Category: A Book of Origins: Gospel of Matthew

A star and some magi, a tyrant and some infants (Matt 2; Epiphany)

Each year, on the Feast of the Epiphany (6 January), we hear the story that is told in the book of origins (the Gospel according to Matthew) about the infant Jesus, the magi who travel with gifts to offer him, and the tyrant Herod (Matt 2:1–12). We usually stop the story before the account of the slaughter of children which Herod orders, and the flight into Egypt which Jesus undertakes with his mother, Mary, and his father, Joseph (Matt 2:13–18).

The much-loved Christmas story, found only in the orderly account of Luke, says nothing of any such high-status visitors to the newborn Jesus. The magi appear only in Matthew’s account. The actual birth of Jesus is mentioned very quickly by Matthew (1:18, 25). By contrast, the dark story of the slaughter of boys aged two and under dominates Matthew’s narrative (Matt 2:16–18). It is in connection with that part of the story that the magi appear.

Adoration of the Magi, detail from a 4th century sarcophagus
in the Vatican Museum

We are not told their names, nor how many they were. They are described as magi, probably meaning that they were astrologers. Only in later church tradition would they be identified as the three men, Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior. Although Matthew’s gospel does not include the names or number of the magi, many believe that the number of the gifts he notes is what led to the tradition of the Three Wise Men—and, of course, they then needed to gain names (as do many anonymous biblical figures in the evolving church tradition over subsequent centuries).

These magi appear to have come from Gentile lands. They could be seen as exemplars of faithful obedience, travelling far to “adore the child”. But they are very mysterious figures in Matthew’s account. The gifts they bring were valuable items—reflecting a standard of gifts that might be offered to honour a king or deity in the ancient world: gold as a precious metal, frankincense (incense) as perfume, and myrrh as anointing oil.

It is claimed that these same three items were among the gifts that the Seleucid ruler, Seleucus II Callinicus, who ruled for 20 years (246–225 BCE), offered to the god Apollo at the temple in Miletus in 243 BCE. (I found this claim often in online articles, but I can’t trace any of them back to the actual historical source.)

The Three Magi (including the traditional names), Byzantine mosaic
in the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy

More significant for Matthew, I believe, would be the fact that two of the gifts resonate with a Hebrew Scripture passage, late in the book of Isaiah. Jerusalem’s restoration is portrayed as a time when “nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn” (Isa 60:3); they will “bring gold and frankincense and proclaim the praise of the Lord” (Isaiah 60:6).

The visitors bringing these gifts come from Sheba (a kingdom in South Arabia). The gifts, it is claimed by interpreters, are symbolic of what is to come. The gold is considered to symbolise the royal status of the child Jesus, as he is of the line of David. The frankincense is connected with the Temple cult, and thus considered a symbol of the priestly role eventually to be played by that same child.

The myrrh, in Christian tradition, is linked with the death that will be experienced by the infant when he has grown to maturity—death at the hands of a Romans, who offered him wine mixed with myrrh as he hung dying on a cross (Mark 15:23). This symbolism reveals the reasons for adopting and expanding the earlier oracle.

And the notion that was developed later in Christian writings, that the three magi were kings in their respective kingdoms (as in, “we three kings of orient are”), derives from the application of Isaiah 60:3 , noted above, and Psalm 72:10–11, as the psalmist praises the King of Israel and prays, “may the kings of Tarshish and of the isles render him tribute; may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts; may all kings fall down before him, all nations give him service.”

This is typical midrashic practice, to link up verses from different verses in different books which contain the same key words. It indicates that Matthew is “spinning a yarn”, telling a story, narrating a myth that contains important clues as to the nature and significance of the person about whom the story is told. It is not a factual historical account.

Matthew, who portrays Jesus as the new Moses throughout his Gospel, considers that his mission was solely to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt 10:6; 15:24)—and to them alone. The visit of the magi from the East plays a symbolic role in the story. It represents a Gentile acknowledgement of the high role that Jesus will play, bringing to fulfilment the intentions of God for the covenant people. So this element, told very early in the narrative, is simply a literary technique to introduce a key theme which will reach fulfilment in the time well beyond the tale that the narrative offers.

I’m not going to go down the rabbit-hole of trying to identify the actual star that these magi followed (Matt 2:2, 9–10) and correlate it with known astronomical events from the early first century. It’s too complicated and anything I have ever seen requires us to put aside our historical-critical skills and believe in a series of “amazing coincidences”.

Besides, as this post makes abundantly clear, I don’t regard the story found in Matt 2 as in any way historical! It is yet another component of his story which draws heavily from Hebrew Scripture, as befits a Jew writing to Jews. The rising of the star in the east correlates well with the prophet Balaam’s prediction in Num 24:17 that “a star shall come out of Jacob and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel”.

The identification of the star as being “in the east” comes because, in Greek, the word for “east” is the same as “rising”. The Greek translation thus is ambiguous about whether the star simply “rises up out of Israel” or whether it is “to the east” of Israel. We can see this ambiguity if we compare how different recent translations of the Bible render this phrase in Matt 2:9 — “a star they saw in the east” (KJV), “the star they had seen when it rose” (NIV and ESV), “the star they had seen at its rising” (NRSV), “the star they had seen in the east” (NLT).

So this is another element in the story that has been shaped by Hebrew Scripture.

Evidence from beyond the Bible, that the baby boys in Bethlehem were actually slaughtered by Herod’s troops (Matt 2:16), is absent. The story that Matthew presents is grounded, not in history, as we know it, but in the art of story-telling, where recognisable themes and characters are presented in a new, creative combination.

So it is that in the opening chapters of this Gospel, we encounter the pregnant Mary, the newborn infant Jesus, his father Joseph, a bright star in the sky, visitors from the east, the tyrannical rule of Herod, and slaughtered infant boys. Many of these characters and events are “types”, imitations of an earlier story—for in his narrative, Matthew is working hard to place Jesus alongside the great prophet of Israel, Moses.

The early years of Jesus unfold in striking parallel to the early years of Moses. The parallel patterns are striking—deliberately shaped that way by the author of this Gospel, I would maintain. Moses, for instance, was in danger of being killed as a small boy, as the Pharaoh instructed the midwives, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live” (Exod 1:16). The child Moses was rescued by midwives who “feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live” (Exod 1:17).

Matthew’s account of “the Slaughter of the Innocents” is generated by his Moses typology. This grounds the story of Jesus in the historical, political, and cultural life of the day, when tyrants exercised immense power. But it raises our suspicions about whether this event actually took place. There is no other evidence for it in any ancient writing, apart from Matthew’s Gospel. Can we be sure that it took place? Not by any standard of historical assessment.

Massacre of the Innocents, ca. 1520;
engraving by Marco Dente (1486–1527),
based on a design by Baccio Bandinelli (1493–1560)

(I recognise that some claim that a report by Josephus in book 2 of his account of the Jewish War, about an uprising related to a certain shepherd named Athrongeus, might be telling of this event—except that this took place after the death of Herod, and it took place in Jerusalem, not in Bethlehem, as Matthew’s account maintains. And, of course, Matthew has no shepherds in the story, so the connection is even more diffuse. The search for a parallel account in another ancient source is undertaken in vain.)

We recognise that, in this narrative, Matthew is not reporting an actual historical event; yet his narrative of what allegedly happened to those children does provide a dreadful realism to a story which, all too often in the developing Christian Tradition, became etherealised, spiritualised, and romanticised.

