Lectionary Reflection—29 October 2017

Matthew 22:34-46 (MSG; adapted):a

34-36When the Pharisees heard how he had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: “Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?”

37-40Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there’s a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

41-42As the Pharisees were regrouping, Jesus caught them off balance with his own test question: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said, “David’s son.”

43-45Jesus replied, “Well, if the Messiah is David’s son, how do you explain that David, under inspiration, named the Christ his ‘Master’?

God said to my Master,

“Sit here at my right hand

until I make your enemies your footstool.”b

“Now if David calls him ‘Master,’ how can he at the same time be his son?”

46That stumped them, literalists that they were. Unwilling to risk losing face again in one of these public verbal exchanges, they quit asking Jesus questions for good.

In the last couple of weeks, Matthewc has been telling us of these confrontations between Jesus and the Religious Opposition of his day. The tension’s been rising until we get to this point where Jesus turns the tables, so to speak. Interestingly, the Lectionary left out the confrontation with the Sadducees (Matthew 22.23-33).d In that passage, the Sadducees question Jesus about the resurrection as they understand it. He points out the faults in their thinking and impresses the crowds with his reasoning. What some of us don’t realize is that this is the last time the Religious Opposition confronts Jesus until his arrest. Now that we’re caught up, let’s delve into this passage.

The question that’s put to Jesus is pretty straight forward as is his answer. There are 613 laws in the Mosaic System and almost everyone would agree with Jesus’ answer here. In fact, “loving God and loving others” is more or less a staple in all faith traditions (see here and here). So what makes this different? The difference is tied up in Jesus’ question to the Pharisees.

When Jesus asked them, “If the Messiah is David’s son, how can he be David’s Master, too?” he’s tapping into their own misunderstanding of what “Messiah” means, just like he tapped into the Sadducees’ misunderstanding of the resurrection. For a lot of people in Jesus’ day, the Messiah was a military figure whom Yahweh would send to put an end to Israel’s enemies, not least of which would be the Roman empire who had taken over their land and occupied their cities.

Likewise, a lot of Christians today understand the Messiah in the exact same way. While they claim that Jesus is the Messiah (the Christ), they believe that his “Second Coming” will be vastly different from his first coming. In his first coming, the Incarnation, Jesus was the meek and gentle sacrificial lamb (John 1.29), the suffering servant (Isaiah 53). But in the “Second Coming”? The believe that Jesus will be exactly what the first century Jews wanted—the warrior king who will slaughter all of God’s enemies (who, interestingly enough, just happen to be our enemies, too).

But both groups are missing the point. The “flesh and blood” point, as Tom Wright put it.e The answer to Jesus’ question to the Pharisees was standing right in front of them but they couldn’t see it, “literalists that they were.” And it’s the true answer to their own question to Jesus—the Love of God and the Love of humanity all rolled into one.

The Messiah is not—will never be—the military King so many want. That’s our own projections onto God. One of the purposes of the Incarnation was to show us what God was truly like. Jesus told his followers, “To see me is to see” God (John 14.9). Not a part of God. Not some aspect of God. But the complete image of God—

2 Corinthians 4.4 (CEB):f

Christ is the image of God.

Colossians 1.15 (NLT):g

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

The picture Matthew’s been painting is leading up to the ultimate answer to the Pharisee’s question. The Love of God and humanity will be completely revealed at the cross and resurrection. It’s there that Jesus will be “enthroned as both David’s son, the true king of Israel, and David’s master.”h And it precisely because of this fact that I want to circle back to the idea that nearly all wisdom traditions have “loving God and humanity” as their core.

When I start talking about Christian Universalism, I’m often asked, “Then what’s the point of Jesus?” What I mean by this, and I’m not speaking for all people who adhere to Christian Universalism, is that it’s because of Jesus’ death and resurrection that all religious traditions have been given an added dimension and depth. That is, in the same way parents with more than one child have to navigate the delicate waters of each child’s personality—e.g., what expressions of Love works best—so God speaks in different ways to people.

With that said, I’m not saying all roads lead to God. As Bill Young wrote in his novel, The Shack—

[Jesus and Mack] arrived at the door of the workshop. Again Jesus stopped. “Those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslim, Democrats, Republicans, and many who don’t vote or aren’t part of any Sunday morning religious institutions. I have followers who were murderers and many who were self-righteous. Some were bankers and bookies, Americans and Iraqis, Jews and Palestinians. I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters, into my Beloved.”

“Does that mean,” asked Mack, “that all roads will lead to you?”

“Not at all,” smiled Jesus as he reached for the door handle to the shop. “Most roads don’t lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I’ll travel any road to find you.”i

This is how I understand the Love of God expressed in the risen Jesus. Because of the resurrection, humanity is no longer in it’s sin (1 Corinthians 15.17). People are now free to follow the Path that God has laid out before them, whichever path they may take. And make no mistake, whatever Path we travel, Christ is traveling it with us.

~~~

In the Love of the Three in One,

Br. Jack+, LC

~~~

1. Scripture quotations marked (MSG) taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
2. Psalm 110.1.
3. According to modern scholarship, the author of “The Gospel According to Matthew” is actually unknown. The paratext, “according to Matthew” first appeared in the second century (see: http://bit.ly/2fHUgNu). However, it’s unanimously taught from the church fathers and mothers onward that the apostle Matthew wrote the Gospel bearing his name between 55-65 CE (see: http://bit.ly/2fIRS8S and http://bit.ly/2fIplR6 and  http://bit.ly/2fIQnHM).
4. What’s even more interesting is I didn’t find it in any of the Sunday lessons for the next two cycles. I’m sure it’s probably in the Daily Lectionary, but still, I’m curious as to why it’s not in the Sunday Lessons. If any of you have any thoughts about this, please leave a comment.
5. Wright, N.T., (2002). Matthew for Everyone, Part 2 (Kindle Version). Retrieved from Amazon.com.
6. Scripture quotations marked (CEB) are taken from The Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible.
7. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
8. Wright, N.T., (2002). Matthew for Everyone, Part 2 (Kindle Version). Retrieved from Amazon.com.
9. Young, W.P., (2007). The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity, pg. 182. Los Angeles, CA: Windblown Media.