Matthew 5-7 (cont.)

Funny where you sometimes find biblical commentary. Reading a review of Look to the Land by Lord Northbourne this morning in the online version of The Englewood Review of Books and came upon this:

His two agricultural rules are based not only on advanced agricultural theory, but on a more fundamental theological principle: “give and you shall receive.” “Love can express itself in many ways, but if it is genuine it means giving – not of gifts but of self” (113). One must be willing to sacrifice self by looking to land, with all the toil and difficulty that entails, for the sake of personal and communal wholeness.  Even as Axis planes were dropping bombs on London, James took comfort in the power of the virtues of farming to heal and restore human life. He wrote: “Death cannot be overcome with his own weapons, be they bullet or knife or poison, but only by the cultivation of the good in life” (61)

 "Death cannot be overcome with his own weapons...."

That's the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5-7

This is impossible. No, we can do it. But, how?

I'm not talking about living the Sermon on the Mount; I'm just talking about writing about it. Oh, man.

I was going to write about what it means to be blessed. But...

Let me start with two links. (I know...that's kind of like punting on first down.) Come back later. It may get better. I'm not sure though, because Lucinda Williams nails it. So...

First, a link to the lyrics of Lucinda Williams's song, "Blessed." Open the lyrics in another tab and then watch the video below.

 

Let me just add one lyric: "We are blessed by the guitar players who finish this song."

Can you add any blessed lyrics?

Matthew 3-4

Matthew 3-4

If, by killing one person, you could rid the world of evil, would you take up the sword?

Jesus, who has just passed through the baptismal waters of the Jordan River and been declared God’s beloved Son by descending Spirit-dove and by heavenly voice, is now spirited away to the wilderness to be tested by the devil. (Because that’s what the Spirit does to God's beloved children, right?) He fasted forty days and nights, and it is from his forty-day fast that we derive the forty days of Lent, a season of penitence and fasting.

Much (very much) has been written about the three temptations recorded in Matthew and Luke, and the temptations are very important in understanding who Jesus is and what his mission is. But I want to suggest an unrecorded temptation that may also help us understand and appreciate who Jesus is and what he learned in the wilderness.

Here’s the set up. Jesus and the devil are alone together (Is that an oxymoron?) in the wilderness. No one watching. No one to see. Jesus is tired and hungry, but he’s still God’s Son. He has power to command demons and the devil himself as he demonstrates at the end of the story. He’ll spend much of the rest of the gospels casting out demons in a seemingly constant battle against the prince of darkness and the rulers of this world. Don’t you think that he was tempted to get it over with, to cast the devil and his demons out of this world right here at the beginning and finish it? Maybe call in the twelve legions of angels he mentions later in the garden? Or Angel Team Six? Or maybe an angel drone strike?

But, no. Why not?

In John Gardner’s 1980 novel, Freddy’s Book, a sixteenth century Scandinavian named Lars-Goren kills the devil. And it makes no difference. The novel closes:

“Now the red of the sky was fading. In Russia, the tsar, with ice on his eyelashes, was declaring war on Poland. ‘Little do they dream,’ he said, ‘what horrors they’ve unleashed on themselves, daring to think lightly of the tsar!’ All around him, his courtiers bowed humbly, their palms and fingertips touching as if for prayer.”*

This is what Jesus knew. He knew that violence does not cast out violence. He knew that killing does not end killing. He knew that destroying a person, even the devil himself, is just another manifestation of the evil that one is attempting to eradicate. He knew that his Father willed for him another path, the path of self-sacrificial love of enemies. And he was the faithfully obedient, beloved Son, showing us the Way, the way of the cross.

What then shall we do? Shall we take up the sword, or lay it down? Even when we think we can kill just the right person to make the world a better place, what then shall we faithful and obedient followers of Jesus do? Shall we take up the sword—or take up the cross?

