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Pentecost 24, 10/26/2008
Sermon on Matthew 22:34-46, by Hubert Beck
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.
Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." He said to them, "How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying
The Lord said to my Lord,
sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet?
If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son? And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. (English Standard Version)
THE BOTTOM LINE IN LIFE
Have you ever heard someone say - or, perhaps, have you, yourself - said something like this: "When I get to heaven, the first thing I want to ask God is _____"? You fill in the blank!
If you haven't, you are one of a relatively few, for virtually all of us would like to get an "inside track" on how God functions, why he does this thing and not others, etc.
To be sure, all this is much like a child asking a parent why this or that, to which the parent typically responds, "Because!" Children can never entirely understand the adult world and why adults function as they do. Until, of course, they, themselves, become adults who answer children's questions with their own "because" in turn.
Will God - should God - ever "explain" himself? If he were to do so, would we understand? And if we understood, what essential difference would it make? Would that change anything? If God chooses not to do so, what business is it of ours to ask him to give an accounting of himself anyway? God is not being abrasive when he assures us, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. . . . For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8, 9 ESV) We will never understand his ways - nor would it help us if we did. Yet we never cease idly speculating about all sort of things related to God and the way of divine functioning. We are constantly ready to argue with God as though we know things he ought to listen and respond to.
So we resort to saying things like "when I have a chance, I am going to ask God about____" as though in "discovering his secrets" we would satisfy an important need to understand divine mysteries.
Jesus Under Questioning
Although the Pharisees did not think that, in questioning Jesus, they were questioning God when the events of and around today's Gospel reading took place, they did recognize that his statements and understandings had gained a status among the common people nearing a divinely authoritative voice. This is suggested by Matthew's notation just before our text: "when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching." He had reported this much earlier, in fact, when he said that Jesus "was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes." (Matthew 7:29 ESV)
The setting within which the words of our text are spoken, therefore, must be understood. This was a day or so (the chronology is difficult to determine exactly) after Jesus had entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey to the high acclaim of the citizens of the city, most of whom had never seen him before. (21:1-11) He had stirred excitement to a fever pitch. Although John tells us that Jesus had been to Jerusalem several times already, Matthew, Mark and Luke agree Jesus' principle ministry had been confined to Galilee. Religious authorities from Jerusalem had heard of him, come to interview him and even confronted him in that territory, but his dramatic appearance in Jerusalem proper gave them immediate access to him whose views had been circulated as, to say the least, controversial. He had promptly exasperated them by cleansing the temple. (21:12, 13) They had, therefore, immediately challenged him, asking, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" (21:23) He responded with his own question concerning the authority of John the Baptizer's ministry. This confounded them, for there was much divided opinion concerning that. Jesus then spoke several very pointed parables (21:28-22:14) which raised the dimensions of confrontation to a high level, for the authorities recognized themselves in those parables.
At this point several "cross-examinations" took place. First a "practical" - could we even call it an "ethical" - question was raised by the Pharisees (the subject of last Sunday's Gospel reading concerning the payment of taxes to the emperor); then a question concerning the resurrection raised by the Sadducees, whose denial of the resurrection was a bone of contention within Judaism in general. This was the "entry-point" for the third question, which is the one raised in our text today: "When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees"
At this point, we are told, the Pharisees raised the question concerning which of the commandments was greatest. Pharisees were strict adherents of the Law and had probed it so deeply that they had subdivided it into 613 varying components with still other subdivisions beyond that. It was apparently in reference to those hundreds of laws by which they were living (some of which were, to all intents and purposes, contradictory in themselves) that they asked for his opinion concerning which one superceded all others. This question of the basic commandment was not an uncommon discussion among themselves. One can, therefore, interpret their question either as an antagonistic one, trying to corner Jesus into a "heretical answer," or it can be understood as a relatively friendly question attempting to determine what he thought was most "orthodox" concerning their internal debate.
His response could hardly have surprised them even though he made no reference to the 613 subdivisions they had contrived for the law. He rather combined a passage from Deuteronomy with a passage from Leviticus - passages certainly well enough known by the Pharisees. The quote from Deuteronomy (the Shema), in fact, was a part of what could be called the Jewish creed: "Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." (Deut. 6:4, 5 ESV) The quotation from Leviticus was part of the instruction from God concerning life together as a community, "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD." (Lev. 19:18 ESV) Although it was not necessarily typical of the Judaism of the time to combine them in this way, it is clear from the scribe's response recorded by Luke that the joining was by no means uncommon among the Jews. "You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." (Luke 12:32, 33 ESV)
Jesus Questions His Protagonists
Whether the question was inimical, as many think it was, or whether it was more of a friendly overture to determine Jesus' "orthodoxy," Jesus now turns the tables and asks his own question in return. Was it mere happenstance that the preceding sequence of questions occurred in just this way or did Matthew present them in this way for a purpose? It is hard to determine the answer, but a reasonably good conjecture could be made that they are really a "set-up" for the question that Jesus now asks.
