (6:9-13) exists in three independent forms (Luke & Didache) and, as a result of this multiple attestation, can sustain a claim to go back to Jesus. The same cannot be said for its present context (6:1-6, 16-18).

The Eschatological Warnings

• The two ways and the two gates. Jewish tradition knows of the doctrine of the two ways (Deut. 30:15-19). The path leads to the gate through which we pass, not the gate marking the start of the path. What lies through the gate? The Kingdom of Heaven, which has not yet fully come. The path is not straight, it is narrow, it is difficult to find and many take the other path. Few find the true path. Our choices are not obvious.
• The false prophets. The one(s) who we thought was speaking the word of God, we now suspect are telling us lies – false prophets, false leaders. The SM is taking on the colouring of the end of the age – eschatology. They will lead us astray, saying “I am the one, I am he”. The SM grapples to put forward a new test that will get around the old test of fulfillment: you will know them by their fruit.
• Self delusion. Some might be on the narrow path, bearing good fruit and yet not make the cut. They pass all the tests, look and smell like the real thing. They are members of the community, they say “Lord, Lord”, but they are shut out. Who then will be saved?
• There will come a time, the SM tells us, when it will be very hard to tell if we are on the right path. The only assurance might be that the way is not straight nor the path easy.