A View From the Mount: (Overview of the Sermon on the Mount)

If you want to understand the theology of Jesus (what he believed about God, about people, about right and wrong, about human responsibilities, etc.) then the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7 of Matthew) is one of the most important sections in the New Testament. It is also one of the best loved and most often quoted. It's not really a sermon, but it has more wisdom, challenge, and depth than any single sermon could. Because it is so packed with meaning, I'm going to take this section slowly.

I say this isn't a sermon because it's not structured like one. A good sermon (like any other kind of good speech) should focus on a single, memorable point. As wonderful as the Sermon on the Mount is, it is much too complicated for that.

In their excellent study, First Light, theologians Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan discuss how Jesus taught. Rather than giving them a set of rules or doctrines to memorize, he would use his parables as the start of a discussion and make them think it through for themselves. It’s a great method of teaching, but one that relies on the teacher being there. When you’re writing a book, you lose the back and forth quality, so the author of Matthew did the next best thing. He gathered together a lot of the most important teachings of Jesus and arranged them in logical order. The author of Luke did something very similar on a smaller scale in what’s known as the Sermon on the Plain. It’s different than the Sermon on the Mount in several important ways, but for now we'll just look at the setting.

Why did the author of Matthew put this collection of teachings on a mountain while the author of Luke put them on a plain? Well, in Matthew's case, the author wanted to make his audience think of something very familiar. Remember, we believe this Gospel was written for a predominantly Jewish community living away from Judea (possibly in Sirya.) The author wanted his audience to see that the story of Jesus was consistent with God's actions in the Hebrew Scriptures. By having Jesus speak from a mountain, he is reminding them of Moses, bringing the law from Mount Sinai. He's setting up Jesus as a new Moses and his teachings as a new law.

This was a pretty radical approach, and so the author is quick to point out this doesn't mean that Jesus is getting rid of Moses or the ancient laws. In Matthew 5:7-10 Jesus says that he hasn't come to do away with the old scriptures but to complete or fulfill them. He follows that up by talking about how important the Law and the Prophets are.

I've run across some people (usually on the fringes) who insist that Jesus is telling us that we have to follow every single law of the Hebrew Scriptures scrupulously or else God will send us to Hell. I'll get into exactly how wrong that reading is later. For now, I'll just say that fulfilling the law, in Jesus' teaching is much more about being a loving and faithful person, devoted to justice and mercy, than it does with being a meticulous rule follower.

More on that later. Next up: The Beatitudes!

Matthew 4:12-25 (Jesus gets started)

Following his ordeal in the desert, Jesus sets to work, but in Matthew there's an interesting detail that comes first.

In Matthew 4:12-25 we're told that Jesus moved from his hometown of Nazareth to Capernaum. Matthew--who always likes to draw connections to the Hebrew Scriptures presents this is the fulfillment of a scriptural prophecy from Isaiah 9:1-2. His use of this passage about the people who had lived in darkness having seen a great light really resonates with Christians.

There was probably another very practical reason for Jesus relocating. John the Baptist had been arrested by Herod Antipas. Herod didn't like trouble-making preachers, and probably had a special distaste for anyone closely associated with the Baptist. Jesus had begun his public ministry by being baptized by John and--as the Gospel of Matthew tells us--his preaching picked up right where John's left off. That would have probably made him a person of interest in Herod's eyes and a good candidate for arrest. If Jesus had remained in Nazareth, he'd have been deep inside Herod's territory. Capernaum, on the other hand, sat on the north shore of Lake Galilee and offered a quick escape route if Jesus needed one. A quick boat ride would have carried him out of Herod's jurisdiction.

It's on the shores of Galilee that Jesus calls his first disciples, two sets of brothers: Simon and Andrew, and James and John, the sons of Zebedee. It's a mysterious scene as the young teacher walks along the shore and tells them to come with him to become "fishers of men." The men, without question, drop their nets and follow, abandoning their family business and their only means of livelihood.

