Tag Archives: Kingdom of Heaven

Afterlife, Eternal Life and the Life of the Kingdom

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Domine, quo Vadis? by Annibale Carracci, 1062

When most people who grow up in a Christian church talk about eternal life they are talking about ‘going to heaven’ or what happens to the ‘soul’ after death. Many Christians who faithfully come to worship each week do not realize that this is not the primary direction of Christian hope, instead most of this idea comes from the interaction of Greek philosophical worldview and the language of Christianity. Unfortunately, this focus on the soul’s ascent to be with God in heaven has transformed the profoundly grounded hope of the early followers of Christ into an otherworldly escapism which is often disconnected the horizontal dimension of faith which involve my neighbors and the world.

The Jewish covenantal understanding of their faithful relationship with God and their neighbor is the foundation upon which Jesus builds his vision of life under the kingdom of heaven. Despite Matthew’s frequent use of the kingdom of heaven, instead of the kingdom of God as predominant in Mark and Luke, what Jesus is referring to is God’s kingdom coming to earth. The entire direction of the New Testament’s hope is God’s coming to dwell among God’s people on earth. This is not unique to the New Testament, throughout the Hebrew Scriptures there is in the tabernacle and the temple a place where God can dwell among the people, the prophets dream and the psalms sing about the transformations that will come into the world when God reigns not only among Israel but among all the peoples. Just as the people of Israel were to be an alternative community among the empires of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia and Rome, these followers of Christ were to be an alternative community with alternative values to Rome or whatever society they found themselves within. When Paul, for example, in Philippians 3: 20 can state that, “our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” He is talking about living as person of an alternative community, the kingdom of heaven, and embodying those values within the space of the Roman empire and teaching others to do the same. Paul’s descriptions of the future glory in Romans 8: 18-27 beautifully dreams the interactive way that the unveiling of the children of God, those who are living under God’s calling and have been transformed for the sake of the world, is precisely for the liberation of the creation (not an escape from it). It is also why Paul ends 1 Corinthians, with the exception of the final travel plans and greeting, with a long discussion about the implication of the resurrection of Christ for the resurrection of all people. Paul is specifically arguing against a ‘non-bodily’ and ‘non earthly’ resurrection, even though many in the Hellenistic (Greek speaking) world would have embraced the idea of the ‘salvation of the soul’ willingly and viewed this bodily resurrection as scandalous. The book of Revelation is often thought of as the destruction of the earth, but what it narrates is the final coming of God to earth and the last but futile resistance of the forces aligned against God’s coming kingdom.

When the gospels speak of ‘eternal life’, the phrase that is translated is the Greek zoe aion. Zoe is where we get the feminine name Zoe from and it means ‘life.’ Aion is where we get the English word ‘eon’ from and while it is often translated ‘eternal’ but when most Christians think of ‘eternal life’ they think of life in heaven. For another perspective on how to think about the term ‘eon,’ it occurs as a noun at the end of Matthew’s gospel, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” While some might argue that Jesus really is talking about being with the disciples for ‘eternity,’ what I believe Jesus is telling the disciples is, “I will be will be with you to the end of this age” which will end when the kingdom of heaven/God comes to earth.

In Matthew, Mark and Luke when zoe aion is only used when either the rich young man (all three gospels) or in Luke when a scribe asks (Luke 10:25) Jesus always points them back to the commandments of how they are to live in this life. In both cases the question is not about how to get to heaven, but how to participate in the life of the kingdom of God in the present and Jesus’ answer reflects that earthly reality. John’s gospel uses this term more than the other three gospels combined, but John has long been associated with a ‘realized eschatology’ where the promises of God’s kingdom are already being realized. For example, in John 17 Jesus can state,

since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17: 2-3)

“Eternal life” in John’s gospel is already realized in knowing Jesus and the God who sends Jesus. This life is revealed by participating in the faith and life of Jesus

While the New Testament can use a diverse set of language to talk about the approaching of God’s kingdom to this world, the movement is always God’s movement towards the world instead of the escape of the soul to join God. There are at best hints of some immediate experience of an afterlife and they often come in parables (like the rich man and Lazarus in Luke’s gospel) or when Jesus (again in Luke) tells the bandit on the cross “today you will be with me in paradise.” Portions of the church in the last several decades have begun to rediscover the centrality of the resurrection and the coming of God to dwell among the earth instead of the otherworldly focus of much of the church in the previous centuries. It is a subject that pastors and teachers have to approach delicately because it is a drastic change to the imaginations of many of the faithful, but it also invites the faithful into a closer relationship with the world and with the neighbors God has placed within it. In Paul’s rich language it is a call to join in the groaning labor pains of creation while we and the world await the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:23)

Matthew 19: 16-30 The Life of the Coming Age

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Matthew 19: 16-30

Parallel Mark 10: 17-31; Luke 18: 18-30

16 Then someone came to him and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” 17 And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” 18 He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; 19 Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 20 The young man said to him, “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” 21 Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” 22 When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, “Then who can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”

27 Then Peter said in reply, “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” 28 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

This encounter with the young man with an abundance of possessions provides a rich opportunity to reconsider several elements of Matthew’s gospel in a fuller light. Unfortunately Matthew’s usage of the kingdom of heaven in many places and what many translations render as ‘eternal life’ combined with the long history of the church’s proclamation about heaven being a place where one’s soul departs to after death makes this passage sound like it is primarily concerned about life after death, but that presents a stumbling block to hearing what is at stake in the dialogue between this young man, Jesus, and the disciples. All of the gospels are primarily concerned with life on earth, and while Jesus’ teaching does have an element of judgment and reward beyond this age it is, Jesus never focuses on Gehenna or heaven as destinations but is instead focused on the kingdom of heaven’s approach to earth. It is the interaction between the alternative values of the kingdom of heaven and the values of the empires of the earth that leaves both the wealthy young man and Jesus’ disciples perplexed.

The someone who approached Jesus, who we later learn is a wealthy young man, asks Jesus about what ‘good he might do in order that he might have the life of the coming age.’ There is a lot in this first line that needs unpacking and perhaps much acquired baggage that many modern Christians must leave behind so they might enter into a richer hearing of this interaction. The young man’s addresses to Jesus as ‘teacher’ should alert us that the young man’s understanding of who Jesus is comes from the perspective of how he views him within the structures of society and not with eyes that are open to who Jesus is. In Matthew’s gospel the term teacher[1] prepares us that this young man will leave unsatisfied even though Jesus will extend the invitation to this man to follow him. The question about ‘what good I might do’ (many translations limit this to state what good ‘deed’ he might do, but the question is broader than a single good ‘deed’) ‘in order that I might[2] have the life of the coming age.’ This young man has seen something of the life that Jesus and his disciples are living and he comes seeking a way that he might share with them in their experience of the kingdom of heaven’s approach. Before we encounter Jesus’ answer, let’s examine this idea of the ‘life of the coming age.’

