“According to Matthew”
A study of the Gospel of Matthew
Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem to be
welcomed by the crowds waving palm branches and shouting Hosanna. He
has made His way to the temple and overturned the tables of the
money-changers, challenging the authority of the priests. He has told
a pointed story about how the authorities would seek to kill the
Father's son, but it would turn out they were the losers! The
teachers of the law suspect that He is speaking directly against
them.
They don't like it. They want to be rid
of Him by whatever means they can. They still hold onto a vain hope
that they may yet be able to outwit Him.
We have seen that from the start of his
gospel Matthew has developed the theme of the Kingdom. How Jesus was
a King whose rule expressed itself, not through dominating all His
opponents, but through serving them, through healing the down-trodden
and lifting up the poor, through granting dignity to 'little ones'
and outcasts this world's kingdoms had no time for.
In the next parable Jesus uses the
image of a wedding feast. I recall working on the guest list for my
daughters wedding. Who should be on it? Would they come? And if they
didn't, should we invite others to take their place? However this
wedding story takes some very unexpected turns.
Matthew 22:1 Jesus
spoke to them again in parables, saying: "The kingdom of heaven
is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent
his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell
them to come, but they refused to come. "Then he sent some more
servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have
prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered,
and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.' "But they
paid no attention and went off--one to his field, another to his
business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed
them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those
murderers and burned their city. "Then he said to his servants,
'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to
come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone
you find.' So the servants went out into the streets and gathered
all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the
wedding hall was filled with guests. "But when the king came in
to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding
clothes. He asked, 'How did you get in here without wedding clothes,
friend?' The man was speechless. "Then the king told the
attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the
darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' "For
many are invited, but few are chosen."
Behind the first part of the story is a
custom of sending out invitations much earlier than the feast itself.
You will notice in verse three that the King sends his servants to
tell those who had accepted their invitations that it was time to
come. These are folk who have said 'Yes, we'll be there”
So the King tells
them to come. This wasn't simply a case of getting busy and
forgetting what day it was. This was an act of disrespect and
amounted to belittling the authority of the king. The text states
that they 'refuse to come', an element of defiance is intended! Why
do they refuse? Some because they are just want to get on with their
lives, making money, taking care of business. We can maybe sympathize
with that. But what about those who use the occasion to murder the
messengers? Now if that's not an act of treason towards the kings
authority, I don't know what it is!
It is in the context of the murder of
his servants and with the sense of a mutiny having been declared
that the kings army is mobilized and the guilty parties dealt with.
Presumably the city in which they lived was one under the kings
reign, so to burn his own territories was not good!
The banquet is ready, the feast is
prepared. What to do? The King sends out a general invite. Didn't
matter who you were. The good and the bad turn up in droves. The hall
is filled with guests.
Then the king comes in and there is
this one guy who is not dressed right. The man is challenged. “How
did you get in?” A Liverpool comedian , Tom O’Connor, used to do
a skit about a wedding in which he spoke about 'The guy who's on all
the wedding photograph's, but nobody knew who he was, but everybody
remembered he left as soon as the beer ran out'... well... that's
this guy.
He's thrown out... into the dark of the
night...and all the terrors that may await him with little chance, as
his hands and feet are tied, of defending himself. It's all rather
harsh for a wedding reception and I'm certainly hoping that my next
wedding won't go anything like this parable. So I'm happy to observe
that this is not an actual event. Jesus is telling a story! What's
going on here?
Firstly, we need to put this story back
into the setting it is being told in. This is the third in line of
three parables Jesus has told following the cleansing of the temple
and the antagonism His actions brought upon Him from the priests and
Pharisees of the temple. They know, that He knows, that they want to
be rid of Him.
In each of the parables they are the
ones being indicted. In the first parable they are the son who is
sent out to work, but does nothing. In the second parable they are
the ones who murder the vineyard's owners servants and his son. In
this parable they are the treasonable ones who disrespect the king by
refusing to come to the feast.
Correspondingly, those whom Jesus is
calling into His Kingdom, the ones the Pharisees look down on, are
like the son, who though initially not invited, goes out and does the
work. Those who accept Jesus are the ones who inherit the vineyard
when it is taken away from the original owners, those who receive the
message of the new kingdom are the bad and the good, who are not
considered to be in with the in-crowd, but end up enjoying all the
benefits of the kings marriage feast.