I've seen several explanations for this, including a wonderful reflection by emergent pastor Rob Bell in his video, "Dust." Bell explains that Jewish society of Jesus' day had a rigorous educational screening process. Every family wanted their sons to become a rabbi, but most flunked out fairly early in the process and were left in dead-end jobs like laborers or fishermen. In other words, the people Jess was calling to be his disciples--the successors in training to a charismatic rabbi--were failures. Their dreams of reaching that sort of prestige had been crushed long ago. When Jesus called them, it was like a resurrection of their hopes and dreams.

I find this compelling because bringing new life to people who life had left behind was central to Jesus' ministry. He reached out in unqualified love to all the people his culture rejected and marginalized; it only makes sense that he would choose people considered "losers" as his leadership team. Kind of like this bit of humor that's been around for a few years.

Jordan Management Consultants

Jesus, son of Joseph

Nazareth, Galilee

Dear Sir,

Thank you for submitting the résumés of the 12 men you have picked for managerial positions in your new organization. All of them have now taken a battery of tests and we have run them through our computers. It is the staffs’ opinion that most of your nominees are lacking in background, educational and vocational aptitude for the type of enterprise you are undertaking. They do not have the team concept. We would suggest that you continue your search for persons with experience and proven capability.

Simon Peter is emotionally unstable and given to fits of temper.

Andrew has no leadership skills at all.

The two brothers, James and John, place personal interest above company loyalty.

Thomas demonstrates a questioning attitude that would tend to undermine morale.

We feel that it is our duty to inform you that Matthew has been blacklisted by the Greater Jerusalem Better Business Bureau.

James and Thaddeus have radical leanings and registered high manic-depressive scores.

Only one of the candidates shows great potential. He is a man of ability and resourcefulness who meets people well and has a keen business mind. He has contacts in high places and is highly motivated, ambitious and responsible. We recommend Judas Iscariot as your comptroller and right-hand man.

We wish you every success in your new venture.

Sincerely yours,

Jordan Management Consultants

Jerusalem, Judea

The passage goes on to give a description of Jesus' ministry, which was talking about God's Kingdom and doing things to show what that Kingdom was like. When Jesus used the phrase "God's Kingdom" or "Kingdom of Heaven" he was talking about a world in which people made their first loyalty to God rather than to government, or culture, or religion. I won't say a lot about it here because chapter 5 begins a long section on just what the Kingdom is.

One thing I will say is that Jesus' healings really illustrate what life in the Kingdom is supposed to be like. In his day, people with illnesses--whether physical, mental or emotional--were considered unclean and were effectively shunned. In fact, many went so far as to say that anyone with an illness was being punished by God for being a sinner. The poor were often neglected or mistreated, and people could be shunned for offending the morals of their community in any number of ways. I'll get more detailed in later chapters, but suffice to say, you didn't want to be different or have problems in the world of Jesus' day. You'd be treated very badly and very unfairly.

But Jesus' ministry was all about moving past those differences. He touched the people who were considered untouchable, loved the people who were considered unlovable, and forgave the people who were considered unforgivable. He removed the barriers that kept them from taking part in family and community by healing, forgiving, and accepting.

Not surprisingly, people loved this, especially the poor, the sick, and outcasts of every kind. They flocked to Capernaum to hear his words and be touched by him. And that sets the stage for Jesus teachings, which are bundled together in Matthew as the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 4:1-11 (Jesus and the Temptations)

Silly, but I couldn't resist.

Matthew 4:1-11 shows us the Temptations of Jesus that come between his baptism and the beginning of his ministry. Versions of this story also show up in Mark 1:12-14 and Luke 4:1-13. He is compelled by the Holy Spirit to go out into the desert wilderness for 40 days and nights. The number 40 shows up a lot in the Hebrew Scriptures, the two most famous examples being the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years after being set free of slavery in Egypt, and Noah's flood, when the people and animals on the Ark had to endure 40 days and nights of rain.