Matthew has Jesus escape this fate by fleeing, with his parents, to Egypt (Matt 2:13–15). Once again, there is no evidence for this journey outside of Matthew’s book of origins, so the story is just that: a story, not an historical account. The Moses typology we have already noted is also relevant here. Matthew emphasises the many ways in which events in the early years of Jesus fulfilled the prophecies found in Hebrew Scripture (see Matt 1:22–23; 2:5–6, 15, 17, 23; and for the adult Jesus, see 3:3; 4:12–16; 12:15–21; 13:14–15, 35).

So many parts of the early life of Jesus as Matthew recounts it are presented in a way that makes them consistent with these prophecies—although one of them (2:23) cannot actually be found in the Bible! It is most likely that Matthew has constructed his story so that it fits with these scriptural prophecies. They provide him with a familiar framework for telling the story.

Only Matthew tells about Herod and his slaughter of the innocents. Such an event is unknown from any other ancient literature. Had it actually taken place, it is likely that it would have been reported elsewhere. This event, together with others in Matthew’s version of Jesus’ early life, mirror the pattern of events at the start of Moses’ life.

With Moses, as with Jesus, there is the slaughter of infant males under 2 years by a tyrannical ruler, and the flight into another country by the boy’s parents, so that the boy is saved. In this way, Matthew presents Jesus as “the new Moses”. That is the key concern that he has in this opening sequence—not providing an historical narrative, but introducing his story of Jesus through the typology of Moses.

See also

Tales from the Magi (the Revelation of the Magi)
Herod was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children (Matt 2; Christmas 1A)
Herod waiting, Herod watching, Herod grasping, holding power (Matt 2; Christmas 1A)
On the move. A reflection on Christmas.

The outer darkness, the eternal fire, and the threat of Hell (Matt 25; Pentecost 25A) part two

There have been a number of posts on my Facebook feed in recent weeks, on the matter of Hell. A number of them have made the claim that Hell does not appear in the New Testament. It’s a common claim made by hardline “progressive” Christians. I have started to address this in an earlier post; see

The outer darkness, the eternal fire, and the threat of Hell (Matt 25; Pentecost 25A) part one

The Gospel passage proposed by the Revised Common Lectionary for this coming Sunday (Matt 25:14–30) raises this matter quite directly. This passage offers a parable of Jesus (found here and, in another version, in Luke 19), in which two slaves are commended for their shrewd stewardship of a huge amount of money that was entrusted to them, whilst one slave is punished for not improving the amount he was given.

That slave is called “wicked and lazy” (Matt 25:26) as well as “worthless”, and his punishment is far more severe: he is to be thrown “into the outer darkness” (25:30). That is often interpreted, with some justification, as being thrown into Hell.

I know about the way that Hell can be used in Christian rhetoric. In the past, I have been labelled, by a fellow-member of my church, with derogatory and insulting labels regarding my marital status. I have been condemned for “worshipping Satan” and being “doomed to hell”. I have been called out, publically, as an “apostate” who “has been deceived”, and told that I am “hell-bound without repentance”.

Graphic descriptions of my fate, as being condemned to “the eternal lake of burning sulphur” (Rev 20:7–10 and 21:8), have been provided for me to ruminate over. And worse, this particular individual has justified this way of responding by maintaining that there is “nothing unchristian about warning demonically inspired LGBTI advocates against Hell and the Lake of Fire”. How charmingly pastoral!

The slave who was not prepared for the return of his master—in the first of four parables (24:45–51) which conclude the final teaching discourse of Jesus—faces this clear punishment: “put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (24:51). Where was that place, where the hypocrites are to be found? Jesus does not specify that here.

Jesus had earlier spoken a similar instruction to “throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” in the parable where a person came to a wedding inappropriately dressed (22:13). This is a recurrent motif in Matthew’s Gospel; but this passage gives no further description of where that outer darkness with its weeping and gnashing of teeth is located.

Elsewhere in this Gospel, Jesus has pointed to the same punishment for lawless and disobedient people: such weeping and gnashing of teeth is cited in his words of judgement spoken in Capernaum, where he encounters a distressed centurion (8:12); in his explanation of the parable of the weeds and the wheat (13:42); in the parable of the good and bad fish (13:50); and in the parable of the talents (25:30). But where is the outer darkness where this experience located?

The gnashing of teeth is a punishment that is taken from Hebrew Scripture texts: “the wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them (Ps 37:12); “the wicked gnash their teeth and melt away; the desire of the wicked comes to nothing” (Ps 112:10); “malicious witnesses … impiously mocked more and more, gnashing at me with their teeth” (Ps 35:11,16). The prophet laments that when Jerusalem is ransacked, “all your enemies open their mouths against you, they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry ‘we have devoured her!’” (Lam 2:16). It is a well-known form of torment and punishment.

The Matthean parable of the unprepared servant also has this apparently savage instruction: he will cut him in pieces (24:51). In a similar version, found in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 12:42–48), the master similarly “will cut him in pieces, and put him with the unfaithful” (Luke 12:46), but again the location of the unfaithful is not specified.

In a number of places in Hebrew Scripture, cutting a body into pieces was an action used in sacrificing animals (1 Kings 18:23, 33) and as a warning of judgement against sinners—in the terrible story of the Levite’s concubine (Judges 19:29), after Saul defeated the Ammonites (1 Sam 11:7), and also in direct prophetic warnings (Isa 45:2; 51:9; Ezek 16:40; Dan 2:34; also Judith 5:22). This is the fate decreed for the unprepared slave—a terrible end, indeed!

Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus declares that sinners are destined for the judgement of fire (Matt 5:22; 7:19; 13:40, 42, 50; 18:8–9; 25:41). This gives a clearer indication of the location where punishment will be meted out to the unfaithful, the hypocrites, and those who disobey the law. The reference to the judgement of fire picks up from the warning of John the baptiser, which Matthew has added to his Markan source: “You brood of vipers! who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? … even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 3:7, 10).

That place is described by Jesus, in parables unique to Matthew, as “the furnace of fire” (Matt 13:43, 50; 25:41). Sinners will be sent to a place of “eternal fire” (18:8; 25:41), “the hell of fire” (5:22; 18:9), the “unquenchable fire” threatened by John, as he baptised repentant sinners and warned that “the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (3:12). This builds on the warnings found in Mark’s Gospel about the punishment in store for those who put stumbling blocks in the way of “these little ones”—they will be condemned to “the unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:42–48). These warnings are repeated by Jesus in Matt 18:6–9.

Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus is consistent in reporting that he warns his followers, again and again, of the fiery fate that awaits evildoers. Once again, this picks up on Hebrew Scripture passages in which various prophets declare that God will use fire to destroy people and places because of their sinfulness (Isa 1:7; 5:24; 30:27–28, 30, 33 18–19; Jer 4:4; 6:27–30; 20:47–48; Hos 8:14; Joel 2:1–3; Amos 1:4—2:5; Nah 1:15).

Amongst those prophetic oracles, Zephaniah, for instance, portrays utter devastation through divine judgement: “neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath; in the fire of his passion the whole earth shall be consumed” (Zeph 1:18).

However, the final prophet in the Christian Old Testament, Malachi, reworks this imagery, offering some hope; God’s messenger on The Day of the Lord “is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness” (Mal 3:1–4).

