Learning while Teaching

Advent Day 11: Matthew 11: Being Offended by Jesus

In case you don't want to open your book, here's Matthew 11. I have only a couple of thoughts today.

After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee. ² When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples ³ to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” ⁴ Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: ⁵ The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. ⁶ Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

⁷ As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? ⁸ If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. ⁹ Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. ¹⁰ This is the one about whom it is written:

“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way before you.’

¹¹ Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. ¹² From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. ¹³ For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. ¹⁴ And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. ¹⁵ Whoever has ears, let them hear.

¹⁶ “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

¹⁷ “‘We played the pipe for you,
    and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
    and you did not mourn.’

¹⁸ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ ¹⁹ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”

²⁰ Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. ²¹ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ²² But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. ²³ And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades.^[e] For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. ²⁴ But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

²⁵ At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. ²⁶ Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

²⁷ “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. ²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

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It's an old cliche by now, but what if the things Jesus said about himself are true? I say that in the sense that they are true but with the idea that, of course, there are people who do question these things and others who dismiss Jesus as out of his mind altogether. Nevertheless, the things he says in here are, on the surface, outrageous to most of our minds. In our pluralistic world, overrun by the notion that all religion is created equal, essentially worshiping the same god, and that all paths lead equally to the same eventual outcome, it is difficult to make the sort of statements that Jesus made and be taken seriously by anyone.

Look what he says about itself.

All things have been handed over to me by the Father. Well, back in the early chapters, the devil tried to do this. And at the end of the book, Jesus again says all authority is his. We like to claim authority for ourselves. Politicians are really good at it. We think we have the right to dictate the outcomes and the parameters of religious experience and what some generically call 'salvation.' But Jesus is saying that only he has the authority to make such claims. All is a fairly exclusive and limiting word in this context.

Then he says that no one knows the Father except the Son. And that it is the Son's prerogative to reveal the Father to anyone he chooses. Well, this sort of stamps on the feet of the crowd that wants to be nice to everyone and declare all religious experiences are equal opportunity stairways to the Father. I know it's the modern thing to do, you know, being nice to everyone about their peculiar religious expressions and experiences. Jesus is making some fairly stiff claims here about himself and about God. I can see how people might be offended.

He says some other things too about rest, and yokes, and labor, and burdens. He says some awkward things about John the Baptizer and some of the kings of earth ('reed shaken' being a reference to a Herod). He said some strange things about Sodom--things we would dare not say. He said some things about the fickle generation he was among--and none of us are so willing to call today's generations what they are: fickle and temperamental, mere infants, unrepentant. You see all these things Jesus is saying are not mean. They are honest evaluations of the sort of people he was ministering to.

He has words for kings. He has words for would be disciples. He has words for the current generation. He has words for the unrepentant cities--we won't dare pronounced such sweeping judgments on the cities of this earth, will we? He has words for those who have ears and will hear. And to all of these people he pronounces a beatitude: Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.

So as you read through this eleventh chapter, what do you think about Jesus? Are you offended? Are your ears attuned to his words? Are you ready to take up his burden or the burden of the world? Many folks, even many so-called Christians, are offended at the words of Jesus, his words of exclusivity. We don't want to offend or give offense or hurt someones feelings. But Jesus said these things, he invented them, and we can either accept them or reject. Being offended is a cop out.

Don't be the fickle crown, wavering back and forth between a dirge and a delight. Choose Jesus. That's all.

Advent Day 8: Matthew 8: The Jesus We Follow

The eight chapter of Matthew, close on the heels of the Sermon on the Mount, is a spectacular introduction to the Jesus we follow. What is probably most amazing is the variety of people that Jesus meets along the way after he came down from teaching.

This is probably significant. It probably means something amazing that Jesus said all that he said about what his followers look like (in chapters 5-7) and then goes on to demonstrate those things in his own life in the chapters that follow. What is compelling about this eight chapter is that Jesus makes it plain that his work, the work we see on display in chapter 8, is a matter of the kingdom. Look what he says: "I tell you, many will come from the east and the west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." This is encouraging as the context indicates Jesus was about the business of healing the servant of a Roman Centurion.

So, then, look at the sort of things that happen in chapter 8.

The first thing that is different about this Kingdom is that Jesus touches people; lepers to be precise. It's an unheard of thing. This is one sort of person Jesus stretches out his hand to touch. And when he does, Jesus doesn't become unclean. Who are the 'unclean' people in our culture that Jesus would likely reach out and touch? Go, then, be his hands.

Next, notice that this kingdom also has room for the oppressors among us. Roman Centurions were probably not well known for their likability. They worked for the enemy, the oppressor, the hated Romans. Yet Jesus says this enemy as more of a shot at the feast of Abraham than does some who are natural born sons of the kingdom. That's a strange thought, isn't it? It makes me wonder who the enemies are in our culture. Can you identify them? If you can, go and be Jesus' welcoming committee.