Some commentators hear echoes of Isaiah
in this parable, particularly Isaiah chapter 5 which talks of the
kingdom being inherited by outsiders because of the unfaithful
actions of those invited to show forth God's love. Take a look at
Isaiah 5:25-27
Therefore the
LORD's anger burns against His people; His hand is raised and He
strikes them down. The mountains shake, and the dead bodies are like
refuse in the streets. Yet for all this, His anger is not turned
away, His hand is still upraised. He lifts up a banner for the
distant nations, He whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Here
they come, swiftly and speedily! Not one of them grows tired or
stumbles, not one slumbers or sleeps; not a belt is loosened at the
waist, not a sandal strap is broken.
We see in that passage of Isaiah the
idea of the kingdom being forcibly taken away from those who were the
first invited, but who became unfaithful, and passed over to people
who had previously been distant and far away. The original guests
face deep troubles, the new guests receive great blessings.
Other commentators point out that
Matthew is writing from the perspective of an early church community
who witnessed the destruction of the temple in AD70. Following it's
destruction 'temple worship' came to an end and was never
re-established. The work of worship now belongs within the community.
It is not in the hands of the Pharisees and the temple authorities,
nor is it isolated to any geographical location. The temple
authorities are the ones in the parable who are invited but never
showed up and suffered the destruction of their town (the temple).
The new community of the church, where everybody is welcome,
represents the good and bad who accept the Kings invitation.
But what of our
party crasher? "But when the king came in to see the guests, he
noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked,
'How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?' The man
was speechless.
The first part of
the parable tells us that God throws the door open for all to enter
the kingdom. The love of God opens an open door to all people. But as
they come in they must bring with them a life which seeks to be
molded with the love which has been given them. Grace is not just a
gift, it is a responsibility. If a person claims to be part of
Christ's Kingdom they can not carry on living by the rules of the
kingdoms of this world. They must be clothed with the attitude and
love of Christ. As William Barclay writes ; “The door is open, but
the door is not open for the sinner to come in and remain a sinner,
but for the sinner to come and become a saint'
For the early church Matthew is
addressing this is the sting in the tale. It as though he is saying,
“Yes, you may well rejoice that you have an invitation to the
wedding feast, but if you don't shape up, although you think you are
now one of the insiders, your demeanor will give you away, and you
will lose what you claim to have found.” Again hear William
Barclay;
“This parable has
nothing to do with the clothes in which we go to church;it has
everything to do with the spirit in which we go to God's house. It is
profoundly true that church-going must never be a fashion parade. But
there are garments of the mind and the heart and of the soul – the
garment of expectation, the garment of humble penitence, the garment
of faith, the garment of reverence – and these are the garments
without which we ought not to approach God. Too often we go to God's
house with no preparation at all, if people in or congregations came
to church prepared to worship – then worship would be worship
indeed!”
The parable closes
with the mysterious phrase “For many are invited, but few are
chosen." We encountered this phrase a couple of chapters ago in
connection with the parable of the workers employed at different
times in the day which concluded with the phrase “So the last shall
be first, and the first last: For many are invited, but few are
chosen.” (Mat 20:16)
The phrase is intended as a warning,
following on from the one who thought he was on the guest list, but
turned out to be an imposter. It is a warning against presuming on
the grace of God. Some are invited to the kingdom life but make light
of it. Some are invited but place other things before it. Some make a
profession of religion with their words but their lives show no
evidence to back up their statements. Some go through the religious
motions but their hearts and minds and souls are elsewhere. Some
involve themselves with the life of a church community but carry on
living in the way they always have and show no evidence of being
clothed with the love of Jesus Christ.
Matthew Henry, the
19th Century biblical commentator writes 'many are called to the
wedding feast, but few chosen to the wedding garment,that is, to
salvation by sanctification of the spirit. This is 'the strait gate,
and narrow way' which 'few find.'
One of the things that always startles
me about Jesus parables is that we often think they are directed
towards somebody else. But then we start digging deeper and see that
they are really challenging our own shortcomings and prejudices. One
of the compelling things about His words is that when really study
them we see none of us are off the hook. We all need the grace and
love and salvation that we can ONLY find in Him!