A number of psalms reflect a desire for God to punish evildoers severely; “pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them” is the cry of one psalm (Ps 69:24). Another psalm notes the vengeance of God—“in your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands deal out violence on earth” (Ps 58:2)—and suggests that “the righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked” (Ps 58:10). We must wonder: did Jesus pray these psalms? did he concur with their ideas? did he pray for God to act with vengeance? The words that Matthew attribute to Jesus in his Gospel would suggest that he did.

The image of fiery punishment is often noted by the psalmists: “on the wicked [God] will rain coals of fire and sulfur; a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup” (Ps 11:6); “the voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire; the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness” (Ps 29:6-7); and again, “your hand will find out all your enemies; your right hand will find out those who hate you; you will make them like a fiery furnace when you appear; the Lord will swallow them up in his wrath, and fire will consume them.” (Ps 21:8-9).

Indeed, one psalmist prays to God, “as fire consumes the forest, as the flame sets the mountains ablaze, so pursue them with your tempest and terrify them with your hurricane” (Ps 83:14-15). After one such prayer, other psalmists must have been astounded as “smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him” (Ps 18:8; see also 18:12; 46:9; 68:2; 78:21, 63; 97:3; 104:4; 106:18). And so the psalmist laments, “how long, O Lord? will you be angry forever? will your jealous wrath burn like fire?” (Ps 79:5; 89:46).

This imagery is picked up and placed into the story of Daniel (Dan 3:1–30) and appears again in the last book of the New Testament, where the prophet describes his visions of “the lake of fire that burns with sulfur” (Rev 19:20; 20:10, 14–15), also described as “the second death” (Rev 20:14; 21:8). It is there that the devil, the beast, and the false prophet “will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev 20:10). Matthew appears to share some similarities with the writer of this book, for as we have noted, eternal punishment in a fiery furnace features also in the words of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel.

So we can’t simply brush aside the closing words of the parable which is in focus this coming Sunday—the Heavenly Father, we are told, will follow the example of the unforgiving servant, who will be “tortured until he would pay his entire debt” (18:34–35), in the service of ensuring that faithful people do indeed forgive one another! (How he will be able to pay off his debt while he is being tortured in prison, I do not know!)

Such punishment is consistent with the way that God’s justice will be implemented, according to the various teachings and parables of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel that we have already noted. It will be incredibly hard to be let off the hook by this fierce, punitive God!! We are left in no doubt whatsoever, that Jesus believed in a place where divine wrath would visit punishment and wreak revenge on evildoers.

So as we read and hear and interpret this parable, today, and as we reflect on the matter of punishment, Hell, and the afterlife, we are left to ponder for ourselves: do we still hold to this place, Hell, as a place of eternal torment for sinners? or can we move on in our understanding and reshape our theology to form a belief system that offers a different way of addressing injustice and rewarding faithfulness? (I would like to think we can.)

Certainly, the survey of passages above reveals a clear development in various Hebrew Scripture passages, on through into New Testament texts—which raises the question, why, then, do we need to stop our thinking about these ideas—our conceptualisation of how God deals with sin—with late first century texts? And let’s note that understandings of these ancient texts have been mediated especially through interpreters of late antiquity and the medieval period, and their more recent followers. Is it not legitimate for us, today, to continue that development and for us to articulate new understandings?

We are also left with the conundrum: what are we to make of this aggressively violent, retributive God, condemning sinners to the misery of “hell”? Is this the last word about God? or can we legitimately form a different, more nuanced understanding of the divine? (Again, this is the direction I would like to move.)

These questions focus the the challenge of preaching and interpreting this parable of Jesus, and these ancient texts as a whole, in our contemporary world.

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Material in this and the previous blogs is drawn in part from the research of Elizabeth Raine and from MESSIAH, MOUNTAINS, AND MISSION: an exploration of the Gospel for Year A, by Elizabeth Raine and John Squires (self-published 2012)

See also

Discipleship in an apocalyptic framework (Matt 23–25; Pentecost 23–26A)
A final parable from the book of origins: on sheep and goats, on judgement and righteous-justice (Matt 25; Pentecost 26A)

The outer darkness, the eternal fire, and the threat of Hell (Matt 25; Pentecost 25A) part one

There have been a number of posts on my Facebook feed in recent weeks, on the matter of Hell. A number of them have made the claim that Hell does not appear in the New Testament. It’s a common claim made by hardline “progressive” Christians. The Gospel passage proposed by the Revised Common Lectionary for this coming Sunday (Matt 25:14–30) would suggest otherwise, however.

This passage offers a parable of Jesus (found here and, in another version, in Luke 19), in which two slaves are commended for their shrewd stewardship of a huge amount of money that was entrusted to them, whilst one slave is punished for not improving the amount he was given.

In Luke’s version, the third slave is called “wicked” (Luke 19:22) and the money he was given is taken from him and given to the first slave, to illustrate the saying, “to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away” (Luke 19:24–26). In Matthew’s version of this this parable, the slave is called “wicked and lazy” Matt 25:26) as well as “worthless”, and his punishment is far more severe: he is to be thrown “into the outer darkness” (25:30).

This is the third reference by the Matthean Jesus to “outer darkness” (8:12; 22:13; 25:30). As the parable that follows refers to “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (25:41)—to which Jesus had earlier referred (18:8)—it does seem that Jesus is referring to a place that we know by the term “hell”. Indeed, words spoken by Jesus in Matt 18:9 are rendered explicitly as “the hell of fire” in the NRSV, while the NIV renders this “the fire of hell”. They are both translating a Hebrew word, here transliterated into Greek, Gehenna (on which, see more, below).

Over the years I have had a number of interesting conversations about these passages, and others, and about “hell” in biblical texts, with my wife, Elizabeth Raine, as she has studied both Matthew’s Gospel (where there is a preponderance of passages referring, in one way or another, to “hell”), as well as the relevant Hebrew Scripture passages often linked with “hell”, so what follows is strongly informed by those conversations.

Now, my search of the NRSV indicates that the word “hell” does appear 13 times in this translation of the New Testament. 11 of these are in the Synoptic Gospels, each time in words attributed to Jesus (the other two are in James and 2 Peter). The NIV has the same 13 occurrences of the word “hell”; but in the 17th century translation authorised by King James, the word appears 23 times in the New Testament (15 of these in the Synoptics) as well as 31 times in the Old Testament. Clearly, the reticence to use this word in translating relevant Hebrew or Greek words grew between the 17th and the 20th century. Why might that have been?

I think that this reticence might relate, in part, to a developing clarity about what the various words in Hebrew and Greek actually described. Rather than lumping them all together under the catch-all term “hell”, more recent translators take care to provide more distinctive descriptors.

There are a number of concepts which need to be considered. This takes us into the strange world of ancient Hebrew cosmology—the world, heavens and earth, what was above and what was below, was understood in a different way from the way that 21st century people understand such things.

In Hebrew Scripture, there are references to the Deep, the Pit, and Sheol. These three words appear to describe the state of being of human beings after they have died. In the King James Version, the word “hell” is used to translate these Hebrew words on quite a number of occasions. But we need to explore them more carefully.

