Preliminary Thoughts on Matthew 2004 December 8-11 for 15^th

Having studied the story of Jesus as told by his disciple John, the text usually used as the highest priority introduction to Christianity, then the beginning of everything as described in the book of Genesis, we now move to another telling of the story of Jesus, this one by Matthew.

Matthew was a disciple of Jesus who wrote the story from a Jewish perspective. He quotes the Bible (Old Testament) and sees Jesus as the promised Messiah. Perhaps this is placed as the first book of the New Testament as a way of connecting the Testaments through this commonality.

It is interesting that while the great philosopher Socrates had one disciple, Plato, who wrote up the account of his life, Jesus had four. By having four versions of the story from four different points of view we have a measure of security for the text. We also have a vehicle from which we can contrast and compare, build up or destroy the testimony at will. Certainly, seeming discrepancies will arise, for the skeptical. What will we make of them? Will we immediately say condescendingly, "Ah, it's all a myth, but it helps some people" or will we approach the narrative as if we'd seen it ourselves and we have to figure out how to reconcile what we saw. Maybe there is another way of seeing it that will help. Who, what, and how do you trust anyway?

Let's also consider the role of "evangelism." It is to look out on the world and see it as it is, not right, and to tell anyone who is a victim of this "not rightness" that they, too, are part of the problem but that subscription to a certain world view will fix this. The world view in question is that God, who created the universe (yes, the universe), came and lived on earth as Jesus, a man, one of us, in the same sort of way and for roughly the same amount of time that most of us do. This Jesus, whose existence in this four dimensional universe happens to coincide in time and space with the Roman Empire of the western world, is connected directly with God who knows everything, controls everything, and loves everybody. Jesus, through this connection, knows what he needs to, represents God to humanity, and though he is finite in human form, at least he never errs. At the end, he is physically sacrifice, killed by torture, to cover for all the wrongness in the creation and to make it possible for us to come back to God and spend eternity with Him. After three days he rose in some mysterious physical/spiritual form, then ascended to heaven to prepare it for us. All you have to do is to accept this. There is no other hope. Take my word for it.

A larger question of why a perfect God has created a universe in which all this was necessary is beyond my grasp. Discussions about this usually end up at the need for independent beings of free will to freely choose God, or not. Without that, and real evil to choose, the demonstration would be meaningless.

On one hand, all of this all seems nearly self-evident. Why does anything bother to exist anyway except for such a motivation? What is life anyway? At the same time, it all seems nearly inconceivable. But, we are here….

We observe, unfortunately, that acceptance of this world view does not change the imperfection (or the "consequences") of most people's situation; it really only seems to change their attitude which in itself is often of inestimable and sometimes physical value. The institutions of faith do appear to be set up to carefully explain why the "wrongness" of the creation, both within us and outside us, doesn't seem to go away just because we have accepted this deal, how none of this is God's fault (an oxymoron in any case), and how all of the difficulty derives from anti-God. If you're not healed of your physical or mental illness, it's because "God didn't want to" for some perfect reason that is beyond our understanding, or because you didn't "believe well enough", that is, have enough faith or because He was somehow delayed by opposing forces. In fact, a rational explanation of anything relative to faith always comes down to "God does (or doesn't do) things for his reasons which we don't always understand." Some interpretations would have God wanting us to do a lot of begging. Others say it's only relationship that matters. God wants relationship, to be friends with us; nothing else (comfort, wholeness) really matters. Some think everything in this sad world is only a test. It is tempting to conclude that things, possibly excepting attitudes, wouldn't be any different with or without this overlaying explanation of faith.

In fact that may be where it all is. These are matters of "spirit" after all, not physics. Physics only supports spirit here and now, in our material experience anyway. This is good since the world of physics is one of imperfection and death for us anyway.

Personally, I no longer believe that all difficulty arises from fault and opposition. Even in a "perfect" situation in our four dimensional existence, there are still difficulties.

We have just discussed some of many possible expressions of faith. There are many ways to approach the upcoming story. Let's consider the story of Jesus as told by Matthew with these questions in mind: Is it all really hopeless? Is Jesus really God? What is God really like? Is He a source of hope? The only hope? Is this credible? Did this all happen?

Matthew 1 2004 December 13 for 16^th

The genealogy of Jesus is established beginning with Abraham and ending with the man who raised Jesus on earth, Joseph:

Abraham,

Isaac,

Jacob,

Judah,

Perez (by Tamar),

Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon,

Boaz (son of Rahab, the harlot who helped with the conquest of Jericho),

Obed (son of Ruth the gentile, though it isn't mentioned here),

Jesse,

David the King.

David who, after having Uriah the warrior murdered in order to have his wife Bathsheba for himself and whose first son with Bathsheba died, then had Solomon.

Solomon's son was Rehoboam, then Abijah, Asa, Jehosphaphat, Joram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, Jeconiah. All of these were kings, Jeconiah at the time of the exile to Babylon. After this, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Akim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, and Joseph, Mary's husband-to-be.

This is important to the Jews who were expecting a Messiah, a descendant of King David, as prophesied. We've just been through Genesis where we saw the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar, and their son Perez. Later we'll get to some of this other colorful history, all in the lineage of Christ, which is neither racially nor morally "pure."

Of course, God seems unconcerned with racial purity. Why would he care about such a concept, having created everything and everyone? More interesting is the lack of moral purity through the story, though Mary and Joseph themselves seem blameless, within the limits of their knowledge. God may be working with what he has, imperfections and all.

We'll just skip over as inconsequential the discussion of "Jesus" and "Immanuel" being either the same word or meaning the same thing.

Now we come to the virgin birth. There is a line in the prophet Isaiah (7:14), "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." Footnotes indicate that "virgin" can also mean "young girl" which might be easier to take, but other texts make clear that this pregnancy was not from a normal human mating, particularly the parallel story as told by Luke.

Mary and Joseph were engaged to be married but she was already pregnant. This implied adultery (at least pre-adultery, at least fornication), which offenses were punishable by stoning, to death. Joseph didn't want this to happen to Mary, but he also didn't want to take responsibility for the mess so he decided to part with her quietly, hoping that no one would notice and that there wouldn't be any trouble.

While he was working on this, an angel came to him in a dream. The angel told him to go ahead and marry Mary. "What is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit." She would have a son, they would call him Jesus, and Jesus would "save his people from their sins."

This did seem to fulfill the prophecy and Joseph did as instructed but had no sex with Mary until after the boy was born, a minor bending of tradition in itself. The baby was in fact a boy and they named him Jesus.

Secular historians and philosophers quickly claim that Jesus was only the son of a Roman soldier or some other undocumented father. Mary was raped or otherwise indisposed and this explanation, involving an occurrence common through all phases of history, requires no miracle. No one disputes that Jesus was a genius, an unprecedented leader and, at the very least a powerful magician, but denying the virgin birth still puts Jesus on par with the rest of us, not God. This distinction was a stumbling block then and it still is now.

Consider, however, the other side. If you were God, the Holy Spirit, who had created everything and knew all about creation and procreation, how would you put your son into this world? If you did anything other than what was done here you would lose identification and connection with real people of all walks. If you didn't go through birth, poverty, work, life, and death; if you just descended from heaven in white robes and never got dirty, spoke to the people from above and went back to the space ship, it would be fair for anyone to say, "Sure, that's all easy for you to say," and write Jesus off at that.

As for the Immaculate Conception itself, it is correctly said that no amount of proof will convince a skeptic while no amount of refutation will dissuade a believer. Mary was alone with the Holy Spirit in the account. Nothing else would be … decent.

So, we have only the stories of these witnesses upon which to base a determination. There is no incontrovertible, extant evidence on either side of the question; there is only belief and credibility.

A fair and relevant question to ask is, "Did Mary, Joseph, and the author believe that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and that his mother was a virgin until after he was born?" The author certainly believes this; he makes these statements as plain, unequivocal fact. Mary and Joseph believed it too as we see here and as we will see as the story progresses. Joseph believed the angel in the dream and took a difficult, courageous, life-altering, risky decision based on this belief. This was no foggy nightmare. I don't know if I would have had the courage to choose as he did.

As for Mary, well, Mary … was there.

Matthew 2 2004 December 14 for 17^th

Jesus was born a refugee in Bethlehem. Why in Bethlehem is described in the story as told by Luke. The event was portended by a sign in the heavens, a star in the sky that was so impressive to faraway astronomers that they perceived something special and traveled to Israel to find out what it was. This was no small feat. When they arrived, they did what anyone would do; they went to the authorities to ask. In this case the authority was King Herod who showed great interest in the notion of a new king being born, as it was a direct threat to his power. He asked these "wise men" to go find the child and report back. He also found out exactly when the star was first seen and asked the Jewish leaders where this would occur. They quoted a prophet who said "Bethlehem."

Astronomically, it is argued that this was either a nova or a rare alignment of planets. In any case, its coincidence with the birth of this particular person is unlikely statistically and is seen as a miracle by people of faith. Also, the interpretation of this sign in the heavens as relating to some momentous event in the world and the success of the follow up on this belief by these wise men is rare, unprecedented to my knowledge.

They did go and find the boy, led by the star, and they left gifts of gold (money), incense (probably for ritual purposes) and myrrh (for dealing with the body after death).

Astronomically, a star would not "lead" except to travel east to west each night. It is possible that an astronomical object could stand directly over Bethlehem at the time of night when the wise men arrived. It is possible that the search led by the star had spiritual dimensions of guidance too.

They had a dream in which they were told not to go back to Herod so they returned to their unnamed home country by another route.

Joseph had another dream in which an angel told him to take his family to Egypt. He got up and did this in the middle of the night! Shortly, Herod discovered that the wise men were not returning and, in a rage, ordered all the boys in the region born since the star appeared, to be killed. This fulfills a tragic prophecy of Jeremiah.

When Herod was dead, Joseph had another dream in which an angel told him to go home. He did this, but didn't go back to Judea because Herod's son, the new ruler, was thought to be just as dangerous. Warned in yet another dream, he settled in Nazareth, Galilee. The author says this fulfills yet another prophecy, namely that Jesus would be called a "Nazarene." No citation is given.

At least four dreams are mentioned in this one chapter, each having to do with infant and toddler Jesus' safety in turbulent political times and places. Beginning with his original dream last chapter, Joseph is seen to be in touch with God concerning His son through dreams. By faith, he does what the angel tells him at great inconvenience. Joseph believed that this boy was the Son of God.

Matthew 3 2004 December 14 for 20^th

Meet John the Baptist.

John was Jesus' cousin. Mary and John's mother Elizabeth were sisters (something else we will learn in the story as told by Luke). The prophets tell of a warm up act for the Christ. John is that act. Like the man on a Nazarite vow that he was, he appeared in the desert out of nowhere preaching conviction of sin and repentance. This drew a crowd. Many believed and he baptized them in the Jordan River. The religious leaders are threatened. He goes after them with special zeal.

Being a child of Abraham is nothing special, he says. God can make children of Abraham out of rocks. Repent and behave like you mean it! The "main act" is on the way and he will have no patience with any of this sham. He will harvest his crop of believers and burn the chaff down to ash.

Jesus arrived at the show and asked to be baptized. This led to a discussion of propriety. John had just preached that he wasn't worthy to even carry Jesus shoes for him. John should be baptized by Jesus, John concluded. But, Jesus said it was the right thing to do and they went ahead.

As soon as Jesus was out of the water the Spirit of God landed on him like a dove and a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

This is one of the passages where people of certain denominations claim to prove the necessity of immersion baptism. Most are not so strident today as they were when I was young. Most recognize the relevance of personal interpretations of faith and local option in such matters. Baptism is necessary, mode of baptism is much less clear as a mandate.

As far as the words from heaven, they must speak for themselves. Clearly the author understood that Jesus was God's son.

Matthew 4 2004 December 14 for 21^st

Straight from the baptism, Jesus went to the wilderness where he fasted (that is, went without eating food) for 40 days. I can still hear dad saying that the statement, "he was hungry" is the greatest understatement in the Bible.

At this point Jesus faced temptations attributed to the devil. The first was to make food out of the stones. Jesus quoted the law, "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."

The second was to make a display of himself by flying off the top of the Temple and surviving to reach the ground. This would certainly attract a popular following, if he did in fact survive. And for this one, the devil quotes the Bible himself, showing that God is supposed to command angels to take care of Jesus. Certainly the devil must be frustrated by now having been foiled in all of Herod's attempts to destroy Jesus as a child. Jesus quotes the law again, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." When we get to Deuteronomy we will explore this further.

The third was to receive the whole world for worshipping the devil. This must be an offering of the temporal, four dimensional world to rule, certainly a short cut, certainly something Jesus could do and could desire to do. At this point Jesus writes a little new scripture, "Away from me, Satan!" before again quoting Deuteronomy (the law), "Worship the Lord your God and serve him only."

Jesus doesn't quibble or equivocate like I probably was. He gives a direct quote from the law in each case and lets it stand.

At this point the devil did indeed leave him alone and angels did indeed come to take care of him.

In any case, at the right time Jesus had no trouble staying fed, attracting a following, and ruling the world.