The Pharisees? They are not interested
in applying parables of Jesus to themselves. They are still working
at getting off the hook. They are up to their old tricks, throwing
questions at Jesus that they hope will make Him look foolish and
themselves look wise! Read verses 15-22
Then the Pharisees
went out and laid plans to trap Him in His words. They sent their
disciples to Him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they
said, "we know that you are a man of integrity and that you
teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed
by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us
then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to
Caesar or not?" But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You
hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for
paying the tax." They brought Him a denarius, and he asked
them, "Whose image is this? And whose inscription?"
"Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "So
give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went
away.
The strength of the Pharisees was their
complete commitment to the law and their rejection of all that was
Gentile or foreign. Greek influences, which had a big impact on the
Sadducees, were entirely rejected by the Pharisees. They had a
reputation for standing firm to traditional Jewish ways. They come to
Jesus with a question regarding taxes.
The tax in question is of a particular
nature; a roman head tax that was instituted as a result of the
census taken when Judea became a roman province. The tax could only
be paid with a roman coin which had upon it an image of the emperor
and an inscription that would be considered blasphemous to devout
Jews :- 'Tiberias Ceaser August Son of the Divine Augustus, high
priest”
The question of
paying these particular taxes could not easily be answered. If Jesus
directed them not to pay taxes, they could inform the Romans. Such an
action would put him in danger of being considered an enemy of the
empire. You will notice that along with the Pharisees are some
'Herodians', folk loyal to King Herod and to Rome who would have had
a vested interest in this conversation.
Yet if Jesus were to simply say 'Yes,
pay your taxes', not only would He be seen, in some way, to be
approving of the blasphemous coins, but also He would lose His
influence with the common people, who had the deepest reservations
about paying taxes to occupying roman invaders. Historians suggest
that the census and the subsequent tax helped trigger the nationalism
that would eventually lead to the Jewish revolt and the disastrous
war that took place in 66-70 AD resulting in the destruction of the
temple. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the tax had to
be paid through tax collectors who often took a sizable cut for
themselves. The whole system was corrupt.
As it appears were the Pharisees. They
come across as real slime-balls in the way they approach Jesus.
Firstly, they don't come themselves, they send their disciples. In
the culture of the time, that was simply disrespectful. If you had
something of importance to say to somebody, you didn't send your
minions to do the dirty work.
Secondly, everybody knew they couldn't
stand Jesus yet He is approached with a trinity of compliments! They
compliment Him on His integrity, on how accurately He taught the way
of God and how indifferent He was to public opinion. The irony was
that these were the very virtues, in the mind of the common people,
that the Pharisees lacked.
People questioned their integrity as
they seemed to twist the laws to suit themselves. They suspected that
many of their laws were not actually God's laws but man made rules
and regulations designed to separate them from others. And they
recognized that the Pharisees were very interested in how they looked
before people! In the next chapter Jesus takes the Pharisees to task
over just such things.
In His answer Jesus refuses to be drawn
into the argument. He knows where they are coming from. They are not
interested in taxation, it's simply a trick question to cause Him to
say something that will incriminate Him.
He actually turns
the conversation on its head. By replying that they should 'Pay
Ceaser what is due to Ceaser' the implication is being made that the
Pharisees are the ones who in some way were trying to wriggle out of
paying their taxes. The Message Bible pictures the confrontation this
way.
'Do you have a coin?
Let me see it. Now this engraving- who does it look like? And whose
name is on it?” There is almost an element of sarcasm in the
exchange. “Are your teachers that dumb that they can't recognize
the image and name of the emperor on his coins? What do you mean “Is
it right to pay taxes?” Who made these coins? ” It is the
Pharisees who are left looking foolish, not Jesus.
Then to crown it all
Jesus tells them “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God
what is God's.” Just as they weren't honoring Caesar by
questioning his taxes, neither were they honoring God in the way they
were living their lives. 'So give Ceaser what is his, and give God
what is His!' (Message Bible). The sting in His answer is that the
Pharisees were allowing these coins, coins that they suggested were
blasphemous, to be used as valid currency within the temple courts.
The disciples of the Pharisees are
silenced. There is nothing left to say. They walk away, shaking
their heads. “Man... and we thought we had him this time!” It
seems that news of their confrontational conversation reaches the
Sadducees. They decide, that if it's open season for questioning
Jesus, then they'll have a go as well.
