Continuing Matthew's Gospel - Matthew 19:13-20:16

I encourage you to read Matthew 19:13-20:16 from a literal Bible translation before you go on with this.  New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) or New International Version (NIV) would be my top recommendations.

Yesterday's post was from Matthew 19:1-12 where Jesus talked about human relationships; especially marriage and divorce.  I said that we really can't reach a conclusion of what Jesus meant until we read further.  Indeed I believe this is one of those cases where if you immediately apply what Jesus said without taking into account the broader context you end up with the exact opposite of what he meant!  Matthew's gospel is complex and not everything is straightforward.  But one thing is consistent.  Jesus teaches in a way that leaves everyone condemned and falling short.  Thus he is driving all his followers to realize they need to depend upon God's grace.  That is, having favor before God that they cannot earn by their own goodness.  If you try it on your own you are sure to fail somewhere.  And if you think you have managed to get it all right on your own you've still failed!  You're fooling yourself!

There are three scenes in this passage: children, the rich man, and a parable of the laborers in the vineyard.  They link around the common theme of God's kingdom not following human logic.

Children in those days were not treated the way they are today.  While parents certainly loved their children their lives did not revolve around them.  Sports, music, drama, and the like were not in the picture!  It was a subsistence economy based almost entirely on hard labor and physical skill.  Almost everyone worked physically hard all the time.  Children were simply too weak and unskilled to be of value - at least not until they reached "adulthood" which was around the age of thirteen.

Paying attention to children - other than to discipline them or teach them to be productive - was a waste of time.  Certainly a great teacher would not make time for them.  Jesus, however, uses them as an example.  It was precisely a child's inability to do anything of value that made them examples of God's grace.  Adults could fool themselves into thinking they were strong or that they were important.  Adults could fool themselves into thinking their righteousness or skills were essential for God to work through to bring about his kingdom.  Not so.

To prove the point the very next scene is the rich young man.  If anyone could claim he was living as God wanted it was this guy.  He appears to have a genuine passion for doing things the right way.  He embraces righteousness with all his heart.  Sometimes artists depict him as being pompous or conceited.  I disagree.  I think he was a hard working, sincere, kind hearted guy.  You would probably like him.

He asks Jesus, "What good deed must I do to have eternal life?"  Right there we should see the flaws.  This man seems to think getting eternal life is a transaction with God.  He is assuming that getting eternal life is something he can earn on his own.  He is not seeing himself as a child dependent upon an adult (God being the adult).  He is seeing himself as an adult with something of value to offer God.

What "good deed" must he do?

He must rid himself of the ability to depend upon himself!  He must rid himself of the mindset that by his own goodness he can make it.  Jesus tells him, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, give your money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."  The man leaves grieving for he had many possessions.  He appears unwilling to give up his self-security; and his pride.

The disciples are flabbergasted.  Rich people were believed to be especially blessed by God.  Their wealth was seen as proof of it.  But Jesus teaches that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

A legend emerged in medieval times that there was a tiny gate in Jerusalem called the Needle's Eye.  It was too small for loaded camels to pass through, unless they were unloaded of their burdens, got down on their knees, and tried really hard.  While it makes for good imagination, no such gate ever existed.  It misses the point besides. Jesus then makes the situation clear.  The disciples ask, "Then who can be saved?"  To which Jesus basically replies, "No one."

Okay, he doesn't actually say that!  But that is indeed his point when he does say, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible."

It is important for us to take a moment and dwell in the reality that eternal life is impossible for us to achieve.  We simply can't do it.  No amount of good deeds, pure motives, and upright living will get us there.  Most people in our nation today appear to live with the idea that if they are basically good people then they will go to heaven.  They couldn't be more wrong!  I won't make any claims about receiving eternal life.  That's God's business, not mine.  But I do know you can't earn it, deserve it, expect it, or merit it in any way shape or form.  It is God's gift.  It is a true gift, a pure gift.  The sooner you realize it the sooner you can breathe deeply the relief of living in God's grace.  Martin Luther's famous last written words were, "We are beggars."

To reinforce the idea that eternal life is not about merit Jesus tells the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.  The idea that some people work all day while others work only an hour, yet all receive the same pay is an offense to our sense of justice.  The summer I spent working long hours in the hot sun doing road construction was miserable.  I felt I definitely earned the pay I received.  I would have been not only jealous but enraged if someone who only worked one hour received the same pay I received for a typical 13 hour work day!

This sense of injustice is exactly Jesus' point.  He does not mean that God has no sense of fairness.  But he is erasing all doubt that eternal life is about our strength and our abilities.

It is grace, pure and simple.  Grace is always amazing grace.  Grace that can be calculated, expected, or earned in any way shape or form is no longer grace.

Remember I said that if we take Jesus' teachings on marriage and divorce by themselves we'd get the completely wrong idea?  Now we can return with a better understanding and get the right idea.  Jesus knows human relationships can be deeply nurturing.  They can strengthen, heal, and bless.  He also knows they get messed up.  Whether it's between spouses, or parents and children, or even friendships among co-workers, real harm can be done.  The foundation of society is trusting relationships.  When they work all can be blessed.  When they don't many are hurt, and very deeply.  So when a relationship in any shape or form becomes too destructive, how should it end?  Does Jesus say you can end it with a legal contract?  Does he say you just walk away?  No.  He immediately follows his teachings about relationships with teachings about grace.  We need to understand our lives and our relationships in light of grace and God's promises of eternal life.  And so for example, Jesus never condemns divorce.  But he does frame it in light of God's creative purposes and in light of our need for grace.

