This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. This has been a series of posts critiquing the scribes and Pharisees and admonishing the disciples to take another path and follow Jesus as the authoritative teacher of the Law. 11 The greatest among you must be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the previous posts we considered the three critiques of the scribes and Pharisees. At this point the conversation seems fully directed to Jesus’ disciples.
8 As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. 10 Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you must be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the previous post we considered the second of the three critiques of the scribes and Pharisees: they burden others while failing to act themselves. This post considers the final critique: they act for the wrong reasons: to make an impression on others Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the previous post we considered the first of the three critiques of the scribes and Pharisees: they teach but they don’t practice what they preach. In this post we move to the second: They burden others while failing to act themselves.
4 They tie up heavy burdens (hard to carry) and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.
This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. In Matthew’s timeline it is (still) Tuesday of Holy Week and Jesus is still in Temple precincts. The audience continues to be the crowds gathered around the man from Galilee, but the conversation will soon pivot to the disciples – in each case a critique and warning. Jesus’ critique of the scribes and Pharisees will have three elements Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary Cycle A. For several Sundays we have been in the midst of confrontations between Jesus and the Jerusalem leadership. On the 29th Sunday, we moved into a section of Matthew’s gospel that comprises a series of controversies between Jesus and the religious authorities of Jerusalem.
This coming Sunday is the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Although the Sermon on the Mount has already included an extensive section of Jesus’ teaching to his disciples on love as fundamental to the life of discipleship (5:21–48), in this concluding encounter with his opponents Matthew gives Jesus another opportunity to summarize the core of his teaching (as 7:12). There, the teaching was to his disciples; here, it is to his opponents, in the controversy situation showing his orthodoxy as an advocate of the whole of the Law and the Prophets. Since Matthew here focuses on the argumentative aspect of the scene, he does not develop the theological issues that interest the contemporary interpreter (cf. Luke, who relocates the passage, 10:25–28): (1) the meaning of “love,” (2) the meaning of “neighbor,” and (3) the meaning of Jesus’ responding with two commands. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Jesus’ choice of Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18 is notable for two reasons. In the first place, by focusing on “love” rather than on more tangible regulations to be obeyed, it raises the discussion above merely judging between competing rules, and gives the priority to a principle which has potential application to virtually every aspect of religious and communal life. When Jesus declares that “the whole law and the prophets” depend on this principle, he is repeating the point he made in 7:12, “this is the law and the prophets.” The ethical principle he there laid down did not use the word “love,” but that is what it was all about. The priority of love in the life of a disciple will be a frequently repeated NT principle, and one which it would be very hard to object to. Continue reading
In today’s gospel Jesus words are “hard,” speaking about “fire” and “division” – and all of this leading to some dire consequences. Perhaps it is good to provide some insight about passage and the words and imagery used – because it all begins with the opening words of the gospel reading as we hear Jesus say: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (Luke 12:49). Interestingly, in the NT only rarely does “fire” (pýr) denote the earthly phenomenon. If Luke’s usage is not literal, then what are the possibilities? What is the fire Jesus comes to cast? Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The test goes to the heart of the Mosaic law, and as such, it is appropriately raised by a Pharisaic lawyer. It would not be an unfamiliar question, since rabbis did discuss which of the commandments were “heavy” and which “light,” and sometimes tried to summarize the main thrust of the Mosaic law in terms of a key OT text. Since the five books of Moses (Pentateuch) contained, by rabbinic calculation, 613 commandments, some means of assessing their relative importance would be widely valued. Continue reading
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