Any time you see the number 40 in the Bible, it's a subtle reminder that the people in that story are going through a rough time. When you come out on the other side of the wilderness you can look back and see that God was there with you all along, but when you're in the middle of it, you feel alone and maybe even abandoned. You feel frightened, uncertain and vulnerable. If you have you press on, but it's not a cheerful, confident time and you're very aware of how close you are to disaster.

That's the way the Israelites felt in the wilderness--you can see it in their constant complaining--and it's the way all of us feel at times. Our wildernesses may be times of illness, unemployment, divorce, the death of a loved one, or any number of other things. They can be any situation where getting through is a hard and lonely job and we don't know if we're going to make it.

I've known people who say that Jesus cruised through his 40 days effortlessly, and that his resisting the temptations was a foregone conclusion. I've heard some of the same people tell me that, if I you enough faith, you can breeze past these situations without any struggle at all. I have to say, I think that's nonsense.

Struggling with doubt, temptation and despair is a part of human life that we all have to face. Faith doesn't mean we get to skip these things, only that we choose to trust God, even when we aren't sure that God is listening or that God cares.

This story shows us Jesus going through that same ordeal, and we can see it was an ordeal. Jesus didn't pretend to be tempted, he really was tempted. He didn't pretend to struggle, he really had to struggle. The story isn't trying to get us to admire him because he's doing something we couldn't do; it's giving us an example that can give us strength because we are going to have to struggle with temptations of our own.

The first temptation was bread. Jesus had been fasting and was weak and hungry so the Devil challenged him to turn stones to loaves of bread.

Matthew wants to that remind us of the Israelites during their forty years in the wilderness. They complained of hunger and wanted to give up their newfound freedom so they could go back to Egypt. "Fleshpots" of Egypt" basically means that there was always stew to be had when you got hungry.

They didn't stop complaining even when God gave them manna--the mysterious "bread from heaven"--that kept them alive, they kept complaining. When the Devil tells Jesus he should conjure up his own miraculous bread he seems to want Jesus to have the same mindset. For the people, the attitude seemed to be "I'll e faithful, but only after I've taken care of my own needs."

Jesus' response, a quote from Deuteronomy 8:3, shows that his priorities are different. He's committed to God and committed to his mission. He refuses to participate in the "dog-eat-dog" attitude that is so prevalent in our world. He's going to do what's right, and trust in God to take care of him. In other words, he's not letting fear or practical considerations hold him back.

In the second temptation, the Devil takes Jesus to the highest point of the Temple and tells him to jump. At first it sounds like a really stupid idea, but the Devil has his own scripture. Quoting Psalms 91:12, he says that scripture promises God isn't going to let anything bad happen to Jesus. If he jumps, angels will catch him. It's a sure-fire way to prove to himself and to everyone watching, who he is with a really showy miracle.

I hear this sometimes… usually from televangelists. They say that the purpose of miracles in the Bible is to show that Jesus is not a normal human being. He has special supernatural powers, and can get God to do anything he wants. They say that, if you believe in Jesus, you can have miraculous answers to all your wants and needs too. You can get God to give you whatever you want or need, whether that's healing, money, fame, the perfect spouse, etc. this movement, called prosperity theology, effectively tries to make God into a genie in a bottle--a cosmic sugar daddy who can get us all the good things in life.

If that were the case then it would make perfect sense for Jesus to jump, but he refuses. He quotes his own scripture (Deuteronomy 6:16) saying that it's wrong to put God to a test. Trying to get God to give us what we want isn't faith, it's manipulation, and that's a messed foundation for any relationship. For Jesus, the relationship with God is the bottom line. We don't worship God because we're looking for nice fringe benefits, or because God has the most impressive special effects department. We worship God out of love.

