Matthew 8-9

We were blessed by the preacher who practiced what he preached.

That line from Lucinda Williams captures the essence of chapters 8 and 9. (See my first post on Matthew 5-7 for Lucinda's song.) Jesus is the preacher who practiced what he preached.

Jesus ended his Sermon in chapter 7 with a caution that hearing demands action, words call forth deeds. To call Jesus 'Lord' without doing the will of the Father is to take Jesus' name in vain. We may consider ourselves insiders based on our confession, but we may find ourselves outside the kingdom of heaven based upon our deeds. This is a theme that Matthew's Jesus will return to again and again.

In chapters 8-9 Jesus practices what he preached in chapters 5-7. He not only teaches and preaches as one with authority, but he practices that authority in blessing those who are outside the traditional understanding of 'blessed.' Jesus—himself blessed as poor in spirit, as mourner, as meek or gentle, hungering and thirsting after God's righteousness, as merciful, as pure in heart, as peacemaker, and as persecuted and reviled—now goes about being a blessing to other outsiders. He was blessed to be a blessing.

The cultural understanding of 'blessed' goes something like this: The way things are is the way they were meant to be, the way God ordained them to be.  The wealthy, healthy, and powerful insiders deserve to be so, else they wouldn't be wealthy, healthy, and powerful. The poor, sick, and powerless—the outsiders—deserve to be so or else they wouldn't be poor, sick, and powerless. God is just. Those who deserve to be blessed are blessed and those who do not are not blessed.

Jesus sees this understanding of justice as broken, as unjust, as sin. In these two chapters he goes to the outsiders—lepers, a Roman centurion, women (Peter's mom and the woman with the issue of blood—who is both unclean and a woman, twice removed from the insiders), demon-possessed people, sick people, paralyzed people, tax collectors, sinners, dead people, blind people, mute people—and heals them (restores them to physical and social and religious and community health). He declares their faith great. He helps them. He blesses them.

As a result, he runs into resistance from insiders who are invested in the status quo, both the economic status quo (the Gadarene swineherd community) and the religious status quo (represented here by the Pharisees). These insiders cannot imagine a God who would bless those who don't deserve it.

So, who is Jesus? He is the one who goes about teaching, proclaiming the kingdom, and healing. He is the one who has compassion on the crowds of outsiders, the one who practices authority over demons, illness, death, and nature. He is the one who embodies the Beatitudes of chapter 5, the one who does the will of the Father.

Where is Jesus? He's with sinners, outsiders, losers.

What then shall we do? We shall do the will of the Father as outlined in chapters 5-7. We shall act on the words we heard Jesus preach in the Sermon. We shall go about, seeking out sinners, outsiders, and losers, not just waiting and expecting them to find us. We shall heal and restore. We shall follow the preacher who practiced what he preached.