When most Christians hear this story they think the young man is asking Jesus what he needs to do to get to heaven, but what this young man sees is the life that Jesus is partaking of now and he is asking how he can partake of it. The primary reason I render this ‘the life of the coming age’ is that our understanding of ‘eternal life’ often obscures what the New Testament is talking about (see Afterlife, Eternal Life and the Life of the Kingdom). This young man knows there is something missing in his own life, and he has come to Jesus who he sees as a teacher who can give him the answer that will fill the emptiness that apparently his possessions and current life are not.

Jesus’ initial response to the young man both points back to the center of the Jewish faith but also invites the hearer question Jesus’ identity beyond being only a teacher. The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) is the central confession of the Jewish people where they confess “The LORD is our God, the LORD is one” (or alone as the NRSV renders) and the Psalms and the prophets often link the LORD as the one who is good.[3] While the young man is called to center of God and God’s commandments as the revelation of goodness, we have also seen throughout Matthew’s gospel the continual drawing of Jesus’ authority and God’s authority close together and so the question of “Why do you ask me what is good?” also asks “how do you see my words and God’s words linked?” The young man is still viewing Jesus through the lens of a teacher, so he focuses only on the keeping of the commandments by asking a clarifying question of “which ones?”

Jesus’ answer joins Leviticus 19:18 to the commandments dealing with one’s relationship with others, emphasizing the communal nature of this life that the young man is desiring to enter into with the interesting omission of the command on coveting. The young man still realizes something is missing and desires what he is lacking, and this is where the command of coveting enters the discussion. Jesus’ final words to this young man are, “If you will/desire (Greek thelo) to be whole/complete (this is again the Greek telios[4]), go…” Will/desire has a stronger force than simply wishing for wholeness, there is an active element of the heart (the instrument of will in Hebrew thought) working towards that end. Again, we often think of perfection in terms of an individualistic moral perfection which would be alien to biblical thought which is communal. The term wholeness or completeness better captures what Jesus is offering this young man. The young man realizes something is missing, but what he fails to comprehend is that finding this new treasure will mean giving up all that he owns to possess it like the one who finds a treasure in a field or the merchant who finds a pearl of exceeding value. (13:44-46) The command to sell his possessions, give to the poor, and having a storehouse in heaven echoes the Sermon on the Mount when it talks about possessions (6:19-21) but it also is accompanied by the calling that the disciples received (4: 18-22) The lure of wealth (13: 22) perhaps chokes the seed of this calling to follow Jesus and the young man departs disappointed and the disciples remain perplexed.

As the young man departs, Jesus turns to his disciples who even though they have left behind their lives to follow him still remain bound to thinking in the terms of the empires of this world. If a person who is young, wealthy, Jewish and male has great difficulty entering the kingdom of heaven, a person who in the eyes of Judaism has every privilege, then how can a humble child? The values of this kingdom are truly upside down: where the last are first and the first are last. The saying about the camel passing through the eye of a needle is not about some mythical gate where a camel must be unburdened and kneel down to pass through (that is a story about a gate that never existed and obscures the meaning of the image) but instead the image points to an impossibility. A camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle, nor do a rich men give up their wealth and privilege without divine intervention. Yet, with the advent of the kingdom of heaven God is at work making incredible things possible.

Peter, on behalf of the disciples, asks what their reward is for what they have given up. Peter still thinks in the value system of the world and is focusing on what he and the other disciples have left behind instead of what they have gained. I do not say this as a critique of Peter, few if any followers of Jesus completely unlearn the values of the world they grew up with, but Jesus points Peter and the disciples to the ‘renewal of all things’ where they will have positions of honor and the investment they made in the kingdom of heaven will be revealed as they participate in this life of the coming age. But being the greatest in the kingdom is like being a child (18:1-5) or a servant  or slave (20:26-27), it is the upside down values of a kingdom which approaches the earth, of a Lord who serves, where the first are last and the last are first. This vision of the kingdom taps into the hope for the regathering of all of Israel, but as we will learn at the end of the gospel it will continue with the spread beyond Israel to all the nations.

[1] In Matthew when someone refers to Jesus as teacher it often indicated either that the person is challenging Jesus’ authority or that their insight into who Jesus is (faith) is not open to the answer he will give them (8: 18, 9:11; 12: 38; 17: 24; 22:16; 22:24; 22:36).

[2] The verb is an aorist (undefined) subjunctive which is the mood of possibility often expressed with ‘may’ or ‘might’ (Mounce 1993, 282-283)

[3] See for example Psalm 34:8; 100:5; 119: 68; 135: 3; 136:1; Jeremiah 33:11; Lamentations 3: 25, 28 and Nahum 1:7

[4] I’ve written about telios in both Perfection and Blamelessness in the Bible and when I discuss Matthew 5:48

Matthew 19: 13-15 Infants of the Kingdom of Heaven

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By Carl Bloch – The Athenaeum: Home – info – pic, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25991809

Matthew 19: 13-15

Parallels Mark 10: 13-16; Luke 18: 15-17

13 Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; 14 but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” 15 And he laid his hands on them and went on his way.

This beloved passage is often taught in Sunday schools to demonstrate Jesus’ care for children and when I was growing up was often accompanied by the song ‘Jesus loves the little children.’ While the sentiment of Jesus caring about children remains true, the placing of this story in Matthew’s gospel also highlights the barriers that adults often place between families seeking blessing for their young children and Jesus. The question of divorce and relationships naturally flows to the question of children and their place within the community. As we saw in Matthew 18:1-5, even when Jesus is directly addressing the disciples the crowds and the presence of children is never far away from Jesus and those with him. Communities of ‘little faith ones’ are to be places where ‘little children’ are welcome, for the kingdom of heaven is for them as well.

In this kingdom of heaven where the first are last and the last are first a rich man has a difficult time entering the kingdom (those who in the society have the highest value) but infants (the Greek paidion is an infant or very young child) are those who belong naturally. The disciples are still learning how to discern the boundaries of this community and become the very stumbling blocks Jesus mentions in the previous chapter when he places a child in their midst. The disciples don’t merely ‘speak sternly’ to the crowd, the Greek epitimao is rebuke. This is what Jesus does to the wind on the sea (8:26) or to cast out a demon (17:18), or when he orders crowds not to make him known (12:16). Perhaps more directly it is what Peter does to Jesus when Jesus foretells his death (18:22) and what the crowds will do to attempt to silence the two blind men crying out for Jesus’ intervention. (20:31) The disciples are attempting to silence these infants and those who bring them, but Jesus’ voice overrules them. Matthew removes the indignation that Jesus’ expresses in Mark, and perhaps for Matthew we see Jesus continuing to model and teach for his disciples the way they are to embody. Little ones are not to have barriers placed before them, disciples are not to become stumbling blocks (see 18: 6-10) and babies and young children have a place in this kingdom.