Tomorrow we continue with more teachings about God's ways.  They will appear completely irrational to us.  But, as we just saw, rationality (human reason) can't save anybody!

Continuing Matthew's Gospel - Matthew 19:1-12

In Sunday worship we have read through Matthew up through Chapter 18.  If we hadn't rearranged worship on Sunday we would have read Chapters 19 and 20.  Gathering for worship is cancelled for at least the next two Sundays.  However, the musicians and I are working on live streaming worship at 10:30am Sundays.  We'll see how that goes!

Plans are changing rapidly so I won't say how long this will last, but for the remainder of this week I plan to put into action something I've been considering for a long time.  When we have long gospel readings on Sunday it is difficult to get into everything in the text.  I usually focus on just one or two things.  I've thought about posting reflections on the other things we haven't covered.  In the spirit of that idea, each day this week let's look at a scene from Matthew 19-20.  Today we'll look at 19:1-12.  I'm not going to include the Bible text here.  I presume you have a Bible available to you - or you can find the verses online.  I suggest you read from a literal translation and not a paraphrase.  So use something like New Revised Standard Version (what we use on Sundays) or New International Version.  King James is good too, but you may get tripped up on the language.  Revised Standard Version is also good but the language is also getting a bit dated.  I'd avoid The Living Bible and the like.  They're good scholarship but they're paraphrases.  While that makes them easier to read, the farther you go from the Greek text the more you distant you are from the author and the more you are getting the interpretation of the translator.

Jesus teachings here on divorce, remarriage, and human sexuality may seriously challenge us.  These words have quite often been used as the law for Christian marriage, but that is missing both the context and what Jesus intended.

The overall context in the story is to root our lives in God’s grace rather than in legalism.  Marriage in Jesus’ day was quite different than today.  First, there weren’t really wedding ceremonies.  It’s not exactly clear from history exactly how the marriage of a common person would begin, but in general it was community acknowledgement that a couple was together.  And divorce was not a legal affair requiring lawyers and courts.  Marriages themselves weren’t recorded in a central legal register and thus they were easy to end.  In Roman culture either a man or a woman could initiate divorce.  In Jewish culture it was only the man, and he could do so for any reason he chose.  ANY reason!  (I've joked before that if a man didn't like his wife's meatloaf that was grounds for divorce!)  Divorce basically meant walking out - or getting kicked out.  That was it.  Ultimately it made marriage very shaky, especially for the woman.

Jesus’ teachings about marriage and divorce are not rooted in legality but in the nature of creation.  In other words, he makes the roots much deeper.  This isn’t just a legal arrangement.

Indeed if you compare a marriage to, let's say... a contract you would sign with a contractor to replace your house roof, you would find the arrangement quite different.  At least I hope so!  You probably don’t make deep emotional attachments to your contractor.  And if you do, then you have a problem!  You can hire and fire a contractor without a whole lot of emotional impact.  Relationship between spouses go much deeper.  Beginning or ending a marriage is a significantly emotional time.

In the same way Jesus roots marriage and divorce in something deeper than legality, it is also a mistake to apply his words in a legalistic way – a legalistic way of accepting or forbidding.  Jesus’ teachings on divorce show up in Mark’s and Luke’s gospel as well.  Only in Matthew is this escape clause about infidelity. 

But even take that case.  Would you really say to a friend whose marriage is ending under those circumstances, “Hey, don’t worry about it.  You’re fine.  Just find someone else to marry.”  Of course you wouldn't say that!  Perhaps you would say that about finding someone else to replace your house roof, but not ending a marriage.

You see, even when it is "justifiable" it still hurts.  That is the deeper truth Jesus is getting at.  Jesus’ teachings acknowledge that.  God’s created intentions have been broken.

So does that mean, as some Christians have taught, that divorce and remarriage means people will burn in hell for all eternity?

Well, did Jesus actually say that?

No.

Over and over again Jesus' teaching drive us to recognize our need for God's grace.  Matthew 19-20 work together as a unit.  We aren't done with this topic of divorce at all, but I am going to leave it there for today.  We need to explore the next two scenes, which we will see tomorrow, before we can return to the topic of divorce.

For the rest of this post let's look at the very curious teachings in verses 10-12 about eunuchs.  Biblical scholars scratch their heads over these verses.  Indeed in those days some pagan religions did have a practice of literal castration for religious purposes.  Most scholars DO NOT think that is what Jesus means here.  That's a relief!  

I believe Jesus means those who are members of the community who choose to remain celibate in order to commit themselves fully to Christian work.  (This is one of the foundational texts the Roman Catholic Church uses in their understanding of the priesthood.)  While marriage and family life were highly valued by Jesus and Matthew's church as a gift from God - and that was the normal life of most people - some people, such as prophets or missionaries, would remain unmarried.  Freed from the burden of providing for spouse and children they could focus on a specific calling.

