Proper 25
Preaching
PREACHING MATTHEW'S GOSPEL
A Narrative Approach
This week's text includes the third and fourth controversies between Jesus and the religious leaders. This series of controversies began in 22:15. This time it is a lawyer of the Pharisees who rises to test Jesus. The test is a simple one. "Which commandment in the law is the greatest?" According to some biblical scholars there were as many as 613 commandments in the ancient scribal tradition. Rabbis traditionally argued amongst themselves about which of these laws was the greatest. What is the hub of all this teaching? This appears to be the test question of the lawyer. What is the basic principle at work here? What unites our many laws and gives them cohesion? Jewish teachers, of course, have given their own answers to this question. That's the trap. No matter how Jesus answers he will offend some school of Jewish teaching.
Jesus' reply to the lawyer's question is that love of God and love of neighbor is the fulfillment of the law. Jesus quotes the Old Testament as the source of his answer. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 4). This passage from Deuteronomy is the Shema, the fundamental confession of Israelite faith. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," (Leviticus 19:18). Love of God and neighbor fulfills not only the law but also the prophets.
We have commented on the matter of love of God and love of neighbor in Chapter 8 in our discussion of the Sermon on the Mount. (A re-reading of portions of that chapter might be helpful.) We said there that the Sermon on the Mount can be summarized as teaching love of God and love of neighbor. In the Sermon on the Mount, the material in 5:1-20; 6:1-34; 7:13-27 focuses on love of God. The material in 5:21-48; 7:1-12 puts its focus on love of neighbor. "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets" (Matthew 7:12). Jesus has come to fulfill the law, not abolish it: Matthew 5:17.
In Chapter 8 we also spoke of Jesus' new interpretation of the law. The way that the law was used in the post-exilic community in particular was that Israel served the law. Jesus turned that around. He argued that the law served Israel. The law served Israel in that it pointed the way to the needs of others as the means of fulfilling the law. In Jesus' teaching the law puts the spotlight on the neighbor and in this way serves humans. People, says Jesus, are more important than the laws. Love of God and neighbor is the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). Again in Chapter 8, we quoted Jack Kingsbury as saying that there is a center to Jesus' radical teaching concerning the will of God. The center is "Love." "Jesus advances no less a claim than that keeping the law or doing the will of God is always, in essence, an exercise in love." Kingsbury points to other passages in Matthew that bear this same reality. He refers to the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-30); Jesus' designation of mercy as one of the weightier matters of the law in his denunciation of the Pharisees (Matthew 23:23); and Jesus' suppression of the sabbath law in favor of love (Matthew 12:1-8, 7). In Matthew 9:10-13 Jesus has table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners in his desire to have mercy on sinners.1
Robert Smith comments on the absolute necessity of holding love of God and love of neighbor together.
These two commandments stand or fall together, and together they have absolute priority, in the sense that every other law, ordinance, or regulation is a refraction of the hard and bold light shining from this pair. Jesus resisted every effort to drive a wedge between love for God and love for neighbor (15:1-9), insisting graphically and forcefully on their inner connectedness (cf. 25:31-46).2
Smith's reference to 25:31-46 is important. This judgment day parable is crucial to Matthew's understanding of many aspects of Jesus' ministry. In this parable the righteous live at God's right hand because of their deeds of love. They gave food to their hungry master, drink for his thirst, welcomed him as stranger, clothed him in his nakedness, and visited him when he was sick and imprisoned. They are righteous because of their deeds. But they are not aware of their deeds. They are not aware of their righteousness. "When did we see you in such state and minister to you?" they queried Jesus. Jesus replied: "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40). When you loved your neighbor you loved me! That's what hidden righteousness knows! The left hand knows not what the right hand does: Matthew 6:3.
The early church certainly understood that love of God and love of neighbor were the heart of the matter: Romans 13:9-10; Galatians 5:14, 6:2; James 2:8. The reality that emerges from all of this evidence is that the only way one can love God is by loving one's neighbor. Would you love God? Love your neighbor! Love the least of these! This reality stands at the heart of biblical spirituality.