That same day the Sadducees, who say
there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. "Teacher,"
they said, "Moses told us that if a man dies without having
children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for
him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married
and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his
brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother,
right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the
resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them
were married to her?" Jesus replied, "You are in error
because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection
people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like
the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead--have
you not read what God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of
the living." When the crowds heard this, they were astonished
at his teaching.
I recall working on a sermon on this
passage. I called it “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers?”. It
sounded like a Broadway musical. But actually it's just one bride
for seven brothers. That just doesn't have the same ring to it!
For about 100 years the Saducees and
Pharisees were competing parties within Palestine. The word
'Sadducee' seems to have come from a root meaning 'Judge'. They were
also an aristocracy, who controlled the high priesthood and held
considerable political power.
Like many an aristocracy they were
proud and exclusive. Theologically they were liberal. They rejected
the traditions of the Pharisees. They accepted only the first 5 books
of the Old Testament as being Scripture. They rejected certain
doctrines the Pharisees considered essential. They could, however, be
accommodating towards new ideas and views coming from the Greeks and
from Rome.
The problem the
Saduccees have is partly with Pharisaic law and partly because they
did not believe in the resurrection. (That's why they were 'sad, you
see' ... groan). According to a law known as the 'levirite marriage'
when a husband passed away and had not fathered a child, then the
responsibility of assuring that the family line continued passed on
to the next brother... and if he died, onto the next brother, and so
on.
The 'levirite' law plays an important
role in the book of Ruth. At the end of the Book of Ruth, Boaz wishes
to marry her, but is unable to do so because there is a
brother-in-law next in line who is supposed to take her for his wife.
Through an unusual ceremony involving the removing of a shoe, the
brother-in-law is released from his obligation and she is able to
marry Boaz. In the genealogy that we are given in Matthew's first
chapter, Boaz and Ruth both receive a mention.
They father a child
Obed, who has a son called Jesse, who is the father of King David
(about whom we shall hear more of in a moment). Boaz and Ruth play an
important part of the ancestral tree of Jesus because they did not
observe the levirite law. One assumes that the Saduccees did not
realize this and suspects they may have been more cautious bringing a
question involving a law whose avoidance was a part of Jesus
ancestral heritage.
Hold in mind also that Jesus has been
teaching His disciples that after He had been killed He would be
raised to life on the third day. Resurrection was not seen as an
optional extra but as the very thing that would change everything and
the only thing that would retrospectively make sense of the mission
He was accomplishing in their midst. Only resurrection would empower
His disciples to go forth into all the world.
In His answer we see Jesus disputing
with the Saduccees on a couple of points.
Firstly, they had no
conception of the power of God which meant that they misunderstood
what resurrection was all about. Resurrection was not a matter of
correct theory, but of having faith in the power of God for the past,
the present and the future. Questions about un-entangling human
relationships completely missed the mark. God was, and always had
been at work in the world through God's life-giving power. 'Have you
not read' chastises Jesus “What God said to you, 'I am the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God
of the dead but of the living." Trusting in the power of God to
transform life was the issue at stake.
Jesus places 'resurrection' in a
broader framework than being about what happens when a person dies.
Resurrection becomes the atmosphere in which the person of faith
lives out their present life, living in the hope that the God who is
able to transform life now will complete that transformation in
eternity, not in line with any earthly expectation, but as a whole
new way of being.... a new heaven and a new earth where the one who
described Himself as 'the resurrection and the life' receives His
rightful place.
Secondly, because they had no real
understanding of what resurrection was, nor the power of God that was
at work in their history, their present and their future, the
Saduccees had an erroneous understanding of Scripture. They had no
expectation of encountering the power of God through scripture. It
was simply words on a page, confined to history and open to
interpretation.
Our Presbyterian understanding of
Scripture is that the books of the bible are 'God-Breathed'. By that
we do not mean that they are not subject to all the limitations and
prejudices of those who wrote and collated them, nor that they should
be interpreted outside of their historical context. Our Presbyterian
Confession of 1967 tells us (9:29);
The Bible is to be
interpreted in the light of its witness to God’s work of
reconciliation in Christ. The Scriptures, given under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit, are nevertheless the words of men, conditioned by
the language, thought forms, and literary fashions of the places and
times at which they were written. They reflect views of life,
history, and the cosmos which were then current. The church,
therefore, has an obligation to approach the Scriptures with literary
and historical understanding. As God has spoken his word in diverse
cultural situations, the church is confident that he will continue to
speak through the Scriptures in a changing world and in every form of
human culture.