Then go on in the story....Jesus also touched his mother-in-law's hand and healed her...he healed those oppressed by demons--a large population among our own culture I am sure. Notice Jesus: he heals by touch, he heals from a distance, he heals by a word...he heals anyone who asks and everyone who comes to him with a need. He carries our sickness and weakness--he sort of takes it into himself and in himself disease has no triumph. But he also makes something else clear to his would-be disciples: this is no easy row to hoe.

Discipleship, as explained in chapters 5-7, has a cost. Here in chapter 8 he lays out some of that cost.

You have to be prepared to live on the run. There's no settling down. There's no staying put. If you are going to follow Jesus, be prepared to live like Jesus.

You have to be prepared to prioritize like Jesus. Jesus said we have to think about what matters and there may simply be times when the priorities of this life are no longer priorities. We have to discern what matters most when we follow Jesus. It's hard. I know it is, but Jesus doesn't seem to mince words.

And finally....we need to seriously consider who he is and 'what sort of man' he is. Who is this that even the winds and the waves obey? Are we prepared to follow a man who touches lepers? Are we prepared to follow a man who heals the enemy? Are we prepared to follow a man who takes our disease into himself? Are we prepared to follow a man who has no place to rest and who tells us that the dead will bury their own? Are we prepared to follow a man who can calm winds and waves?

We need to ask that: are we prepared to follow a man who calms winds and waves? The same man who orders disease to leave and sickness to vanish is the same man who commands the winds and waves.

And the last story....are we prepared to follow a man who sacrifices an entire community's economy for the sake of two men who were held captive by demons? Evidently the people of the Gadarenes did not: they begged Jesus to leave them. At least they were honest. They were not yet ready to follow a man who did all this sort of stuff.

Are we? This is the Jesus we follow and this is what marks his kingdom. Are we prepared to follow that kind of King? Are we prepared to touch and talk to and meet the sort of people Jesus did?

If not, then maybe we are not quite ready to follow him just yet.

Advent Day 6: Matthew 6: Continuing to be Different

Read: Matthew 6

Let's be short today. Maybe.

Matthew six is a chapter that has been abused and misused by preachers throughout the ages. And by pew-sitters too. I'll be honest when I say that it is not a terribly complicated passage of Scripture to understand, but it's not necessarily easy to understand either. It's one of those passages that can be taken to extremes one way or the other. Or it can be ignored altogether.

I think Jesus assumes that Kingdom people will be practitioners of certain things like alms giving, prayer, and fasting. I don't think Jesus ever thought that these things were a mere means to an end--whatever end that might be in our minds. I do find it interesting, though, that we get a clue as to the point of these things when we read the so-called Lord's Prayer. Part of that prayer goes like this, "Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." This goes along well with the themes we have already seen in the first several chapters: we are not about getting our own way, by our own means, in our time. We, like Jesus, are about doing God's things, God's way, and with God's methods.

Praying for God's kingdom is saying we are happy and content with the things of God, the means of God, and the ends of God. It means we are willing to put aside our own ways and means and ends because we see and believe in something quite a lot different than ourselves.

So I wondered...maybe the point of giving of alms and the fasting similar to that of prayer? Maybe we fast in order to hasten the kingdom. Maybe we give alms to others as a way of announcing the Kingdom. And we don't have to pray a lot at all--in the sense of saying a whole bunch of words: your Kingdom come, your will be done. What else need we say?

Here's where it gets really exciting--when we pray for his kingdom and will to be done--in our lives. When we do so, we need not worry about all that much. Jesus says at the end of this chapter: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. You hear it? He's saying the same thing: Your will be done, your kingdom come. Is this the content of our prayer life? Is this the purpose of our fasting life? Is this why we give? Are we practicing these things in order to hasten the kingdom's arrival?

I've been paying attention lately to the goings on in the world. There's a lot of worrying going on, and fear, and worry, and emotional output, and worry, and fear. Lately it seems like a lot of christians are being driven by fear and worry--which is an over concern for things over which we have no control. There is clamoring for more guns and more control and more violence. There's a lot rhetoric being bandied about by christians who think that we ought to act an behave in much the same way as the general population. We ought to exercise our constitutional rights and bear arms and kill people or wish and hope that others do the killing for us.

This is not a kingdom way of thinking. This is a satanic way of thinking, a Herod way of thinking. Herod uses the sword, and the satan says bow down before me. Yet neither of these are the quiet, unassuming way of hiding in a prayer closet asking for God simply to bring his will to bear on this earth. People who live in anxiety and fear are those who tend to think that God is not going to do anything. And you know what? He might decide to remain silent for a while. That's OK. Our responsibility is very simple: keep on praying, day in, day out, for God's will to be done on this earth.

Then go and live in faith that he will do so. Our simple life then becomes one free of anxiety, free of fear, and free of the need to resort to the ways of the satan or Herod to get things done. Let go and let God do what God is going to do in his time. Don't seek your own life or your own comfort. Seek first the Kingdom of God. His will.

That's all.

Advent: Day 1: Matthew 1 and the Genealogy of Jesus

Read: Matthew 1; Romans 1:1-7; Hebrews 1; Isaiah 9:10-25

Advent is upon us and I am glad. It is an important time of the year for Christians to reflect upon the First Coming of Jesus and his subsequent ministry and, perhaps, to begin preparing ourselves for his Second Coming. You see, if the First Coming is any indication of what things will be like at his Second Coming, then I think perhaps we, Christians have a lot of preparations to make before his arrival.