Sheol is the opposite of heaven in spatial terms; as heaven is in the heights, so Sheol is in the depths. (Gen 49:25). Isaiah says that God invited King Ahaz to “ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven” (Isa 7:11; the sign that is then given is the famous child, to be named Immanuel, 7:14). Ezekiel describes the demise of “Assyria, a cedar of Lebanon … [that] towered high and set its top among the clouds” in these words from God: “on the day it went down to Sheol I closed the deep over it and covered it” (Ezek 31:15). In this fate, it shared with those who “are handed over to death, to the world below … with those who go down to the Pit” (Ezek 31:14).

The terms found here—Sheol, the Deep, the Pit, the world below—are part of a cluster of terms which appear throughout Hebrew Scripture. Technically, The Deep describes the waters of chaos, outside the Dome, which can rise up to flood the world, as in the story of Noah, when in one version “all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened” (Gen 7:11) and, after 150 days, “God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided; the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters gradually receded from the earth” (Gen 8:2).

Sheol and The Pit each describe the state of the nephesh (the essence of being) of those whose bodies have died. In Psalm 88, when the psalmist laments “my soul is full of troubles”, they use these and other terms in poetic parallelism to describe their fate: “my life draws near to Sheol; I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; I am like those who have no help, like those forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand; you have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep” (Ps 88:3–6). Another psalm describes this as “the land of silence” (Ps 94:17), while the prophet Ezekiel imagines it as the place where the dead, the “people of long ago” lie “among primeval ruins” (Ezek 26:20)

In this state, people simply lie in darkness, not living, with no future in view, no hope in store. Job laments, “if I look for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in darkness, if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ where then is my hope?” (Job 17:13-15). Job also equates entering the Pit with “traversing the River” (Job 33:18), in words that seem to reflect the River Hubur (in Sumerian cosmology) or the River Styx (in Greek cosmology), the place where the souls of the dead cross over into the netherworld.

Other words for Sheol in Hebrew Scripture include Abaddon, meaning ruin (Ps 88:11; Job 28:22; Prov 15:11) and Shakhat, meaning corruption (Isa 38:17; Ezek 28:8). These terms indicate the forlorn, lost, irretrievable nature of this state of being. This is the fate in store for all human beings, whether righteous or wicked; there is no sense of judgement or punishment associated with this state. It is simply a state of non-being.

By the time of the New Testament, however, there had been quite some development in this direction within Jewish thinking. In the apocalyptic visions of 2 Esdras, Ezra is depicted as foreseeing that “the pit of torment shall appear, and opposite it shall be the place of rest; and the furnace of hell shall be disclosed, and opposite it the paradise of delight” (2 Esd 7:36).

Likewise, the seven Maccabean brothers tell “the tyrant Antiochus” that “justice has laid up for you intense and eternal fire and tortures, and these throughout all time will never let you go” (4 Macc 9:9; also 12:12). In the teaching contained in the Wisdom of Solomon, however, a complementary element is noted, as Solomon is said to declare “the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them” (Wisd Sol 3:1).

The New Testament—largely in the Synoptic Gospels, but also in Revelation—reflects these developments in the way that it portrays the afterlife, with a number of sayings portraying a place of punishment for sinners after death, as well as the promise of eternal life for the righteous with God in the kingdom of heaven.

There are three Greek words that are relevant at this point: Gehenna, Hades, and Tartarus. The first, Gehenna, was a geographical term, referring to the Valley of Hinnom, to the southwest of Jerusalem, where in periods of sinfulness before the Exile, children had been sacrificed to Molech (2 Ki 23:10; 2 Chron 28:3; 33:6; Jer 7:31-32; 32:35). This practice was the cause of punishments experienced by the people for their sinful behaviour.

Gehenna appears twelve times in the New Testament—eleven of those being in words attributed to Jesus (Mark 9:43, 45, 47, paralleled in Matt 18:9; Matt 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 23:15, 33; and Luke 12:5). In some of these occurrences, Gehenna is placed into parallel with other ideas which suggest it is no longer the simple geographical reference of Hebrew Scripture texts, but it has become a place of punishment for sinners in the afterlife (see further below).

The potency of Gehenna is noted when James warns those who misuse their tongue as “a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (James 3:8) that “the tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell [translating the Greek Gehenna]” (James 3:6).

A second word, found ten times in the New Testament, is Hades; a word adopted from older Greek literature, where it appears from Homer onwards as the name of the God of the lower regions (Hades, later Pluto, the brother of Zeus and Poseidon) and of the realm of the dead. This was where all people went after their death; leaving Hades was not possible (with the exception of a few heroic figures in the myths of the Greeks).

Jesus speaks of going down to Hades (Matt 11:23; Luke 10:15); perhaps he himself went there? (1 Pet 3:19 may allude to this). The deceased rich man in Hades looks up to heaven to see the poor man, Lazarus, with Abraham (Luke 16:22–23). Hades in this parable is a place of torment (Luke 16:23, 25); the rich man endures punishment which apparently cannot be revoked (Luke 16:26).

In Acts, Peter is said to have quoted Ps 16:10, referring to the soul being abandoned in Hades, in his speech at Pentecost (Acts 2:27, 31), and four times in Revelation Hades is linked with death (Rev 1:18; 6:8; 20:13–14). The Matthean Jesus informs Peter that “the gates of Hades will not prevail” against the church, founded in Peter, the rock (Matt 16:18). Hades has gates, presumably to ensure its inhabitants cannot escape the fate determined for them.

It is interesting that for a number of verses in the Septuagint, the Greek word Hades translates Sheol, thereby turning it from a Hebrew idea into a Greek concept for the hellenised Jewish readers of the Septuagint.

The introduction of punitive elements into the way that Gehenna and Hades are described leads to a third Greek word which is relevant to our considerations. The Greek noun is Tartarus, which the Encyclopedia Britannica explains in this way: “the name was originally used for the deepest region of the world, the lower of the two parts of the underworld, where the gods locked up their enemies. It gradually came to mean the entire underworld. As such it was the opposite of Elysium, where happy souls lived after death.” See https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tartarus

Whilst that name itself does not appear in the New Testament, the cognate verb tartaróō is found once, in the very late and pseudonymous epistle, 2 Pet 2:4. It is translated as “to cast down to hell” in the KJV and in most recent modern translations, where it describes what God did to sinful angels, demonstrating that “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment —especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority” (2 Pet 2:9–10). So be warned!

All of which indicates that notions of Hell as a place in the afterlife where sinful people are sent, to experience divine punishment, are alive and well at the time the various New Testament books were written.

And so: what of the parable that Jesus tells (Matt 25:14–30) ??

… to be continued …

*****

With thanks to Elizabeth Raine for insights about relevant texts at many places through this discussion.

Oil and light, and being prepared (Matt 25; Pentecost 24A)

“When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept.” (Matt 25:3–4) These words come from the parable of Jesus which is offered by the lectionary for this coming Sunday (Matt 25:1–13). The parable serves as a warning to be ready for the arrival of the bridegroom. “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour”, Jesus ends this parable (25:13).

It seems that many people in the earliest church communities expected the parousia to occur and Jesus to return from heaven into their midst at any day. Paul had indicated this some decades before this Gospel was written, telling the Corinthians that “the appointed time has grown short” (1 Cor 7:29) and “the present form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor 7:31), and warning the Thessalonians that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thess 5:2).

Paul also describes to the Thessalonians the scene in which “the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever”(1 Thess 4:16–17).

When writing to the Romans, Paul says that “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God” ahead of “the glory about to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18–19), which again suggests an imminent occurrence; whilst the first letter attributed to Peter simply declares that “the end of all things is near” (1 Pet 4:7).