This community of Jesus is an alternative to the ways communities that formed the imaginations of the crowds and the disciples. Children become an example for adults of what the kingdom of heaven is like and the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is like a humble child (18:3), lost sheep are sought after while the rest of the herd is left on the mountain (18:12-14), sinners are sought after multiple times with the chance of reconciliation and those who exclude others invoke their lord’s anger (18:15-35). It is a community where women are protected in relationship at the cost of formerly assumed rights by men to dissolve a relationship (19:1-12) and children have a place in the kingdom while rich, able bodied men find it impossible (outside of God’s intervention) to enter. It is a strange place where those who renounce their maleness (as eunuchs do) and who are separated from the normal path of marriage and procreation have a place in this kingdom of heaven, and those who renounce family and fields will receive a hundred fold and encounter the life of this new age.

Matthew 16: 21-28 The Way of the Cross Part 1

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Domine, quo Vadis? by Annibale Carracci, 1062

Matthew 16: 21-28

21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? 27 “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28 Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Titles in Matthew’s gospel, while important and demonstrating some understanding of who Jesus is, can only take us so far. In the previous section we have the titles Son of Man, Messiah/Christ and son of the living God all applied to Jesus, as well as the prophetic identity assigned to Jesus by the crowds. But these titles only have meaning in the context of how Jesus will inhabit these titles: Jesus will be prophetic but is not limited to how John, Jeremiah or Elijah enacted that identity; Jesus will be Messiah/Christ/King but not in the way that Peter or many others expect; and Matthew continues to hint that the title Son of God and Son of Man reflect more than just one divinely appointed. People of great faith, like the Canaanite woman or the centurion may have unique insights into what Jesus’ presence means for their situation, but for those called to be disciples one can only understand Jesus’ identity in relation to his teaching and actions as they continue to follow his path.

The focus now turns to Jerusalem. Although the next couple chapters involve actions and teaching in Galilee, it becomes a farewell tour of places and locations where much of the ministry of Jesus has occurred, because now for the first time Jesus indicates Jerusalem as the final destination of his ministry. Peter has just declared that Jesus is the Messiah, and it is natural that the Messiah of the Jewish people should go to Jerusalem and take up the seat once occupied by David. Yet, Jesus does not describe the journey to Jerusalem as a coronation but rather a road of great suffering and death. This first of three predictions of Jesus’ suffering and death in Jerusalem drastically changes the triumphal scene of Peter’s confession. Even though we hear Jesus’ state he will rise after three days it isn’t surprising that this is not understood by his disciples any better than the sign of Jonah was understood by the Pharisees and Sadducees.

M. Eugene Boring insightfully recognized that Peter’s action of taking Jesus aside and rebuking him could be read as Peter misunderstanding what Messiahship meant to Jesus, personal love for the person of Jesus and wanting to spare him from suffering or both. (NIB VIII: 349) What Peter intends as a blessing, the Greek ileos is better translated ‘God be merciful’ rather than ‘God forbid’, asking God not to bring this suffering upon Jesus becomes instead a stumbling block. Words of mercy intended to protect God’s anointed instead become words of temptation to pull the chosen one from what is necessary. Peter may misunderstand, but his words evoke compassion for Jesus.

Yet, even these words of blessing can become twisted to attempt to alter the way that Jesus embodies the identity of Messiah and Son of God and to become a stumbling block (scandalon). The title of Satan returns us to the temptation of Christ in Matthew 4: 1-11, where the devil attempts to test Jesus’ identity as Son of God. The devil’s temptations to avoid suffering, to give a sign and to take up worldly power all seem at odds with this necessary path to Jerusalem where the only sign is the sign of Jonah and suffering will come from those who wield religious and political power. Satan as a title for the devil originates with ‘the satan’ which is used as a title in Job 1-2 for ‘the accuser.’ Now Peter, albeit unintentionally, occupies the role of accusing Jesus of misunderstanding his place. Now Jesus turns to Peter to correct him.

There is a contrast between Jesus’ dismissal of the devil in 4:10 and his words to Peter in 16:23. In both cases Jesus tells the tempting one to go away (hupage) but here Jesus adds a location “behind me.”  Peter is called to occupy the position of following Jesus as one who learns rather than being dismissed like the devil or left behind like Pharisees and Sadducees. Peter will have to learn that his understanding of divine and human things are incorrect and that God’s way will be learned by following this Messiah who moves towards the suffering and death rather than towards human conceptions of power and glory.

Jesus’ words to his followers about denying themselves, taking up their cross and following were challenging to his initial followers but perhaps even more so in our culture that avoids suffering at all costs. Leszak Kolakowsky’s description of our culture as “a culture of analgesics” where we are “entertaining ourselves to death” by our endless distractions (Case-Winters, 2015, p. 211) rings true. The modern world presents many ways to numb and distract ourselves away from our callings and to present us with alternatives to a life that is difficult but ultimately worth dedicating ourselves to. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words in a Detroit speech in 1963 that, “I submit to you that if a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live” resonates with this calling of the men and women who follow the path of Jesus to be willing to take up their own crosses, deny the distractions and stumbling blocks and well meaning friends who try to change their paths and to place their life in the service of something worth living and dying for.

In a culture of revenge, where violence is repaid with more violence, Jesus calls his disciples to a way of life that ‘turns the other cheek and loves one’s enemies.’ We, like Peter and the rest of the disciples, are called into a discipleship which walks the path that Jesus walks. The crosses we bear may be different, the suffering we endure may be unique to our position and our time, but we do this as part of a community of people who desire to follow Jesus. There may be times where those who are among us, often for well intentioned reasons, place a stumbling block before us or who point us to the myriad of distractions and numbing agents that are a part of our culture. There may be times where the tempter attempts to turn us away from the path that leads to the cross.  The word the NRSV translates as life is psuche which is normally rendered ‘soul.’ The Hebrew people didn’t have a concept of a ‘detachable’ soul which goes into the afterlife, but the ‘soul’ was the very essence of what one’s life. The concept of selling one’s ‘soul’ in Hebrew would be to betray the life one is called to live instead of being a transaction where one damned one’s immortal life.