Seeing that nothing else has worked, the Devil gives Jesus a panoramic view of the world and promises him power over the world, if he worships him. This is a biggie, because it's so easy to believe that, if we only had power, we could do so much good. And if you have to give up ideals and integrity to get power, so what? Once you have power you can do all the good you want to. But Jesus isn't willing to compromise his integrity, or the integrity of his relationship with God--not even for all the power in the world. He quotes a final scripture (Deuteronomy 10:20) and that ends the temptations.

Matthew 3: John the Baptist

Chapter 3 of Matthew gives us out first glimpse of the grown-up Jesus. The Bible doesn't give his age but both tradition and scholarship suggest he was about 30, the age a Jewish man of the time completed his training and set out to make his way in the world. As a preparation for his ministry, Jesus went to another holy man of the day, John, who was called the "Baptist" or "Baptizer" because of his habit of ritually washing away people's sins in the Jordan River.

John the Baptist was a colorful and charismatic figure who had a large popular following. UCC pastor and musician, Bryan Sirchio has a great children's song about his habit of eating "Bugs for Lunch."

John chose his primitive clothes, his odd diet, and the way he lived his life to make a point. He was a simple man who followed the Laws of Moses and kept himself ritually pure (locusts are mentioned in Leviticus as being a pure food.) He was living like one of the ancient prophets of Israel, who had also lived simple and pure lives. He wanted people to see the difference between that kind of a life and the way so many of the priests and other religious leaders in Jerusalem were living. They dressed expensively, ate expensively, and were not (in John's eyes) righteous or pure at all.

He was following in the tradition of the prophets he modeled himself after. They would come to the religious and political centers to criticize the priests and the kings when they became corrupt. You can see how corrupt John believed religious practices had become by the way he called out the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

I'll say more about these two groups in a later blog. For now, I'll just say that the Gospels speak really harshly about them, and this has been the cause of a lot of unnecessary bad feeling between Christians and Jews. Historically, the most influential Pharisee was Hillel the Elder whose ethical teachings are very similar to those of Jesus. What we read about Pharisees in the Gospels shouldn't prejudice us against Jews, or even the Jews of Jesus' time. It should help us be aware of how easy it is for religious people, and especially religious leaders, to become arrogant and hypocritical, something that happens all too often in Christianity.

So, why was Jesus baptized by John? Even John seems puzzled by this and says that it should be the other way around. But Jesus insists and John baptizes him.

I think it's Jesus way of letting his followers know that, while he's doing something new, it's not 100% new. One of the biggest criticisms of the first Christians was that they had turned away from the Laws of Moses and the witness of the prophets, in effect; they were accused of abandoning the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jesus' baptism is his way of demonstrating that this was not the case. What he was doing wasn't abandoning what we call the Old Testament; it was just the next step in the work that God had started in ancient times. To show this, he got the blessing of Mr. Old Testament himself, John the Baptist.

What happens next has a lot of symbolism in it. The heavens open up, the voice of God affirms who Jesus is, and the Spirit of God comes and rests on him.

The way people thought of God before Jesus was as a distant ruler who watched over us and judged us from a long way off. Ordinary people couldn't approach God; if you wanted to talk to God you had to go through channels. It was all about following the laws, and following all the rituals, and getting the blessing of the priests, and visiting the Temple. Getting to talk with God was harder for them than getting to see the President would be for any of us. The best you could manage is talking to someone who could talk to someone who could talk to God.

Jesus changes all that. That's why the heavens open up at his baptism. It's the first of many signs that there aren't going to be any more barriers between people and God. The way of Jesus is the way of having a close and loving relationship with God. It's a way of living that is defined by the presence of the Holy Spirit, which binds us together and brings out all the best qualities in our lives. The kind of relationship God wants is revealed in what the voice from heaven says:

"This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life."

That relationship: loving parent and beloved child, is the relationship God wants with all of us. Sometimes we look at this passage and we imagine that it is telling us that Jesus is different, he's more powerful than us, God loves him more than us, but that's all backwards. In Jesus' baptism we see the same thing we're going to see in the rest of Jesus life, and that's how to live as a child of God.