John was put in prison, and when Jesus heard about it, he went to preach in Galilee, then Capernaum, fulfilling another prophecy. Near the Sea of Galilee, he called his first disciples, Peter and Andrew, James and John (another John). These were all fisherman in family businesses, James and John working with and for their father Zebedee. On Jesus' call, they stopped work immediately and went to follow.

I don't think this is as strange as we sometimes think it is. When something truly remarkable happens, people are apt to take off the rest of the day from work or whatever they are doing to see about it. Perhaps these fishermen didn't realize that they would be clearing their calendar for more than just "the rest of today."

As Jesus traveled through Galilee, teaching in the synagogues (local Jewish houses of worship) and healing every physical and mental ailment he encountered, the word spread quickly and people came from all over with all sorts of diseases for his attention. Large crowds began following him everywhere.

Matthew 5:1-26 2004 December 21 for 22^nd

Now we get into the first heavy teachings of Jesus. The story is no longer about Jesus, but by him. Books and libraries, sermons and sermon series have been devoted to these teachings. I only summarize and comment lightly.

Jesus sat on a hillside teaching his disciples and a huge crowd listened in. Scanning over the text, it appears that there are some parallels here with the Ten Commandments.

He opens with a series of causalities and blessings. The "poor in spirit" will have the kingdom of heaven. Those who mourn will be comforted. The meek will inherit the earth. Those who are starved for righteousness will be satisfied. The merciful will be shown mercy. The pure in heart will see God. The peacemakers will be called sons of God. Those who are persecuted because of righteousness will obtain the kingdom of heaven.

The definitions of terms like "kingdom of heaven", "poor in spirit", "meek", "righteousness", "mercy", "pure in heart", "peace", "sons of God", and even "see God" are understood in context, some of which context is lost to us (barring books and libraries, sermons and sermon series). Each of these topics is a long sermon indeed.

Jesus elaborates on the persecution theme. People will insult and persecute and say untrue, evil things about you because of him. Rejoice in this, as it is the traditional prophets reward.

But, this is hard to swallow for those of us who like to stay on an even keel and "under the radar".

Jesus followers are the "salt of the earth" but it is possible for them to lose flavor and become worthless paving material. Jesus followers are a light in the darkness that should be put on the highest hill rather than hidden.

This too is troublesome for us "under the radar" types.

There are those who think that the requirements of the law (which we are studying in alternation with the Gospels) will be alleviated under the new regime. Nothing is further from the truth. The law stays just as it is so long as anyone is here in the creation. Anybody who breaks the least commandment is guilty. To enter the kingdom of heaven, one's righteousness must be perfect, beyond that of the full-time religiousites. Jesus does not address the fact that nobody achieves or can achieve this standard.

The bar is raised on guilt too. Not only is murder a sin, but contemplated murder, or even anger is evil. Even dissing your brother puts you in range of hell-fire. So, if you have a gift for God but recall that there is a problem with your neighbor, mend fences with the neighbor first so your gift to God can have some meaning. If you're being drug into court, settle on the way or you will do time!

These are the core teachings of Jesus that bring comfort to some but strike me as impossible. True enough; if everyone lived as close as they could to this, the world would certainly be a much better place. In fact, if anyone lives as close to this as they can, the world is a better place, but what is commanded here is not just a higher standard, it is a standard of perfection, and perfectionists rarely actually succeed. How can one help being angry with his brother at least once in a while? Anger happens, and in the Gaussian distribution of anger responses, some small percentage at one extreme will end in murder. Certainly, pushing the mean down and tightening the standard deviation, the essence of this command, is a good thing for everybody but still, it is not universally or even individually possible.

Perhaps something later in the narrative will help with this statistical problem.

Matthew 5:27-48 2004 December 24 for 23^rd

"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

The enumeration of cases where intent is sin, even without action, continues.

A man looking lustfully at a woman is not only tantamount to adultery, it is adultery, in the heart. President Jimmy Carter got snagged on this one in a Presidential interview with Playboy Magazine. People are unable not to nitpick, or to hold other people up to rules which they think are ridiculous, as the Playboy interviewer did with this. At least Mr. Carter was honest. At least he did not act on his lustful thoughts, as other Presidents do. Jesus, however, is not talking about degrees of sin; he is giving commands.

In the same paragraph is the admonition to cut off a hand or pluck out an eye that causes you to sin rather than going to hell whole. A woman in McKinney, Texas a few weeks ago cut off her baby's arms in an attempt to follow this admonition. The baby is dead and the woman is under psychiatric care. A theologian at Southern Methodist University was quoted as saying that Jesus was speaking figuratively, not literally here, and in any case, even if taken literally, he only refers to self-mutilation, not assault on others.

Clearly, these are problematic texts. Does it take a university professor to give us a non-violent interpretation? Is it possible that any teaching, no matter how good, can be perverted? What if a person in the crowd there on the mountain with Jesus had stood up and started to gouge out his own eye? What would Jesus have done? Alas, we have only our imaginations to inform this question. We can imagine Jesus not allowing such a thing, but what would he have done? If, as a roughly typical man who thinks about sex a few dozen times an hour, I happen to look at a woman I'm not married to incidentally or purposefully at some point, should I pluck out my eyes, and my brain, rather than go to hell with eyes and brain? Or are such chance occurrences not really lust? I've heard that said too.

What is Jesus doing here? Is he exaggerating in order to get our attention, to make a point? He goes on: Divorce is also tantamount to adultery, unless it is a response to adultery.

And don't make and break oaths, just be honest and direct and don’t exaggerate by taking oaths. I don't think we're talking about swearing here, I think we're talking about saying things like, "I really really really will do it, I promise." Rather, Jesus says, "Just say yes, then actually do it."

Don't return one evil for another (an eye for an eye lost, a tooth for a tooth lost, a rule of fairness which, at the time, thousands of years ago, was a big improvement over violent escalation), rather, return good for evil. If someone abuses you or attacks or coerces you, absorb it. Help them. Offer them more. No, that is what it says. Pray for your enemies and help them, don't hate them. God, after all, gives life and light to everybody whether they are good or not, so follow God's example.

Even Saddam Hussein? Even an abusive spouse or employer? People err both ways. People suffer abuse in the name of following Jesus commands. Countries attack other countries in the name of righteousness. What is Jesus saying? What is right? Is it really simple?

But, this does remind me of the saying, "God is a liberal, he can afford it." Paraphrasing: God can take all this abuse, he's big and strong and good enough. In an attempt to follow this example, I can only try, and that only with God's help.

Jesus is asking us to do the impossible. What he commands is good, indeed, but still perfection, which is demonstrably impossible. No one, save Jesus, has ever actually done it, before or since. Our institutions of faith usually admit that this is impossible, and say that such achievements are only possible if God works through us, if we get ourselves entirely out of the way, or some such. This, too, is impossible, but is, we are told, the only way to proceed into the kingdom of God. We do not see Jesus saying this here. He is not saying, "Try your best." He is not saying, "I'll do it through you." We simply see Jesus commanding us to be perfect, to not even think angry or lustful thoughts.

Perhaps later there will be some tractable help.

Matthew 6 2004 December 27 for 27^th

We now turn to matters of social spirituality which are easier to follow since most of them boil down to not being ostentatious but rather, being modest and private. Here we see a God of introverts, a concept not preached much.

Acts of righteousness (such as giving to the needy), prayer and fasting are all to be done in secret where the unseen God who sees what is done in secret will know and reward. Any acknowledgment from other people for such things becomes the total reward in itself, so don't go for that because such approval is nothing compared to the better, eternal reward.

In this section, he gives the most popular formulation of the so-called "Lord's Prayer", instructing that it is a template for how to pray and not just something to be mindlessly recited (like pagans do). Since our uses of the Lord's Prayer are often mindless recitals, and since, at least for me, these recitals block any reflection, the clauses of the Lord's Prayer deserve a break out here:

Our Father in heaven,

This is saying, "To: God, Heaven

Dear God,"

Hallowed by your name,

This is saying, "Your very name is holy," showing respect.

Your kingdom come,

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This is saying, "May God's kingdom come to earth, it would be an improvement!"

Give us today our daily bread.

"Continue to take care of our needs."

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

We owe God everything we have and then some, yet he keeps giving, and expects us to also.

Lead us not into evil,

But deliver us from the evil one.

This seems obvious. Life is troublesome enough without falling into evil too.

"Evil" is ordinarily rendered "temptation" but I prefer to think of what we are asking to be shielded from as the whole panoply of wrong, that is, "evil" not just the tendency to want to take an easier seeming but wrong path from time to time, "temptation".

Apparently the worship phrase, "For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen," only appears in later manuscripts.

I'm stuck on "… as we also have forgiven our debtors." If we take these words literally (and we know they are inerrant) then everyone who is owed anything who prays this prayer on Sunday would go to their bank on Monday and write off all debts. The financial industry would collapse. Small and large amounts of wealth would suddenly change hands. Society would be much more equalized. All borrowing might have to cease since it wouldn't have much contractual value. People could end up with no more than they need, but perhaps no less either. It's nearly communist! We know that capitalism with its intricate systems of borrowing and lending is God ordained so we can't go around acting like debts are so unimportant that they can just be forgiven all the time. We are puzzled, however, as to "where this is written." … about capitalism, that is.

In the institutions of faith, we have a habit of allegorizing issues like this that are otherwise difficult. After all, we all know that this isn't how the world really works. So this forgiving of "debts" or "trespasses" (property infractions) is made into some vague cessation of holding grudges or remembering insults which we can forgive, all to the better good, given that our Father in heaven forgives us constantly, we imperfect beings of dirt who deserve only death from before we are even born.

Distinguishing between physical and spiritual, Jesus says not to collect treasures on earth where everything falls apart and rusts to dust anyway and is subject to thievery. Treasures in heaven (an undefined concept often understood to be things like good deeds (done in secret of course) and souls led to salvation) are preferable since they are held perfect in a totally secure place, a place not of physics but of spirit. Indeed, these treasures are of the Aristotelian ideal, the perfect versions of things that we can only imperfectly copy here in the four-dimensional creation in which we are conscious.

The next topic is cryptic. "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" This appears to be a condemnation of spiritual blindness as symbolized by physical blindness but I don't understand implication of the exclamatory phrase, "how great is that darkness!"

But, Jesus is then plain about God and Money. He flat out states that no one can serve them both. Myself, I attempt to view Money as a resource like Feelings, an excellent servant but a terrible master. I have enough money (and enough feelings, for that matter) to understand firsthand how easy it is to become enslaved. Having less money is simpler. Serving any two masters is impossible. If Money is the ultimate goal, one must sacrifice other things, perhaps all other things, in its pursuit. Some of the choices that must be made will be evil and/or illegal. This is true of any other master but God, inasmuch as the definitions of "God" and "evil" are antithetical at the level of first principles. We still strive here to discover the nature of God, evil, and other concepts so that we can have some idea of where we stand.

I struggle with the concept of service to God. Service to God is often seen as various types of church institutional involvement, volunteer service, being good to others, not being bad to others (i.e., swearing at other drivers on the freeway), that is, being good, calm, following Jesus' commands, and so forth. Inasmuch as these states of being are not universally possible, we often end up being actors. Acting doesn't seem to be the worst evil in creation to me though. Although being angry with your brother is tantamount to murdering him, still, acting on that anger in such a way that he is not murdered prevents a murder, which is a good thing. Personally, I like the Alcoholics Anonymous notion, "Fake it until you make it." Certainly we want to make it, but we end up being imperfect and having to act. In this line of reasoning, the sin occurs when we fail to recognize the difference between faking it and making it, thinking we have "made it" when we have only learned to "fake it" quite well.

Finally, about "worry." Don't worry about eating or drinking or clothing, Jesus instructs. God provides for the birds and the plants in the field in these respects and people are more important than birds and plants. Food and drink and clothing are all things that pagans pursue but it shows lack of faith in God to worry about them. "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"

I, of course, have worried about this. There must be a distinction between being responsible, that is, setting the alarm clock and expecting it to go off based on prior experience, and expecting to be awakened and on time as a result, and worrying, that is, being concerned about things over which one has no control, or being obsessed with rechecking the alarm clock repeatedly as examples. Perhaps when I say "I drive better because I'm worried, that is, paying attention," that is not the "worry" discussed here.

Jesus commands: "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Although I observe this to be generally true (debates about details notwithstanding), counterexamples are seen. Indeed, I find most of God's promises, though very important to us because our lives and well being depend on them, to be "most of the time, most everyplace" sorts of things, but not "absolutely everyone every single time" sorts of things. But, I wholeheartedly subscribe to the last sentence, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Amen!

Matthew 7 2004 December 27 for 28^th

This is the third and concluding chapter (and our fourth day) of the "Sermon on the Mount", the core (but of course, not the entirety) of Jesus' teaching. Many more familiar concepts from Christianity are seen here.

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged." The idea here is not to totally avoid all judgment. Everyone makes judgments all day every day. The idea is to use standards in these judgments that you would want applied in judgments on yourself.

Don't try to help someone out when you are in worse condition than they are. The analogy is a plank in your eye while you attempt to remove a speck from another's eye.