However, this much-anticipated return of Jesus to earth did not take place in the lifetime of that first generation of believers. Matthew’s Gospel, written at least four decades after the lifetime of Jesus, contains indications of how this delay impacted on people. The fact that Jesus was delayed in his appearance to his followers may have affected the faith of members of the community, or influenced others to leave the community for which Matthew was writing.

Matthew’s Jesus has in mind the coming eschatological deliverance, a deliverance which is expected imminently and that will vindicate the community as faithful and righteous to the will of God. So he tells his followers that “you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes” (10:23). The mission that his followers undertake amongst Jews only is urgent; the end of time is coming soon, and they will not have shared “the good news [that] the kingdom of heaven has come near” (10:7) before “the Son of Man appears in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory” (24:30).

In this way, Matthew is typical of one type of Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple; that of apocalyptic hope. Most of the post-70 sectarian groups express hope that God will remember his covenant with them, the faithful few of Israel, and save them; for example, 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra write that God will provide consolation for their suffering and vindicate them, whilst also punishing their enemies on the Day of Judgement (2 Baruch 6:21; 82:1–2; 4 Ezra 8:51–59; 12:34).

In these sectarian documents, the kingdom of God is eschatological is nature; it has not yet arrived on earth, though signs telling of its coming can be detected. These communities also agree that much of Israel no longer truly follows the Law of God, and that the dominant Jewish leadership is unfaithful and wicked, and that they are the ones alone representing the true Israel. Therefore, entry to the kingdom is dependent upon faithfulness to the Law as interpreted by the community.

Matthew reflects this in his reporting of words of Jesus found only in this Gospel: “do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill .. until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished … unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:17–20). There is a fierce apocalyptic intensity behind the interpretation of Torah which the Matthean Jesus provides.

It is, however, the delay of the return of Jesus, rather than the detailed development of scenarios relating to that predicted coming, which is the issue undergirding the chapter of the Gospel that appears in our lectionary this Sunday, as well as the two following Sundays. Although the lengthy apocalyptic discourse of chapter 24 shows that Jesus appears to “buy in” to the speculative apocalyptic hypothesising of contemporary Jews, Matthew reorients this traditional material to focus on one key issue.

All three Synoptic Gospels have brought the apocalyptic discourse of Jesus to a climax with the vision, taken from Daniel 7, of “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Mark 13:26; Matt 24:30; Luke 21:27), followed soon after by the saying, “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” (Mark 13:30; Matt 24:34; Luke 21:32). They each report this, surely, because Jesus believed he would be returning in glory soon after his death. Jesus was firmly grounded in the apocalyptic worldview and saw himself as the crucial prophet figure in the fulfilment of that coming end.

Mark emphasises the point with the thrice-repeated warning: “beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come … keep awake … keep awake” (Mark 13:34, 35, 37). Luke likewise reports Jesus as saying “be on guard … be alert” (Luke 21:34, 36). The implication is that the return will be soon (although Luke has undertaken various editorial alterations to his sources to indicate this has not been the case).

Matthew ends the apocalyptic discourse of Jesus with a similar warning: “you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour” (Matt 24:44). However, he then moves immediately to report four parables, told by Jesus to remind people that they need to hold fast to their faith, be ready for whenever “the master returns”, “the bridegroom comes”, “the Son of Man comes [and] sits on his throne in glory”. In these parables, he emphasises the need to practise a sense of active waiting (24:45–25:46).

Two parables contain specific warnings about the behaviour that is expected during this period of waiting (24:45–51; 25:1–13); the second of these, which we encounter it in the lectionary this coming Sunday, is unique to Matthew. The story told in this parable indicates that active waiting involves making wise decisions, persisting tenaciously in hope for what lies in the future. The wise virgins are commended: “those who were ready went with him [the bridegroom] into the wedding banquet” (25:10). The foolish are rejected by Jesus: “truly I tell you, I do not know you” (25:12).

Similar warnings occur in other parables drawn from the Q tradition: the parable of the banquet (22:1–14), which we have read some weeks back; and the well-known parable of the talents (25:14–30), which appears next Sunday, in which the master commends his two “good and trustworthy slaves” with the words, “you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master” (25:21,23). By contrast, the third slave is condemned as worthless: “throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (25:30).

These parables all advocate active waiting as the desired form of discipleship. Being faithful to the way of Jesus means being ready for his coming, prepared for the kingdom. The message is driven home by the contrasting pairs: in this parable, wise virgins and foolish virgins; in subsequent parables, two trustworthy slaves and a worthless slave (25:14–30), and then the righteous and those who do evil (25:31–46).

The contrast between those who are wise and those who are foolish is a trope in the Wisdom literature from which Jesus is drawing in this parable. Amongst the collected proverbs attributed to Solomon we read these aphorisms: “A wise child makes a glad father, but a foolish child is a mother’s grief” (Prov 10:1), slightly varied in “A wise child makes a glad father, but the foolish despise their mothers” (Prov 15:20), and “The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands” (Prov 14:1).

In Ecclesiastes, the Preacher observes, “Better is a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king, who will no longer take advice” (Eccl 4:13) and muses, “and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish?” (Eccl 2:19). The parable told by Jesus makes clear how to distinguish between the wise and the foolish: the wise are prepared, their lamps are filled with oil; the foolish had no oil.

The lack of preparedness of the five foolish bridesmaids is telling. Oil, of course, is needed to keep the lamp burning, and thus to shine light in the darkness. This basic fact lies underneath the exhortation of Jesus to his followers: “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:16). Well might we think that the five bridesmaids who took no oil with them were foolish! (25:1–3).

Ready access to oil in the land of Israel was secured by the blessing of God, reported in Deuteronomy: “The Lord your God will maintain the covenant loyalty that he swore to your ancestors; he will love you, bless you, and multiply you; he will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock, in the land that he swore to your ancestors to give you.” (Deut 7:12–13). Of course, olive trees are well suited to the Mediterranean climate, and so would have grown prolifically, ensuring a steady supply of olives for making oil, regardless of God’s covenant loyalty!

Ben Sirach affirms that “the basic necessities of human life are water and fire and iron and salt and wheat flour and milk and honey, the blood of the grape and oil and clothing” (Sir 39:26); so oil ought to have been at hand for the five foolish bridesmaids to secure.

Oil plays a key role in the religion of the Israelites. In the instructions relating to the tabernacle, Moses was instructed to “command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil of beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly” (Lev 24:1), and Aaron and his sons are delegated to ensure that it keeps burning each night as “a perpetual ordinance to be observed throughout their generations by the Israelites” (Exod 27:20–21). Oil was added to many sacrifices and offerings that were brought to the temple, as almost all of the 88 appearances of the word in Exodus, Numbers, and Leviticus attest.

Oil was also central in the ceremonies of anointing new kings—Saul (1 Sam 10:1), David (1 Sam 16;13; Ps 89:20), Solomon (1 Ki 1:39), Jehu (2 Ki 9:6), and presumably all other kings of Israel and Judah. Oil anoints the heads of faithful believers (Ps 23:5; 45:7) and “makes the face to shine” as one of the gifts provided by God to all humanity (Ps 104:15). The followers of Jesus anointed with oil those who were sick (Mark 6:13), accompanied with prayer (James 5:14); even the Good Samaritan “went to [the injured man] and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them” (Luke 10:34).