That's why the Christian baptism is different from John's baptism. John's was about washing bad things out of opus lives; Jesus' is about filling out lives with good things; John's was about making ourselves acceptable to a God we feel far away from, Jesus' is about getting rid of the things that separate us from God and realizing that God loves us just as we are no matter how we are; John's was about being righteous to avoid the wrath of God, Jesus' is about doing the right thing because we love God and each other so much that's what we want to do.

John's way isn't bad; in fact it's a lot easier for many people to understand. But it can't ever bring us the joy and the freedom and the richness of life that Jesus' way can. That's something we'll see over and over as we move through this Gospel.

The Flight Into Egypt - Matthew 2:13-23

I've been away for a bit (long story) but am doing better physically and emotionally and hope to get this going again!

I started this around Christmas and it seems a little off going back into it in the Summer, but here goes anyway. :)

The story that immediately follows the birth of Jesus in the second half of Matthew 2 is dramatic and disturbing. You can find it here in the NRSV or here in the Message. It starts after the Magi go home, when an evil king (Herod) plans to kill the male babies of the community. God intervenes, (warning Joseph in a dream) and the baby sent by God (Jesus) escapes from harm (his parents secretly take him to Egypt.)

If this sounds like a story from a different part of the Bible, it's supposed to. Matthew is often called the most Jewish of the Gospels because scholars believe it was written for a Jewish community. That's why the author tells the story in a way that would sound very familiar to an audience familiar with the book of Exodus.

Exodus begins with an evil king (Pharaoh) who plans to kill the male babies of the community. God intervenes (through the devout women of the community) and the baby sent by God (Moses) escapes from harm (he is sent down the river in a basket and the Pharaoh's daughter finds him and raises him.)

It would be an amazing coincidence it Matthew was writing a factual biography, but he's not. Herod never sent the soldiers to massacre the innocents and Mary and Joseph never fled to Egypt with their baby. The author of Matthew has made up these details to try to make a point about Jesus. He wants his Jewish audience to understand that Jesus is very much a Jewish Messiah. His ministry will extend beyond the Jewish people but that is not a rejection of his Jewish roots. In fact, Matthew asserts, Jesus is just as Jewish as Moses. That's why Joseph (who only appears in this Gospel) is someone who gains knowledge through dreams. He's supposed to remind us of another Joseph from Genesis who God gave the gift of interpreting dreams.

Matthew tells a very different version of this story than Luke (Mark and John don't deal with the infancy of Jesus at all) because he's talking to a different group of people. Luke is writing to a Greek-speaking Gentile audience. There's no need for him to try to show them how Jewish Jesus is because that is not relevant to them. Matthew, on the other hand, is writing to people who know and love the Hebrew Scriptures and he has to deal with the rumor going around that Jesus and his followers rejected the laws of Moses and the traditions of the Prophets.

That's something we'll see time and again, as Jesus asserts that he hasn't come to abolish the laws of Moses, but to fulfill them. Matthew sees him as a kind of New Moses, leading the people out of a different kind of slavery and giving them a different kind of law, but not as a rejection of the old but as an extension or fulfillment of it.

That's also why Matthew says so often "…this happened to fulfill the prophecy…" He does that twice in just this short section.

The first time is when he says that Mary Joseph and Jesus fleeing to Egypt was the fulfillment of Hosea 11:1 which has God calling his son out of Egypt. When you read Hosea 11 you find that it wasn't originally about Jesus at all. The "son" is the people Israel, who God rescued from slavery in Egypt.

The second example is the mourning of the mothers of the murdered children, which Matthew says is a fulfillment of Jeremiah 32:15-17. Actually the mourning in this passage was originally for the Jews carried off in exile to Babylon, and the hope was that they would soon be set free and allowed to come home.