He will come to us and we have to ask if we will be ready. I wonder if those Israelites who were living during his First Coming had any idea what was about to land on their doorstep? Think about it: it had been 400 years (give or take) since a prophet had been heard in the Beautiful Land. Then all of a sudden, John the Baptizer shows up and starts shaking the earth with his preaching about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. What would you have done then? What will you do now if someone starts preaching just the same? Will there be anyone preparing the way of the Lord now?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Matthew 1 is where we begin. We begin with the very beginning, but perhaps Matthew began his Gospel with the end in mind. That is, maybe he wrote chapter 1 while thinking long and hard about chapter 28. Again, I'm ahead of myself. Let's stick with chapter 1 and the genealogy of Jesus. At this point, I'll make four quick observations about the genealogy of Jesus as written by Matthew and then offer an 'application' (since that's what we do.)

First, it's the last genealogy in our Bible. That's strange. Sort of. But there it is. There are genealogies all over the place in the Older Testament, but in the New Testament, we see those Old Testament genealogies (in Matthew and Luke) summed up in Jesus. At the name of Jesus, the genealogy of Israel stops (so to speak) and a new family line begins (see Mark 3:31-35). What we see is a family line from Abraham to David to Jesus. That's important. How can we be a part of Jesus' family? Who are the children of Jesus?

Second, the Lord used an eclectic group of people to bring about the fulfillment of the promises he made to Abraham, David, and others. If you are familiar with the Older Testament, you will see what I mean when you read through and see names like Judah, David, Uriah, Rahab, and others. Bad behavior and poor decisions were not limited to the women included in this genealogy. There are some terribly sketchy men too. Nevertheless, God used all of them to bring about his history, to bring about his plans. And not a single one of these sketchy people thwarted God's plans. So despite the worst intentions of this current world, I doubt seriously anyone alive or dead now can either.

Third, why does Matthew begin his Gospel with a genealogy? Isn't there a better way to begin telling a story about someone so important? Well, perhaps. I guess. But here's the point: not only is Matthew saying that the the family of Israel finds its terminus in Jesus and that beginning with Jesus a new history is taking shape, but he is also saying that the history of Israel led up to and culminated in the birth of Jesus--Immanuel (see Isaiah 9). In other words: Jesus is the whole point of Israel's history (see Luke 24:13-35, 44-49;  John 5:39-47). History terminates and begins in Jesus. Why begin this way? Well, I think it's because it points to the purpose of Matthew's telling of the Gospel story and what you and I should understand as his intentions (I explore this in the next paragraph).

Fourth, two prominent names are found in the genealogy: Abraham and David. Abraham is mentioned three times; David five. On the one hand, Matthew is reminding us of the promise that the Lord made to Abraham especially in Genesis 12--that through Abraham the Lord would bless all nations. Matthew is saying that now, in Jesus, God is bringing that promise to bear upon the world. And isn't this what Jesus says in Matthew 28: Go, make disciples of all nations.  The reference is undeniable. Then there's David, mentioned five times in the genealogy and what's more is that the genealogy is laid out in such a way (notice that in verse 17 we are told 14, 14, 14) that we are to think about David, the great King of Israel. (David's name, using a form of Hebrew numerology called 'gematria', is equivalent to the number 14, D=4, V=6, D=4; DVD=14; they had no vowels). The point is simply this: this is the genealogy of the coming King, the promise made to David that his heir would always sit on the throne of Israel. That's the point. Not only is Jesus the fulfillment of promises to Abraham, but also to David. Verse 1, Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Interestingly enough, this is very much the way Paul the apostle begins the letter to the Romans.

So what? Why is all of this important, if it is important? Why should we care? We should care because the last name in the genealogy is Jesus, called Messiah, called Immanuel. Three things. It matters because Matthew is telling his readers: you need to pay attention to this story of Jesus because in him is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham; in him is the fulfillment of the promise to David; and in him is the fulfillment of the promise to the Prophets. He is saying: this story is not about you, or Israel, or anyone else. It's a story about Jesus and everything I'm about to tell you points to Him as the fulfillment of the ages.

Like I said, Matthew begins with the end in mind. Immanuel means 'God with us.' The story ends in Matthew 28 with Jesus promising never to 'leave us or forsake us.' It is comforting to know that whatever we face here and now, we are not alone. When we go forth and invite people into the family of Jesus, when we help continue his family line of mothers, and brothers, and sisters, he is with us. Always.

Finally, if this is what his First Coming was about, how much more is this what his Second Coming will be about also? If the first coming was about announcing a Messiah, a King, who will save his people from their sins, then how much more will his second coming be his very enthronement and final rescue of those people he saved?

So if this is a story of Jesus that we should pay attention to, then what are things Jesus did in his story that we should pay attention to? What kind of a Messiah was he? What kind of a king was he? And if we are members of his family, what sort of offspring are we supposed to be in light of all this?