Don't give sacred things to dogs or pigs. I understand this because I've had it used on me. In my high school class of 36 students, five of us were preacher's kids. Debating something long forgotten with one of them, one day after lunch, she came back (from having been instructed at home) to tell me she wasn't going to "throw her pearls before swine" anymore. The idea is that there are people who are not currently capable of receiving worthwhile teaching or information. Maybe they're drunk, dense, or resistant due to vested or visceral entrapment by their iniquities or for a host of other possible reasons. Don't waste sacred truths on them; they will just be lost, and then you may find yourself in danger. I don't think this says not to attempt to help swine-like people, just that some treatments may be ill-placed in their progress towards truth.

"Ask, Seek, Knock." You will find whatever you search for, or, as I put it in my Rule #2, "You find what you look for." (Rule #1, which we'll discuss at some future time, is "It is what you call it.") Further, if seeking from God, what you receive will be good. After all, if parents (for the most part) give good things to their children, then certainly God, good by definition, give good things when asked.

"In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." This is the so-called "Golden Rule" and is held as one of Jesus' most central teachings. Notice what it does not say: Do to others what they did to you (remember the 'eye for eye' comment above?). Do unto others before they do unto you. It just says: In any encounter, switch places. Do what you would want done to you.

A narrow gate leads to life and only a few "find" it. A wide gate leads to destruction and multitudes throng through. Indeed, we observe this, but I find the concept troubling. I wonder just how many "few" is. A few percent of all people ever: a few hundred million? A few dozen: One of the "we're the only one" sects somewhere in Appalachia? Only Catholics, Muslims, or Protestants who have followed all of their respective rules? Anybody with any religion who is sincere? Anyone who is sincere? All of the above? None of the above? Some of the above? How does one know who is in or who is out, specifically themselves? Everyone knows a few people who they are sure are "in" and a few others who they are sure are "out". When we are positioned to remove the distortion of our vested interests and vices, we can objectively tell good from bad, but only God really knows people's hearts, so the Final Evaluation is likely to surprise everyone.

The cosmology I'm working from here is that, in order to have a fair demonstration of true loyalty and companionship, God peopled our four dimensional creation with beings who could be bona fide companions. In this set up, he left himself 'invisible but obvious' so as not to be coercive or to leave himself open to the inevitable gaming that independent creatures would do. Everybody starts out knowing nothing and turns out as they turn out. (In our continuing examination of the Bible, we may modify this cosmology, but for now this is what we're working with.) We will see in the writings of Paul that God doesn't want anyone to "perish", that is, go through the broad gate to destruction, but here we learn that most do anyway. All missionary work is based on the underlying concept that at least people should not perish from ignorance of the truth of Jesus. The Catholics are pro-life due to their belief that only children who are born can be baptized and only people who are baptized (Catholic) are on the narrow way.

We have already seen that, with the possible exception of Jesus himself, no one can merit life I don't think we're seeing here that the cutoff is at only one. The "Straight and Narrow" is a clichéd and well-worn concept. For myself, I believe that I am in the smaller group on the way to life, but I also believe that it is possible to believe things in error (anyone can cite innumerable examples, at least in other people) so for this reason I am uncertain of what is going on here and am troubled at the apparent fact that most everyone who ever lives has headed or will head to destruction while "a few" go on to life with God. And, I don't really know where I stand or what I could do about this.

One of many questions I have about God, "How is this quandary even possible?"

I guess we just have to keep reading but the next is even worse.

Look out for false prophets. Judge people by their results ("fruits"). Good results come from good people, bad results from bad people. Jesus says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Even those who prophesy and drive out demons and perform miracles in his name have not proven anything. "On that day" (presumably Judgment Day) "I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"

So what fruits, we ask, do show goodness, if not doing miracles in Jesus name? From this it is widely inferred that true goodness is in the heart, which only God knows. That's fine, but it contradicts the prior notion that I can tell whether a person is good or evil, true or false, worth following or not, based on their "fruits."

Jesus ends with the familiar story of the men who built houses on the rock and sand. "Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." "Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand." When the storm came, the wise man's house stood while the foolish man's house collapsed. Our lives can be built on rock, that which is right, or they can be built on sand, some fallacy or nothing at all. When the inevitable storms come, we will stand or fall accordingly.

This ends the Sermon on the Mount. The crowds were impressed with Jesus teaching. "He taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law." Interesting. … as one who had authority. Is this just charisma or something deeper? I suppose that if God came to live as a person, he would have charisma.

Matthew 8 2004 December 27 for 29^th

The narrative now leaves teaching and goes to healing. Jesus healed many people. The author cites a prophecy that this fulfills. Three specific stories stand out for special attention.

A man with leprosy (or some other skin disease, the footnote says) came to Jesus and said "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus was willing and it was done immediately. Jesus told the man to keep quiet about it but to go follow the law for such cleansings.

In another story a Roman Centurion left his ill servant at home and came to find Jesus. When told about this, Jesus said he'd go home with the Centurion and heal his servant but the Centurion said he wasn't worthy of that but that Jesus could perform the healing from right here, in the same way that the Centurion could cause things to happen at a distance by just giving orders. Jesus was "astonished" by this level of faith and used it as a teachable moment. He had not seen any Jews with this kind of faith. The kingdom of heaven would be much different than people expected. Jews would be in the outer darkness gnashing their teeth while people like this were on the inside.

It is interesting that Jesus was "astonished" by something. God knows everything, how can he be surprised? We may be seeing Jesus' human limitations here. While he was doing everything perfectly, he still had the same physical limits that regular people do. He wasn't born knowing everything, for example.

In the third story, Jesus comes to his disciple Peter's house and heals his mother-in-law of a fever. This probably isn't comparatively remarkable except that it was a relative of Peter.

It was now getting to where Jesus was drawing a crowd everywhere, so he "gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake." Interesting the term "gave orders". Also interesting, Jesus running from a crowd. I can hear one of my early influences saying, "No, Jesus isn't running he is just controlling the situation to the effect he wants." Yes, and that means running from a crowd.

As they are trying to leave, two men come up and volunteer to be disciples. He brushes them both off. The first was a lawyer. Jesus told him that they had no place to sleep. The second wanted to wait until his father was dead. Jesus said, in essence, now or never. ("Let the dead bury their own dead.") Jesus would pick his own disciples. He turned down others and didn't mince words.

I guess a leader can't mince words.

When they got out on the lake, Jesus was asleep and a storm came up. When it got to the point where the men panicked, they woke Jesus up, he told the storm to quiet down, and it did! Now it was the disciples who were astonished, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"

At the other side of the lake they encountered two demon-possessed men who were so violent that no one could travel the area. The demons recognized Jesus and shouted, "What do you want with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?"

Two interesting things here: Demons call Jesus the "Son of God" and apparently there is an "appointed time" when demons will be "tortured". Perhaps in our future studies we will find out more about what this is all about.

Jesus negotiated briefly then forced the demons out of the men and into a heard of pigs some distance away. (Note, pigs were and are "unclean" to Jews.) The pigs stampeded down the hill and drowned in the lake. This was like a hailstorm on a car dealership, bad for business. The pig herders and the whole community where they lived came and begged Jesus to leave the area, which he did.

Matthew 9 2004 December 27 for 30^th

The healings continue. Men brought Jesus a paralyzed man on a mat. Jesus forgave the man's sins, an act that the nearby teachers considered blasphemous. Jesus first confronted them about what they were thinking and then healed the paralysis and sent the man home. I doubt that Jesus needed to read the teachers' minds to know what they were thinking in this instance. This is the "Through the Roof" story, without mention (in this account) of a roof being deconstructed.

As he traveled along, Jesus came to the tax collector's booth, manned by our author Matthew whom he immediately called to be a disciple. Later they were having dinner at Matthew's house with everybody in town, including "tax collectors and sinners" which created another scene with the Pharisees. Jesus' reply to them was common-sensical, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." Is he calling the Pharisees healthy? Righteous? Whatever the case, he makes it clear in four equivalent statements that he is there to help those who need help, not those who (think they?) don't.

Disciples of John the Baptist showed up and asked why Jesus and his disciples weren't fasting, as they and the Pharisees did, an act of righteousness. He answered that he was the bridegroom and there would be plenty of time for fasting after he was taken away. He follows this with physical examples including the familiar one about the error of putting new wine into old wineskins. (The new wine would expand, but the old skins wouldn't have resilience, being old, and so would burst.) He is saying here that he is like new wine and the old wineskins were like the old forms of religion (not the law itself presumably, but the traditional forms of practice). The old forms could not contain the new reality. Most Christians do not fast routinely or at all today. (I am not counting the Catholic policy of downgrading to fish on Friday as "fasting".)

More healing follows. A ruler whose daughter had died came to have Jesus bring her back to life. Jesus went with him and while they were on the way a woman with a bleeding disease touched his clothes and was healed. Jesus knew this had happened, turned and said the words of faith to her. At the girl's house, the pre-funeral mourning was already in progress, but Jesus dismissed the mourners, much to their derision. Still, he brought the girl back to life and the news spread far and fast.

After this, he healed two blind men, as usual challenging them about the quality of their faith, and he drove a demon out of a man who could not talk, allowing him to talk again. Word of all this spread very quickly making many potential converts. Jesus told his disciples to pray for more workers for this "harvest field."

Matthew 10 2004 December 28 for 2005 January 3^rd

The twelve disciples were Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James, Thaddaeus, Simon, and Judas. Jesus gave them authority to heal and drive out evil spirits and sent them in pairs to do this ministry. The instructions were to go only to Israelites and to travel ultra-light. If people took care of them as they should, the village would be blessed, if not then not. (On the Day of Judgment, it would go better for Sodom and Gomorrah than for a place that did not.) This is the location of the phrase used to justified paid ministry, "…the worker is worth his keep."

He told them to be shrewd and that they would be handed over for what they had to say for floggings in the synagogues. This would result in governors, kings, and Gentiles hearing about Jesus. And, "do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you."

And there's more. Because of Jesus, there would be rebellion and strife inside families. If the establishment calls Jesus the devil, the disciples should expect even more derision. But don't be afraid of this persecution because in the end everything will be known. Don't be afraid of merely dying; be afraid of one who can condemn the soul to hell. "[N]ot one [sparrow] will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father." And, people are much more important than sparrows.

To be acknowledged by Jesus to God, one must acknowledge Jesus to men.

To be disowned by Jesus to God, one must disown Jesus to men.

Interesting, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword."

So much for "Peace on earth, goodwill to men." Where is that written?

To be worthy of Jesus, people must put him before their very families, to the point of being enemies. Anyone who receives a follower of Jesus or helps him will be rewarded. In summary, Jesus is first; everything else is unimportant by comparison.

Again, we wonder what is going on here. Jesus clearly understood that the change in paradigm that he was leading, his claim to be equal with the God of the universe, was going to bring about considerable resistance. Anyone who moves to alter the status quo, for good or bad, faces considerable resistance. Jesus was not recruiting here; he already had loyal followers. He was giving them the scoop on how the work would go. It would be far from a free or easy ride. If this were anybody else it would be hard to avoid thinking "egomaniac." Somehow, however, Jesus is the only source of the real truth, the only way to the kingdom of God. Due to this, everything does have to focus on him.

One classical argument as to why this is necessary is that Jesus is the only person who cannot fail us. This is Jesus' promise, never to fail us, but I have to wonder, when a homeless person at the point of despair and death claims that Jesus has never failed him, "What would constitute a failure?"

Still, this is difficult. I am not yet to a point of faith where I can blithely and self-righteously shun anyone, even a close family member, who doesn't tow the line (as I allegedly would be doing) with respect to this all-consuming, perfection-demanding Jesus. Granted, I haven't been personally empowered to do it, but I'm also not up to marching into people's houses of worship and telling them they're all wrong, even if I suspect that they are. Not to the point of taking a physical beating. Also, I'm neither ornery nor perverse enough to go out and cause trouble in the name of Jesus so that I can claim to be persecuted. Each day has enough trouble of its own, after all.

This chapter does not support the popular image of Jesus, a gentle man, good with children, saying wise things to loving, fawning crowds, taking on bureaucracy. This is an all or nothing Jesus and the "all" is more severe than the regimen of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Matthew 11 2004 December 28 for 2005 January 4^th

The disciples on their mission, Jesus carried on with preaching around Galilee. John the Baptist heard about all that was happening and sent a disciple to ask Jesus whether he was the Messiah they were looking for or not. Jesus simply said that he should report what he sees: healings, miracles, good news preached to the poor. "Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me."

What could this mean? 'Don't stumble over me (the physical apparition of God).'

Jesus then told the crowd that John was the Elijah who was to come before the Messiah. He also said something cryptic: "Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."

What is this supposed to mean? Is he referring to angels already in heaven, or saying that John will not be there, or that he will be the least among those who do get there? As in many other places in the Bible, the use of prepositions here is more confusing than clarifying and things are probably lost in the translation. Also, when Jesus closes with the phrase, "He who has ears, let him hear" I wonder if he is being doubtful that many hear or understand him. Maybe he is just trying to wake them up. Maybe what he has said is so unexpected (as the last several days here have been) that the phrase is an affirmation. Maybe he is trying to hide information on purpose.

He then laments that you can't please anybody. Wander around in the desert eating insects and people say you're crazy. Go around feasting and celebrating and they say you're a party animal.

Then, Jesus curses cities where he had been working where they had not been sufficiently repentant including Korazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. Again, he says that if those same miracles had been performed in Tyre, Sidon or Sodom they would have repented long ago. The judgment will go easier on those places than on the modern ones. We sense frustration here.