Lest that sounds like Presbyterians are
somehow suggesting Scripture lacks authority, on the contrary the
passage before the one above (9:27) reminds us that the authority of
Scripture is nothing less than the authority of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is through His power, evidenced in resurrection, and
applied to our lives through the work of the Holy Spirit, that the
Scriptures speak to us.
The one sufficient revelation of God is
Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate, to whom the Holy Spirit
bears unique and authoritative witness through the Holy Scriptures,
which are received and obeyed as the word of God written. The
Scriptures are not a witness among others, but the witness without
parallel.
This is an important lesson. This
passage suggests that no-one can understand the Scriptures without
faith in the power of God. People without faith get hold of a bible,
and like the Sadducees, they nit pick. “How can this word here mean
anything!!” “Why does this contradict that?”. But to people of
faith, they glimpse in the lives of the Bibles characters and words
of instruction and poems and prayers and incredible tales and
interpretations, through all of it, they witness something of the God
who is at work in their own lives. Faith in the power of God
revealed in Jesus Christ, who died and was resurrected to life,
brings scripture alive.
But let us leave the Sadducces to their
sadness and move on. The questions keep coming! And they don't get
easier! Read 34 – 46.
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the
Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the
law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the
greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied:
"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest
commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as
yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two
commandments." While the Pharisees were gathered together,
Jesus asked them, "What do you think about the Messiah? Whose
son is he?" "The son of David," they replied. He said
to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit,
calls him 'Lord'? For he says, "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit
at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."' If
then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his son?" No one
could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask
him any more questions.
On the TV news, whenever they are stuck
for an explanation they send for an expert. So it's time for the
Pharisees to send in one of their 'experts', an 'expert in the law'
to ask Jesus a legal question. The Pharisees experts proposed that
there were 613 commands of God that needed to be obeyed (248
positive ones that related to the body, 365 negative ones,
corresponding to the days of the year). The question Jesus is asked
is pointed and, again, tricky. “Which command of God was the most
important?”
They want to talk
about law. Jesus responds by speaking about love, and links together
'Loving God' and 'Loving Neighbor' as being the bottom line for true
religion, inseparable from each other and whose fulfillment
transcended any attempt at keeping individual laws. As He says; 'All
the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.' Having
moved the conversation from one about law, towards one about love,
the experts have no more questions! But Jesus has one for them. 'What
do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?'
He then offers a quick Bible lesson.
Behind this lesson is the cultural fact that in the Middle East no
human father would ever dream of calling his son “Lord”. A son
always owed deference and respect to a father. A father calling a son
Lord would be the equivalent of a King calling his servant “The
Master”.
The passage Jesus
references is from Psalm 110, verse 1, a Psalm frequently quoted
throughout the New Testament. The Messiah, according to the
Pharisees, was to be a son of David. Jesus quotes to them from the
Psalm, "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies under your feet." He asks them to
explain; ' If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his son?
To put it another way, how could David,
the accepted writer of Psalm 110, call the Messiah “Lord” and yet
have a 'son' who is the Messiah? Jesus is suggesting that the messiah
was not David's son (though he could be David's descendant), the
messiah was one whom David calls “Lord”.
So what? Well... Matthew is making a
statement about Jesus. As the Messiah, the 'Christ', Jesus is BOTH
the son and the Lord of David. Psalm 110, he suggests, is a prophecy
of the Messiah that authenticated Jesus as it's fulfillment. Later
this would be interpreted as meaning David's descendant was more than
human. He was truly the “Son of God”.
And if you find that
a little obscure... well don't worry. Virtually every commentary I
read on this passage points out 'This is obscure'. Even my beloved
William Barclay writes “This is one of the most obscure things
which Jesus ever said.”
I like the way the Message Bible
concludes this chapter. It is after all the end of a series of
interrogations that Jesus has been subjected to, and every time He
has come out looking good whilst His opponents, well... not so good.
“That stumped
them, literalists that they were. Unwilling to risk losing face again
in one of these public verbal exchanges, they quit asking questions
for good!”
But Jesus isn't through with them yet!
Next time we'll see what He has to say
about them.
And, be warned, it's not going to be
pretty!