When seen in this light we discover that both paths - having a family, or remaining without a family for the sake of the gospel - are God given and God blessed ways to live.

Tomorrow we'll continue to expand what a life of grace looks like when we meet a man who knows the rules; and who knows how to live by them.

March 15, 2020 Lent 3 Matthew 6:19-34

You know the saying well that there’s no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.  When I was doing my clinical work at the University of Tennessee Hospital one of the chaplains liked to say, “How come you can’t find a Christian in an Emergency Room?”

He made a good point.  It was a Level 1 trauma center.  Plenty of life or death cases came through the doors.  And everyone wanted to avoid death.  Plenty of prayers for miracles of life for lost causes went up from that place.  If people were truly Christians, he reasoned, they’d be far more accepting of death.  After all, we’ll all get our turn in a pine box, or an urn.

This is not to suggest that I think we should take things like the coronavirus lightly.  But it does call on us to recognize reality.  Most people live like this life is all there is.  They focus short term on day-to-day needs.  They focus on their ability to provide for themselves.  And they tend to think of themselves first, even if that comes at the expense of community.

Look at people’s shopping habits the last several days.  I haven’t really been in the stores but Facebook posts look like many stores have shelves that are empty.  Good luck getting bleach and toilet paper and soap and all that.  What?!?  Why all this sudden buying?  Has the population of our nation just now started washing their hands?  Is toilet paper something they’ve just discovered and now everyone suddenly wants it?

When people hoard they’re afraid there’s going to be a shortage.  They believe production won’t be able to keep up with demand.  And if things do run out they are making sure they have it.  Too bad about others.

Our gospel reading was from the Sermon on the Mount.  There Jesus teaches a very different perspective.  He teaches a very different outlook on life.

Key to it are verses like Verse 26, “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not more value than they?”  And Verses 31-33, “Therefore do not worry saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’  For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things’; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”

Jesus is not saying to lay around and be lazy.  He is not saying we should be irresponsible.  But he is saying that God has this.  God’s in control.  Don’t worry overly much.  Basically, your life focus should not be on earthly needs and concerns.  Your life focus will be on what God is doing.

In the mid-week Lenten services we’ve been using a video series that reviews things from the Small Catechism.  Last Wednesday we looked at the Apostles’ Creed.  The video pointed out that most people focus their lives on what they are doing.  Conversations in coffee shops are about work and travel and friendships.  That’s where our focus tends to lie.  But what if conversations were about what God is doing?  Or perhaps more theologically correct, what if conversations were about what God has done for us?  That would be a whole different set of conversations.

I believe the only conversations about what God is doing in the last several days have been those who are saying the coronavirus is some sign for the end of the world.

As we’ve been reading through Matthew this year we have delved into 1^st Century context behind the text.  Many people have complemented me on the richness of understanding this provides.  That’s nice.  But what is that really saying?  While it’s interesting, it makes sermons into a version of a program on the History Channel; but without all the cool graphics, and a deep rich voice narrating in a confident style.  Perhaps it helps us gobble up information about the biblical world, and that is intellectually stimulating.  And these are good things for a sermon.  But does it move our faith?  Does it help us to bring about God’s kingdom?  Does it help us challenge the evil that so cleverly works its way throughout our society?  That clever evil that has us talking all about ourselves rather than what God has done for us?  That clever evil that has people – who like to think of themselves as Americans in the land of the free and the brave – selfishly hoarding things.

This is one of those rare times – and it will not last – that has us actually facing something real.  We take off the mask of our daily lives, scurrying around worried about basically irrelevant things, and look at reality with open eyes.

Being a pastor in the United States today feels more like trying to market faith to people who have lots of options about how they want to spend their time.  And in that market you try to have a voice, a product, that can attract some portion of it.  You try worship styles, musical styles, dinner church models, programs,… you name it.  All just trying to be heard.  You have block parties, use gimmicks, social events, hands-on service projects,… all sorts of things to appear like you’re fun and worth looking at.

People feel no real need to actually build their lives around God’s will.  It is that way always.  It’s not unique to Americans in this century.  It seems to be human nature that as soon as we can we want to turn to ourselves rather than God.

One of the best – no, let’s call it “delightful” things about the gospels is the way the disciples are all too human.  They fail.  They have inside information – direct contact with Jesus and his teachings and they don’t get it.  The stories of Holy Week are coming and we see that the disciples fold at the slightest breeze.

The good news for us is that despite how fickle we are God still loves us.  God wants to be with us.  God wants us to live knowing that we are loved by him.  God does not want to condemn us. 

Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount are challenging, but they are also loving.  They are inviting us into a life of relevance each and every day – not just when there’s a crisis that makes us change our routines.

May we use the days ahead to stay connected to the truth of what we are doing.  May we remember that we are God’s.  May we remember that God has all things in God’s hands.  Whether things are easy or hard, whether the pandemic ends slowly or quickly, whether the stock market goes up or goes down, whether you run out of supplies or not, even whether you live or whether you die, you are safe in God’s hands.

February 23, 2020 Transfiguration Matthew 16:13-17:13

            Life can be pretty routine.  Some of us may say that life is even boring.  Perhaps you find yourself wanting something interesting, something different, something unexpected to happen.  Indeed, variety is the spice of life.  However, when we find things to be routine and want a change, we still want to have that change be on our terms and at a time that is convenient for us.  Just think of the way a sudden crisis can make life tough.  And we’ve probably all had times when it seems like life is traveling from one crisis to the next.