We are not told what did or did not happen in those cities that brought on this lamentation. Perhaps he ran into strong willed leadership or entrenched vice there that was unwilling to hear or bend. Whatever the case, we have Jesus breaking from a discussion of John the Baptist to cursing cities with whom he is, for some reason, cross.

He then talks out loud to God, in public, praising him for the choice to hide things from the wise and learned while revealing them to children. "Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." This phrase implies a royal prerogative. He then says, out loud, that the Father has committed everything to him. "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." If it weren't Jesus, we would sense arrogance. Perhaps the children present would see and feel the pure love of God through these announcements.

Following these declarations of power and possession comes one of the most quoted phrases of the faith, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

There is a yoke and there is a burden for following Christ (see the prior chapters about floggings and persecution) but, compared to other burdens (such as Money), they are easy.

Matthew 12:1-21 2004 December 29 for 2005 January 5^th

Jesus continues working on the weekly day of rest, the Sabbath, Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown. First, while traveling through a field, the disciples picked some heads of grain and ate them because they were hungry. Pharisees, apparently following closely, looking for any infraction, pointed this out to Jesus, who lectured them (not the disciples) on the propriety of the Sabbath itself. There were specific and general examples in the law where priests and hungry people break the Sabbath routinely in the service of higher needs. These people were guilty but had no guilt. Jesus then claimed that he himself was Lord of the Sabbath.

From there they went to the synagogue where a man with a deformed hand was present. Frustrated with people who would rescue their livestock from a ditch on the Sabbath but wouldn't do good for another person because it was the Sabbath, Jesus preached on this, then publicly healed the man's hand. The Pharisees, trapped by the logic, huddled to come up with a way to kill this Jesus, a major threat to their established way, to their perception of self-perfection.

Jesus knew they wanted to kill him so he left the area. The crowds followed him and he continued working, healing everyone who was sick and "warning them not to tell who he was". This last is in fulfillment of a prophecy. Since I don't exactly follow the connection, I quote it verbatim here:

"Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight;

I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations.

He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets.

A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out,

till he leads justice to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope."

Notice we are talking here about mercy to the weak and a priority on justice (rather than peace, for example).

For many years, my own observance of the "Christian Sabbath" (Sunday from midnight to midnight) has been to make it a day for "other" things. We get up, typically later than on a routine workday, and go to church where I do my duties. For the rest of the day, the usual priorities are different, family and reflection first, other pressing matters like e-mail, work, homework, projects and so on, normal priorities for the rest of the week, are secondary. I rarely get to them on Sunday. Sometimes I read a National Geographic issue. I reserve those for Sundays.

I don't do this to be legalistic or self-righteous or even to set an example for anyone. I do it in response to God's idea that he and we need rest routinely. I was in graduate school when we moved into this house on February 26, 1994. In engineering graduate school one has a lot of homework, in fact, one never feels capable of working enough on homework. I realized on that moving day that this would be the case whether I was trying to cram it all into seven days a week or six days a week. Taking a hint from my faith, I decided to try six. I did fine in the remainder of graduate school and have kept Sunday distinct as much as possible ever since.

Matthew 12:22-50 2004 December 29 for 2005 January 6^th

A particularly hard off demon-possessed man was brought out. He was both blind and mute and Jesus healed him so that he could both see and speak. This set off the usual firestorm with the Pharisees who went around telling everyone that he was only casting out demons by the power of the devil.

This got quite a rise out of Jesus. First, if a house is divided against itself (that is, if the devil casts out the devil by the power of the devil) then how can the house stand? (But, I wonder, does the devil's house stand? Perhaps so, at least for now.) Continuing, how can anyone rob a strong man without first tying him up? The lengthy response then broadens into generalizations, "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters." This generally exclusive statement contrasts with the generally inclusive one seen elsewhere, "He who is not against me is with me." The lecture broadens further into the unforgivable sin, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Speak against just Jesus and you will be forgiven, but not if you speak against the Spirit of God. Not ever. He concludes with a reiteration of the analogy of good and bad trees and their good and bad fruit. The inside of a person overflows into their words, good or bad. In the day of judgment people will have to account for every careless word, and by their words be condemned or acquitted.

Whew! This accusation piqued Jesus but good. He takes talk of the devil very seriously.

At this, the Pharisees and teachers wanted to see a miraculous sign.

I don't know about you, but this strikes me as odd. Jesus had just done a miraculous sign, leading to an accusation of devilry, leading to a huge sermon and now, the witnesses being on the defensive ask for a … miraculous sign. Another sign. Or perhaps this is a different episode.

Either way, this led to another sermon, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign!" (I think "adulterous" here refers to religious unfaithfulness.) No sign would be given except for Jonah. (It is said that the book of Jonah is included in our Bible now because of this reference by Jesus.) Nineveh (the place where Jonah preached) would condemn this generation and their rejection of Jesus' wisdom.

Then he says something strange, that when an evil spirit is driven out of a man it wanders around, then comes back and finds the man in good order, so it finds more evil spirits and reoccupies the man making him worse off.

Again, we're left wondering, what is he talking about here and what does it have to do with the rest of the lecture? Is this a recount of something that happened with some of Jesus' healings? Did demons return to somebody later after he was gone? He uses this as an example to his own recalcitrant generation. Is he saying that all of the cleansing work that he will do can be undone? Is this merely another form of strong insult?

While all this was going on, Jesus mother and brothers showed up outside to talk to him. Reading between the lines, it's not hard to imagine that they might have been there to get this yelling wild man out of a cauldron of trouble. His response? He pointed to his disciples and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." True to his own teaching, he is putting God above his own family, above Mary. Is he implying here that his family does not do God's will (at this point), or is it just an illustration for effect?

Either way, one thing is clear: Jesus has grown up and left home for good.

Matthew 13:1-29 2004 December 29 for 2005 January 7^th

This section contains two parables concerning the kingdom of heaven and the answer to the question "why parables?" The crowd was so large at this point that Jesus got into a boat and preached from out in the lake. But, he spoke to them only in parables, that is, allegorical stories. The disciples asked him why he did this, and he answered by quoting a prophecy:

"Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand."

The people's hearts are calloused, their eyes barely see, their ears barely hear. Otherwise, they might "understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them."

Jesus then congratulated the disciples that they got to also hear the interpretations, which prophets of old longed to hear but did not.

It does make one wonder, however, why this news, which is allegedly for all people, is so exclusive. Is it only exclusive during the life of Jesus to protect his ministry opportunities? If so, what was he trying to achieve? Who was he trying to reach?

The first parable is about a farmer sowing seeds in four types of ground. Some fell along the path to the field and was eaten by birds, some in rocky places, some among thorns, and some on good soil. Only that in good soil really came up, and it produced a bountiful harvest. This comparison symbolizes preaching the kingdom of God and how different people receive it.

The seeds being eaten by birds on the path represent people who hear the news but don't understand it. The "evil one" comes and snatches them away and that's that. Rocky places symbolize people who don't have much depth. The news doesn't take root very well; the plants wither and die. Being sown among thorns is like having so many "worries of this life and deceitfulness of wealth" that the news is choked out and not much can happen. (This is the category I see myself in.) The seeds that fall into good soil grow and produce a huge productive growth, 30, 60, or even 100 times. This is like hearing, understanding, and producing on the news, the word of God.

The second parable concerns good and evil people in the world. A man had good seed sown in a field, but an enemy sowed weeds with it. When the plants came up this was discovered, leading to one of my favorite Bible quotes. When asked about this, the owner says,

"An enemy has done this."

He instructs his workers not to pull up the weeds until the harvest. At that time, the weeds are pulled up first, bundled, and burned, then the wheat is brought into the barn where it belongs. Similarly, God does not take evil people out of the world right now because to do so would be disruptive to the livelihood of the good folks who live here too. But, a harvest time is coming when the good will go in glory to the barn and the evil will burn.

Matthew 13:30-58 2004 December 29 for 2005 January 10^th

The parables about the kingdom of heaven continue. In the next, it is compared to a mustard seed, the smallest of seeds. When planted, however, it grows into a large plant that provides a roost for birds and shade for animals.

In another, the kingdom of heaven is compared to a small amount of yeast being worked in and leavening a large amount of dough. Jesus did not speak except in parables, but the parables are said to contain secrets hidden since the creation.

I have always wondered at the symbolism in these two parables. Birds usually symbolize evil or death and yeast is seen as corruption throughout the Mosaic law. Is there a deeper second meaning to these examples or are we to just take them at face value? We are, after all, talking about one of Jesus' favorite subjects, the kingdom of heaven.

More parables. "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." We are to give up everything for the kingdom. Then there is another similar parable about fine pearls. Then there is another about good and bad fish brought up in a net. The good are kept in baskets but the bad are thrown out. The wicked at the end of the age will be thrown "into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Give up everything for the kingdom or else.

When the disciples said they understood all this, Jesus proclaimed that a teacher who knew about the kingdom of heaven had many treasures to share, old and new.

Jesus then went to his hometown where he was recognized as Joseph's son. People didn't believe and so he did not do many miracles. Here is the saying, "Only in his home town and in his own house is a prophet without honor."

This reminds me of dad.

Matthew 14 2004 December 30 for 2005 January 11^th

The narrative now turns from parables to events in Jesus life.

King Herod had a brother Philip and Philip's wife was Herodias. Herod and Herodias were having an affair and John the Baptist had confronted them about this saying it was unlawful. For this, Herod had John put in jail. Then, Herodias had a daughter who danced at Herod's birthday party. Very pleased, Herod swore an oath to give her whatever she wanted. Her mother told her to ask for John's head. Herod didn't want to do this but because of the party guests and the oath he ordered John executed. In a colorful gesture, John's head was brought out on a platter. Herod gave it to Herodias's daughter who gave it to Herodius.

Later when Herod heard of Jesus, he was spooked and thought it might be John come back to life!

John's disciples came and buried the body then went and told Jesus who, disturbed, tried to go by boat to a private place. When he arrived, however, a huge crowd had already walked around the lake and was there. He went to work and healed their sick. When evening came there was a crises, a huge crowd and not enough food. Rather than sending them into the surrounding countryside to buy food, Jesus instructed the disciples to give them something. The inventory was five loaves of bread and two fish, yet when Jesus blessed it and they passed it out, everyone ate (five thousand men plus women and children) and twelve basketfuls were left over.

Still needing time to himself to deal with the loss of John, Jesus dismissed the crowd, sent the disciples off in the boat, and went up into the hills by himself to pray.

In the middle of the night the disciples were struggling in a storm a long way from land. Knowing this, Jesus came out to them, walking on the water. The men in the boat really believed it was Jesus because they were terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. Jesus said, "Take courage! It is I.. Don't be afraid."

Peter now believed it wasn't a ghost and asked Jesus if he could come out on the water with him. Jesus invited Peter; who got out and walked over, faltering only when he reached Jesus. As he began to sink into the water, Jesus reached out and helped him. When they got into the boat the storm stopped. The disciples worshipped Jesus as the Son of God.

One reason we like Christianity as a faith is because we don't see the people in the stories doing preposterous things like prophesying from their cradles or having their tombs carried up into heaven or fighting cosmic battles with mythical non-existent beasts or having gods born out of their split heads. Nonetheless, there are events such as this walking on water in a storm that stretch physical credibility pretty far. Viewed from a standpoint of faith, it is easy to imagine God doing whatever he needs to do in some situation like this, walking out on a lake, for example, if it was the best choice. Surely these were trying times for Jesus, calling for extraordinary, extra-natural means on occasion. Viewed from a standpoint of practicality, one wonders why they ever bothered with boats if Jesus could do and lead things like this. Maybe such tasks aren't as easy as Jesus makes them look. Viewed from a standpoint of physics, something like this is difficult but not impossible. (Water skiing comes to mind.) There are whole groups who go around explaining away all of the extra-natural events of Jesus' ministry as sleight-of-hand or other advanced forms of trickery in order to support a faith of godlessness. (But, trickery perhaps much more advanced than the miracles themselves, similar to the problem of faking a believable moon landing when it would be easier just to go to the moon.)

My own view is that, as God in human form, Jesus commanded nature in ways that even we, in the 21^st century with space travel and radio communications, themselves inconceivable concepts to the Roman civilizationm, do not comprehend. The eyewitnesses in the boat certainly believed that Jesus came out to them walking on the water and we've made arguments elsewhere that they really had no motivation to exaggerate the account for their own benefit. Indeed, they were arguably anti-motivated to exaggerate. So, there we are. I suppose Jesus would say in this instance, "You are blessed if you don't stumble on this."

As soon as they landed, there was another crowd. Sick people who merely touched Jesus' clothes were healed.

Matthew 15 2004 December 30 for 2005 January 12^th

The Pharisees noticed that the disciples ate without washing their hands and came to Jesus with the accusation that they were breaking the tradition of the elders. It's nearly like Jesus was allowing this sort of rough behavior just to provoke the religious leaders.

His response totally changed the subject, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your traditions?" Apparently they had a tradition in which people who had money set aside for the support of their elderly parents could devote that money to God instead and tell their parents, "tough luck." Of course, this supported the religious establishment too. Jesus was furious about this.

