Thursday, 19 March Responding to the Messiah. Matthew 12:46—13:58
I'm sorry about this very long reading, but there will have to be a few of these if we are to get through this long book within this Lenten season. I’ll keep the reflection as short as I can. Please remember that we are reading a series of reflections on Matthew, not a commentary. There will be much in this passage that we will have to overlook.
I’ve spent several days puzzling over what seems to me to be a structural pattern that is concealed by the chapter divisions. This long passage is bracketed by two appearances or references to Jesus’ human family. Within these brackets, there is a long parable on a sower, and six kingdom parables. It is this pattern I am choosing to reflect on today, not the individual parables. They probably speak for themselves.
The first reference to Jesus’ family strikes us as a bit odd. Why did Jesus appear so rude or stand-offish about his family? If we read the Mark version of this (3:21) we get a clue. Mark states that his family were coming to take him in charge, to get him sectioned, because people were saying that he had gone out of his mind. He had lost any claim to wisdom.
The second and closing reference to his family is not directly related to members of his family, but to his hometown crowd rejecting his message on the simple fact of his known common life. They don’t think he is crazy; they reject him for his normalcy, his ordinariness. His dad’s just a chippie (a carpenter), they say. We know his brothers and sisters. They're just the Davidsons from down the road – Joe and Mary and the kids – Josh, Jimmy, little Joe and the others. How could he have any special wisdom?
Responding to the Messiah: that is our focus at the moment. In this long passage, the Messiah – for he has revealed himself as such, now – reinforces something that he has been doing all along, but to which we have not yet drawn attention in these reflections.
Jesus is the Teacher of Wisdom.
Many Christians are not well attuned to the vast body of Wisdom teaching in the Old Testament. If we talk about the structure of the Old Testament at all, we’re likely to say that it is composed of history, law, poetry and prophecy. That’s true, but the entire Jewish culture has a massive Wisdom tradition which we have generally lost sight of in the Christian tradition, to our great loss. This is not the place to explore that, though we live in an age where such an exploration is desperately needed. But Matthew is clearly aware of it, because he has set up the core structure of this passage to reflect on Jesus as Wisdom teacher.
In the middle of the kingdom parables he quotes a Psalm: I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world. (Ps. 78:2)
Psalm 78 is a very long Psalm and is essentially a reflection on the way that the nation of Israel responded to God over their history. It relates how the northern kingdom (Ephraim is the name used for the northern kingdom in the Psalm, if you happen to read it) totally rejected him, and how God sent them into exile.
It ends with a short statement of how God set his care of the remnant of Judah in the hands of David. It is worth reading these few verses:
He chose his servant David, and took him from the sheepfolds; from tending the nursing ewes he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel, his inheritance. With upright heart he tended them, and guided them with skilful hand. (Ps. 78:70–2)
Matthew is identifying Jesus the Messiah as the Son of David, the ultimate Shepherd of Israel. He is posing the question: Will Israel respond to its divine Shepherd, or will the long history recounted in Psalm 78 be repeated? Will they reject God yet again, and will their nation be plunged into exile once more?
The reference to family now becomes clear. It is not so much Jesus’ little earthly family that Matthew has in mind; it’s the whole family of Israel. Matthew has cleverly bookended the holy family there as symbols. And perhaps, the whole family of humanity, too. How will we respond to the Messiah?
The point of the Wisdom literature was to show how true wisdom is much more than mere human cleverness. True Wisdom is the recognition of God; the capacity (and willingness) to acknowledge the Creator when he comes amongst us, and to properly receive him, in humility, repentance and worship.
The second chapter of Proverbs shows how the Wisdom teaching of Jesus fulfils the Old Testament Wisdom teaching (Prov. 2:3–6 & 21–2):
My child, if you accept my words and treasure up my commandments within you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; … if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures — then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. … For the upright will abide in the land, and the innocent will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.
Matthew has set the stage. How will Israel respond to her Messiah? How will we?
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, I bow my head before you and acknowledge that you alone are the source of all wisdom. In you are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I long to be wise in you, my God. Help me to recognise those treasures and be prepared to give all that I have to share in your kingdom. Amen.