Sometimes I wonder what life was like for Jesus disciples.  While we may get the idea that these guys are on the road each and every day and traveling far and wide, we need to remind ourselves of the truth.  With the exception of Jesus journey to Jerusalem at the Passover, which would lead to his crucifixion, Jesus really didn’t travel much.  Most of his ministry took place around the shores of the Sea of Galilee and the surrounding towns.  The Sea of Galilee is small – roughly 8 miles by 15 miles.  If having a body of water in the middle helps to give you perspective, think Canandaigua Lake.  Jesus’ travels would then be to places like Canandaigua, Naples, Gorham, Bristol, Middlesex, and Cheshire. 

And that’s about it.  Almost all of his earthly public ministry within an area not even half the size of Ontario County.  I’m certain that Jesus’ disciples went back to their own homes most nights.  They almost certainly kept their trades and jobs in order to help support themselves.

Sometimes the Bible would make it seem like every day is a day of adventure and miracles.  But probably not.  If every miracle recorded in the gospels is historically accurate, then if you spread them over a two-year period you realize that even miracles weren’t a daily thing.

Keep this small scale ministry, and mostly very routine in your mind as we look at the chapter we read from Matthew’s gospel.  While Jesus is certainly the star of the story, these chapters give Peter quite a bit of stage time.

We start off with Jesus traveling to Caesarea Philippi.  That’s a significant journey.  It’s a departure from the norm.  This is one of Jesus’ longest trips – 20 miles from the Sea of Galilee.  He has taken his disciples out of the routine to begin preparing for the end.

And with the regular crowds not gathered around it’s time for some serious discussions with his disciples.  He asks them, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  You know their answers: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.  The crowds know there is something special about this Jesus fellow – something that is setting him apart.  He’s one whom God is speaking significant things through.

And when Jesus asks, “But who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter gets a moment to shine, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Let’s pause there for a moment.  Remember, this word “messiah” is a word we Christians usually use only to refer to Jesus.  But the word “messiah” was used many times by Jews of the time.  Messiah is a Hebrew word.  It is the equivalent of the Greek word Christ.  It simply means, “anointed one.”  Many people are considered messiahs in the Old Testament.  Some of them were good.  Some were not.  King David was considered a messiah; as was King Saul.  Cyrus, the Persian ruler, wasn’t even Jewish and the prophet Isaiah calls him a messiah.

There was nothing special about calling Jesus messiah.  That’s no great insight on Peter’s part.  It just means Jesus has been anointed for a role.  What is special about Peter’s reply is calling Jesus the Son of the living God.  This is the major revelation.  This is what we have talked about before when we’ve talked about the coming of the Kingdom of God.  Peter is recognizing Jesus as being God’s presence and bringing God’s teachings and God’s reality to the earth.

Jesus proclamation that, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven,” is a statement meaning that human logic and reason have not reached this conclusion.  Like all of faith, it is something inspired by God.

We want to cheer Peter for his insight.  Indeed he is flying high!  And don’t we want to do the same – know that we’re on to something good – really good!  It feels great.  What’s even better is when one good thing leads to another.  And that ‘another’ is even greater.  Sort of the way learning math builds concept upon concept into greater and greater power.

Jesus proclaims that the community of faith, the church, is to be built – dare I say it – not so much upon Peter as a man, but upon the revelation of God through people.  And that community is even stronger than death.

But the teaching isn’t done.  Jesus tells the disciples not to share that he is the Messiah, for they’ll need to see the Messiah crucified before they can really understand what this anointed one will do.

Jesus goes on to teach this.  But is Peter, fresh from his revelation of the identity of Jesus as the Son of the living God, able to understand that?  Nope.  All too quickly human thinking has come back into the picture.  Peter rebukes Jesus for saying that he will be rejected and killed by the religious leaders.  Peter treats Jesus as if Jesus is possessed by a demon.  It’s exorcism language that Peter uses.  And Jesus responds with similar exorcism language, “Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block,” or more literally a “scandal”, “to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

There’s an entire sermon right there, the difficult truth that the human point of view and Satan’s point of view are identical!  But we’re going to keep moving.

The teachings continue from Jesus.  Six days later he takes just three of the disciples – Peter, James, and John – up on a high mountain by themselves.  Moses and Elijah appear talking with Jesus.  Peter, somewhere between his revelation of Jesus as the Son of the living God and being called Satan, decides to brave another insight.

And notice carefully the text here, because it’s written in a humorous way.  Matthew says Moses and Elijah are talking with Jesus.  While they are talking, in other words Peter interrupts them, and says, “Lord, it is good for us to be here…”  And then jump another verse, “While he was still speaking, suddenly bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said…

In other words, Peter interrupts Jesus.  Then the voice from the cloud interrupts Peter.  Everyone is talking.  But who is listening?  What does the voice say to interrupting Peter?  Listen carefully because it is part of what Peter said earlier, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased…”  and maybe especially to Peter, “…listen to him!”

In other words, Peter – “Sit down, shut up, and listen!”

Listen.