Given its importance in Israelite culture and religion, as well as in daily life, one would have thought that the five bridesmaids would have been well prepared to meet the bridegroom, ensure their lamps were filled with oil!

Perhaps when he told this parable, Jesus also had in mind the following story involving the prophet Elisha? In this story, the wise use of oil reflects the faithfulness of a widow and her trust in the word of the prophet, which brings her an assured future. She was wise.

Now the wife of a member of the company of prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead; and you know that your servant feared the LORD, but a creditor has come to take my two children as slaves.” Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house, except a jar of oil.” He said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not just a few. Then go in, and shut the door behind you and your children, and start pouring into all these vessels; when each is full, set it aside.” So she left him and shut the door behind her and her children; they kept bringing vessels to her, and she kept pouring. When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” But he said to her, “There are no more.” Then the oil stopped flowing. She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your children can live on the rest.” (2 Ki 4:1–7)

*****

For more on apocalyptic in Israelite tradition, see

The Day, The End: themes in The Prophets

and in this section of Matthew’s book of origins, see

Discipleship in an apocalyptic framework (Matt 23–25; Pentecost 23–26A)

Going into the kingdom of God ahead of you (Matt 21; Pentecost 18A)

Two weeks ago, in following along with the excerpts from the Gospel of Matthew which the Revised Common Lectionary has been offering us this year, we heard a parable that threatened that God would torture a person until they forgave a person who owed them a modest debt (18:23–35). Where is the compassion in that? Is this really what we understand God to be like? Should this story really be in our scriptures?

Last week, we heard a parable in which people who laboured in a vineyard for quite different lengths of time were given the same pay at the end of the day (20:1–16). Where is the justice in that? The rationale for this is that “the last will be first, and the first will be last” (20:16)—a saying that Jesus utters on other occasions, as well. Is this really what we understand the kingdom will be like? Does this unjust story really deserve a place in our scriptures?

This week, we will be confronted with a parable in which two sons each say one thing, but do the opposite (21:28–30). Where is the honesty in that? Be a person of your word—do what you say, say what you mean to do! But there is even more, as Jesus continues on after having spoken this parable with words that are even more confronting: “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you” (21: 31). Is this really what we have to look forward to? It makes me want to cry out, “Hey! there’s a queue here—just wait your turn!”

Parables, according to Tim Mackie and Jon Collins of the Bible Project, were used by Jesus as “a means of indirect communication to critique and dismantle his listener’s views of the world to show them the true nature of God’s Kingdom.” See https://bibleproject.com/podcast/parables-subversive-critique/

And so that is the case in each of these parables. There’s a good amount of critiquing and dismantling going on; and a fair bit, also, of reconstructing a picture of what that kingdom might well be like. Whilst we might expect—indeed, we might yearn—to have stories which reinforce our view that God is loving, kind, and compassionate to all, the fact is that the parable of the unjust steward—and other sayings of Jesus—insist that God exercises vengeance in the course of ensuring justice.

We might well hope to have stories that communicate that God’s justice means equity and fairness for everyone; yet the parable of the labourers in the vineyard—and other sayings of Jesus—insist that God operates in ways that are counter-cultural and in opposition to the expected norms of fairness in society.

And certainly we might anticipate that Jesus will tell stories that assure us of the claim that a life of faithful obedience and careful adherence to stringent ethical standards will lead to our experiencing the welcoming arms of God, perhaps a prioritised means of entry into the loving embrace of God; yet the conclusion that Jesus offers to the parable of the two sons is completely different, with a shocking declaration that those entering the kingdom ahead of us will be precisely the people that we would expect to be debarred from entry!

What is going on? And in particular, why does Jesus assert that “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you” (21:31)?

*****

In the three Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is presented as one who “eats with tax collectors and sinners” (Mark 2:15–16; Matt 9:10–11; Luke 5:30–31). Jesus clearly declares, “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (Mark 2:17; Matt 9:13; Luke 5:32). Two of those Gospels also report that he was known as “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matt 11:19; Luke 7:34).

Indeed, Matthew, one of the twelve men initially called to be a disciple, was a tax collector (Matt 9:9; 10:3), although in Luke’s narrative he is named as Levi (Luke 5:27). This man, Levi, does not appear amongst the twelve named disciples (Luke 6:13–16; Acts 1:13), and the Matthew named in these Lukan lists is not identified as a tax collector.

In a striking parable reported only by Luke, a tax collector is presented favourably, in contrast to a Pharisee (Luke 18:9–14); that story resonates with the affirmation of tax collectors given at Matt 21:31–32. Soon after that parable is told, Luke reports an encounter that Jesus had with a rich chief tax collector named Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1–10). In this passage, the tax collector acts above and beyond the call,of duty, announcing that “half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much” (Luke 19:8).

By contrast, in a teaching passage found only in Matthew’s Gospel, tax collectors are linked with Gentiles in a declaration that a recalcitrant sinner who refuses to repent after being given multiple opportunities should be considered “as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matt 18:17), clearly indicating that they are to be expelled from the community.

That statement appears to be in direct contradiction to the later declaration of the Matthean Jesus that we hear in this coming Sunday’s passage—a declaration that “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God” ahead of the (presumably) faithful disciples, because “John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him” (Matt 21:31–32).

These words seem to correlate with the earlier aphorism of Jesus, “the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matt 20:16), a saying that recurs in other contexts, when Jesus points to a child as a sign of the kingdom (Mark 9:35) and in response to a declaration of fidelity made by Peter (Mark 10:31; Matt 19:30). Indeed, this latter occurrence in Matthew’s Gospel not only concludes a sequence of incidents set in Judea (Matt 19:1–30), but also introduces the parable we heard last Sunday (20:1–16)—a parable which ends with the very same saying.

“The last will be first, and the first will be last” thus bookends that parable, indicating that it has a programmatic significance. And it is that claim from which Jesus then launches, in this coming Sunday’s reading, into the parable that drives home this upside-down character of the coming kingdom, noting that “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom” ahead of the disciples, which he then drives home the point with intensity: “even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him” (21:32).

That’s fair warning: Jesus is giving plenty of opportunity for his disciples to hear, understand, and respond to his message. And if we don’t, then he won’t pull any punches! Perhaps that’s actually the point of this parable. So it seems we are back to judgement—a motif that I have noted is intensified and amplified in Matthew’s account of Jesus, when compared with the Gospels of either Mark or Luke. See

Darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth: the scene of judgement (Matt 22; Pentecost 20A)

A final parable from the book of origins: on sheep and goats, on judgement and righteous-justice (Matt 25; Pentecost 26A)

We have been given fair warning!!

A parable of grace—and a story of grace (Matt 20 and Matt 27; Pentecost 17A)

A sermon on Matthew 20:1–16, written and preached by the Rev. Elizabeth Raine

The Gospel of Matthew was the subject of my PhD research, and I so enjoy teaching that Gospel to groups of people, especially when it comes around in the lectionary (as it has this year). And this might well lead you to think that I look forward to being able to share something of my interest in that gospel in weekly sermons.

However, I have found that as much as I like teaching Matthew, I actually don’t like preaching Matthew—at least not the passages that have fallen to my lot in recent months. You may have noticed that in most of the gospel readings we have heard over the few months, there is almost always a line or two about judgment, eternal punishment, and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Last week’s reading was no exception, with the unforgiving slave finding himself not only unforgiven, but also condemned to be tortured.

