Category Archives: Scripture

The Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven

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This coming Sunday is the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time. Eugene Boring [346] writes:

For Matthew, each of these two kingdoms makes its influence felt by teaching. The “kingdom of heaven” is represented by authoritative teaching, the promulgation of authoritative Halakha that lets heaven’s power rule in earthly things. The image of Peter with the keys is not that of the doorkeeper to heaven of popular piety and cartoons. As the next image makes clear, Peter’s function is not to decide in the afterlife who is admitted and who is denied entrance to heaven; Peter’s role as holder of the keys is fulfilled now, on earth, as chief teacher of the church. The similar imagery of Matt 23:13 and Luke 11:52 points to the teaching office, as does the introductory pericope Matt 16:1-12 and Matthew’s concern for correct teaching in general. The keeper of the keys has authority within the house as administrator and teacher (cf. Isa 22:20-25, which may have influenced Matthew here). The language of binding and loosing is rabbinic terminology for authoritative teaching, for having the authority to interpret the Torah and apply it to particular cases, declaring what is permitted and what is not permitted. Jesus, who has taught with authority (7:29) and has given his authority to his disciples (10:1, 8), here gives the primary disciple the authority to teach in his name—to make authoritative decisions pertaining to Christian life as he applies the teaching of Jesus to concrete situations in the life of the church. In 18:18, similar authority is given to the church as a whole, and the way the last three antitheses are presented in 5:33-48…shows such application of Jesus’ teaching is the task of the whole community of disciples, with Peter having a special responsibility as chief teacher as well as representative and model.

Image Credit: Pietro Perugino, The Delivery of the Keys (c 1481–1482). Sistine Chapel, Vatican City | Public Domain

A final reflection

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This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary Cycle A. Eugene Boring [The Gospel of Matthew in The New Interpreter’s Bible, 351-53] had a particularly good reflection following his treatment of our Gospel narrative. Rather than summarize it, it is perhaps best to simply let the author speak for himself.

The function of this scene is to make an important theological claim about Jesus: His death occurred as part of God’s plan of salvation. “While the narrative function of the three passion announcements is to prepare the disciples, their theological purpose is to assure the readers, first that Jesus’ violent death is not a meaningless accident of history hut is part of God’s plan, and, second, that Jesus was not a hapless victim but a knowing [and willing) partner in the divine strategy.” [here quoting Douglas Hare, Matthew, 232]

The Christian life called for is not a reflection of, let alone the baptism and blessing of, the egocentric culture, but its polar opposite. Self-denial is not part of our culture’s image of the “good life.” But neither is the Matthean Jesus’ call for denying oneself to be understood as asceticism or as self-hate. Just as Jesus’ call to discipleship is not a joining in the cultural infatuation with self-esteem, neither is it the opposite. Nor is the self-denial to which Jesus calls the opposite of self-fulfillment. Just giving up things will not make one Christian; it will only make one empty. What is difficult for our culture to understand, indeed what it cannot understand on its own terms, is an orientation to one’s life that is not focused on self at all, either as self-esteem or self-abasement, as self-fulfillment or self-emptying.

This call to discipleship is based on faith in Christ and confidence in the future victory of God; it is not a matter merely of high human ideals or noble principles. That is, the life called for here is not based on a reasoned conclusion about how things ate, inferred from observation or general principles, but on faith that something has happened that makes everything different. To believe in Jesus as the Christ and to live accordingly means to reorient one’s life toward the good news that God has acted decisively and ultimately in Jesus, not that Jesus has some good advice on how to Live (by what criteria could such advice he judged to be good?). The call to discipleship here expressed is based on the past and future revelatory act of God. The call to discipleship of vv. 24-26 is inseparably related to the confession in v. 16 and to the expectation in vv. 27-28, all bound together with Jesus’ self-proclamation as Son of Man in vv. 13 and 28. The christological confession of v 16 is not abstract doctrine about the “person” of Jesus, but is realized only as it leads to the life called for in vv. 24-26.

This call to discipleship is a matter of confession, which means declaring one’s faith in Jesus as the Christ, as God’s definitive act of revelation and salvation. The word used to mean “confession” (martyrion; Matt 8:4; 10:18; 24:14) also means “martyrdom,” in the sense of witness. The giving of one’s life is presented as an act of testimony to a truth bigger than oneself. Its result may be literal martyrdom, as had happened in Matthew’s church and in every generation since, and continues today. But it may also mean the daily giving of oneself away in commitment to Christ (so Luke 9:23 explicitly). While many readers of this commentary will no longer live in a situation such as Matthew’s in which the result of authentic Christian confession can be literal martyrdom, the call to give one’s life as a testimony to the truth of the gospel is no less real. Orientation toward God, revealed in Christ as the Lord of one’s life, rather than idolatrous self-orientation, is the decisive, crucial difference.