Listen to what Jesus has yet to teach.

Peter, and all others, keep open to what God is doing; keep open to what the Son of the living God will do to reveal God’s nature most fully.

It is not time to talk.  The time to talk will come.  In fact Jesus will tell his disciples very clearly when it is time to talk.  It is the very last verse of Matthew’s gospel.  Jesus as he is ascending says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” 

The time to talk comes only after the disciples have all failed Jesus and fled.  The time to talk comes only after they have seen the crucifixion.  The crucifixion is the central act of God’s revelation of his nature.  It is, ironically, fullness of life.  Then the disciples can talk and teach and evangelize and baptize.  Not before.

It is all very hard to grasp.  Peter certainly struggled with it.  We do too.  But remember, the human point of view is Satan’s point of view.  Tempting as it is, it will lead nowhere except frustration and disappointment, brokenness and emptiness.  Fullness of life comes from staying with God’s point of view.  In our gospel reading right after rebuking Peter Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers let them deny themselves [deny the human/Satanic point of view – this is not about self-hate or self-punishment] and take up their cross and follow me.”  Notice how he goes on, “For those who want to save their life [the human point of view] will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

Tough words but wise words.  True words.

February 16, 2020 Epiphany 6 Matthew 15:1-16:12

            Introduction to the reading:

In order to better understand our gospel reading we should remind ourselves of the dynamics of congregation Matthew appears to have written for.  We’ve talked before that they were almost certainly a congregation of Jews who had decided to follow Jesus.  You’ll remember that Matthew’s gospel is probably written around the year 80.  From roughly the years 66-70 there was a Jewish revolt against the Romans which culminated in the Romans destroying the temple in Jerusalem, destroying the whole city of Jerusalem, and effectively ending all branches of Judaism centered around the temple.  The only branch of Judaism left was the Pharisee branch.  Matthew’s congregation surely was among these Jews. 

The Pharisees were hardly a unified group, however.  They were scattered throughout the region and they still depended on the unity Jerusalem created.  In the years following the destruction of Jerusalem there appear to have been some councils or meetings in the city of Jamnia, which is east of Jerusalem on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.  Pharisee leaders gathered and were struggling to put something back together of their faith.  It was the period scholars call “formative Judaism” and it continued until about the year 200.

It is to Jews living in this chaos and uncertainty that Matthew writes.  Matthew’s gospel is not attacking a historical, well-established religious group when he writes against the Pharisees.  He’s writing to people living in faith chaos.  These are people struggling to know what to believe.  They don’t know where to turn to trust.  They don’t know how to express their faith.  And remember this very very important detail.  Christianity has not yet emerged from Judaism as a distinctly different religion.  From the point of view of the Romans Christianity was just one more sect within Judaism at this time.

At issue for Matthew’s readers is how to live out their faith?  What does daily life look like as a Jew and as a believer that Jesus was God’s Messiah?  What traditions and rituals are important, what aren’t?  And maybe most importantly, where is Jesus, and what is God up to?

In Matthew chapters 14 through 17 we see into the struggles of this young church.  As we read it I invite you to try to feel the chaos that is in the background.  People are lost.  They are confused.  They are searching and not finding.  And also pick up on the underlying principles Jesus is teaching.

(Read Matthew 15:1 - 16:12)

If you were here last week you may find yourself asking, didn’t we just read about the feeding of the 5000, what’s with this feeding of the 4000?  Indeed as Matthew portrays them, the stories are almost identical.  Mark’s gospel, whom Matthew is using as his major source here, recounts two feeding miracles too.  Mark makes a distinction that the first one – the feeding of the 5000 - was in Jewish territory.  The second one – the crowd of 4000 – was in non-Jewish territory.  Mark makes a tidy teaching of it showing God’s abundance for both Jews and non-Jews alike.  Matthew either downplays that point, or doesn’t make it at all.  Instead he seems more interested in showing the repeatable abundance that Jesus can provide.  A great feeding miracle was not just a one-time thing for Jesus.  Or said differently, God’s abundance for his people is not limited at all.

And that may help us enter what is perhaps the most troubling part of these chapters, Jesus rejection of the foreign woman.  This is one of those passages where scholars have spilt gallons of ink over the centuries trying to make sense of.  Truthfully, we do not know exactly why Matthew included it.  It was in his source of Mark but he doesn’t stay locked into Mark always.

More radical feminist scholars have had a field day with it.  Perhaps most interesting is Sharon Ringe in the 1985 Feminist Interpretation of the Bible.  Her conclusions are widely recognized as being wrong, but she may actually help us to open the door to what is going on.  Ringe points out that the usual patterns of controversy with Jesus are reversed.  Usually someone hostile to Jesus counters him.  He responds with a corrective or reproving remark.  Then he concludes with a statement the opponent would be hard pressed to deny.  Here, this foreign, presumably uneducated woman appears to best him.  And because of that Jesus gives her what she wants.  As if to make a contentious conclusion Ringe suggests that this woman is doubly and outsider – foreign and female.  She continues that she is an aggressive single parent who defies cultural taboos and acts to free Jesus from his sexism and racism by catching him in a bad mood or with his compassion down, she bests him in an argument and herself becomes the vehicle of his liberation and the deliverance of her daughter.