Then he called in the whole crowd and said in effect, "Listen [to me!] What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.'[!]" My translation has the term 'unclean' in quotes, indicating that Jesus may have been using the word facetiously.

He is tired of being pestered by the hand washing police about all the little nuances of keeping the Mosaic Law way beyond the letter. So there are several things to figure out here. Jesus said sometime back that no part of the law would change due to him. Is this a logical problem or is Jesus drawing a clear distinction between the law itself and the extensions placed on it by tradition? Must be the latter. It is clear that he puts a lot less emphasis on the physical than the spiritual. He explains to Peter later that the stuff that goes into the body and passes on through doesn't make you unclean (despite centuries of tradition to the contrary) but that it is what comes out of the heart in the form of spoken words and actions that makes one unclean. Maybe it only is a problem of semantics, but doesn't he mean that the person is already unclean because of what is in his heart and this state is revealed by what comes out?

The disciples said, 'Uh, Lord, you offended those guys.' Jesus replied, still irritated, 'Leave them alone; they are blind men leading other blind men. They will fall into a pit. They will be pulled up by the roots.'

OK.

They left the area and went to the twin cities of Tyre and Sidon. A local, non-Jewish woman came to Jesus and begged healing for her daughter. He wouldn't even respond to her, but she kept pestering the disciples who checked with Jesus and learned that he wouldn't have anything to do with her because he was only sent to Israel (the incident with the Roman Centurion the other day notwithstanding). "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." Jesus, the tender-touched comforter of the broken hearted, is calling this foreign woman with a serious need a "dog." What is the problem here? Is he supposed to be on vacation (is that why they went to Tyre and Sidon)? Is he tired? Does he have a limited number of miracles to pass out and doesn't want to waste any? I thought he said he was sent to all people, not just Israel. Does this stance change from incident to incident?

In any case, the woman overheard and said, "… but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

And Jesus then (seemingly) had to talk to her, and said, in effect, 'True enough, you have huge faith.' "Your request is granted." And it was.

Back at the Sea of Galilee, another incident occurred in which a big crowd got stuck out in the middle of nowhere without food. This time, the inventory was seven loaves and a few small fish for four thousand men plus women and children. This time seven basketfuls were leftover. Sometimes, the "explain it all away" people will say that in these cases the people just fed themselves with scraps they had in their pockets. This text explicitly addresses this. The crises occurred after three days in the wilderness. Everybody's pockets were truly empty.

Knowing about modern crowd management, one wonders about water supply, sanitation, and first aid too!

Matthew 16 2004 December 30 for 2005 January 13^th

The Pharisees, now in company with the Sadducees, asked Jesus for a sign and got the same "wicked and adulterous generation", "[only] the sign of Jonah" rebuke. Jesus said they knew how to read the weather but couldn't read their own times.

He was still brooding about this as they crossed the lake and he told the disciples to be careful of the "yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees". They thought it was because they had forgotten to bring any bread along on the trip. As usual, Jesus wasn't talking about eating or washing or other such physical activities, he was talking about the teachings of these sects. He reminded them of all the thousands of people who had been fed from nothing. They themselves had handed out the bread! Having bread was never a problem for Jesus. More importantly, knowing when to use it was also not a problem. The tone here seems to be, "Can't you get this through your thick skull?"

"Oh, …", the disciples said.

In reflection, it doesn't seem like feeding all those people with nearly no supplies is any less remarkable than walking on water.

It would be interesting to know why Jesus chose to go next wherever he went next. It is usually clear why he leaves a place. He finishes blasting the Pharisees or somebody he has just healed and then just walks off as if he were the pre-eminent party. Or, he escapes from a riot caused by some controversy revolving around him. But why does he then choose to cross the lake, or go to a non-Jewish region, or return to his hometown? Does God lead him there? Does he think about ministry coverage? Is it just "as far away from here" as it can be?

So, in a new region, Caesarea Philippi, he took an opinion poll of the disciples. "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" There were various replies: Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. "But what about you? Who do you say I am?" (emphasis mine) Only Peter answered, "[T]he Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus blessed Peter for this and said that he would build his church on Peter the Rock and that he would give Peter great powers in heaven and on earth and that he would overcome opposition.

He finished by warning them all not to tell anyone about this. This, perhaps, to protect what little repose he had left.

Jesus then started instructing them about his death. It is easy for us, familiar with the whole of Jesus life, to overlook the consternation this must have caused. He said that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer and be killed but then "on the third day be raised to life." Peter, who was always one of those people who blurted out first what everyone else was merely thinking, was fixated on the suffering and dying part. This was not the image that anyone had of the Christ, the Messiah, and Peter said so, "Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!"

The same Jesus who, in the prior paragraph had complemented, blessed, congratulated, empowered, elevated this same Peter now exclaims, "Out of my sight, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

So, the devil has found another opportune time, and Jesus can still be tempted, though he spends all of his focus worrying about spiritual things rather than physical.

This leads to an enumeration of the costs of following Christ:

Daily deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus.

Lose your life so you will find it.

Make the soul top priority of everything.

The notion of "taking up your cross", a cliché to us, was far from cliché to people under Roman rule. Capital punishment was carried out by flogging the convict, then having him carry his own heavy cross in public several miles to the site of execution where he was nailed to it, stood up where he could barely breath, and left to die. This is what it means to "take up your cross."

He closes with the mysterious, "… some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." This clearly can't refer to the so-called Second Coming. To what, then, does it refer?

Tough Master with an easy yoke….

Matthew 17 2004 December 31 for 2005 January 14^th

Now occurs a mysterious event called the "Transfiguration." Jesus took his closest disciples, Peter, James, and John up high on a mountain and was "transfigured." The disciples witnessed as he talked to Moses and Elijah. What they discussed is not disclosed to us. Jesus' face glowed like the sun and his clothes were white as light.

Proactive Peter, of course, blurted out a hospitality plan. "If you wish, I will put up three shelters--one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." While he was still talking, they were surrounded by a bright cloud that spoke, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!"

This frightened them and they lay flat on the ground face down until the episode was over. When they got up, only Jesus remained. On the way down he told them not to tell anyone about this until after he had been raised from death.

They asked about the teaching that Elijah must precede the Messiah. Jesus reply made it clear that this had already happened, that Elijah was John the Baptist, and that Jesus would be treated ill by the authorities as well. He also says, "To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things." I don't know what "restore all things" means with respect to the work of John. Preaching correct righteousness?

Back in the crowds the disciples were trying to heal a boy from epilepsy and could not. The boy's father brought him to Jesus who healed him by rebuking and driving out a demon. Privately, Jesus told them that they couldn't do this because they had such little faith. Even faith tiny as a mustard seed would be enough to move mountains, but they didn't have even that. He then talked more about his betrayal and death and that he would be raised to life on the third day. The disciples grieved.

Now an interesting thing happened. The people who collected the tax at the Temple accused Jesus of not paying it, in absentia to Peter. Peter took the initiative and said more than he knew, "Does too!" When Peter got back to the house where Jesus was, Jesus, without any prompting, spoke first and asked him if a prince had to pay taxes to the kingdom. 'Of course not, others are taxed', was the essence of the correct reply. So, Jesus claimed to be exempt from the Temple tax, but in order to "not offend them" and, indeed, to cover Peter's bold claim, he told him to go to the lake and throw in a line. A fish would hit it. When he pulled the fish out there would be a coin in its mouth of the correct value to pay the tax for both Jesus and Peter.

Jesus clearly had extraordinary powers at this point, ones that would be hard to handle. He knew what Peter was doing even when they weren't together, and he had a remarkable source of exactly adequate income to deal with the contingency. Interesting that he didn't care, in this instance, to offend the religious establishment. This is a first! If he had been there with Peter, perhaps he would have just argued them down, as usual.

Matthew 18 2004 December 31 for 2005 January 17^th

The disciples had a couple of practical questions that led to several more teaching points. The first, doubtless brought on by all this discussion of "take up your cross" and suffering for the cause of the kingdom, was, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." This was clearly not a problem that the disciples could work out among themselves, being in the transition between value systems.

The surprising answer was, like a small, humble child. And furthermore, anyone who causes such an innocent person to sin would be better off at the bottom of the ocean with concrete galoshes than with the punishment for enabling that sin. Sin is inevitable in the world, but you sure don't want to be the culprit.

Further, "their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven." What's more, God doesn't want any of them to be lost. He is like a shepherd who would leave most of his sheep to go look for one stray and have a serious party when that stray was found.

What about someone who sins against you? Well, first confront him and if he doesn't acknowledge and make it right then take two or three witnesses and confront him. If this doesn't do any good, take up the matter with the whole church and if that doesn't work, put him out. Whatever you guys do on earth will count in heaven too and if two or three of you agree on something, I am there with you and the thing Father will do that thing that you've agreed on.

My actual experience with this sort of thing is mixed. I am a "little faith."

Peter asked, "How many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me, up to seven times?" Jesus said, as many times as needed; it's not worth counting. It's like this, some little guy owed the supermaster a big debt but he pleaded with the supermaster and got it cancelled, written off. A littler guy owed the little guy a little debt and he pleaded only for more time, but the little guy wouldn't have it, he had the littler guy thrown in prison until it was settled. Friends of the littler guy reported this to the supermaster who un-forgave the little guy and put him into torture until things were even.

And this is how God, the supermaster, works. He forgives us all the time and so it is up to us to forgive others all the time. "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

There is a big component of justice and punishment in this teaching that is not in vogue in the current teaching of the church (at least not mine). We are more concerned with the acceptance and warm "loving" concern features of God's character than with harsh corrective action that would probably net a world and individuals closer in nature to the kingdom of God. God seems to be saying here that he wants us to be good and perfect to his standards not just act that way but on the other hand it appears only to be possible to act good at best. The philosophical question is, how can we be anything other than we are, erring, vice-filled beings, and how can we do anything about it aside from just trying to act differently? God made us the way we are, but that isn't good enough, doesn't even look good enough. What we see in practice is that the people who even care about these matters act the best they can without really being perfect or truly forgiving inside. Others don't care, or don't even know not to be anything but physically self-preserving. Jesus' promise about how God will treat each of us if we are not right inside, if taken seriously, is harsh, nigh impossible.

Matthew 19 2004 December 31 for 2005 January 18^th

The Pharisees tested Jesus with trick questions about divorce. They began by asking if it was lawful. Jesus said that people were male and female and that a man would leave his father and mother and join his wife and the two would become one. "What God has joined together, let not man separate." So, they asked, why did Moses permit divorce? Jesus replied that it was because their "hearts were hard" that Moses permitted it. Really, the only justification for divorce was unfaithfulness, and anyone who divorced and married another, except for this reason, committed adultery.

Perhaps this is one place where marriage is seen as being "between one man and one woman", a "mandate" from scripture that I'm having trouble finding. As "proof," this passage is indirect. The question here, however, has to do with the definition of divorce, not marriage.

The disciples were shocked by Jesus' answer and said, then, 'better never to marry!' Jesus replied that some didn't marry for physical reasons, or due to castration. Others had "renounced marriage" for the kingdom of heaven but not everyone could accept this. Those who could, he said, should.

This, more direct, is one of the strong bases for a doctrine of celibacy, which many follow.

Some little children were brought to Jesus for his blessing. Notwithstanding what happened just yesterday when Jesus told them that the greatest in the kingdom of God were like children, the disciples were running the kids off. Jesus reiterated what he had said about children, he blessed the children, and then moved on.

A young man came to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to "get eternal life." Jesus said to obey the commandments, particularly: not to murder, commit adultery, steal, or give false testimony, and to honor father and mother and to love your neighbor as yourself. The young man had done this all his life so Jesus then said, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

The young man was very rich and went away very sad.

Jesus remarked to those who remained that it was ultra-tough for the rich to get into the kingdom of God. This, as usual, and again within a span of ten minutes, astonished the disciples who had been brought up in the mindset that the rich were blessed and were probably closer to God than anybody else. To their reaction, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus responded, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Peter (of course) was distressed, "We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?" Jesus replied that "at the renewal of all things" they would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Further, anyone who had left anything important like family or property to follow Jesus would receive much more plus eternal life. "But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first."

As usual, the last sentence of the teaching doesn't seem to have much to do with the rest. Maybe it is a summary statement from the beginning of the discussion.

In any case, this is yet another difficult lesson. How are we to take this? The only way to be made perfect and get into the kingdom of God is to sell everything, give to the poor, and follow Jesus? Not many do this. Few do the "narrow path…." One way to explain this command away is to say that it was only for this one young man in this one situation. Possible, but that doesn't go so well with the rest of the context. Jesus didn't then say, "It is hard for this young man to get into the kingdom of heaven." He said, "It is hard for a rich man to enter…" Riches are in fact a huge distracting hindrance, not to mention being unfair. We think of riches in terms of power, comfort, security, and control. Jesus' goals for his disciples are none of these. He has it all, is the only one qualified to handle it all, and doles it out in his own loving way.

But, the young man did ask.