Ultimately there is a hope beyond the present that this life of discipleship yearns towards, some experience of the kingdom of heaven’s infiltration into the earth. Jesus’ words about the coming of God to reward those who choose this life of denial to find their lives embodies a hope for God’s action to overturn the injustice of the world. In Jűrgen Moltmann’s memorable phrase, “A theology of the cross without the resurrection is hell itself.” (Moltmann, 1981, pp. 41-42) This path of suffering without hope would merely be some masochistic philosophy and this suffering should produce not only a hope, but in Paul’s words a ‘hope that does not disappoint us.’ (Romans 5:6) The path which involves taking up ones cross involves a hope that the follower will share in the glory of the Son of Man coming in his glory. How Jesus’ early disciples heard the promise that some of those standing there would not taste death before Jesus came in his kingdom could relate to the Transfiguration, paradoxically the cross, or the resurrection, but as those who still attempt to follow the path of the crucified Lord we also hope in our own way to experience both moments of insight into the glory of God and some future realization of the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 10: 34-42 Conflict, Wages and Hospitality for the Followers of Jesus

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James Tissot, The Exhortation to the Apostles (between 1886 and 1894)

Matthew 10: 34-42

Parallels Luke 22: 36; Luke 14: 25-27; 17:33; Luke 10: 16; Mark 9: 41

34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;

36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; 42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

As the followers of Jesus are sent out as herald of the approaching kingdom of heaven, they will meet resistance from those who have aligned themselves with the kingdom of the world. Although Jesus will practice non-violence his reception by others will not always be peaceful and for the disciples who will follow him they also must be prepared for the reality that their vocation could cost them their families, their security, their reputation and even their lives. For a community that is experiencing persecution for their faithfulness to Jesus’ call this, like the rest of this chapter, could be heard as a gracious affirmation of their faithfulness amid their struggle. It may help them link their suffering with the suffering of Jesus and may encourage them to hope, in Paul’s language, that if they have suffered the loss of all things, they may regard the things lost as rubbish so that they may gain Christ and be found in him. (Philippians 3: 8-9)

Although Matthew 21: 34 (and the similar command in Luke 22: 36) have sometimes been taken out of context for Christians who wanted an authorization for owning weapons or using violence to read the text in this way is to misunderstand who Jesus is and what Jesus represents. In the Lukan passage, which is set immediately before Jesus’ betrayal, Jesus’ response when the disciples take his words literally and point to the two swords that they have is probably ironic when he says, “It is enough.” I read this passage as one of the times where Jesus does become perplexed by his followers inability to understand he is not talking about using swords to impose one’s will (this is heightened in Luke 22: 49-51 when Jesus responds to the disciple’s use of a sword by rebuking him and saying “No more of this” and then healing the injured slave). Violence is not Jesus’ way, but neither will his message literally throw peace upon the earth. The sword here refers to the conflict which will occur between the disciples and those who they interact with. Even the foundational relationships of family are not exempt from rupture and betrayal over differing receptions of Jesus’ proclamation.

Family may be important for many modern people, but familial relationships were central to one’s identity in the ancient world. Throughout most of history one’s identity was handed on from one’s family, and this is one of the reasons Matthew spends the first seventeen verses of the gospel narrating Jesus’ family tree.  Yet, in this new community where one’s relationship comes from Christ and brothers and sisters and mothers are those who are in the presence of Jesus this displaces the central position of family in one’s identity. Relationships between parents and children and daughters and mothers-in-law may be places where disciples experience the heartbreak of betrayal and brokenness. Jesus is demanding the central place in his followers’ lives. The familial love (this is the Greek phileo type of love, where Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love gets its name) between parents, children and siblings is to come second to the commitment to Jesus.

Those who follow Jesus may have to suffer for that willingness to follow. Just as Jesus may be slandered by being associated with Beelzebul and those associated with him will also be slandered, so those who follow the one who goes to the cross may find their own crosses waiting for them. Most of the twelve disciples named at the beginning of this chapter are crucified in some manner. The famous paradox of those who find their life will lose it and those who lose their life for Christ’s sake will find it is a little more direct in the Greek. The word translated ‘life’ is the Greek psuche which is normally translated ‘soul.’ In Hebrew thought the ‘soul’ was not detachable from one’s life but was the center of who one is (it would not have the body/soul dichotomy of later Greek and even Christian thought). If one attempts to find one’s soul, one’s raison d’etre (reason for existing) one ironically destroys it (Greek apollumi-to destroy, ruin, kill) but if one’s original reason for existing is destroyed because of Christ they find their reason for life.  In Martin Luther King Jr.’s memorable quote from a speech in Detroit on June 23, 1963, “There are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they are worth dying for. And I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live”

These sayings are placed in a narrative context where the disciples are being sent forth to be received into peoples’ homes, and in a culture where hospitality has a high value, what Jesus states that receiving an emissary of the kingdom of heaven is equivalent to receiving God. Whoever welcomes a disciple of Jesus welcomes Jesus, and whoever welcomes Jesus welcomes the God who sends Jesus. This is a theme that will come back in Matthew 25:31-46 where receiving one of the ‘least of these’ is equivalent to receiving Jesus. Jesus is found among the little ones who need to receive care and hospitality from the households and communities they encounter. In addition to the high honor of receiving God there is also a sharing in the wages (Greek misthos is better translated wages than reward here) of the prophet or righteous person. The wages of a prophet or righteous person may not be pleasant in terms of what they receive when they are acting as a prophet or acting righteously in a world that doesn’t practice Jesus’ understanding of righteousness. Those who shelter a prophet or a righteous person may also receive the ‘wages’ delivered by the society towards the prophet. But wages here has a primarily positive sense in the light of the approaching kingdom of God where God will ultimately be the one who rewards both those sending and those receiving the messengers.

Even though there is not the verbal linkage in the Greek between little one (Greek mikros) and the ‘little faith ones’ (Greek oligopistos) there is still a thematic parallel, especially when linking little ones and disciples.  Little ones here probably goes beyond just the scope of welcoming the messengers of Jesus and probably extends to the broader ideas of hospitality grounded in the vision of what Israel and now the community of the faithful is to be towards the rest of the world. The community of little faith ones gathered around Jesus are to be those who offer water as a sign of compassion to those who need water. Welcoming a disciple in hospitality means welcoming Jesus but as we will be reminded in Matthew 25: 31-46 the followers of Jesus will be those who welcome those who are hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick or in prison. Sometimes the ones in need will be disciples needing hospitality extended to them because they are strangers coming into towns they do not know. Other times the ones in need will be the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and those who are persecuted. The community which Jesus is sending the disciples out to find is the community that the people of Israel were set apart to embody. The disciples are to go looking among the lost sheep of Israel for the remnant still practicing the hospitality that the law expected them to practice.