A final word from Smith on this section of this week's text:
It is vital to note that these words are uttered in Jerusalem during Jesus' final days as he draws near to the cross. There he will quite literally yield up heart and soul and mind in loving obedience to God (26:39, 42), and there he will complete his loving service to the neighbor (26:26-28, cf. John 13:1). Thus these words stand not only as ethical instruction for the Christian community. They are that. But even more fundamentally these words are Jesus' own commentary on the narrow path he was treading toward Golgotha.3
In vv. 41-45 of our text Jesus takes the offensive in the question-asking department. He asks the Pharisees who they think the Messiah is. "Whose son is he?" They answer: "David." One thousand years of tradition since Nathan gave the messianic promise to David (2 Samuel 7:8-16) had well familiarized the people of Israel with this answer. "Son of David. Son of David. Son of David." The words literally rolled off their lips. They knew everything about the Messiah to come. It was all familiar to them. "Son of David."
Jesus queries on. He quotes from Psalm 110:1, the most quoted verse from the Old Testament in the New Testament. Jesus' question is simple. If the Messiah is Son of David, how is it that David calls him Lord? If the Messiah is David's Lord, how can he be David's son? Jesus had them. No one could answer. "No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions." The controversies between the religious leaders and Jesus comes to an end in this silence. We are reminded of the way Matthew closes his story of another controversy. When Satan tested Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11) he, too, was sent away silent. "Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him" (4:11).
Jesus seems intent here on demonstrating to the Pharisees that they don't know as much about the Messiah as they think they do. If they did, of course, they would recognize Jesus! But no. Jesus did not fit their well-crafted image of Messiah. He was something other then they expected. He was something more than the temple, more than Jonah or even Solomon: Matthew 12:6, 38-42.
The religious leaders of days past and days present miss the otherness of Jesus. The clearest signature of this otherness is the cross. The cross is a scandal, as Paul writes: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, 23). Matthew quite often refers to the scandal surrounding Jesus: 11:1-6; 13:53-58, 57. The cross is a scandal, to be sure. There was silence in the noonday darkness as the Messiah died forsaken by God. So were the Pharisees silenced (22:46). So was the devil silenced (4:11). The silence may descend upon us as well. There is something more here than we imagined. There is something other in our midst. Who, indeed, understands? But it has been revealed to us as babes (11:25-30). It is given to us to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven (13:10-17). Thanks be to God!
Homiletical Directions
We have put forward a number of points for a didactic sermon. You can arrange the "ideas" above in many different forms in a teaching sermon.
One narrative possibility would be to tell first the textual story in 22:34-40. We can put a lot of the background material, including the Old Testament sources of Jesus' words, into the story. Stretch the story out in your imagination. What it comes down to, of course, is Jesus' word that we are to love God and neighbor. To love God is to love our neighbor as our selves.
There are other Matthean stories that can be told along with the textual story.
Matthew 9:10-13 is the first possibility, though this text was appointed for Proper 5. (See Chapter 10.) In this story Jesus is seen to live out his teaching as expressed in love--mercy--to sinful neighbors.
A second Matthew story, one not used in this lectionary year, is Matthew 12:1-8. This is the story of a Sabbath day when Jesus and his disciples were hungry and Jesus broke the Sabbath law in order to see that all were fed. The law is broken but the neighbor is served. So, God desires mercy, not sacrifice. Love of neighbor, even if it breaks the law, is love of God. The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath!
A third Matthean story that could be told under this theme is 19:16-30, the story of a rich man who asked Jesus how he might enter eternal life. (This story is not included in the Matthean year.) This story points precisely to love of God and love of neighbor as the path to eternal life. This is a helpful story because its message is that with human beings such behavior is impossible. "Who then can be saved?" the disciples ask of Jesus. Jesus answers: "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible" (19:26). This story will help us avoid a sermon that simply sets forth love of God and love of neighbor as a human possibility. Such love is precisely what we fail to produce as sinful human beings. We are sinners. But with God even sinners can be made righteous (Matthew 9:13).
This story in turn points us to the cross. We heard from Robert Smith that it was on the cross that Jesus gave his heart, mind, and soul for us. It is precisely the love of God for sinners that we see on the cross that saves us, makes us whole, and empowers us to neighbor love. Matthew 25:31-46 can also be used to talk about the hidden or alien nature of our righteousness that serves Jesus in his need. However, this text will be coming up in the near future.
We will suggest a proclamation that can conclude the stories we have proposed for the telling. Through these stories Jesus is saying to us today:
"I will tell you the greatest commandment of them all. I will tell you how to live in the image of God. Simply love God and love your neighbor. Do this and you will have eternal life. To love God and neighbor fully, of course, is not possible for mortals. I am something more than a mortal. I am more than the temple. I am other than the Messiah you expected. I have come as Messiah to save you from your impossibilities. I have come to make the impossible, possible. I have come to die on a cross that you might be empowered to live a new kind of life. I have come to enable you to be loved by God. I have come to enable you to love God by loving your neighbor." Amen.