Matthew 20 2005 January 1 for 19^th

Jesus tells another parable about the kingdom of heaven. A landowner needed laborers for his field. He went to the marketplace early in the morning and hired workers, agreeing to pay them a fair day's wage (a "denarius"). Later in the morning, at mid-day, and at 5 p.m., he went and hired more people to work. At quitting time, he had the foreman call in the last hired first, and pay them a denarius, the same as was agreed to the people who had worked all day. Noticing this, the people who started earlier thought they would get more, but everyone who worked that day got the same pay. The owner's explanation was that this was not unfair because this is the amount they had agreed to. Anyway, he could do anything he wanted with his money, he claimed.

So, in the kingdom of heaven, the last will be first and the first will be last.

Knowing this, are we enticed to be first, or last? Are we compelled to be grateful for this fairness or to emulate it?

For the fourth or fifth time, Jesus outlines the coming days leading to his death, but now with more detail. They would go to Jerusalem, he would be betrayed, the authorities would sentence him to death; he would be mocked and flogged and crucified. "On the third day he will be raised to life!"

The "mother of Zebedee's sons" now approached Jesus with a request. (Note that nowhere in this story is any disciple's name mentioned, but we're talking about James and John here, and not Peter.) She wanted her two sons to sit at Jesus' left and right in his coming kingdom, positions of the highest honor.

'Whoa!' says Jesus. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?" They replied that they could and he said, 'Well, you certainly will, but those two positions of honor are not for me to assign, but for my Father who has prepared them. Of course, the other ten disciples were indignant over this, so Jesus went on with the teachable moment. Among the Gentiles, the authorities lord their authority over their subjects. In Jesus' kingdom, the ones in authority serve, like Jesus serves, even to death. That's what the top officials in the kingdom of God will be doing.

As they continued out of Jericho, two blind men called after Jesus from the side of the road. Although the crowd tried to quiet them down, Jesus heard and granted their request, to be able to see. Now seeing, they fell in with the crowd following Jesus.

Matthew 21:1-22 2005 January 1 for 20^th

It was time to arrive in Jerusalem. In order to fulfill a prophecy, Jesus would ride into town on a donkey colt. Of course, Jesus and his folks owned no such animals, so they borrowed one from someone unnamed. It isn't even clear that they asked. It was only a temporary use so I guess it doesn't count as stealing. The disciples put their cloaks on the colt and the crowds put their cloaks on the ground in front of Jesus, and he rode into town causing a great stir. The crowds told everyone in the city that this was Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth.

Jesus then went into the Temple and shut down the money changing business shouting, "It is written, 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers.'" He healed many people there while children in the area shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David." This upset the teachers and chief priests but Jesus quoted to them, "have you never read, 'From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise'?"

Next morning he was hungry and wanted fruit from a barren fig tree. Jesus cursed the tree and it withered. The disciples were amazed that it had withered so quickly and asked how it was done. Jesus replied with the usual lecture about faith. "[I]f you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."

We never actually see mountains thrown into the sea, so this must be an exaggerated example. Either no one in the world has ever had "enough" faith, or God doesn't grant silly, dangerous wishes. Jesus is always after the people for not having enough faith, and this has become a growth industry among practitioners of religion, to demonstrate such faith. It makes us wonder why Jesus didn't choose a more reasonable exaggeration for an example.

I have always thought that this was a case of Jesus being irritable. People who know the party line have corrected me on this point, believing that Jesus could never be anything human like irritable, but I still have trouble seeing how Jesus, who chewed people out for worrying about food and seemed to be able to produce any needed food anyway, would kill a tree just for being fruitless. Maybe that is the point. The tree was fruitless, not fruitful like a good tree should be, and he made an example of it.

Matthew 21:23-46 2005 January 1 for 21^st

When Jesus returned to the Temple, the leaders there questioned his authority, "By what authority are you doing these things. And who gave you this authority?" Jesus' reply was simple, 'I'll answer your question if you answer mine, was John the Baptist's baptism of God or men?

This left the religious leaders in a dilemma. If they said, "of God" then Jesus would say, "then why didn't you believe him?" If they said, "of men" then they would have a problem with the mass of people who thought John was a prophet. So, they said, "We don't know." And Jesus didn't answer them either.

The next parable reminds me of my own children. A father had two sons. He went to the first and told him to go work in the vineyard. The son said no, but later went and worked anyway. The father went to the second son and told him to go work in the vineyard. That son said yes, but never did. The moral of this story, "Which of the two did what his father wanted?"

The first did, of course. Similarly, gross sinners such as prostitutes and tax collectors who repent and believe will get into the kingdom of God ahead of the religious teachers who did not believe John or Jesus.

Jesus followed this with another parable aimed right at the religious authorities. An absentee landlord rented his vineyard out to tenants. When the crop was due, he sent servants to collect his share. The tenants ran off each collector, killing one and injuring the others, so the owner upped the anti and sent his son. When the tenants saw the heir coming, they agreed to kill him and take the vineyard for themselves. Jesus' asked the question, "When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?"

The obvious answer, expressed colorfully by the disciples, "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end" and rent the vineyard to people who will pay.

Jesus sums these two parables up in a way that would lead a religious leader to despair, "The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."

Ouch! I don't see a way out.

The leaders went off and plotted how to arrest Jesus but it was difficult because they had the "John the Baptist Problem" that is, the people thought of Jesus as a prophet too.

Matthew 22:1-22 2005 January 3 for 24^th

Again, we have a parable describing the kingdom of God.

A king prepared a wedding banquet for his son. When it was ready, he sent his servants out to gather the guests. Some ignored him, going on about their business, and some did worse, injuring and even killing the servants. The king was furious and sent his army to destroy them and burn their town down.

The banquet still being ready, the king sent more servants out to bring in anyone who would come. Soon the banquet hall was full with all sorts of people from passers-by to the homeless. There was one person, however, who did not have on wedding clothes. The king inquired with him about this and the person had no answer so the king had him tied up and thrown out. "For many are invited, but few are chosen."

This is one of those texts that seem blatantly unfair and I remember thinking that the first time I heard the story in elementary Sunday School, probably second or third grade. The king invited everybody who could be found to the banquet and yet, when one of them showed up without the correct clothing for the occasion, he was sent directly to hell.

I have heard it preached that the protocol in this case was for the king to hand out the appropriate clothing to the guests, whoever they were, and that this person's lack thereof was a sign of rebellion. This explanation certainly matches with the model of salvation which is usually also being preached, and it could well be the missing piece of cultural context that we need to make sense of the story, but nothing like this is actually said here, or elsewhere in the Bible that I know of so I'm left wondering if God (the king in the story) is capricious or only incomplete in narrative. After all, the direct quote doesn't say, "where is the wedding garment I gave you?" it says "Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?" Even then, the condemnation only comes after "friend" doesn't have a response. When in the kingdom of heaven, one must be ready to speak up and defend oneself before God, I surmise.

And the phrase, "Many are called but few are chosen" that shows up everywhere, this must have something to do with the straight way and narrow gate. It would seem that there is more to be done in Christianity than only verbal assent to a worldview.

(I've heard this used on freshman music students. Many arrive at college with a "calling" but few are "chosen.")

Having said and this, the man cast out is not the person who I identify with. As we've said before on other parables, I am one of the ones who ignored the invitation and went on about his business in the first place. However, I would not have done so without regret, hesitation, and remorse. (Historically, I have always hesitated.) Details like this are not discussed in these stories either. What is discussed is "Let your yes be yes." No equivocation please.

Next we encounter another trap set for Jesus, and this is a bigger one, designed to ensnare him with the more powerful Roman government. Some Pharisee disciples and Herodians came to Jesus. First they brown-nosed a bit, ("Oh wise, just, truthful blah blah teacher…") then they dangled the bait, "Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"

Jesus, as always, saw right through this, called them hypocrites, and told them outright that he knew that they were trying to trap him. "Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They showed him a denarius. "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

"Caesar's," they said.

And you know the rest of the story, but for completeness, Jesus declared, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."

This declaration is used to unravel many of the difficult cross-loyalties that arise in life and is used to justify Christians paying income tax, doing jury duty, military service, involvement in political parties and just about anything else that is, in any case, hard to avoid. In fact, it is easy to imagine it being used as a church-side argument for the separation of church and state. Keep in mind, though, that Jesus also said "You cannot serve two masters." The example there was God and Money, but it might as well have been God and the IRS or God and the Marines, or the Army and Witness Duty, for that matter, to cite a recent example from the news.

A minimalist, on the other hand, might interpret this as only Jesus avoiding a trap and nothing more, but my view of the intent here is that we should know our masters, we should know our servants, and we should know to whom we are compelled to render. Jesus has said: make God your master, money your servant, and file your 1040 like everybody else.

Matthew 22:23-46 2005 January 4 for 25^th

After the tax-paying thing, the Sadducees stepped up to try their own trick. This particular sect didn't believe in the resurrection after death. They told the story of one bride for seven brothers. A man married a woman then died without children. The Law of Moses said his brother should marry her and have children for him so as to continue his line. The brother did, but he died too. This continued until all seven had married her and all eight had died, the woman last. Which would be her husband in the resurrection?

Jesus replied that they erred because they knew neither the scriptures nor God's power. First, people in heaven are not married, they are "like the angels" (whatever angels are like). As for the resurrection, God says, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Jesus says that this usage makes him God of the living, not the dead. Actually, Jesus knows about this apart from the scriptures. He was just talking to Moses the other day on the top of the mountain. As for hanging interpretation on tenses of verbs like this, hardly a day goes by in this exercise when I think that a strict construction of some sentence (at least in English) does not seem to support whatever Jesus' point was. Looking back over prior lessons, I don't think I have to reiterate here any of the several examples I've already stumbled on. But even this one stands out. What Jesus actually said here was, "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage." To me, not getting married in heaving is obvious, but not being married in heaven is a different matter. The intent appears to be that marriage is over after we leave this four dimensional existence, and that's fine, but that is not exactly what was said.

The vow does say, "as long as we both shall live," meaning presumably, "live here."

The Pharisees took another shot. One asked, "Which is the greatest commandment in the law?" The reply was, "'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."

I can think of some laws that don't seem to follow directly from these, like all the regulations dealing with houses that have mildew or skin spots. Perhaps they do and I don't see it. (Are personal hygiene and housekeeping "neighborly" issues?) Perhaps these regulations of Moses don't count as "commandments." I would confess to nitpicking, but everything I'm talking about is in the Law and/or the Prophets.

So Jesus turned to questioning them. In essence, 'If Christ is the son of David, why does David refer to him as Lord?" He quotes a Psalm here. No one would take this on. No one would spar with Jesus anymore after this.

Matthew 23 2005 January 5 for 26^th

Here, Jesus blasts the Pharisees and the teachers of the law directly and thoroughly. There are many things that these people do in the name of God that are contrary to God's purposes and therefore annoy Jesus.

They make all sorts of extra rules that they are unwilling to keep themselves.

They do everything for credit, to be noticed, and they love to be honored. Jesus says not to call anyone "teacher" because there is only one teacher, him, and one lord, God in heaven. Everyone else are brothers and the greatest is the greatest servant.

They slam the door to the kingdom in people's faces; thus, no one goes in.

They have rules like, if you swear by the Temple you don't have to keep the oath but if you swear by the gold there you do. This totally misses the point of the Temple, and of gold and of swearing. Don't swear anyway; Jesus instructs, just be honest, you don't control any of those things, the Temple, the heavens, the hair on your head, whatever.

They tithe meticulously, the smallest things like dill seeds, but neglect "more important matters of the law -- justice, mercy and faithfulness." They should do both. (Yes, Jesus is saying here to tithe meticulously.)

They are like a dirty cup, clean on the outside, corrupt on the inside.

They are like tombs painted white, neat and clean on the outside, full of corruption and the remains of death on the inside.

They hypocritically say that they would not have persecuted the prophets like their ancestors did. In doing this they admit that they are descended from murderous persecutors. All the blood of all the prophets would come down on this generation because they had Jesus and persecuted him too. They have the fortune to be the most condemned of all.

Jesus wishes he could take Jerusalem under his wing like a hen does with chicks, but they would have nothing of being chicks. So, "your house is left desolate. You will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

Once again we wonder, when is it that people will say something like this. At the Second Coming? At the end of the age? When they are ready for Jesus? It is unclear what is being proclaimed here.

Matthew 24 2005 January 6 for 27^th

This is one of the famous, oft-quoted, chapters about the so-called "end times."

As they were leaving the Temple area, the disciples were sight seeing all of the buildings. Jesus remarked that every stone of every building would be dismantled, "thrown down."

When they were alone, the disciples asked what the signs would be of Jesus return at the "end of the age". Various readings of Jesus' lengthy response, and other writings on the subject support the various end-times expectations that various groups have today. Interesting though, every generation from then until now has thought that they were in these "end-times". In fact, Jesus himself, in verse 34, says, "[T]his generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened." The plainest reading of this is that some of the guys sitting there would live to see it. Some of them did live to see the Temple destroyed about 40 years later. Some read this as all having happened at the end of that age around 70 A.D. Others, believing (or wanting to believe) that the end is in our generation, give this the second plainest reading, that is, once the signs start, the generation then will not pass away until it's all over.

Throughout the ages, the end, the so-called "Second Coming" of Christ, has been near. (Kind of reminds me of nuclear fusion: the power source of the future and always will be.)