The Imperfect Church and the Kingdom of Heaven

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The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel by Louis Daguerre (1824)

One of the tensions in any type of interpretation of scripture that embraces a communal perspective is the distance between the church or whatever type of community of faith the individual is a part of and the vision of community outlined in the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew’s gospel as a whole. The church in all of its forms: the local congregation and the various denominational (and even non-denominational assemblies) are communities in need of reconciliation, healing, forgiveness, reform, compassion, grace, and as institutions they often are as invested in the kingdom of the world as they are in the kingdom of heaven. This is a place where I think a greater familiarity with scripture helps me to live with this tension. The people of God have always struggled to live into their vocation: from Israel’s call to be a treasured possession, a priestly kingdom and a holy nation (Exodus 19: 5-6 )to the quick transition in the early church from a community where the believers hold everything in common, distribute to any in need and eat with glad and generous hearts (Acts 2: 44-45; 4: 32-33) into communities like Corinth, Galatia, and the seven churches mentioned in Revelation. This familiarity can lead to a pessimism about the human potential to embody these seemingly utopic visions of community, and there are times where even a person who loves the church may consider walking away after encountering the brokenness that is a part of many church and religious communities but I believe the scriptures also offer us another perspective that is a reason for hope. The God who the scriptures point to is the reason I still think speaking, dreaming and imagining the kingdom of heaven among people who are ensnared by the lures of wealth and the cares of the world still makes sense.

Learning from Israel’s Relationship with the LORD the God of Israel in Scriptures

Israel’s relationship with God that we see in the scriptures is complicated, and yet God and those called to speak for God to the people (and to God on behalf of the people) refuse to abandon the covenant people. Israel’s God desires for Israel to be an alternative to the models of acquisition and accumulation of power practiced by Egypt, Canaan, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome and the rest of the nations that they will encounter, but frequently Israel (despite the witness of the Law, prophets and wisdom literature) turned to these attractive alternatives practiced by their neighbors or (in some cases) masters. The bulk of the Hebrew Scriptures lives in this tension between “the LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression of sin,” and “yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children, and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.” (Exodus 34: 6-7) God is a God who is merciful, gracious, abundant love, steadfast faithfulness and forgiveness and God is a God who refuses to be taken for granted, to live with continued disobedience, to allow the way things are because of human greed, destruction and idolatry to continue unchecked. Moses stands between faithless community and the God who desires faithfulness. The prophets also are called to stand between a community that has forgotten or misused their identity and the God who desires them to return to their calling.

Yet, God is for the people of Israel a God of hope. God’s anger at their failure will not endure forever. God can take the desolate boneyard of their failures and knit them together and breath new breath into them and make them a new people. God can take their hearts of stone and turn them into soft, malleable hearts and even write God’s law upon their hearts so that it may order their lives. God can take the brokenness of their community in their exile and give them a vision of homecoming and return where once again God brings life out of death and hope out of humiliation. God has chosen to be a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression of sin. Even in the community’s failures God’s steadfast love and faithfulness remains.

Learning from the ‘little faith ones’ and the ekklesia in the New Testament

In Matthew’s gospel the disciples are not portrayed as paragons of unwavering faithfulness, or even people of great faith. The disciples are the ‘little faith ones’ as I render the translation of oligopistos throughout this reading. They misunderstand Jesus, fail to act in line with Jesus teaching, abandon Jesus at the critical moment of betrayal and still these ‘little faith ones’ are the ones that Jesus chooses to embody Israel and to carry on the ministry once Jesus is done. Matthew is kinder to the disciples than Mark’s unrelentingly negative portrayal of these followers drawn into the close circle around Jesus, but they are still fallible and yet they are the foundation for the community to come.

Ekklesia is the Greek word often translated church in the New Testament. Matthew is the only gospel to use this term and to talk about the ekklesia.[1] While the term means assembly, in the New Testament it is often the community of believers and so bearing a common vocation with the church. Even though the early communities of Christians would seem strange to those who have worked and lived with almost two thousand years of church growth and tradition, they like Israel before them, struggled to embody the vocation they were called to. Peter, Paul, James and John were not able to establish communities of faith able to easily embody the kingdom values of Jesus and yet, I believe that God has not abandoned or forgotten either Israel or the church in all their imperfections.

The theological tradition that shaped me as a follower of Christ focused on God’s grace in Christ instead of the human ability to faithfully embody God’s commandment. Maybe it is my own deeply ingrained Lutheran theological identity that embraces the paradox that I can be at the same time justified (to use a Pauline term) and a sinner[2], and that the church is filled with these justified sinners and sinners who continue to rely upon God’s forgiveness and mercy. Luther once said, when explaining the petition of the Lord’s prayer about the coming of God’s kingdom, “God’s kingdom comes on its own without prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come about in us.” (Luther, 1978, p. 34)

I do think there is a vision in the Sermon on the Mount of the kind of community that God calls his followers to embody. God has a dream or a vision for us, and it is a vision for life instead of destruction, of wholeness instead of brokenness. We may be ‘little faith ones’ caught between the kingdom of God’s approach and the kingdoms of this world, and yet I do think that in some way God is at work in these words bringing this kingdom of heaven into being among us. Going into Matthew’s gospel and the rest of scripture and seeking the wisdom it offers does change us and perhaps we become the salt and light that (albeit imperfectly) preserve the community and the world around it and shine a light into the darkness of the world. Yet, the kingdom of heaven’s approach is based on the steadfast love and faithfulness (or to use the New Testament’s favored term grace) of God instead of the perfect righteousness of God’s followers at any particular time and place.

[1] Matthew 16: 18 where Jesus declares to Peter “on this rock I will build my ekklesia (church) and Matthew 18:17 in the context of attempting reconciliation with a brother or sister who is unrepentant, “and if the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the  ekklesia (church); and if the offender refuses to listen even to the ekklesia (church), let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. The other two times the NRSV uses church (18:15 and 21) the term is adelphos, literally brother and commonly rendered in the NRSV inclusively as brother and sister unless context dictates the referenced individuals are male.

[2]  Martin Luther’s famous paradox referring to Christians as simul justus et peccator, popularly simultaneously saint and sinner, literally simultaneously justified and sinner.

