Tag: Gospel of Matthew

Red Letter Year: 5/20

Matthew 23:1-12

1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. 3 So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. 4 They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

5 Everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels. 6 And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues. 7 They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi.’

8 Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. 9 And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father. 10 And don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you must be a servant. 12 But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Comments

Prayer boxes worn on the arm were meant to facilitate a life of prayer, but Jesus explains that for the religious leaders the opposite had become the case. The boxes had become symbols of honor that took the place of prayer. Receiving respect and deference from others soothed the unsettled feeling in their hearts that would otherwise only be soothed in prayer. The same was true of the titles. They enjoyed being called rabbi, father (a term denoting socio-political power), and teacher, hearing those honorifics given to them satisfied them so much they no longer needed to teach, nurture, or instruct. Jesus wants none of this and forbids his followers from using any titles at all for each other. He tells us to do the work as humble servants and leave out the self-promotion. Take joy in the work itself, not the praise/respect/title you get for doing (or not doing) the work. Don’t talk about praying or make it look like you pray – just pray. Don’t let anything other than prayer deal with the unsettledness that leads to prayer. Don’t talk about serving, teaching, shepherding, instructing – just serve. Serve in whatever capacity you have been called. Calling is fundamentally an unsettling, the Spirit giving you a task to do by making you feel uncomfortable until it is done. Don’t let anything give you comfort other than doing the thing that needs doing. 

The New Living Translation (NLT)Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Red Letter Year: 5/17

Matthew 22:34-46

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. 35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

41 Then, surrounded by the Pharisees, Jesus asked them a question 42 “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

They replied, “He is the son of David.”

43 Jesus responded, “Then why does David, speaking under the inspiration of the Spirit, call the Messiah ‘my Lord’? For David said, 44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies beneath your feet.’ 45 Since David called the Messiah ‘my Lord,’ how can the Messiah be his son?”

46 No one could answer him. And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Comments

The Two Commandments Jesus gives here warrant a good deal of reflection. Here are a couple of ideas to help you in that. First, God is love and love is an action, which means whenever we carry out an act of love we are participating in the life of God and are enabled to act as such by God. There is no love outside God, because God is love. Second, loving God, loving neighbor, and loving self are not separate activities here, rather they are different aspects of the same activity and are intrinsically related to one another. If we cannot love our neighbors, our claims to love God are false. And we cannot love neighbor outside the necessary relation to how we love ourselves. But we cannot love ourselves without carrying out that action in God (God is love). Much that passes for self-love is not, just as claims to love God among those who hate neighbors are false. Since God is love, God is always the initiator in loving acts, our loving acts are responses to God’s love and reflections of God’s love. We begin by receiving God’s love, accepting that God loves us, that no part of us is unloved by God or unimportant to God. God loves our minds. God loves our bodies. God loves our hearts. God loves our souls. Our acceptance of and gratitude for God’s love is how we keep the first command. This is also what it means to love ourselves: we learn to regard our own selves with the same love God has for us. This creates the condition wherein we can keep the second command.  Our recognition that every other person is also completely and unconditionally loved by God, just as we ourselves are, and that each person is thus worthy and deserving of our love (still a reflection of God’s love) shapes all our actions toward that neighbor, the neighbor who is the beloved. How can we but love such a one whom God loves so devotedly?

All this is of a piece and grows as such as we grow in our capacity to receive God’s grace that teaches us how to love ourselves, to love others as loved selves, and to reflect back the love given to us by the Essence of Love. As I said, this warrants a good deal of reflection.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.