____________
1. Jack Dean Kingsbury, Matthew As Story (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 66-67.
2. Robert H. Smith, Matthew: Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1989), p. 265.
3. Ibid., p. 266.
Jesus' reply to the lawyer's question is that love of God and love of neighbor is the fulfillment of the law. Jesus quotes the Old Testament as the source of his answer. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 4). This passage from Deuteronomy is the Shema, the fundamental confession of Israelite faith. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," (Leviticus 19:18). Love of God and neighbor fulfills not only the law but also the prophets.
We have commented on the matter of love of God and love of neighbor in Chapter 8 in our discussion of the Sermon on the Mount. (A re-reading of portions of that chapter might be helpful.) We said there that the Sermon on the Mount can be summarized as teaching love of God and love of neighbor. In the Sermon on the Mount, the material in 5:1-20; 6:1-34; 7:13-27 focuses on love of God. The material in 5:21-48; 7:1-12 puts its focus on love of neighbor. "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets" (Matthew 7:12). Jesus has come to fulfill the law, not abolish it: Matthew 5:17.
In Chapter 8 we also spoke of Jesus' new interpretation of the law. The way that the law was used in the post-exilic community in particular was that Israel served the law. Jesus turned that around. He argued that the law served Israel. The law served Israel in that it pointed the way to the needs of others as the means of fulfilling the law. In Jesus' teaching the law puts the spotlight on the neighbor and in this way serves humans. People, says Jesus, are more important than the laws. Love of God and neighbor is the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). Again in Chapter 8, we quoted Jack Kingsbury as saying that there is a center to Jesus' radical teaching concerning the will of God. The center is "Love." "Jesus advances no less a claim than that keeping the law or doing the will of God is always, in essence, an exercise in love." Kingsbury points to other passages in Matthew that bear this same reality. He refers to the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-30); Jesus' designation of mercy as one of the weightier matters of the law in his denunciation of the Pharisees (Matthew 23:23); and Jesus' suppression of the sabbath law in favor of love (Matthew 12:1-8, 7). In Matthew 9:10-13 Jesus has table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners in his desire to have mercy on sinners.1
Robert Smith comments on the absolute necessity of holding love of God and love of neighbor together.
These two commandments stand or fall together, and together they have absolute priority, in the sense that every other law, ordinance, or regulation is a refraction of the hard and bold light shining from this pair. Jesus resisted every effort to drive a wedge between love for God and love for neighbor (15:1-9), insisting graphically and forcefully on their inner connectedness (cf. 25:31-46).2
Smith's reference to 25:31-46 is important. This judgment day parable is crucial to Matthew's understanding of many aspects of Jesus' ministry. In this parable the righteous live at God's right hand because of their deeds of love. They gave food to their hungry master, drink for his thirst, welcomed him as stranger, clothed him in his nakedness, and visited him when he was sick and imprisoned. They are righteous because of their deeds. But they are not aware of their deeds. They are not aware of their righteousness. "When did we see you in such state and minister to you?" they queried Jesus. Jesus replied: "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40). When you loved your neighbor you loved me! That's what hidden righteousness knows! The left hand knows not what the right hand does: Matthew 6:3.
The early church certainly understood that love of God and love of neighbor were the heart of the matter: Romans 13:9-10; Galatians 5:14, 6:2; James 2:8. The reality that emerges from all of this evidence is that the only way one can love God is by loving one's neighbor. Would you love God? Love your neighbor! Love the least of these! This reality stands at the heart of biblical spirituality.
A final word from Smith on this section of this week's text:
It is vital to note that these words are uttered in Jerusalem during Jesus' final days as he draws near to the cross. There he will quite literally yield up heart and soul and mind in loving obedience to God (26:39, 42), and there he will complete his loving service to the neighbor (26:26-28, cf. John 13:1). Thus these words stand not only as ethical instruction for the Christian community. They are that. But even more fundamentally these words are Jesus' own commentary on the narrow path he was treading toward Golgotha.3
In vv. 41-45 of our text Jesus takes the offensive in the question-asking department. He asks the Pharisees who they think the Messiah is. "Whose son is he?" They answer: "David." One thousand years of tradition since Nathan gave the messianic promise to David (2 Samuel 7:8-16) had well familiarized the people of Israel with this answer. "Son of David. Son of David. Son of David." The words literally rolled off their lips. They knew everything about the Messiah to come. It was all familiar to them. "Son of David."