(If you want to explore the agony of this decision for a very committed Christian in the face of seemingly unmitigated evil, read how Dietrich Bonhoeffer thought about joining the plot to assassinate Hitler. Biographies abound.**)

*John Gardner. Freddy's Book (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), p. 246.

**Here are some Dietrich Bonhoeffer biographies:
Ferdinand Schlingensiepen. Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance. 2010.
Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich. 2010.
Mary Bosanquet. The Life and Death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 1968.
Renate Wind. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Spoke in the Wheel. 1990.
Edwin Robertson. The Shame and the Sacrifice: The Life and Martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 1988.
Eberhard Bethge. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. (First published in 1967, I think. Revised English translation published by Fortress, 2000.)
Two novels based on Bonhoeffer's life:
Paul Barz. I Am Bonhoeffer: A Credible Life. 2008.
Denise Giardina. Saints and Villains. 1998.

A Call To Trust

Jesus is smart. I know, I know - tons of insight in that sentence. But Jesus really does understand humanity well. In our passage today, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spends some words speaking about money (that we cannot serve both Money and God) and then immediately follows this section with an encouragement to not worry. It's as if he knew what we might really worry about in life. And he was right...at least for me.

As I was reading Jesus' beautiful words about not worrying because God even takes care of the birds of the air and the lillies of the field, I found myself reflecting on my own daily worries. My wife and I are in the beginning stages of buying our first home and I have already begun to fret about how we will manage this feat financially.

How much can we afford to spend? How much of a down payment do we need? Can we really afford to buy a house? How much will our mortgage be? How will we afford to pay our mortgage while also paying my student loans?

You get the idea. I'm beginning to freak out.

But Jesus' words are really helpful today. They are calming and reassuring. I can so easily get caught up in a world of fret, uncertainty, and doubt, when Jesus is calling us to a life of trust. He is calling us to live in today and to let tomorrow worry about itself. He is not calling us to naivete and a lack of preparation, but instead, to a calm assurance that all will be fine. Regardless of what happens, God will be there beside us, shepherding us through good times and bad. I needed this calm assurance today. I needed the peace of Christ. Thanks be to God.

Just A Few Questions...

Our readings for the day, the third and fourth chapters of Matthew, are chock full of content about which we could spend countless hours, energy, and words unpacking. But for today, I will simply ask a few questions...
_____

Where is heaven?

Why do we normally insist that the kingdom of heaven is somewhere "out there" when the first proclamation about Jesus, and the message of Jesus' first sermon, is that the kingdom of heaven has come near?

What does it mean and how does it affect our lives if heaven is "here" and "near" rather than "there" and "far"?

Day 1: A Lot of Dudes, An Unexpected Dude, & The New Exodus

As Gary and I document our thoughts on the gospel texts over the next 40 days, the style of my writing will undoubtedly vary from day to day. Sometimes I will write a quick synopsis of the day's readings. Sometimes I will choose one particular verse, passage, or section to focus on. And sometimes, like today, I will record a number of short, quick bullet-point-like thoughts on different parts of the text. Ok...enough intro...let's get to it!

A Lot of Dudes

I've read and befriended too many feminist and liberation theologians throughout my life to be able to read through the genealogy of Jesus and not note the small number of women included in this list. Now I realize that this was a patriarchal society that did not make much space for a woman's voice, but still, that's a lot of dudes in that list. Our current church culture is getting better at listening to women and respecting them as leaders, but I would still encourage us to honor the wisdom, strength, and capabilities of the women around us and to fight for them to have increasing opportunities to lead and be vocal in the church.

An Unexpected Dude

Speaking of dudes, however, there is one guy who shows up in the genealogy of Jesus who you would typically not expect to be named. That man is Uriah (he shows up in Matthew 1:6). Uriah was Bathsheba's husband when King David lusted over her, committed adultery with her, and then had Uriah killed to cover up their adulterous love child. Scandalous!