As I said before, this conclusion is truly an inaccurate interpretation of what Matthew intends, but it can be useful because I think she is on to something.  Remember, we’re talking about a Christian community struggling to identify who it is and figuring out how to live out faith.  If nothing else, this scene doesn’t allow us to put God, and how we express our faith in God, into a tidy little container that is convenient and make sense. 

God will not be limited; certainly not by human conclusions of how God should work and how God should act.  God is God.  We are not.

And do we not also easily take the point of view Jesus appears to present?  Many people believe the saying, “Charity begins at home,” is in the Bible.  It’s not.  If anything, the Bible teaches the opposite!

As dean I’ve worked with most of the churches in the conference.   All are declining.  Many are anxious.  When numbers dwindle and finances get tighter and tighter there is a tendency to turn in on ourselves.  Churches will cut giving to the synod and other outside giving.  They will focus on preservation.  They effectively say, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Jesus is certainly not being mean to this woman.  Nor is he testing her faith.  He is, however, voicing a concern many people in Matthew’s day and our day have.  Resources are tight, better hunker down and protect.

Who are we to say who is worthy to receive and who is not?  Who are we to say that God’s will is that we take care of ourselves and reject the needs of others? 

God cannot, and will not, be bound by our fears and our limits. 

What made that Canaanite woman faithful?  Was it her beliefs?  Nope.  It was her persistence.  It was her insistence that the God of Israel has not limited his goodness only to Israel but that it is for all people.  She was vehement that God’s grace not have bounds or limits.

I’ve preached many times that we should not expect our prayers to result in miraculous solutions to our problems.  But I’ve never preached that you shouldn’t make such prayers.  If you want something from God, ask for it!  Demand it!  Pressure God.  Let God know your wants and needs regardless of whether they seem righteous or plausible.  The key is to bring them to God.  Don’t sit there in your mind and think, “This is what I really want, but I know I’m not supposed to think this way so I’m going to change my prayer to something that feels more righteous.” 

God knows what you want better than you do yourself.  So pray what you feel.  Pray what you want.  Don’t worry if it’s appropriate or not.  Let God know.  Let God decide.  About the only prayers not suitable are prayers of hatred where you want to bring divine wrath down upon your enemies.  And if you feel that way, then pray for a different perspective.

As I read these chapters of Matthew I feel a community of believers struggling to know what is right.  They want to draw lines between righteous and unrighteous, between Godly and Ungodly.  But Matthew is teaching that God will not be so bound.

For many churches in our conference, and for us as well, I say that God is up to something new and unexpected.  Refusing to accept that God can work in new and startling ways is an attitude that is sure to miss what God is really up to.

If you limit Jesus to only being a nice sweet guy, then you miss the fullness of God.  And if you insist that seven loaves and a few small fish can’t possibly feed a crowd of thousands, then you miss the fullness of God.  And certainly, if you insist that death is the end and that there is no hope, then you also certainly miss the fullness of God.

God is not a tamable beast.  God is doing big things.  We do well to stay open to them.  Just like in Matthew’s day, the church and the future both belong to God.  We should rejoice and be open to a quite-likely wild ride of faith!

February 9, 2020 Epiphany 5 Matthew 13:54-14:36

I had a very annoying neighbor when I was growing up.  I probably shouldn’t complain because I had just one very annoying neighbor and you may have had loads of them!  She was late middle aged at the time.  She never held back her opinions and she had opinions about everything.  It was actually pretty entertaining for myself and my two cousins; all three of us being laborers on their farm.  She and her husband – both graduates from Harvard and him having a PhD - had moved from the city life of Philadelphia in order to go into the organic farming business.  They had no experience, and to say they didn’t know what they were doing was an understatement.  Oh the laughs my cousins and I had at their attempts at farming with their self-believed brilliance!

            She certainly had her political views, and like everything else, was not afraid to share them.  She was fond of saying something which just made me roll my eyes at the time, but as time has gone by I’ve come to realize did actually have a good deal of truth to it.  Of politics she would often say, “It’s all just a game.”  And indeed, at the risk of getting into hot water for sharing political views, most of what I see at state and national level politics looks more like power posturing than real leadership.  Those in office and those running for office seem to be driven more by appealing to whatever demographic combination of voters they are hoping to appeal to rather than actual leadership.

            Real leadership, whether it be in government, or business, or the military, or even a religious non-profit is going to require making a lot of tough and unpopular decisions.  A real leader knows that exercising power has consequences.  Some people will be winners.  Some people will be hurt.  And a real leader has the courage to make those decisions, be able to go to sleep at night, and yet be fully aware that people may also be hurt.

            It’s been along time since I’ve read the interview, but during Desert Storm I remember General Norman Schwarzkopf, one of the more famous Lutherans of the last century, saying that he knew his decisions could result in the deaths of tens of thousands of people and he didn’t take that lightly.

            Good leaders don’t take their decisions lightly.  They aren’t out for popularity.  They are out for accomplishing a purpose that should be for the benefit of society and the whole world.

            Turning to our gospel reading we find a truly bad leader – Herod Antipas.  Scoundrels of the worst sort, the Herod family was sleezy, corrupt, and manipulative.  Matthew’s gospel begins with the father of Herod Antipas killing the babies in Bethlehem.  Now this generation of Herods is in power.  The birthday party they have for Herod was certainly not of the “family friendly” sort.  By today’s standards the entertainment was probably downright criminal; and I’m not referring to having someone’s head brought in on a platter! 