This call to discipleship is a matter of community. This is not an individualistic ethic of the solitary “I,” but is the ethic of the community of disciples that confesses Jesus to be the Christ and lives toward the full coming of the kingdom of God for which it prays, accompanied by the presence of Christ during its time of mission.

The meaning of discipleship is learned along the way. The disciples in this story have been disciples for some time, called personally by Jesus (4:18-22; 9:9; 10:2-4), sent by him to preach and heal (10:5-8). They now learn the meaning and cost of discipleship, which cannot be explained in advance but must be learned en route. Many sensitive Christians may have wondered about the integrity of their own Christian life, since they “didn’t know what they were doing” when they “joined the church.” Neither did the Matthean disciples, who only learn in 16:21-28 what following Christ means, and who will yet falter and fail before the story is over. There is encouragement here for Christians who are concerned about past lapses (with more sure to come) and who are sure they do not understand as much as they should about the Christian life, just as there is warning for Christians who are sure that they do understand and have no need to change their present conceptions of the way things are.

Image credit: James Tissot, Rétire-toi Satan, c.1890, Brooklyn Museum, Public Domain 

The developing Church

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This coming Sunday is the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time.  Jesus’ words, “upon this rock I will build my church” (v.18) has also contributed to exegetical controversy. Some scholars hold this passage is a later addition and is not authentic, but betrays a later ecclesiastical interest in interjecting that later period’s hierarchy and organization onto Jesus’ words.

This position is fading because of the realization that ekklesia (church) regularly translates the Hebrew qāhāl, one of the terms for the ‘congregation’ or ‘community’ of God’s people – a term completely appropriate to describe the emerging ‘Messianic community’ of the disciples of Jesus.  How could there be a messiah without a messianic community?

The building metaphor is the natural one to use in connection with the name Petros, and does not demand the idea of a full-blown hierarchical structure – nor does it preclude its development. The new church/community of the repentant people of God was at the heart of John the Baptist’s mission, and was the necessary outcome of Jesus’ ministry, with its effect of dividing men according to their faith or unbelief. What is striking is not so much the idea of ‘building a community’, but the boldness of Jesus’ description of it as my church/community, rather than God’s.

The emerging church that lasts forever. Hades is the realm of the dead, not the place of punishment. The “gates of Hades” is a biblical expression (Isa 38:10) that can mean the same as the “gates of death” (Job 38:17; Pss 9:13; 107:18). In this case, the word translated “overcome” or “prevail” means “be stronger than,” and the meaning is that the realm of the dead, which no human being can conquer, is nevertheless not stronger than the church founded on the rock, and the church will always endure to the end of history, accompanied by its Lord (28:20). Thus this text declares minimally that the church will never die. But “gates of Hades” may also refer to the portals of the underworld from which the powers of Satan emerge to attack the church, especially in the eschatological times (cf. the eschatological testing of Matt 6:13 and 26:41 and the dramatic imagery of Rev 9:1-11). Then the meaning would be that the church is under attack by the powers of evil, but will never be vanquished, because it is founded on the rock. In neither case is the church pictured attacking Hades. Once again, the two kingdoms stand over against each other (see 12:22-37). The church does not escape from the power of Hades, but participates in the struggle between the two kingdoms with the sure promise that the opposing kingdom symbolized by the powers of death will never prevail.

Image Credit: Pietro Perugino, The Delivery of the Keys (c 1481–1482). Sistine Chapel, Vatican City | Public Domain

An emerging church

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This coming Sunday is the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time. The disciples as a group had already received a blessing: “But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it”(Mt 13:16-17). Here this blessing is for Peter alone, as the plural address of v.16 shifts to the singular of v.17: Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah – notably keeping the original given name.

But the problem is….

Peter. In the polemics of the Reformation two basic positions were staked out: (a) the reformed position that “upon this rock” refers to Peter’s confession and (b) the Catholic position that the expression refers to Peter and all his successors. Modern scholars, Catholic and reformed alike, take a middle position: the expression refers to Peter (leaving the succession question aside).