But oddly, the writer of Matthew, a Jew, does not leave Uriah out of the story of Israel, even though he is not in the lineage of Jesus. We are often quick to gloss over or omit our shortcomings, but the writer, here, does not allow us to do that. He forces us to own this dark moment of our past. He makes us face it head on. We must learn how to move on from our mistakes and give ourselves grace, without forgetting or trivializing our past. We must learn how to learn from our shortcomings.

The New Exodus

For years I've heard scholars talk about Jesus as the "New Moses" and his movement as the "New Exodus," but, despite reading this text in Matthew hundreds of times, I've never noticed how Matthew has already begun to frame the story of Jesus as the "New Exodus" (Matthew 2:14-15). The Exodus in the Old Testament is the chief framing story for the people of Israel, and here, Jesus is already being revealed as the "New Moses." Joseph and Mary are forced into Egypt and metaphorically enslaved and imprisoned there until Herod dies. So when they come 'out of Egypt' and return to their land, it is easy to see how Jesus is poised to deliver his people into the "New Promised Land," the Kingdom of God.

Matt 1-2

Intro

Thinking about a way to enter this conversation with the gospels during Lent, I recalled the following three questions which some scholars have discerned as the big questions which shaped Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology and life. *

1. Who is Jesus?

2. Where is Jesus?

3. What then shall we do?

I think I’ll reflect on those questions as I listen to each of the gospel texts this year. They are big questions, and shelves sag under the weight of the pages written about them. But this is a blog, not a systematic theology.

Matthew 1-2

A few years ago I set out to teach the Gospel According to Matthew to a college group and asked them to read the first chapter for our first meeting. One of the young women in the group asked if we could skip the begats, as in “Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judah and his brothers,” etc. A reasonable request. When, for example, was the last time you heard a Christmas sermon on Matthew 1:1-17? Can’t remember one myself.

Too bad. Because the genealogy of Jesus is good stuff. It shows a great deal about who Jesus is. And he’s a subversive little baby.

He starts out as the perfect Hebrew: son of David, son of Abraham. But his perfect patriarchal lineage is interrupted by the inclusion of four women: Tamar (a seducer and adulterer), Rahab (harlot of Jericho), Ruth (a Moabite), and Bathsheba (stolen wife of the murdered Uriah the Hittite). This sweet, little Christ child, just by his genealogy, subverts the racial barriers between Jew and Gentile, subverts the patriarchal barriers, and subverts the barriers between saints and sinners. Racial, sexual, and religious barriers all fall when this child with this lineage is declared “Emmanuel.”

And that’s not to mention unwed Mary and the subversion of the natural order by this miraculous conception. Or Joseph’s subversion of legal righteousness by his choosing not to divorce her. Highly irregular.

It is an altogether subversive birth of a King, don’t you think? In fact, one of the few normal responses in the story is Herod the king’s imperial order to murder children in an effort to nip this subversion in the bud. Political refugees, collateral damage in the name of homeland security, weeping mothers—normalcy.

From the beginning—the genesis—of Jesus’ story we are taught that in Jesus, all racial, sexual, and religious barriers are subverted. And we are taught that the reaction of the kings and rulers of this world will be violent.

What then are we to do? We are to regard racial, sexual, and religious barriers as the genealogy regards them, knowing that God (and, as we shall see, Jesus) will not be bound by any of them. We are to practice mercy and forgiveness over our legal rights, as Joseph did with Mary. We are to care for unwed mothers, for who knows what child they bear. We are to care for the ones that the rulers of this world displace and damage in their murderous efforts to maintain the status quo. And we are to be forewarned that we will encounter violent resistance to our message and our actions. 

Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like Dietrich Bonhoeffer's story. That’s enough for now, I think.**

*Andrew Root. Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2007), p.82 and footnote.

**From the beginning I need to acknowledge my debt to F. Dale Bruner’s commentary on Matthew. It is simply one of the best commentaries I have ever read. At the same time I need to absolve him for any of my heterodox opinions. OK?