"What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" Carefully note two things about the question: On the one hand he is not directly posing the question in such a way as to suggest that he is, himself, the Christ. At this point Matthew has not presented this proposition as one in public dispute. The question had been raised and responded to among the disciples themselves, for Matthew has told us much earlier that Jesus, himself, had asked the disciples "who do you say that I am?" Peter had emphatically responded, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus, in turn, had affirmed that answer, but had "strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ." (Matthew 16:13-20 ESV) One must not, therefore, assume that either the Pharisees who were being questioned or Jesus who was doing the questioning considered the interpretation of the question concerning Psalm 110:1 had a direct reference to himself.
The other side of that coin, however, is that the question is pointing directly forward toward exactly that claim in only a few days when the high priest will say, "I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." (Matthew 26:63 ESV) The shadow of the cross hangs heavily over this confrontation. For the moment, however, he has, in a sense, set all the previous questioning aside as secondary to the primary question. It is important to raise ethical, doctrinal, and theological questions, to be sure. They are not to be taken lightly. But are they primary questions - or are they only secondary to that which is at bottom the foundation upon which the whole of God's truth rests?
The fundamental question upon which responses to all the previous questions are to be given is this: What is the nature of the Messiah (Christ is the Greek for that Hebrew word) and what is his primary mission? None of those to whom Jesus addressed his question had any doubts whatever that a Messiah would arise among them. They all longed for his coming, for in their minds he would revive the greatness of the kingdom of David. That is why they, without hesitation, could say that this person was "the son of David." In him all the present oppression of Rome would be overthrown and the new and gloriously revived Kingdom of David would arise in his place. They could agree with Jesus that this "son of David" would be the one concerning whom God promised, "I [will] put your enemies under your feet." They considered the "Lord" to whom the Lord addressed himself in the psalm, saying, "Sit at my right hand," though, to be an earthly royal King fully representing God himself through the victory he would achieve with the strength that God would give him. All these things they had, in one way or another, worked out among themselves.
That is, however, precisely why Jesus' question was so bewildering to them. He asked it as though they had not truly caught the full significance of that statement. Even more importantly, he raised a question concerning ( 1 ) whether they had adequately understood the nature of this "Lord" to whom David was, himself, giving honor and glory; ( 2 ) whether they had, in fact, understood the true import of this "Lord" being seated at God's right hand; and, ( 3 ) perhaps most radically of all, whether they had, accurately understood what the task of this Messiah, the Christ, was to be. The explosiveness of this questioning on the part of Jesus silenced them. "No one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions." Here, clearly, was a man who was determined to call into question - even to re-interpret - all the understandings they had so carefully worked out among themselves. They had never encountered anyone like him.
If his response to their questioning concerning the greatest commandment was any true measure of "all the Law and the Prophets," the question he posed to them in return was clearly calculated to open entirely new horizons of understanding the Law and the Prophets. They didn't know what to say about that! "No one was able to answer him a word." According to Matthew there were, in fact, no further exchanges between Jesus and the religious authorities from this time until Jesus was put on trial. "Nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions." It must be said, however, that he had much to say concerning those religious authorities while addressing the disciples in particular and the people in general during the ensuing days!
Jesus Confronts and Questions Us
Have we not learned important things about "questioning God" from all this? As we said at the outset of this sermon, we attempt to put God "on trial" time after time with question after question about problem after problem and mystery after mystery. Why does God do this or that? Why does he not do this or that? On and on we carry out our questioning of God and his ways and his purposes. Like the Pharisees and the Sadducees we are forever obsessed with the secondary questions concerning God, the life he has given us, the strange twists and turns we encounter in life, etc.
All of this, Jesus tells us in this Gospel, is diversionary. It turns unnecessary attention to the less important issues at the expense of "the bottom line in life." Now mind you, this is not to say that these so-called secondary issues should never or can never be addressed, for they do have their place.
The problem comes when they occupy the front and center of our attention, deflecting our attention away from the central issues. Then they become the tools of the evil one. Jesus says as much in the "seven woes," as they are called, following immediately after our text. In these he condemns the scribes and Pharisees "who sit on Moses' seat. . . . They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders . . . You shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces . . . you make [your proselytes] twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." (Matthew 23:1-15 ESV) On and on Jesus rages against those who have created entire "systems of salvation," ignoring or distorting the true and primary understanding of the Law and the Prophets.
In the Law and the Prophets, Jesus tells them (and us), he is to be found as the heart and core of God's dealing with humankind. It is as though he is presenting in his one question in our text an entire series of penetrating questions by which he is trying to break through the shell of all false understandings of life and assaulting all false hopes.