R.T. France [1985, 257] writes:

Peter has declared Jesus’ true significance; now Jesus in turn reveals where Peter stands in the working out of God’s purpose. And as Peter’s confession was encapsulated in a title, ‘Messiah’, so Jesus now sums up Peter’s significance in a name, Peter. It is not now given for the first time, for Matthew has used it throughout in preference to ‘Simon’ (which never occurs without ‘Peter’ until v. 17), and Mark 3:16 and John 1:42 indicate that it was given at an earlier stage. What Jesus here reveals is its significance. It was apparently an original choice by Jesus, for no other use of Petros (or the underlying Aramaic kêpā’, ‘Cephas’) as a personal name is known before this; now he reveals why he chose it. It describes not so much Peter’s character (he did not prove to be ‘rock-like’ in terms of stability or reliability), but his function, as the foundation-stone of Jesus’ church. The feminine word for rock, petra, is necessarily changed to the masculine petros (stone) to give a man’s name, but the word-play is unmistakable (and in Aramaic would be even more so, as the same form kêpā’ would occur in both places).

France continues [257-8]

The word-play, and the whole structure of the passage, demands that this verse is every bit as much Jesus’ declaration about Peter as v. 16 was Peter’s declaration about Jesus. Of course it is on the basis of Peter’s confession that Jesus declares his role as the church’s foundation, but it is to Peter, not to his confession, that the rock metaphor is applied. And it is, of course, a matter  of historic fact that Peter was the acknowledged leader of the group of disciples, and of the developing church in its early years. The foundation-stone image is applied in the New Testament primarily to Christ himself (1 Cor. 3:10ff.; 1 Pet. 2:6–8; etc.), but cf. Ephesians 2:20; Revelation 21:14 for the apostles as foundation

Image Credit: Pietro Perugino, The Delivery of the Keys (c 1481–1482). Sistine Chapel, Vatican City | Public Domain

Forming the Church

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This coming Sunday is the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time. Our reading is located in a section of Matthean narrative that portrays the formation of the church (13:53-17:27) in the midst of the continuing conflict with all levels of Jewish society that is leaning towards a growing rejection of Jesus as Messiah. This story forms the hinge of the section because after this Jesus will heighten his attention to the preparation of the disciples for their mission as a community once Jesus has died and resurrected from the dead.  It will be a community who perceives and professes his true identity.

Crossing Over: A new theme emerges – A theme that began with Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman (15:21-28) continues with the geographical setting of the story: the region of Caesarea Philippi. Early in its history this location had been the setting of Canaanite worship to Ba’al and later a Greek temple to the god Pan (hence the name Paneas). Eventually it simply became a center of secular power under the Roman regency of Herod the Great and his son Phillip who renamed it after Tiberius Caesar and himself: Caesarea Philippi.  Is the mention of the location just a geographical touch of narrative – Luke, the “geographer” of the gospel writers, does not mention the name – so one wonders why Matthew includes it.  It is not clear, but perhaps Matthew wanted to emphasize that this significant scene took place in a setting with significant religious and secular meanings and associations.  By doing so, Matthew crosses over to confront the pantheon of gods and the power of Caesar, with the true King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

But at the same time, this scene does not really cross over into new “territory” as regards Jesus’ divine identity.  While this parallel scene in Mark is the first time Jesus’ divine identity is proclaimed by others and worship (homage) takes place, that is not true in Matthew.  Jesus’ true identity is not really new to the disciples who have heard Jesus refer to himself in christological terms, have understood it, and worshiped him as the Son of God (14:33).  The breakthrough is not christological. Matthew is crossing over to begin to explicate the ecclesiological (“being church”) dimensions of the profession and worship.  It is from here that there is a separation of the new community of believers in the Kingdom of Heaven from those who oppose and reject it.

Image Credit: Pietro Perugino, The Delivery of the Keys (c 1481–1482). Sistine Chapel, Vatican City | Public Domain

The three questions

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This coming Sunday is the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary Cycle A. In this gospel a large part of the Matthean narrative is devoted to the tripartite question: (a) who is Jesus, (b) what does it mean to be his disciples in the light of his identity, and (c) what choices will you make because of his call.  In previous two Sunday gospels we have seen these questions addressed in the pericope of Peter walking upon the waters (Mt 14:22-33) and the encounter with the Canaanite woman (15:21-28) – and both episodes move Jesus to comment upon the faith of the disciple. These stories serve as the immediate context for our gospel about Peter’s confession and what it will mean for him in his on-going role of discipleship.

Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah forms the climax to the long section of the Gospel which began in 4:17 with Jesus’ public teaching in Galilee.  Along the way the question of Jesus’ identity has repeatedly arisen.  Matthew has been clear from the beginning about Jesus’ identity – he is the one in whom God’s salvific purposes are fulfilled.  From the beginning, Matthew has recorded the clear declarations of Jesus’ identity by God (3:17) and by the demons (8:29).  But there is no record of any explicit declaration by Jesus of his role as Messiah (though of course much of the recorded teaching points unmistakably in that direction). Mainly we have only the testimony of the people who witness his miracles and signs: frequent amazement of the crowd at his authority in word and deed (4:24–25; 7:28–29; 9:8, 26, 31, 33; 13:54; 15:31).  This amazement has led to speculation if he is the son of David (12:23; the title is also offered to him by petitioner in 9:27; 15:22), which no doubt gave rise to the authorities’ repeated demand for a sign to authenticate his supposed claims (12:28; 16:1).  The messianic identity is heightened when John the Baptist pointed forward to a ‘coming one’ (3:11–12) and has tentatively identified Jesus in this ‘Messianic’ role (11:2–6),; all the while Herod confused Jesus’ ministry with that of John (14:1–2).

People want certainty about Jesus and who he is before they commit to be his disciples. But even after all that Jesus has said and done, there is always one more sign that is requested (16:1-5) – and eventually the answer is “No.”  The time for signs is over.  It is time to decide.

In this situation it is time for the issue to be clarified, but it is significant that, in accordance with the principle set out in 13:11–17, it is to the disciples in private that the clarification is given, here and in 17:1–13. The crowds remain in a state of uncertainty, and this, as 16:20 will vividly show, is quite deliberate.

Image Credit: Pietro Perugino, The Delivery of the Keys (c 1481–1482). Sistine Chapel, Vatican City | Public Domain

Universal Salvation

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This coming Sunday is the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The careful reader of Matthew should be mindful that there have been persistent hints. From the beginning of the Gospel, Matthew begins to make it clear that the community of the Messiah is formed from unexpected sources. The mention of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba (1:3, 5, 6), all evidently Gentiles with overtones of scandal in their backgrounds, prepares the reader for Jesus’ association with the sinners of his own day.

The curious arrival of the mysterious wise men (Magi) from the east who wish to worship Jesus (2:1–2) foreshadows the power of the message of the Kingdom to summon followers in surprising ways. Jesus’ amazement at the faith of the Roman officer (8:10–12) and his acknowledgement of the faith of the Canaanite woman (15:28) encourage the readers of this Gospel to believe that the message of the Kingdom is able to engender faith from unlikely sources in their own day. The Roman soldier’s amazed confirmation of Jesus’ true identity at the crucifixion (27:54) has a similar effect. All of these episodes from the narrative collectively encouraged Matthew’s original Jewish readers to expand their vision of the people of God. It was not that they should abandon their fellow Jews, but they were to take the message of the Kingdom to “all the nations” (28:19).

Image credit: Jean Germain Drouais, Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 1784, Louvre Museum | Public Domain

Covenantal Love

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Here on this last day in the first reading sequence, Ezekiel 16:1-15, 60, 63, an extraordinarily harsh passage. Indeed, parts of the complete chapter are deliberately shocking. But its governing metaphor is covenantal love.

God describes Jerusalem as an abandoned infant whom nobody wanted: “No eye looked on you with pity… Rather, you were thrown out on the open field…” (16:5) God finds her, gives her life, raises her, clothes her, adorns her and enters covenant with her: “I swore an oath to you and entered into covenant with you… and you became mine.” (16:8)

But Jerusalem takes the very gifts God gave her and turns them toward infidelity. That explains everything we have just encountered. The sin that caused the judgment, the departure of God’s glory and the exile was not merely violation of regulations. It was betrayal of a relationship.

And then the jumps, omitting much of Ezekiel’s blistering indictment and takes us to verse 60: “Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.” That “Yet” may be the theological key to the entire week’s readings.

  • Israel forgets.
  • God remembers.
  • Israel breaks covenant.
  • God establishes covenant.
  • Israel’s sin has consequences.
  • But Israel’s sin does not get the final word. 

The glory of the LORD that leaves the Temple in Ezekiel 10–11 eventually comes back. Near the end of the book, Ezekiel sees the restored Temple: “The glory of the LORD entered the temple by way of the gate facing east.” (Ezek 43:4) The same divine glory that traveled eastward out of Jerusalem returns from the east. In a way this frames the whole book: God’s glory departs but God does not abandon his people forever.