            John the Baptist becomes a toy in the hands of disgusting people, who through dirty dealings had come into, and kept, power.  He was an expendable life in the game of power.

            Matthew could have put the account of the death of John the Baptist just about anywhere in the gospel.  He put it here, and it was probably by design.

            Contrast the powerful Herod family and their actions at a banquet with powerful Jesus of Nazareth and his action at a banquet of a very different sort.  Herod certainly had tons of food – and tons may not be an exaggeration.  It had been gathered by the exploitation of people and probably prepared by slaves.  Jesus has five loaves and two fish and a “great crowd” to feed.  Numbers in the Bible are always hard to nail down, but Matthew tells us 5000 men plus women and children.  So, let’s say roughly 20,000 people.

            Last week’s Super Bowl took place in the Hard Rock Stadium which has a seating capacity of roughly 65,000.  I wonder how many pounds of hotdogs they sold?  I understand that for the Super Bowl there were something like 100 chefs and 2400 culinary staff preparing food.  While Jesus doesn’t have 65,000 in his crowd, he has only five loaves, two fish, and a dozen disciples – for today’s sake let’s call them “food distributors” - at his disposal.  Can you imagine standing in the middle of that stadium with even just 20,000 people in it and having five loaves of bread and two fish to feed them all?

            Again, contrast the banquet Jesus gives with the banquet of the Herods.  No one gets killed at Jesus’ banquet.  No one gets exploited.  No one dances a dance that should not be danced.  Yet all are fed.  All are fulfilled.  And there are twelve baskets full of leftovers; twelve being a number symbolic of completeness.  So even after all are filled there is still a completeness of leftovers.  This is life with Jesus in charge.  This is life in Jesus’ kingdom.  From little God provides and abundance.

            Now, I wish I could say that if you commit your life to Jesus fully you will have such an abundance, even if you come with nothing.  I wish I could say that with enough faith and trust in God that God would always provide for your every need – food, shelter, clothing, medical care, family, friends, your self-worth.  It would be great if we would be protected from the bad and evil things that happen in the world, whether they be human induced or natural causes.  But that’s not how things work, is it?

            Almost as if Matthew knows we’re going to have such questions arise in us, he moves us into the next scene.  Indeed, I believe the placement of the story of Jesus walking on the water is no coincidence coming right after the feeding of the 5000.

            Jesus sends the disciples away in a boat across the Sea of Galilee.  Matthew doesn’t tell us that detail, but since it’s the only body around that must be it!  Jesus dismisses the crowds.  Jesus’ disciples have a hard time of it.  Strong winds are whipping the sea into big waves.  These disciples, and remember some of them are fishermen experienced on this lake, are worried.  They struggle all night to get across the lake and aren’t succeeding.  Remember also, the Sea of Galilee is only eight miles wide.  They’re in trouble.  When the see Jesus walking to them on the water they are terrified.  Is Jesus some evil spirit come to fetch them to their doom?  In myths of the time only gods could walk on water.

            Well, Jesus lives up to that, doesn’t he?  When the disciples fear he is a ghost he says pretty literally, “Take heart, I am; do not be afraid.” or as our translations put it into better grammar, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”  I think you get it though.  “I am,” or in Hebrew, “YHWH,” is the name of God given in the Old Testament.

            The scene gets silly when Peter decides to go on a stroll across the water to meet Jesus.  It turns out that he gets a bit wet from the experience, but Jesus is there to save him.

            Peter’s request to get out of the relatively safe boat and wander on the water is silly to be sure, but in this brief action I think we find a lot of ourselves and our own faith experience.

            We want to believe.  We want to reach out.  We want to take risks.  Maybe we are even bold enough to dare leaving the safe boats of our own little worlds and step out into the danger.  Peter is typical of anyone whose life is a mix of courage and anxiety, of hearing the word of the Lord and looking at the terror of the storm, of both trust and doubt.  These are all ingredients in a life of faith.

            Putting the gospel reading’s stories in order we see the ways of earthly power as exhibited by Herod.  Then we see the ways of the kingdom as exhibited by Jesus feeding a multitude with basically nothing.  And then we see ourselves – ourselves wishing Jesus were with us fully in flesh and blood to provide the full miraculous feeding, yet knowing he is not with us in that fullness, and that the storms of life still threaten to drown us.

            I think the lesson for our lives is that we cannot and should not turn to Jesus expecting miracles to solve things.  Instead, to recognize that God has given us the muscles to row the boat across, even in tough and dangerous seas, and that God is with us always -whether we see God or not- journeying with us, for as long as there is distance to be covered.

February 2, 2020 Epiphany 4 Matthew 13

(This is the explanation about the "kingdom of heaven" I gave before the 8:30 service reading of Matthew 13)

Matthew 13 is at the heart of Matthew’s gospel.  This is especially important when we remember that Matthew wrote his gospel in the form of a chiasmus.  A chiasmus is a series of parallels nested together.  A topic is introduced, and then another, and then another, all the way until half-way through.  Then the topics are revisited in exactly the reverse order. 