Matthew was adding new meaning to these scriptures. He used them to make the case that Jesus wasn't promoting a new religion about a new god, but that he was faithfully following the same God in a way that was consistent with Moses and the Prophets. By choosing stories of liberation from captivity for his prophecies, Matthew also made a statement about Jesus' ministry. He had come to lead the people to freedom.

Merry Christmas!

The Christmas Story: Matthew 2:1-12

As you read Matthew's version of the Christmas story you may notice that there are some things missing. There is no mention of the manger, no shepherds, etc. That's because when we do Christmas Pageants, we are blending the Gospel accounts together.Luke has the Shepherds and the angels, Mattew has the Magi and the star. Luke and John do not tell the story of Jesus' birth at all.

Is there anything wrong with blending the stories as we so often do? Not really, as long as we remember that is what we are doing. When we want to stude the passages we need to unblend them and let each Gospel speak for itself. It's not that Matthew's account is in some way "better" than Luke's or vice-versa, but they are very different for a reason. If we blend them we may miss the points the different evangelists are making.

Matthew starts with foreigners, the magi, and their experience. There are a lot of traditions about the Three Kings and where they came from. The most common names are Melchior, King of Ind (Arabia), Gaspar, King of Tharsis (Africa), and Balthazar, King of Saba (Persia.) But the Bible never names the magi or their homelands. In fact, the bible doesn't call them kings, or even say that there were three of them. All of those details were added many centuries later.

While the story doesn't say how many magi there were, there were three gifts, and each of them has a symbolic importance. Gold is a form of truibute given to a king; theu reminding us that Christ is "king of kings" though his kingship will be very different from what people are used to. Frankincense is a resin used as incense in worship. from ancient times, the smoke from burning incense has been a symbol of prayers rising to God. The gift of frankincense is a reminder that Jesus is our mediator, or he one who makes a new kind of relationship possible with God. Finally, myrrh is an aromatic oil used for anointing or embalming which reminds us of the scacrifice Jesus makes, giving his life for our sake.

What about the star the magi followed? Astronomers have wondered about what it could have been for a long time. We don't have any record outside of the Bible of such an event but that doesn't make it impossible. WE know that it wasn't (as was once thought) a conjunction of planets because there weren't any that were especially bright anywhere close to the right time in history. It could have been a comet, though it would have to be one that we have not yet catalogues. It could also have been (as scientist and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once suggested) a distant supernova.
Then again, the magi were Astrologers so it may have been an astrological conjunction rather than a more dramatic explanation.

Despite a lot of effort and speculation, there is nothing concrete that science has been able to tell us about what the star was, or even to confirm that there was a star. But is we focus too much on the heavens, we miss Matthew's point in telling us about the star.

The word "Magi" is persian and means a scholar or an astrologer (the two were very much the same thing in ancient Persia). Magi is also used as a title for the priests of the persian religion of Zoroastrianism. This would have seemed odd to Matthew's Jewish audience who would have looked at foreigners and non-believers with suspicion, but this is Matthew's point.

Matthew is a Jewish Christian writing for a Jewish audience but he wants to make it clear that just being a "son of Abraham" is not enough in God's sight. His Gospel is about the new thing that God has done in Jesus which calls for a faithful response from everyone. If you are a Jew who responds faithfully, he asserts, that is the best thing to be. But it is better to be a foreigner or non-believer who responds faithfully to the coning of Christ than to be a Jew who fails to respond. For Matthew, the magi are the first in a string of faithful outsiders who challenge the insiders and believers to a higher level of faithfulness.

This is an important theme even today. We live in a world where many believers act as if owning the title "Christian", going to church, and proclaiming the name of Jesus are more inmportant than faithfully following him. We often see outsiders and non-believers following the words and example of Christ better than church-folk. The story of the magi (and Matthew's Gospel as a whole) should challenge complacent Christians to greater faith and committment to compassionate service.