Jesus queries on. He quotes from Psalm 110:1, the most quoted verse from the Old Testament in the New Testament. Jesus' question is simple. If the Messiah is Son of David, how is it that David calls him Lord? If the Messiah is David's Lord, how can he be David's son? Jesus had them. No one could answer. "No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions." The controversies between the religious leaders and Jesus comes to an end in this silence. We are reminded of the way Matthew closes his story of another controversy. When Satan tested Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11) he, too, was sent away silent. "Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him" (4:11).
Jesus seems intent here on demonstrating to the Pharisees that they don't know as much about the Messiah as they think they do. If they did, of course, they would recognize Jesus! But no. Jesus did not fit their well-crafted image of Messiah. He was something other then they expected. He was something more than the temple, more than Jonah or even Solomon: Matthew 12:6, 38-42.
The religious leaders of days past and days present miss the otherness of Jesus. The clearest signature of this otherness is the cross. The cross is a scandal, as Paul writes: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, 23). Matthew quite often refers to the scandal surrounding Jesus: 11:1-6; 13:53-58, 57. The cross is a scandal, to be sure. There was silence in the noonday darkness as the Messiah died forsaken by God. So were the Pharisees silenced (22:46). So was the devil silenced (4:11). The silence may descend upon us as well. There is something more here than we imagined. There is something other in our midst. Who, indeed, understands? But it has been revealed to us as babes (11:25-30). It is given to us to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven (13:10-17). Thanks be to God!
Homiletical Directions
We have put forward a number of points for a didactic sermon. You can arrange the "ideas" above in many different forms in a teaching sermon.
One narrative possibility would be to tell first the textual story in 22:34-40. We can put a lot of the background material, including the Old Testament sources of Jesus' words, into the story. Stretch the story out in your imagination. What it comes down to, of course, is Jesus' word that we are to love God and neighbor. To love God is to love our neighbor as our selves.
There are other Matthean stories that can be told along with the textual story.
Matthew 9:10-13 is the first possibility, though this text was appointed for Proper 5. (See Chapter 10.) In this story Jesus is seen to live out his teaching as expressed in love--mercy--to sinful neighbors.
A second Matthew story, one not used in this lectionary year, is Matthew 12:1-8. This is the story of a Sabbath day when Jesus and his disciples were hungry and Jesus broke the Sabbath law in order to see that all were fed. The law is broken but the neighbor is served. So, God desires mercy, not sacrifice. Love of neighbor, even if it breaks the law, is love of God. The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath!
A third Matthean story that could be told under this theme is 19:16-30, the story of a rich man who asked Jesus how he might enter eternal life. (This story is not included in the Matthean year.) This story points precisely to love of God and love of neighbor as the path to eternal life. This is a helpful story because its message is that with human beings such behavior is impossible. "Who then can be saved?" the disciples ask of Jesus. Jesus answers: "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible" (19:26). This story will help us avoid a sermon that simply sets forth love of God and love of neighbor as a human possibility. Such love is precisely what we fail to produce as sinful human beings. We are sinners. But with God even sinners can be made righteous (Matthew 9:13).
This story in turn points us to the cross. We heard from Robert Smith that it was on the cross that Jesus gave his heart, mind, and soul for us. It is precisely the love of God for sinners that we see on the cross that saves us, makes us whole, and empowers us to neighbor love. Matthew 25:31-46 can also be used to talk about the hidden or alien nature of our righteousness that serves Jesus in his need. However, this text will be coming up in the near future.
We will suggest a proclamation that can conclude the stories we have proposed for the telling. Through these stories Jesus is saying to us today:
"I will tell you the greatest commandment of them all. I will tell you how to live in the image of God. Simply love God and love your neighbor. Do this and you will have eternal life. To love God and neighbor fully, of course, is not possible for mortals. I am something more than a mortal. I am more than the temple. I am other than the Messiah you expected. I have come as Messiah to save you from your impossibilities. I have come to make the impossible, possible. I have come to die on a cross that you might be empowered to live a new kind of life. I have come to enable you to be loved by God. I have come to enable you to love God by loving your neighbor." Amen.
____________
1. Jack Dean Kingsbury, Matthew As Story (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 66-67.
2. Robert H. Smith, Matthew: Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1989), p. 265.
3. Ibid., p. 266.