Is there not a far greater tyrant afoot in the world than Rome? Yet you concentrate your hopes on the appearance of a Davidic power figure who will free you from that tyrant while the harsh oppression of sin holds you in its grasp!
In the face of that imprisonment of sin holding humankind captive, where do you find hope? You raise up rules and laws and dispute about which one is the triggering point for keeping all the rest! Do you truly think that God is waiting for you to get things straight after centuries of experiencing the human inability to straighten out that which humankind has, itself, bent out of shape?
Why are you looking for the fulfillment of your own imaginary Messianic hopes while God's Messiah stands in your midst? You are so obsessed with the idea that power and might are the ultimate freeing agents which the son of David will bring in his hand that the idea of a humble, healing, caring, tender, friend of the broken and poor of the earth simply will not fit your idea of what God is like and what he is doing in your midst.
Do we not hear him questioning us also in the same ways? We, who would question him, now must answer the basic questions he addresses to us as he turns us from our sometimes frivolous, frequently curious for no good reason other than simply to satisfy a type of personal nosiness into the business of God, often self-serving questions - turns us away from all of our questions to the basic stuff of life. Questions like:
What have you done with your life - with all of its time and energy and resources that God has given you? Are you so anxiously busy warding off indebtedness and health-related issues and relational breakdowns and daily stresses - all of which are part of living in a broken world - are you so anxious to ward off all that and the many other worries and concerns of your life that you neglect the one, fundamental baseline of all true living? Again, it must be emphasized, the financial concerns and health of body and personal relationships and the many other stresses that occur in the midst of life are important. This is not to suggest anything less than the fact that those concerns must be confronted, dealt with, addressed as meaningfully as possible. But are they the last word in life?
If all debts were to be paid and the body had achieved a strong and robust form and personal relationships were at their best and stresses were finally reduced to a minimum, would your life then be complete and right? Straightening all those concerns out will not establish any ultimate foundation for life. One's relationship with God does not depend on those things. They can be - and will ultimately be - completely wiped out from under us. What then?
It is this relationship with God, so distressed and torn apart by sin, that is the primary concern of life. It is the repair of this dimension of life that must support and undergird all other efforts at putting life together in the midst of its many stresses and strains. Some churches observe this Sunday as Reformation Sunday. This foundational truth lay at the heart of Martin Luther's efforts to restore the full power of the Gospel in the teaching and life of the church - and it was the heart of the entire movement that sprang from those labors. This is the point to which Jesus directed the attention of all whose minds and hearts had been diverted into secondary issues in our text. He directs our attention also to those basic issues as our lives are interlocked with this text.
Jesus is only days away from his crucifixion as this exchange takes place. That cross was seen by these religious authorities as their answer to his question. They did not question here or elsewhere whether he was, himself, a "son of David." They did question, however, whether David had, in any way, intimated that this "greater than he" would be a divine representative come with a divine purpose of intervening in human affairs on the level that no human other than the Lord made flesh would ever be able to deal with. Jesus' protagonists never dreamed of who it was who should come out of the posterity of David.
By the grace of the Holy Spirit we have been drawn up into the drama of this text through our baptism. In those waters the son of David, Jesus, our Lord, seized hold of us and made us his own, named us with his name. He, the crucified one, has been proclaimed as Savior and Lord - and we have received him as such. He has offered himself to us through bread and wine as the only hope in this sin-torn world. All this serves as the foundation upon which the houses of our lives are built.
The storms of life blow all around us. We turn to God with questions about what makes those winds and why he doesn't stop them - and he turns to us, asking whether we trust him while he sails in the ship with us through those storms. The earth shakes and quakes under us. We ask God why he seems so oblivious to the misery resulting from that shaking and quaking - and he turns to us, asking if we could endure the misery better if we understood" such devastations. "Why not," he asks, "simply rely on me to set all things right in its time?" Humans perpetrate horror after horror upon one another and we cry out for an explanation of why God does not intervene - and he turns to us, asking whether we are willing to become his instruments of peace and reconciliation in the midst of all this torment.
After all, God himself has entered the turmoil, walked through the winds and waters of the storms, endured the agonies of death itself inflicted on his Son, Jesus Christ, and showed us that the turmoil is not the last word, that waters can be walked upon and winds must give way to his word, that even death itself is not so powerful that life cannot emerge on its far side.
Not only does he show this to us as an exhibit, but he draws us up into it, insisting that if and when we keep our attention on the bottom line of life, trusting him to be the last word in life and in death, he will prove to be an unmovable foundation for all that happens around us. His Spirit inspires faith in us. The Lord Jesus walks alongside us. The Father holds out his hand and says ever so simply, but ever so powerfully, just let me hold you in my arms and all will be well.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.