And between departure and return come some of Ezekiel’s greatest promises: the shepherd who will seek the scattered sheep (chapter 34), the new heart and new spirit (36:26), and the dry bones restored to life (chapter 37) – all themes we see in the story of Jesus. Understood in this frame, Ezekiel’s message is not, “Israel sinned, so God punished them.” It is subtler and ultimately more hopeful: God’s people rejected the Word they had been given; their infidelity hollowed out even their sacred institutions; the consequences were catastrophic. Yet even when Israel’s faithfulness failed, God’s faithfulness did not.

Image credit: A fresco from St. John the Baptist Church in Kratovo, Macedonia (photo: Rašo, via Wikimedia Commons)

How are We to Understand Jesus’ Response?

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This coming Sunday is the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The disciples’ request, Send her away for she keeps calling out after us need not be understood as disapproval of her request, but simply a desire for peace and quiet (cf. 19:13?).  In fact, if Jesus would just grant the petition, they all can rest.  Many scholars hold this content makes Jesus’ emphatic objection (v.24) more cogent.  But rather than take the path of least resistance, there is a principle to be highlighted. The principle is the same as that of 10:5–6, of a mission restricted to Israel (during Jesus’ earthly ministry): “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The statement here is Jesus’ explanation to the disciples of his unexpectedly unwelcoming response to a woman in need; she herself need not have heard it, as it is only in v.25 that she approaches Jesus closely.

In her close approach she gives Jesus homage and again refers to him as Lord. While one can assume this is only the posture/language of the petitioner, in Matthew such language always refers to worship before God.  Given this, how should one take the repartee between Jesus and the woman? There are three basic suggestions:

  1. One suggestion for understanding Jesus’ response is that he is testing her faith (Lord, Son of David) and her resolve (a key characteristic for all disciples).
  2. Another suggestion is its polar opposite, he is making it clear to her that she and her concerns are not part of his mission – but her clever reply, acknowledging the primacy of mission to Israel, raises the possibility of mission beyond Israel for those who accept God’s sovereignty in how He chooses his own people.
  3. Another variation depends upon the understanding that Jesus is still in Jewish territory and that the Canaanite woman has come as though fulfilling the Isaian vision of the Gentiles streaming to the Temple Mount (cf.  Isa 2:2-4): the Gentiles are to approach God through Israel.

All three responses allow for Jesus’ final words (v.28) and the healing desired.

Yet we are troubled by Jesus uttering: “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” It has been suggested that since the Greek term kynaria, a diminutive, i.e., puppy, is an affectionate reference to dogs as pets, that Jesus is not being harsh.  While that appeals to our modern sentimentality and manners, it has trouble because of the lack of any such idea in Judaism, or of a known diminutive form to express it in Aramaic. The more likely scenario is that Jesus is expressing the contemptuous Jewish attitude to Gentiles in order to explain why her request does not fit into his mission to Israel. But written words do not convey a twinkle in the eye, the tone of delivery, or other such nuance.  Perhaps Jesus verbally conveys the words she would expect, but everything else hints at an invitation to “make her case.”  And she makes it in a way that conveys her faith.

No-one else receives from Jesus the accolade “…great is your faith!” (though the reply to the centurion seems equivalent, cf. 8:10). Was it merely her persistence in expecting a response despite apparent refusal? Or is there also the idea of her spiritual perception in recognizing both the primary scope of Jesus’ mission to Israel and also the fact that that was not to be its ultimate limit? The Canaanite woman, like the centurion before her, foreshadows the time when the true Israel will transcend the boundaries of culture and nationality.

Image credit: Jean Germain Drouais, Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 1784, Louvre Museum | Public Domain

The Consequences

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On this third day of the first reading sequence we find Ezekiel 12:1-12 and one of Ezekiel’s famous prophetic sign-actions. God tells Ezekiel to pack an exile’s baggage. In daylight, while everyone watches, he is to carry his belongings away. Then he is to dig through the wall and leave with his face covered. He becomes a living parable. And the reason is given immediately: “Son of man, you live in the midst of a rebellious house; they have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear.” (12:2)

Notice how naturally this follows the preceding readings. The prophet has eaten the Word. Israel has refused the Word. God’s glory has departed the Temple.  Now Ezekiel physically demonstrates where all this leads: exile.

There is also something pastorally interesting about Ezekiel’s bizarre behavior. When ordinary speech no longer penetrates, God tells the prophet essentially to become the message. Ezekiel doesn’t merely announce exile; he packs his bags and acts it out in the street.

Image credit: A fresco from St. John the Baptist Church in Kratovo, Macedonia (photo: Rašo, via Wikimedia Commons)