Gehenna, Tartaros, Sheol, Hades and Hell

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Mauricio Garcia Vega “Visita al infierno’ shared by artist under Creative Commons 3.0

 

For many Christians the concept of hell has a lot of baggage associated with it. In the New Testament Gehenna, Sheol, or Tartaros which are translated Hades (Sheol) or Hell (Gehenna or Tartaros) did not carry the same level of imagined meaning to its hearers. The New Testament is not primarily concerned with heaven and hell as locations for the afterlife reward and punishment, which is how most people hear these terms today.

The Afterlife in the Hebrew Scriptures

For most of ancient Judaism heaven was the place that God reigned from, but it was not a place where humans (except for a select few like Elijah and Enoch) were brought to be with God. The Hebrew Scriptures are primarily concerned with the relationship between God and the people of God in this life. The blessings of covenant faithfulness were to be experienced in the provision of God for the people and the curse of covenant unfaithfulness was experienced in the struggle and strife that occurred through invasion, famine and illness. There is a long history of lament when the blessings of covenant faithfulness seem to be denied by God unfairly, but this faithful protest to God still expected God’s action within the lifetime of the prophet or poet calling for God’s action. There is a concept of Sheol, a place where the dead rest, but it is not a place of punishment or reward but simply a place where the dead are. Two quick examples of the concept of Sheol in the Hebrew Scriptures: it occurs frequently in Psalms and Proverbs as a place where the dead go and where the faithful one will end up if God does not intervene. In Psalm 6:5 the author attempts to bargain with God to deliver them because, “For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?” Additionally, there was an understanding that, even though it was prohibited magic for the Jewish people, a medium was summoning the shade of a dead one from somewhere which we see in the story of Saul consulting the medium at Endor. (1 Samuel 28)

Belief about death would evolve near the end of the time where the Hebrew Scriptures were written because the experience of the people appeared to be in tension with the promise of covenant faithfulness. As Samuel Ballentine, quoting Peter Berger, can state:

“All socially constructed worlds are inherently precarious,” P. Berger observes. They are precarious because the socially managed consensus concerning right and wrong, good and evil, actions and abilities that are acceptable and those that exceed tolerable limits, is constantly threatened by chaos. (Ballentine, 1993, p. 139)

At the end of Isaiah, we see the first idea of an everlasting punishment for those who have rebelled against God. This is set within the larger context of an ingathering of the nations where all flesh worships before God but there is articulated a judgment for those who rebel against God that goes beyond this life:

And they shall go out and look at the dead bodies of the people who have rebelled against me; for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh. (Isaiah 66:24)

In the Jewish writings like 2 Maccabees, Enoch and 2 Esdras, which are written between the time of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, we see the evolution of the resurrection of the dead but at the time of Jesus this is not a universal belief (the Pharisees and Jesus accept it but the Sadducees do not.)

In the New Testament

Tartaros occurs only in 2 Peter 2:4 and refers to a place where the rebellious angels are sent. This is combined in later theology to make hell the domain of the devil and the fallen angels, but this evolution has not occurred at the time when the New Testament is written. Satan has fallen from heaven, but his place seems to be on the earth at the time of the gospels. There is the concept of the Abyss in Revelation as well as angels and demonic forces which are unleashed from the sea and the earth as well as punishment in the lake of fire in Revelation 20: 11-15 where the devil and those who align themselves with him end up.

Sheol in the New Testament is translated Hades and is often in parallel with death. It seems to serve a similar function to the use of Sheol in the Hebrew Scriptures as a place where people are brought down to at death, but it also becomes personified as an entity (along with death) that is resisting God’s reign. In Matthew it is used twice, once in reference to Capernaum which has had ample opportunities to hear Jesus’ message and repent but since there has not been repentance will be brought down to Hades (Matthew 11:23) and most famously after the declaration of Peter:

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. (Matthew 16: 18)

Gehenna is used more in Matthew than in any other book of the New Testament (Matthew 5:22, 29, 30 [parallel Mark 9:43, 45,47] 10:28 [Parallel Luke 12: 5]; 18:9; 23: 15 and 33). The only uses outside of Matthew and Mark and Luke is James 3:6 (speaking about the tongues ability to set on fire being itself set on fire by Gehenna). To further explore Matthew’s concept, I’ve listed each place Matthew uses the idea of Gehenna.

22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire… 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell. Matthew 5: 22, 29, 30 [parallel Mark 9:43, 45,47]

28 Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10:28 [Parallel Luke 12: 5]

8If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands and two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire (Matthew 18: 8-9)

15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. Matthew 23: 15

33 You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? Matthew 23: 33

Additionally Matthew does have a concept of the age of punishment in contrast to the age of life in Matthew 18:8, 19: 16, 29 and 25: 41 and 46. (I am intentionally not using the NRSV and most modern translations’ usage of eternal punishment and eternal life because these also have a lot of baggage in the Christian tradition).

Deror Avi, Picture of the Valley of Hinnom (2007) Shared by photographer under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2

Jesus, especially in Matthew and the synoptic tradition, does include punishment for those who choose the path of the wicked. The gospels use the term Gehenna a term that originates withthe valley of Hinnom, which was considered a cursed place and a place where trash from Jerusalem was burned but it also is used as the opposite of the kingdom of heaven. Choose the kingdom of heaven or choose Gehenna, it is a choice between wisdom and foolishness. I think it is difficult to argue that Jesus does not have some conception of a judgment that goes beyond this life that parallels the resurrection that also transcends this life. Yet, rather than giving us terrifying descriptions to fuel the imaginations, Jesus uses the term in a way that the people of his time would understand and that we can only approach through the accumulated tradition and imagination of the church and artists. Jesus doesn’t focus on Gehenna or heaven as a destination, instead he is focused on the kingdom of heaven’s approach to earth. Gehenna is the place that those who oppose the kingdom of heaven find themselves.

How do we as Christians almost two thousand years after Jesus death and resurrection approach this concept of judgement and hell? Here is some wisdom I can share that I’ve learned from other wise thinkers on our tradition. The first comes from Miroslav Volf in his work Exclusion and Embrace where in the final chapter he makes the point:

Most people who insist on God’s “nonviolence” cannot resist using violence themselves (or tacitly sanctioning its use by others). They deem the talk of God’s judgment irreverent, but think nothing of entrusting judgment into human hands, persuaded presumably that this is less dangerous and more humane than to believe in a God who judges! That we should bring “down the powerful from their thrones” (Luke 1: 51-52) seems responsible; the God should do the same, as the song of that revolutionary Virgin explicitly states, seems crude. And so violence thrives, secretly nourished by belief in a God who refuses to wield the sword.