Each of the four gospels is written in a very different form.  Luke’s gospel is written in a straightforward story style.  John’s gospel is a collection of highly developed individual scenes.  Mark’s gospel is circular; with neither beginning nor end.  Matthew’s gospel is a chiasmus.  Like any chiasmus, the center, which we read today is key.

Matthew 13 is a collection of parables about the kingdom of heaven.  The problem is that as we read this center of this chiasmus  we easily miss what Jesus means when he talks about “the kingdom”.  Many people immediately think of heaven and eternal life.  But that’s not what’s meant.  Some people will think of the kingdom as some sort of faith feeling or disposition that can exist inside a person.  But that’s missing it too.

Perhaps we should start by remembering that we don’t live in a time of kings and kingdoms.  A democracy operates very differently.  We believe we have some measure of self-rule. We’re used to our leaders having to make a plea to appeal to voters and do what they want; else we don’t re-elect them.  Not so in a kingdom.  A king is a lifetime -or a forever- ruler.  Political leaders at just about every level in a kingdom don’t have to pay attention to the population or make decisions in the population’s interest.  They can do what they want as long as they keep the king’s favor, or else they have to carry out what the king wants, whatever the king wants. 

Jesus is not the first one to use kingdom language to talk about God.  In those days many Near Eastern religions used kingdom language.  Judaism did.  The gospel writer Matthew is thoroughly Jewish.  Like them he believed that God was the creator of the world; and God is the rightful King of the world.  They also recognized the presence of evil.  Something had gone wrong from God’s original design and things were not as God intended.  The devil had by some means usurped God’s sovereignty and established a kingdom of his own.  As Matthew sees it the other kingdoms of this world (represented by the Roman empire and the two king Herods, and even the Jewish religious leaders) were also agents of the devil’s kingdom.  Herod the Great tried to kill the infant Jesus when he had the babies of Bethlehem killed.  Herod Antipas killed John the Baptist.  The Romans could be brutal in carrying out their will.  And the Roman economy allowed only a few elite at the top with the masses subject to them.  Something like 3% of the Roman population owned over 95% of everything.

It is important to note that Matthew, along with the rest of the Bible’s authors, do not spend a lot of time speculating about how or why God’s reign on earth has been usurped by evil.  Genesis 3 tells the story of Adam and Eve’s fall.  It’s the Bible’s lone story about how and why things went wrong.  It presents the fault as that of humans who seek their own path to fulfillment rather than trusting God.  Compare the Bible with other religions of the time and you realize just how little time the Bible spends on the origin of evil.  Greek mythology had all sorts of stories.  Jewish and Christian authors whose work did not make it into the Bible also had stories of battles and fallen angels and lots of vivid speculation.  But none of these accounts were accepted into scripture.  While our minds might want answers about knowing the origin of evil, if the Bible is the work of the Spirit, then evil’s presence is a mystery that the Spirit does not think we need to have fully answered.

Matthew’s whole gospel is a story about a conflict of kingdoms.  It is the kingdom of heaven vs. the kingdom of the devil.  There is no middle ground.  The rumbles began with Jesus’ birth.  Then conflict came in the open when Jesus is tested by the devil in the wilderness.  The conflict will grow until Jesus is captured, arrested, and killed.  With the devil sure that victory is finally in hand the resurrection suddenly upends the entire order the devil has established.

            While God remains the true king, we find ourselves living in a rebellious world that gives its allegiance to another.  We are in a tough bind.  While we want to live fully for God and God alone, we are also sinners who not only fail to live up to the ideals, but also join in the rebellion against God.  Being a citizen of God’s kingdom does not automatically take one out of the citizenship of the other.  I suppose you could say that -at best- we have dual citizenship.

            As Matthew sees it, since the beginning God has continually chosen people to work through to restore the kingdom.  Jesus’ genealogy in Chapter 1 names some of them, starting with Abraham and moving through King David.  Ancient Jews, inspired by Deuteronomy 6:4-9 worked to be committed to God’s kingdom and God’s kingdom alone.  You’ll recognize these verses as the Shema, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.  Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.  Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.  Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

            These famous verses call on people to stay committed to God’s kingdom.  It is to be their way of life; the ethics they build upon.  From the beginning Matthew sees that God has chosen a people and formed a covenant with them.  They will bring the kingdom into reality in the rebellious world.  That covenanted people were first the Jews (blood descendants of Abraham) and through Jesus the covenanted people was expanded to all people who live by faith. 

            While God’s kingdom is alive and functional on the earth it is not at its fullness.  It never will be until God acts to draw creation to its fullness.

            For Matthew, life in God’s kingdom is dynamic.  It is an ongoing conflict with the kingdom of the devil.  Like any war one side’s moves are countered by the other.  And so the struggle continues.  The kingdom is past.  It is present.  It is future.

            Jesus’ parables of the kingdom then are teachings created to inspire the hearers to recognize the struggle and to continue in it.  The kingdom is not something abstract and distant.  It is to be present in our lives.  Our actions are to be inspired and directed by it so that in very concrete ways God’s will is done among us – his covenant people.

            When you read Matthew 13 keep in mind the conflict of kingdoms, and the way things would work in this world if God’s kingdom was truly lived out by all.