The famous developer of logarithms, Napier, wrote a lengthy treatise in which he used advanced mathematics to prove that Jesus would return in 1700. The authorities said it was OK to publish this work … after 1700. I don't know if he did or not. Some thought Napoleon, or Hitler, was the anti-Christ (a major player in the "end-times"). Some say it really is now because Israel has been restored as a physical nation, in 1948. As a result of that, they said the end would come by 1968, one generation. When that passed, they said, "well, a Biblical generation is 40 years" so it's 1988. Now that that has passed, they are saying, "well an average person lives 70-80 years. 2018?

The Jehovah's Witnesses, about to die out for lack of credibility, predicted in their own convoluted prophecies that something bad would happen in 1914. Late that year, the great World War started. There were assassinations and riots in 1968. Pat Robertson ran for President in 1988. Nirvana, oft predicted by politicians (resulting from a Ronald Reagan or John Kennedy Presidency, for example) has not yet arrived. We face multiple serious, escalating global crises in our times, a disappointment after all such promises. Something is always happening, but in the times Jesus speaks of,"heavens and earth shall pass away, but my words will never pass away." The "end" has apparently not yet arrived, at least not quite.

Anyway, continuing with Jesus' answer about the sign that would tell when he was coming, he begins by warning against deceivers and pretenders, false prophets and pseudo-Christs. There will be wars and famines and earthquakes, but these are only the beginning. Christians will be hated, persecuted, and killed. Wickedness in the world will increase and love will grow cold. Those who endure to the end in the midst of this will be saved.

It will come quickly. The prophet Daniel spoke of an abomination that would take over the Temple. When this happens, run and don't look back. Don’t go back for anything. The times of this flight will be the worst ever. Pray that it won't be in winter or on the Sabbath. It will be awful for pregnant women and mothers with infants. In fact, unless those days are shortened, no one will survive, something else for which to pray.

Then the sun and moon will go dark and stars will fall from the sky, then Jesus will appear instantly and with great fanfare will have angels pick up all who belong to him.

(This seems to indicate for a post-tribulation "rapture," not the most popular eschatology today.)

So, Jesus concludes, if you predict the seasons by looking at what trees are doing, or predict tomorrow weather by looking at what clouds are doing, be alert for these signs of the times which he has described.

Only the Father in heaven knows precisely when this will all happen. The angels don't know. Jesus doesn't even know. It will be like Noah. Things went on as normal then, suddenly one day there was a flood and it was all over. Here there will be even more discernment. Two people will be working together somewhere, one will be taken and the other left behind.

Keep watch and don't be slack. If you knew when a burglar was coming to your house, you would be ready for him. Don't be slack and fall into wickedness; you'll get a nasty surprise.

Matthew 25 2005 January 7 for 28^th

Here we have three more stories about how it is in the kingdom of heaven. The first is about ten virgins, the second is about three servants and the third is about standards of judgment at the Final Judgment.

In the first, ten young women are waiting for the groom to come to his wedding party. He is delayed and arrives in the middle of the night. In the mean time, those waiting fall asleep and their lamps run down. When the groom is announced, all the lamps (running on oil) are empty. Some had brought extra, some had not. The ones who had no extra asked to share with those who had. Those who had extra replied that those who didn't should go and buy more. While they were gone the groom came, the party started, and the door was shut. When the others returned, they were shut out. "I tell you the truth, I don't know you," the groom said.

The motto: Be Prepared.

This doesn't match the Anglican model of weddings with which I'm familiar. Were these "ten virgins" Friends? Entertainment? Wives? Potential wives? In any of these cases, how can the groom say, "I don't know you?" Is this really "the truth"? Is this a figure of speech saying, "You are not my friends or acquaintances, wives or potential wives, or entertainment anymore" because you weren't ready when I arrived?

No equality of persons here. Those who wait must wait prepared and those who command call the shots at their pleasure.

The next story is of the three servants. The master was going on a trip and entrusted one servant with five "talents" (a denomination of money), the second with two, and a third with one. While he was away, the first two servants went to work and doubled their money while the third guy hid it so that it wouldn't be lost. When the master returned and settled with them, the first had ten talents and the second four. They were congratulated and rewarded with participation in their master's joy. The last explained that he knew the master was a tough businessman but that he had kept the money safe, took it out of hiding, and gave it back. The master was furious. 'Knowing this about me,' he said, 'you could have at least put it in the bank and earned me interest.' And, the third "worthless" servant was thrown "outside, into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

This last appears to be a common figure of speech that seems to represent hell, that is, separation from the master and his joys.

Oh, and his one talent was given to the one who already had ten.

The motto: Don't just sit there, do something! … or else.

Casting this into a modern business enterprise, employees are entrusted with resources that they are expected to work and produce gain from. The one who doesn't is fired. The wording seems to imply that he gave the servants the money they had worked with, but perhaps they only kept it in trust in the name of the larger establishment and that is how the servant with ten then was entrusted with eleven. I guess the word "gave" doesn't mean the same thing here as the first meaning we think of.

God, the master in this analogy, is pictured here as a "hard man, harvesting where [he has] not sown and gathering where [he has] not scattered seed." His standard of justice is "everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." So much for loving-kindness. So much for equality for all.

And now, the third story about the judgment. Jesus is on the throne; all the nations are present. I've always had this image of everyone accounting for every loose word during their lives while everyone who ever lived watches on big screen, then receiving their eternal sentence. He divides everyone into right and left "sheep and goats". To the sheep he says, 'you were good to me, join me in heaven.' To the goats he says, 'You ignored me when I was in need,' "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Both sets of people say, 'When did we do this?' His reply in both cases is 'when you did or did not do anything for the least of my brothers, you did or did not do it for me.' The list of good deeds, specifically, is: gave something to eat or drink, provided clothes and shelter for a stranger, and visited when ill or in prison.

If the narrow way has fewer people in it, then there must be fewer sheep than goats. If the first will be last and the last will be first, then the "least of my brothers" must be the greatest. There are no grades, however, just pass/fail. You either inherit eternal life or eternal punishment.

The morale here appears to be obvious. Since we don't know whom the least of Jesus' brothers are, we feed and clothe all of the hungry and do what we can for the ill and imprisoned, acquaintances or strangers it makes no difference. Indeed, if the emphasis of our faith were on these actions, rather than enforcing all of our favorite rules of God on everybody else, the world, and the religious scene would be greatly improved.

Matthew 26:1-35 2005 January 10 for 31^st

We are in the midst of the last days of Jesus' life as one of us, a man in a mortal body. It is two days before the Passover feast. While the Jewish leaders plotted in the home of Caiaphas the high priest, Jesus reminded the disciples once again that at the feast he would be crucified.

While in Bethany, in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came and poured very expensive perfume on him. The disciples all protested the monetary waste of this act, but Jesus told them that it was preparation for burial and that "wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her." And so it is. At that instant, Judas went out and made a deal with the Jewish leaders to betray Jesus at the first opportunity. He was paid thirty silver coins for this and began looking for an opening. This juxtaposition in the text is where we get the idea that Judas, the money holder for the group, was reacting with revulsion to this charity. Something like this was the last straw for a bean counter whose real goal was to accumulate wealth.

Jesus, always homeless, told the disciples to go to a certain house in town, speak to the owner, and prepare for the Passover meal, which they did. (From this we can infer that although following Jesus means having "no place to lay your head", even Jesus occasionally needs a little support from someone in a more established situation.) During the meal, he said that one of them would betray him. Of course, they all said, "Surely not I?" But to Judas on this question, Jesus answered, "Yes, it is you."

He said this right after uttering the prophecy: "It would be better for him if he had not been born."

Jesus then hosted the meal, substituting himself in the ceremony for the bread and the wine. The bread symbolized his body and the wine his blood "which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." He said he would not drink it again until he did so in his Father's kingdom.

They sang a hymn then went out to the Mount of Olives. When they arrived, he said that they would all desert him that night, quoting a prophecy, "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered." But, he told them, after rising, he would precede them into Galilee. Did anyone imagine what he was talking about in that last sentence? I wouldn't have.

Peter, thinking out loud as always, said that he would never desert Jesus, even if it meant following him to death. "And all the other disciples said the same." Jesus answered Peter that not only he would desert but he would also disown him three times before the very next dawn.

Matthew 26:36-75 2005 January 11 for February 1^st

From the Passover feast, they went to Gethsemane. Jesus told the disciples to wait while he went a little way off to pray, taking The Three (Peter, James, and John) with him. At this point he was "overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" and asked them to stay with him. Falling on the ground face down he prayed in anguish, "Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." He is asking not to be crucified, but agrees to it anyway. Meanwhile, the three disciples fell asleep. He chastised them for this then prayed again in the same way. They fell asleep again and he chastised them again the prayed again in the same way for a third time. At this point, the crowd led by Judas was approaching and he told The Three to get up.

Judas, by pre-arrangement, came up and kissed Jesus, the agreed sign of betrayal. Jesus called him "friend," as a greeting in return. Men seized him, at which point the disciples grabbed a sword and started a fight, injuring one of the servants. Jesus then used the opportunity for two new teachings. First to his disciples, "Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword." And, in any case, he continues, I could call on my Father and legions of angels from heaven would come to help, but then how could the prophecy be fulfilled? To the crowd, he asked why they came out as a mob at night, "Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me."

"Then all the disciples deserted him and fled."

Jesus was brought to Caiaphas, the high priest. The midnight court of justice was having trouble making a case. Lots of witnesses came and gave false testimony and, therefore, kept contradicting each other. At length, two different people were able to quote Jesus as saying that he would destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days.

Jesus didn't answer any of this and the high priest was getting irritated. Finally he got up and demanded to know why Jesus wouldn't talk, but Jesus didn't respond to this either. So, the high priest played his trump card by demanding, under oath to the "Living God," if Jesus was God's Son. Jesus replied that he was and that, in the future they would see him at the right hand of God in the clouds.

To the Jews, making oneself equal with God in this way was blasphemy, a capital offense. On this self-incriminating testimony, they agreed in a loud rage that he should be condemned and began abusing him by slapping, hitting, provoking, and spitting on him.

Meanwhile, Peter, foolishly brave as usual and leading the way, had followed the mob all the way up into the courtyard in an attempt to see what would happen. He was recognized by a servant but denied knowing Jesus and moved to a different spot. There he was recognized by another servant but denied having anything to do with Jesus again. Soon, several people ganged up on him, claiming that he had been with this Jesus on the road. They said they could tell by his Galilean accent. Peter began to swear and curse saying, "I don't know the man!" at which point a rooster crowed and Peter remembered what Jesus had said about Peter denying him three times that night.

At this, Peter went off and "wept bitterly."

Matthew 27:1-31 2005 January 12 for February 2^nd

The Jewish leadership decided to put Jesus to death so they tied him up and took him to the governor, Pontus Pilate, the local official who actually had capital authority.

Apparently Judas had not intended for things to go this far. Perhaps he had just wanted to force Jesus' hand so as to make him seize his. Perhaps he expected Jesus to get off, as he usually seemed to. Perhaps he was just irritated about the "waste" of money incident and was trying to shock Jesus into taking better care of the finances. Whatever the case, when Jesus was condemned and it looked like he was in fact going to die, Judas was "seized with remorse" and took the thirty silver coins back to the temple. Nobody there wanted them because of their history so he threw them on the floor and went off and hanged himself.

So, there was the money sitting on the floor of the temple. The guys knew that it was blood money and that by their rules it was unsuitable for the offering box, so they decided to go out and buy a field, the "Potter's Field" where they would bury foreigners who were so unfortunate as to die while visiting Jerusalem. This purchase is seen as fulfilling prophecies of Zechariah and Jeremiah.

At the same time, Jesus was being questioned by Pilate who asked, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus replied, "Yes, it is as you say." The crowed was hurling many other insults and accusations at him and Pilate was amazed that Jesus didn't answer any of them. Perhaps we see here a concrete example of God not engaging in tomfoolery. Perhaps this is why God doesn't dialogue with us about issues which seem important to us, that is; perhaps those issues are nonsense to God or untrue.

Whatever the case, Pilate realized that there was no real basis for condemnation here and on top of that his wife came in and said that she had "suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him" and that Pilate should have nothing to do with Jesus. As the crowd moved further towards going out of control, Pilate tried a ploy. It was customary at the festival to release some prisoner, presumably a highly visible one. This would be a way of saving face for everybody. To make the deal work, he offered a notorious criminal named Barabbas who no sane person would choose over an innocent teacher and prophet. To Pilate's amazement, however, they all yelled in favor of Barabbas and when Pilate asked what he should do with Jesus then, they shouted louder and louder, "Crucify him!" Pilate said he was innocent. The crowd said, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!"

… you who murdered the prophets.

So Pilate publicly washed his hands of the affair, released Barabbas, and handed Jesus over to scourging (torture) and crucifixion.

The crucifixion started with mockery by the guards.

People who suffered under Nazi guards in prison camps testified that some of the guards were fair and humane, as much as they could be under the circumstances, but that some were known for being ingeniously brutally and these were to be avoided. The mood of the times decides which types of people are ascendant. These guards were in the brutal category that day. They made a king's crown of thorns and jammed it on his head, then dressed him in robes and mocked him and hit him and spit on him. Then they put his own clothes back on him and took him to the crucifixion.