My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone (which is where a paper that underlies this chapter was originally delivered). Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward violence. The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you would discover it takes the quiet suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind. (Volf, 1996, pp. 303-304)

Additionally, I would add the way we often use the concept of eternal damnation and salvation incorrectly, something I learned from Lesslie Newbingin:

In the debate about Christianity and the world’s religions it is fair to say that there has been an almost unquestioned assumption that the only question is, “What happens to the non-Christian after death?” I want to affirm that this is the wrong question and that as long as it remains the central question we shall never come to the truth. And this for three reasons:

    1. First, and simply, it is the wrong question because it is a question to which God alone has the right to give the answer….
    2. The second reason for rejecting this way of putting the question is that it is based on an abstraction. By concentrating on the fate of the individual soul after death, it abstracts the soul from the full reality of the human person as an actor and sufferer in the ongoing history of the world…
    3. The third reason for rejecting this way of putting the question is the most fundamental: it is that the question starts with the individual and his or her need to be assured of ultimate happiness, and not with God and his glory.(Newbingin, 1989, pp. 177-179)

Ultimately questions of heaven and hell, salvation and damnation are not in my control, and that is something I am thankful for. I do trust that God is wiser than I am in judgment and that ultimately the injustice in this world will not outlast God’s justice. The world’s violence will not ultimately thwart God’s kingdom of peace. Beyond this I can accept that there is an opposite to the kingdom of heaven that Jesus announces to those who hear him, but instead of focusing on Gehenna and the path of foolishness I attempt to follow the path of the kingdom and share it with those who have ears to hear. Beyond this part which I can live and proclaim I leave the rest in God’s capable hands.

Matthew 4: 18-25 Snagging the Fishers for Humanity and Spreading the Kingdom

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Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1308-1311)

Matthew 4: 18-25

Parallel Mark 1: 16-20, Luke 5: 1-11; John 1: 35-51

18 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea — for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. 24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. 25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

The kingdom of heaven may have established a foothold in Capernaum, but now that kingdom and its representative will begin its infiltration of the surrounding region of Galilee. Jesus will go out and actively begin selecting those who will participate in fishing for people and begin to drive out the forces of sickness and demonic possession that have kept the people in the darkness. Matthew condenses the call of his first disciples and the initial acts of healing and casting out of demons into a short space to bring us to Jesus’ teaching on the mountain but this scene is necessary to set the scene for this extended teaching and the crowds that are coming to hear him.

Capernaum is on the north bank of the Sea of Galilee, so Jesus would not have to move far to find fishermen along the bank of the sea. Even though Jesus may not need to move far in seeking these first followers the action of a teacher going and seeking students is unusual in a culture where a Rabbi would set up a school and disciples would seek out the teacher. Yet, the initiative will rest with Jesus in the call, and when others seek Jesus out as potential disciples (Matthew 8: 19-22) they will learn this is a difficult, if not impossible task. We do not know how long Jesus has been in Capernaum proclaiming the kingdom of heaven or if the four fishermen knew him prior to being called but these fishermen will serve as a model of responding faithfully to Jesus’ call. There is resonance with the call that Jesus extends to the disciples and the call of Abram in Genesis 12 where God calls Abram to leave their kindred, their fathers house and go to a land that God will show them. Yet, initially, the disciples will not leave their country, but they will leave behind their vocations and family.

The fishermen are often portrayed as ‘poor fishermen’ but there is no indication that they were poor or that what they were leaving behind was not a stable and sustainable existence. Probably the closest analogy to our time would be small business owners who have enough invested in their business to have a boat and nets, food to eat and homes to live in, money to pay the taxes on the fish they catch and the ability to transport (and process) caught fish for sale. This was a family enterprise that relied upon family members upholding their part of the work of fishing, mending nets, maintaining boats, and selling their catch and the removal of sons from their positions in the family business would have presented a challenge for the remaining family members. Yet, Peter and Andrew and James and John all go when called, leaving their families, their business and their way of life behind. The boats may still be there, and they may still at times fish, but their primary fishing will be kingdom related rather than profit related.

Against the background of the use of fishing metaphors in the scriptures we see the imagery of fishing being used for the regathering of Israel.

Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, “As the LORD lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt,” but “As the LORD lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them.” For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their ancestors.
I am now sending for many fishermen, says the LORD, and they shall catch them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. Jeremiah 16: 14-16 

How one reads this portion of Jeremiah can be tricky. It can be read, as Richard B. Hays reads it by pulling on the verses that immediately follow what I have quoted above, “the “fishermen” whom God is summoning are agents of judgment, hauling people in so that God can “repay their iniquity and their sin.”” (Hays, 2016, p. 24). Jeremiah 16 is about a new beginning, but only after judgment and exile. I read this portion of Jeremiah 16 as an ingathering of the people after the prophesied judgment. Fishing imagery can be used in terms of judgment (see for example Amos 4: 1-2) but I do believe the theme of gathering in the dispersed people is behind the scriptural resonance here.

The disciples leave their boat and follow, they respond faithfully and these ‘little faith ones’ will become models of what being a disciple of Jesus is for future generations of followers. Jesus has shown the initiative, issued the call and these four men have responded. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer would say in Discipleship, “Discipleship is not a human offer. The call alone justifies it.” (DBWE 4: 63) Jesus, for Matthew and the disciple, is no ordinary rabbi or teacher. Although these four disciples probably do not recognize the significance of the one calling them, Matthew has been trying to get us to hear through his various uses of scriptural quotation and resonance the that Jesus is more than just a herald of the kingdom of heaven. The disciples in Jesus’ time and of all times will have to puzzle about the identity and significance of Jesus during their following but like the ‘little faith ones’ called from their fishing boats we are also called to look for the inbreaking signs of the kingdom of heaven as we travel through the world.

Jesus moves, teaches and acts as Matthew prepares us for the first concentrated block of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Mark’s gospel will focus on what Jesus does, but Matthew wants those who are disciples to gather with the crowd to hear Jesus teach. Yet, Jesus and the kingdom of heaven are also known by what Jesus does. His fame spreads by his teaching and his healing and exorcisms. The inbreaking kingdom of heaven casts out sickness, disease, pain, the demon possessed, and those broken in mind or body. Jesus’ power overcomes all these barriers to the people realizing the wholeness and healing of the kingdom of heaven. His fame is said to spread throughout Syria, one of the reasons some interpreters believe Matthew’s gospel was written in Syria, but it may also be the shining of the light in Galilee to the nations, the Gentiles. It may also be a part of the theme of the ingathering of Israel which is already occurring from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and beyond the Jordan and this may be the early catch of God’s fishermen beginning to gather the dispersed people out of the land of the north.