Matthew is very fond of predicting a harsh judgment and eternal punishment for his enemies. His gospel contains more references to hell and eternal punishment that most of the New Testament put together, with the possible exception of the book of Revelation. He sneaks these references into his material wherever possible, changing his Markan source to reflect his own interests in God’s wrath.

Now while this is interesting to teach, it is not very helpful when trying to construct a sermon that is meant to give food for thought and help folk reflect on their faith. Not all of us want our enemies to be gnashing teeth and wailing in hell. When I teach and research Matthew, I find myself often asking this question of Matthew’s gospel: what are its redeeming features as far as nurturing faith goes?

This is actually tricky to answer. Even last week’s teaching on forgiveness was undermined by the harsh punishment of the slave. And Matthew is actually a grace-free gospel, in that the Greek word for grace, charis, is never used by the author. Many of the stories in Matthew have a pronounced down side. Matthew often includes things such as alienation from family, name-calling, murder, impossible ethical demands and eternal damnation in his gospel.

However, Matthew does have one unique and I think, extraordinary act of redemption in his gospel, apart from Jesus’ death.

I will start with explaining what this is by using this week’s reading. The parable we encounter in this passage (Matt 20:1–16) is unique to Matthew’s Gospel. As such, it may be considered an insight into the special focus of the Gospel, and reflect something of the writer’s understanding of life around him in first century Palestine.

This story of the vineyard workers may well be taken straight from agricultural life in a Palestinian village. Like many of Jesus’ parables, it draws on images and practices familiar to the lifestyle of the crowds who gathered around Jesus to listen to him. Such familiarity would have caught the crowd’s attention and helped them understand the religious teaching that Jesus wanted to convey.

Like many of Jesus’ parables, though, the story has an unexpected twist. Even in first century Palestine, the concept of equal work for equal pay was an established principle. But here we find the vineyard owner paying the same wage to the labourers, regardless of how much or how little time they worked during the day. Such an uneconomical practice must have taken the crowd by surprise. What lord or owner would make such a foolishly generous offer?

The clue is in the last verse of the story, in a saying that Jesus has used a number of times, and one that was no doubt familiar to his disciples and regular followers: “the last shall be first and the first shall be last”.

With this phrase, the vineyard is revealed as the kingdom of heaven, and the owner is, of course, God – the God who is as generous to those who seek his kingdom at the last minute as he is to those who found it much earlier.

The verses which follow after this parable show that it must have been difficult for the disciples to hear, especially James and John! The request of the mother of James and John made it clear that they and the other disciples had given up everything they had to follow Jesus, with the expectation of heavenly reward. Now those who would join the movement later, who have not given up so much or suffered as long, would be greeted by God as equals.

Most scholars think that Matthew may have included this story to defend Jesus’ inclusion of sinners in the kingdom as well as the righteous, though this doesn’t explain why the emphasis is on those who come to the kingdom later. Maybe Jesus meant the story to be understood symbolically, with the ‘last’ being the same as the ‘least’, and thus servanthood and humbleness are being emphasised.

I have another take on this. In a swift segue, I am now jumping into another story in Matthew that does not make it into the lectionary. And that is the story of Judas.

What do we remember Judas for? What is his story? Does anyone remember how Judas died?

All the gospels state that Judas goes to the chief priests and asks for money to betray Jesus. Luke and John both state that Satan entered into Judas. John also calls him a devil and a thief. All the gospels have Judas arrive in the Garden of Gethsemane to betray Jesus with a kiss. It is what happens after this that is unique to Matthew.

Judas, as befitting his actions, meets with an untimely end. There is one version of Judas’ death in Acts: this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. This became known to all the residents of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their language Hakeldama, that is, Field of Blood. (Acts 1:18).

Another less familiar version of Judas’ death is found in the second century church father Papias. Papias obviously had a colourful imagination. A fourth century bishop named Apollonius cites what a second century bishop named Papias apparently claimed about Judas: Judas did not die by hanging, but lived on, having been cut down before choking. And this the Acts of the Apostles makes clear, that falling headlong his middle burst and his bowels poured forth.

Apollonius goes on to say that Papias the disciple of John records this most clearly, saying thus in the fourth of the Exegeses of the Words of the Lord: Judas walked about as an example of godlessness in this world, having been bloated so much in the flesh that he could not go through where a chariot goes easily, indeed not even his swollen head by itself. For the lids of his eyes, they say, were so puffed up that he could not see the light, and his own eyes could not be seen, not even by a physician with optics, such depth had they from the outer apparent surface. And his genitalia appeared more disgusting and greater than all formlessness, and he bore through them from his whole body flowing pus and worms, and to his shame these things alone were forced [out]. And after many tortures and torments, they say, when he had come to his end in his own place, from the place became deserted and uninhabited until now from the stench, but not even to this day can anyone go by that place unless they pinch their nostrils with their hands, so great did the outflow from his body spread out upon the earth.

One of the exercises we do in introduction to New Testament Studies is to examine which, or indeed, any account of the death of Judas could be historical. Most of the students find these two versions to be fiction. But we do have another account in the gospel of Matthew.

Matthew treats Judas differently from the beginning. For a start, only Matthew mentions the sum of 30 pieces of silver being Judas’ fee for the betrayal. The sum of 30 shekels of silver was the value put on the Lord by the corrupt leaders of Israel in the book of Zechariah.

Only in Matthew does Judas ask the question “Is it I, Rabbi?” when Jesus states that one of them will betray him. Just as an aside here, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is only called rabbi twice, and both times it is by Judas.

At the moment of the betrayal, only in Matthew does Jesus refer to Judas as ‘friend’, and he also tells him “may that for which you are here be done”. This is rather different to the question of Luke’s Jesus: “Judas, do you betray me with a kiss?” The Jesus of Mark and John says nothing to Judas at this point.

Whilst the account found in Luke—Acts indicates that Judas goes off to enjoy his ill-gotten gains, and is only cut short in this aim by some judicious punishment on God’s part, the story is very different in Matthew.

In a passage unique to this gospel, the Judas of Matthew is overcome with remorse when he sees Jesus is condemned. He repents, returns the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, and states that he has “sinned by betraying innocent blood”. Met with disinterest and no compassion by the priests, Judas throws the money down in the temple, then leaves, to hang himself. The Greek in Matthew leaves us in no doubt as to Judas’ self-inflicted fate, despite Papias’ attempts to resurrect him so he can then unrepent, and go off and buy his field as per the account in Acts.

Judas, through Christian history, has been demonized for his actions. One can see this beginning in the later gospels of Luke and John, who insist that Judas was a sinner possessed by the devil or Satan, and of course in the later Papias, whose Judas is a very caricature of evil. Matthew does not join in this demonisation of Judas. Not only that though, Matthew goes even further, in that Matthew offers to Judas one of the greatest acts of salvation in our New Testament – he actually redeems Judas.

How can you be sure of that?, I hear you cry. Firstly, note that Judas repents. Repent is a word used sparingly in this gospel. It first appears with John the Baptist, he cries to people to ‘repent for the kingdom of heaven draws near”. John also tells them to ‘bear fruit worthy of repentance’. Jesus echoes the cry of ‘Repent, for the kingdom has drawn near’ in the next chapter.