Matthew 27:32-66 2005 January 13 for February 3^rd

Jesus carried his cross to the Place of the Skull. A man Simon, from Cyrene, was forced to help carry it. They offered Jesus a drug but he wouldn't take it.

He was crucified and a sign put over his head "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." That will teach people to rebel against authority. They gambled for what little clothing he had. Two robbers were crucified with him, one on each side. People everywhere shouted insults. The guards made fun of him, the Jewish leaders came out to taunt him about being God's Son. "Let God rescue him now…" The guards insulted him. The robbers being crucified alongside insulted him.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't exactly understand how people can show this level of callousness and smug self-righteousness in the face of such suffering. Is there no concept in these people that, "There, but for the grace of God, go I?" But this still happens today; it is part of the human condition. A person who is totally confident that they will never be in an inferior position will deride and further oppress one who will never be anywhere else. This is the history of American racism, for example.

Several women, mostly the disciples' mothers plus Mary Magdalene stood at a distance watching. These women had followed the group around taking care of their needs.

For three hours in the early afternoon it became very dark. Jesus cried out, asking God why he had been abandoned. This was doubtless the first time that Jesus was not in the presence of God. Some thought he was calling for Elijah. Somebody put a sponge of vinegar on a stick. Jesus took a bit, possibly so that he could speak better and then, crying out, "gave up his spirit" and was dead.

Several miracles happened in that moment. Tombs opened and righteous people came back to life and were seen in the city. The heavy curtain in the temple, separating God from the people, was torn from top to bottom (from God's side to man's side). With all of this going on, the Roman guards on duty were also terrified and said, "Surely he was the Son of God!"

A man from Arimathea called Joseph came and asked Pilate for the body. He took it to a brand new tomb, cut out of rock. He rolled a big stone across the entrance and left. Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" watched it all.

Now the chief priests were worried about a conspiracy. They remembered that Jesus had said he would be raised in three days so they asked Pilate to guard the tomb so that the body could not be stolen. Pilate sent a guard and told them to do the best they could. They did this by sealing the stone and posting the guard.

Matthew 28 2005 January 15 for February 4^th

At dawn the day after the Sabbath, that is, about 36 hours after the burial, the two Mary's returned to the tomb. There had been a violent earthquake and an angel, who was blindingly bright, had come and rolled the stone out of the way and was sitting on it. The guards had fainted.

The angel told the women that Jesus had risen and left and that they should go tell the disciples about this. They would all meet in Galilee. They left to go do this and Jesus met them on the way. He greeted them and they worshipped him. He told them the same things that the angel had.

While this was happening, the guards awoke, found everything in disarray and the body missing, left the scene, and went back to the chief priests, telling them everything that had happened. The priests met and decided to pay the guards a "large sum of money" to spread the story that the disciples had stolen the body while they were asleep, and not to worry if the governor got involved, they would take care of it. (This last is probably because it would have been a dereliction of duty to be asleep while on watch.) They took the money and did as instructed. At the time of the writing, the story was still widespread among the Jews, as I suspect it is today.

They did all meet in Galilee where the disciples worshipped Jesus, although "some doubted." Jesus final words are given here:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age."

We've already discussed the "end of the age." I don't know what this really means, but the way we understand it now, thousands of years later, is that Jesus is still with us, the "end of the age" not yet having arrived. Maybe it means "to the end of your life" which is all that really matters to an individual. I don't really understand what "be with you" means either, but I suspect that we'll have many opportunities to discuss this in the future.

Earthquakes, moving boulders, and fainting are within our direct, visceral experience. Blindingly bright angels and people rising from the dead are not although we have technology that moves toward these things (and movie special effects could certainly make even bigger things seem to actually happen). People trying to protect their vested interests by making up plausible stories, telling public lies, and giving bribes is a well known, age old phenomena, as is getting in trouble with one's supervisor for failing in one's duty, regardless of fault. Worshipping and doubting are also activities with which we are familiar.

The author here is giving what he believes to be a true account. We cannot conclusively prove that it is indeed true or not true. We cannot conclusively prove whether the author is to be trusted or not. We do have independent reports of the same events in the other gospels. We do not have strong, independent reports from outside of faith.

We can apply Carl Sagan's standard of proof, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." Surely this is among the most extraordinary of claims. We can apply criteria of plausibility. We can repeat arguments on various sides that others have made. The one piece of sociological plausibility that I discussed in this regard on the Gospel of John was that the disciples are shown in this story not to be anywhere near organized or focused enough to carry off any sort of major deception, nor realize that they needed to, not in the first 36 hours after the agonizing, confusing, devastating, and seemingly permanent death of their leader. Even if they were, they were tremendously fortunate to have an earthquake at just the right moment when they needed the seal on the tomb broken. According to what we're reading, they didn't even understand about the "rise again in three days" thing until after this was all over, weeks in the future. This disorganized group confusion, to me, is highly plausible. It is, in brief, "scattered sheep." Peter and/or James and/or John would have had to been the ring leaders of any such deception. Having experienced bereavement myself, this is really hard for me to imagine. (Not that truth is regulated by what I can imagine, and not that someone else couldn't do things that I couldn't in a situation like this.)

So, I won't try to scientifically argue for, or against, the resurrection here. It would be fairly easy in a page or two to go down some line of reasoning that seemed to absolutely confirm or destroy this resurrection hypothesis, but I think that either course would be misguided and, in any case, I'm not up to such a task. What I will do is introduce another way to look at it.

What if it is true? If not this, what should God do to convince us that death from this four-dimensional existence is not the end of conscious life but is only a transition to a different existence? Is God answerable to Carl Sagan's standards of proof or to my ideas of plausibility? Here, God has done something that was never done before (kind of like creating the universe and instituting life in it). Of course it is not going to be within anybody's experience base. Of course it is not going to be easily subject to controlled tests. My experience of God, here and elsewhere, is that he doesn't seem to think he has to prove anything to anybody, particularly not when the discussion is full of lies, distortions, or inaccuracies. Remember Jesus on trial before the Jewish Leaders and the Roman Governor? He didn't even answer anything irrelevant or false.

God has demonstrated this marvelous thing. He has come in the form of a person (which is so restrictive to God that we have to think of this person as an offspring) and this person has lived beyond the normal death of physics that is common to all flesh. He promises the same for those of us who believe and follow. He wants everybody to know, and he leaves the duty of spreading this news with we who are left behind, for now. (This has its own problems. It is probably the best way to do it but isn't the most convincing, unassailable or lending to provability.) It is, however, the lynchpin of our faith and our hope. In the end one must decide, and be responsible for, their own belief or disbelief.

As for me, I believe it all happened as related. I trust the author and that the author's interpretation is correct. What puzzles me, as an engineer, are things like, "How does this all work?" And so I go off thinking that our four-dimensional universe is just some subset of a universe of higher dimension, with better laws. This is all plausible to me too, but, by definition, un-provable from the inside, where we live today. This un-observability and my experience that there are things about life that are physically unobservable, actually strengthens my faith.

Concluding thoughts on Matthew 2005 January 17 for February 7^th

The Gospel of Matthew tells the story of Jesus life on earth from beginning to end. It is one of four such firsthand or near-firsthand accounts that come to us in today's Christian Bible. Lots of years have gone by since these events happened. In many ways our religious establishments that have carried forward in his name have become the very sort of off-focus lock-step institutions that Jesus fought against so dynamically.

I remember driving in Altadena one day and seeing a building marked as somebody's "culture club". Perhaps it was some Armenian group, I don't remember, but clearly this institution was an expression of a group of people who do not consider here to be their home but who wanted to preserve some essence of that home while they are here. Lucia Festival and Prairie Home Cemetery in Minnesota also come to mind as examples of this phenomena. In that moment of observation, it occurred to me that my experience of the church has always been as a "culture club", a place where people get together to behave in certain ways and enjoy certain social activities with which they are comfortable. Much of the effort of the church is devoted to self-preservation and continuation of these activities in their comfortingly familiar forms. The central teachings of Jesus, or the Bible, are invariably applied selectively in these places. Sometimes the emphasis is decency, sometimes justice, sometimes mercy or peace or righteousness, or prosperity. To give just one example, and without naming names, the local congregation of which I am now a participant is long on inclusiveness, peace, and breadth, but there a few people have come and gone in 17 years who were, by what they were, what they said, or how they acted, a little too far out for unconditional inclusion in our fragile little culture. And so it is everywhere. It is no wonder that there are so many types of houses of faith.

Perhaps this is part of my confusion in attempting to understand just what it is that Jesus wants. I'm used to having preached to me that I must "give all" to Jesus in some holistic, totalitarian sense, but no one ever, in practice, seems to do more than only attempt to at least look like they are doing that. We all live in a world that has -- different rules. Do we buck those different rules in the name of Christ to the point of persecution as Jesus commanded? Most of us don’t, if taken from an extremist view, but a moderate might say that certainly most of us who are Christians do not excel in other ways, (money, lustful pursuits, cruelty) as much as others do, others who are not so constrained by matters of faith and conscience. No broad description like this, however, is going to fully distinguish people of faith from the "faithless." For any "sin" that is committed openly or in secret in society, some in the church are doing it too, they just have different smokescreens, different places where they have to be … careful.

I'm wandering from the point here, but in this wandering you can see that I'm well trained in obsfucating interpretations in order to make world views mesh with perceived realities so that I can "go along and get along" with minimal pain. Of course it is also worrisome that God doesn't seem to be concerned with minimizing anybody's pain when he gives commands and expects obedience.

The themes we've touched on in Matthew fall into three categories: The events of the life of Jesus, the commands or teachings of Jesus and matters of spiritual faith.

Though Jesus lived in a finite place and time in the four-dimensional universe that we all occupy at some time and place, his life was anything but unremarkable and routine. His father was not from the four dimensional universe, at least not exclusively, as all other fathers are. Well, not to digress too much here, but actually, the issue of procreation is philosophically problematic. What does happen when a new life is created? Does it come from nowhere? Does it come from somewhere? What happens when a life "ends?" Does it go somewhere? Does it go nowhere?

And of course, the open question of this whole conversation, "What is life anyway?" I know it when I'm in it and I know it when I see it but it defies deep rational definition. The more I think about it, the more inconceivable the concepts of birth, life, and death are, and yet they encompass and are our entire physical reality. This is nearly as remarkable as the apparent fact that the universe bothers to exist at all.

We (Protestants anyway) have little account of Jesus after this unusual conception and birth until he starts ministry. His ministry as an wandering teacher was unusually remarkable also. Rather than picking smart kids to be his disciples and holing up in a monastery to ponder the inponderable, he picked common, blue-collar, working men and traveled all over the place on foot teaching people what was right and wrong and fixing their various physical problems. Most of the resistance he experienced was from the religious establishment that he was born into. Most of the unconditional acceptance for his appeals came from those most despised by that establishment. Overt, obvious, and hopeless sinners.

I submit that nothing is different today. Nothing would be more disruptive to our fragile church institutions than a live, physical visit from God himself. About the best assurance we get from Jesus is in essence, 'Well, though most of what I want seems impossible, with God all things are possible.'

Beginning with the virgin birth and continuing through every episode of Jesus' life, we find events reported as physical truth that are unexpected to say the least. He cures all sorts of illnesses without even a medical bag, speaking personally to some of the illnesses, in the form of demons. He walks across a lake when he needs to; he feeds thousands of people from the offerings of a few when he needs to. He sends a disciple to get a fish out of the lake and get a coin out of the fish's mouth to pay his taxes when they're due. That would be handy. He escapes, through sheer leadership superiority, every attempt to put him out of business, then, at a time and place of his Father's choosing, marches right into death by crucifixion, apparently controlling the entire dismal business at his Father's command. He taught the same things over and over but even his disciples, who got the plain interpretations, didn't really grasp what it was all about until he was dead. Can we say that they really understood then? Now? It appears so easy and is yet so … elusive.

Well, in my little confusions, at least I'm in good company.

The big miracle, however, is that when he's dead, he's not gone. In fact, he's not even dead, not for long.

I guess the bottom line of what I have to say is that the faith of Christianity built around this remarkable man teaches some things which are hard to take from a purely skeptical point of view. All religions have this property. Skepticism is, after all, an incomplete world view in an incomplete domain. This religion, however, is considerably more credible than any mythologies contemporary to it, or other appeals to faith such as a Santa Claus who operates from earth's North Pole.

Again, I have to say, "Well, given existence and given a First Cause God who was going to visit our subset existence as 'one of us', do we really expect that he would do the whole visit totally within the constraints of our hum-drum, "miracles-are-rare expectation, we understand how everything works" mindset?" I don't think so. Given that all things spiritual are matters of faith, that is, belief in the un-provable, and not easily observable, wouldn't other versions of religion, both close to our interpretations and far away, offer "reasonable" alternatives, religions including hard science and skepticism? Yes, within their own limits of reach and ignorance of blind spots, yes they would.

So at this point in the discussion we are left with considerable information about Jesus and his faith, Judaism. This information has been given straight as eyewitness truth. I have taken the position that these words have come down with reasonable accuracy and that the authors are trustworthy in reporting what they saw and how they interpreted it, so we are left with Jesus who makes enormous claims and demands and backs them up with major wonders for the masses and irritability for those who don't catch on and join in immediately.

What are we to make of all this?

© Courtney B. Duncan, 2005