Authority and power rest with Jesus: authority to heal and make whole and the authority to teach in the synagogues and soon on the mountain. The crowds are beginning to gather, the initial fishers of humanity have been called and the kingdom of heaven has been announced and embodied. Matthew has set the groundwork for us to hear the Sermon on the Mount, for Jesus to teach us what being it will mean to be a covenant to the people and a light to the nations. Perhaps we, like the fishermen have been snared. Perhaps we, like the sick, diseased, broken or possessed have been healed and seen the kingdom of heaven’s work in our lives. We are now prepared to go up with the disciples to listen as Jesus talks both to us and the rest of the crowd.

Matthew 4: 12-17 The Kingdom’s Foothold

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Capernaum as see from lake Tiberius photo by Tango7174 November 13, 2012 shared under Creative Commons 4.0

Matthew 4: 12-17

Parallel Mark 1: 14-15, Luke 4: 14-15

12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

15 “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles —16 the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”

 17 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

When John is arrested Matthew narrates that Jesus withdrew or departed (Greek anechoreo) to Galilee, a place where Jesus’ father Joseph brought the child and his mother for safety earlier. Matthew uses this word for withdrawing or departing much more than the other gospels (Mark and Luke use is twice, Matthew uses it ten times)[1] and it is the same word that describes Joseph’s action to remove Jesus and Mary to Egypt to escape the threat of Herod and Archelaus Matthew 2. The kingdom of heaven may be drawing near but it is not meeting the political threats of Herod or Rome on their own terms, Jesus will not reign in a manner consistent with the peace through military power practiced by Rome and its client states. Even though Jesus withdraws to Galilee from the wilderness of the Jordan he withdraws into the territory of Herod Antipas, who arrested John, and makes his base of operations precisely in this territory. Unlike an earlier time where Joseph’s departure with Jesus and Mary moves away from the threat of Herod, here Jesus withdrawing ironically brings him closer to the immediate threat.

Matthew quickly moves us away from Nazareth, where Jesus lived after returning from Egypt and where his family home may have remained and makes his home in Capernaum. Unlike Mark, where Jesus comes to Capernaum but never settles or has a home (Jesus being continually on the way is a Markan theme) Matthew makes Capernaum the home base for the mission of Jesus. Matthew does not portray Jesus as a homeless wanderer but instead puts him in a social class like the fishermen and tradespeople he would interact with. On the one hand this movement to Capernaum separates his home from the home of Mary and Joseph and sets him off on his own. On the other hand, the location is significant to Matthew as well and the next quotation of scripture highlights this importance.

The quotation is from Isaiah 9: 1-2, which is below in its larger context in Isaiah 9, this may be very familiar to Christians who are used to hearing this reading on Christmas Eve.

But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire. For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. Isaiah 9: 1-7 (Highlighted portion quoted in Matthew)

Isaiah 9 originally comes from a time where the Assyrian empire is expanding and Northern Israel will be conquered and absorbed by this empire, while Judah retains some measure of independence. Galilee and Samaria were associated with Israel (the tribes other than Judah and Benjamin) which no longer retain their distinctive identity after the Assyrian conquest in 721 BCE. Yet, this passage in Isaiah points to a hope for not only Judah (or Judea) but for all of Israel, even the Israel that has been lost and scattered among the nations. The great light emerges in the place where there had been darkness, where Samaria and Galilee had been isolated from the remnant of Judah. For Matthew, Jesus’ act of establishing his base of operations in Capernaum has a broader theological significance of being the long hoped for member of the Davidic line who can bring about the reconstitution of all of Israel.

The title Galilee of the gentiles (or nations-the Greek term ethnos means both, and Gentiles in general are the non-Jewish people) also points to the inclusive nature of the hope of both Isaiah and Matthew. Throughout Matthew’s gospel we will see Gentiles play significant roles as illustrating what faith looks like. Two figures (the Canaanite woman and the Centurion) will show a faith that is not seen in Israel or in the disciples. From the genealogy and the magi, we have already seen the way non-Jewish people were joined to the story of Jesus and how they often embodied a righteousness that was greater than their Jewish counterparts in the story. The choice of location not only points to the reconstitution of Israel but also to the nations also being the recipients of this light which comes in the darkness.

Ruins of 4th Century synagogue, Photo by David Shankbone shared under Creative Commons 4.0

Ruins of Housing during Roman times in Capernaum, Photo by David Shankbone shared under Creative Commons 4.0

Established with a base of operations in Capernaum, Jesus begins the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven. As mentioned in the discussion of Matthew 3: 2, Jesus’ proclamation is explicitly linked to the proclamation of John the Baptist. Both are calling for repentance and announcing the nearness of the kingdom of heaven. John and Jesus share a common message but a different relationship or role within that message. John may be the herald that announces the kingdom of heaven’s approach and be the Elijah preparing the way, but Jesus will be the long-awaited Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. To use the rhythm of John’s gospel, John the Baptist’s authority and role have now decreased, but Jesus’ authority shall grow continually. Jesus not only announces the advent of the kingdom of heaven but will embody the kingdom of heaven’s encroachment on the kingdom of the world and the conquest over the one who claims dominion over these kingdoms.

While Jesus will later send his followers, “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10: 6) and not to the Gentiles, their testimony will be a testimony to governors and kings and the Gentiles (Matthew 10:18). Within the vocational understanding of Israel, they were to be a treasured possession of God, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19: 5-6) and they were called to be a light to the nations for the sake of the Lord. What happens in Galilee or Samaria or Judea is not intended to remain there but to be in the words of the servant song in Isaiah 42:

I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. Isaiah 42: 6-7

Matthew want to quickly bring us to the point where Jesus is teaching his disciples and forming them into a group that can be a covenant to the people, a light to the nations. Jesus in his actions is not merely about the reconstitution of Israel, but something larger is occurring that will affect the nations as well. The advent of the kingdom of heaven will not merely bring about a return to the nostalgic idea of a united Israel under a Davidic king but will instead impact the kingdoms of the world. The people who once lived in lands of deep darkness—on them light has shined. Or to use the poetic language of John’s prologue:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. John 1: 5

This light will soon instruct his followers on what it means to be ‘the light of the world’ and how they are to “let their light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5: 14-15) But for now the light for Israel and the nations has begun to emanate from Capernaum and the kingdom of heaven has established its foothold in the land of the lost tribes of Israel.

[1] Matthew 2: 14, 19-22; 4:12; 10:23; 12: 14-21; 14:13; 15:21; it is also used for the magi withdrawing in 2: 12-13. M. Eugene Boring highlights this in (NIB 8:167)