In chapter 11, Jesus upbraids the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida for not repenting, despite having many miracles carried out in them. In chapter 12, he reminds the unrepentant that the city of Ninevah repented when hearing Jonah’s proclamation about God. Where does Judas’ repentance fit with this?

The depiction of Judas throughout Christian history as infamy embodied has led most exegetes to the conclusion that this repentance in Matthew is merely regret, and not genuine repentance.

I have two things to say to this view. Firstly, it would seem that suicide is a rather drastic reaction to mere regret. Suicide speaks of deep remorse and repentance to me. Secondly, Matthew does not use ‘repent’ unless he means it. In fact, in the parable that follows this one in chapter 22, Matthew uses this very word to describe the actions of the son that initially refused to work in the vineyard, then changed his mind (or repented) and went. Jesus makes the point it is this son who did the will of the father.

So we should assume that Judas’ repentance is genuine. This is underscored by Judas not keeping the money but returning it.

Last of all, we need to consider Judas’ motivation in his act of betrayal. In looking at this, we should note firstly that Jesus goes to his death obedient to the will of God. Judas, therefore, becomes part of enacting the will of God. So the question is raised, “Does Judas have a choice”? I am sure that Matthew doesn’t think so, despite Jesus saying earlier ‘woe to the one who betrays the son of man’. The eventual fate of Judas bears out Jesus words, but does not damn him eternally.

The next surprise is that Jesus calls Judas ‘friend’ at the moment of betrayal, and makes the thoughtful statement “may that for which you are here be done” to Judas, implying some sort of foreordained action. 

The knock down argument is the scriptural fulfillment that follows hard on the telling of Judas’ demise, when the priests decide to purchase a field with the money:

Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one on whom a price had been set, on whom some of the people of Israel had set a price, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.” (Matt 27:9–10)

And Judas’ actions in betraying Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, is from the prophet Zechariah, another scriptural fulfillment allusion to the betrayal and sale of the Lord.

Now Matthew’s God is somewhat wrathful in his judgments, but is always just. If Judas had no choice, how can he then be condemned?

Judas’ suicide resembles that of Ahithophel, the man who had assisted Absalom in his rebellion against King David, and was thus the betrayer of David. Like Judas, Ahithophel hangs himself, yet is still described by many of the rabbis as having entered the world to come, or heaven as this world was known.

Judas not only shows regret and remorse, he repents, and in doing so, makes a confession to the priests of his guilt. He returns his ill-gotten gains. When the priests refuse to take the money, Judas throws it into the temple. When they do not reconsider his crime for the shedding of innocent blood, Judas enacts the appropriate punishment on himself. He seeks to make atonement through his own death.

Christians have always given lip service to the notion that even in the last days of life, true repentance is possible. However, the tradition in regard to Judas has consistently and systematically denied him this.

Not so Matthew. His parable of the workers in the vineyard insists that all who come to the right understanding of Jesus and God, even if it be very late in the day, will be welcome in the kingdom. Surely, in accord with the story he tells, this must include Judas.

Matthew, this grace-free, most judgmental of gospels, is also the gospel that extends the most mercy to one of Christianity’s most hated characters. Whatever Matthew’s exact reasons for his version of events, the parable – and its corollary in the story of Judas – surely must remind us of God’s overwhelming grace, a grace that is inclusive of all who would seek God.

Matthew: tax collector, disciple, apostle, evangelist—and “scribe trained for the kingdom”?

Today, 21 September, is the day in Roman Catholic and Anglican (and some Protestant) churches when Matthew is honoured as a saint. Matthew is best known for the fact that his name is attached to the first Gospel, in the order that the four Gospels appear, in the New Testament. So today is a good day to reflect on the figure remembered by many as Saint Matthew.

We know, however, that this Gospel wasn’t the first written Gospel—that was Mark’s, which clearly was a source used by the author of Matthew’s Gospel. By tradition, the attributed author of this Gospel, Matthew, was a tax collector whom Jesus called to follow him. (Why a tax collector who followed Jesus would take the work of a junior and erratic follower as the basis for his work, remains unexplained.)

At any rate: after this tax collector became a disciple of Jesus, he was appointed as an apostle, and later he allegedly wrote an eye-witness account of the time he spent with Jesus. That account runs up until the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, and is wrapped around with some opening chapters about the beginnings of the life of Jesus, and a closing chapter relating to the body of Jesus, his resurrection and departure from his followers.

The tradition that this first Gospel was an eye-witness account by one of the twelve apostles has come under careful scrutiny from biblical scholars, exploring the language, structure, imagery, and ideas found in that narrative.

The consensus from this scholarly work is that the first Gospel in the New Testament was not an eye-witness account, but a carefully crafted account of Jesus, originating in a community of people who had maintained their Jewish culture and practices whilst affirming that Jesus of Nazareth was the long-awaited Messiah—a community that was, therefore, in conflict with the views and teachings of the synagogue leaders in their town, who did not see Jesus in that way.

Within ecclesial tradition, the picture of Matthew, tax collector—disciple—apostle, who subsequently wrote an eye-witness account of the time he spent with Jesus, holds sway. Within biblical scholarship, Matthew is simply a character who appears briefly in the story told by the first Gospel in the New Testament.

Matthew is identified in one short verse narrating his call by Jesus (Matt 9:9). He is also included in the list of twelve who were called to be apostles, with the added descriptor, “the tax collector” (Matt 10:3). He is also named in three other books, with nothing further said about him (Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; and Acts 1:13). But little else about him is conveyed in the four books that name him. See

What do we know about who wrote the New Testament Gospels? (1)

Those five fleeting references are the only times we see directly this person in the biblical narratives. He is surely there in other scenes, but he simply blends into the collection of “the disciples” (Mark 2:23; 3:7; 5:31: 6:1, 35, 41, 45; 7:17; 8:1–10, 14, 27, 34: 9:14, 28, 31; 10:10, 13, 23–24; 11:19; 12:43; 13:1; 14:12–16; and Synoptic parallels), “the twelve” (Mark 4:10; 6:7; 9:35; 14:20; and Synoptic parallels; and John 6:66–71; 20:24), or, even more anonymously, into “the crowd” (Mark 2:4, 13; 4:1; Matt 7:28; 13:2; Luke 5:1; 6:17; 7:11–12; 8:4; John 6:2; 12:9, 12; Acts 1:15; 2:6; etc.).

And yet, in the evolving church traditions, Matthew emerges from the shadows to take centre stage as disciple, apostle, saint, and author of the Gospel which is placed first in the New Testament. Some churches even maintain the patristic claim that Matthew wrote in Aramaic, and was later translated into the Greek version that forms the basis of the New Testament text.

The claim about Aramaic comes from a fourth century report by Eusebius of Caesarea that a second century bishop, Papias of Heirapolis, claimed that Matthew “put the logia in an ordered arrangement in the Hebrew language (Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ), but each person interpreted them as best he could” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.16). We should note that this is a somewhat indirect witness at quite some remove, and also that the Greek word Ἑβραΐδι can be translated either as Hebrew or as Aramaic.

But this claim falls down from the clear evidence of the Greek text of Matthew’s Gospel, which mirrors very closely both the Gospel of Mark, at many points, and the Gospel of Luke, at other points, in passages found only in Matthew and Luke.

The two key conclusions drawn by many scholars are twofold: first, that Matthew (like Luke) used the Gospel of Mark as a basis for writing a narrative about Jesus—but modified and adapted both the order and wording of passages; and second, that Luke and Matthew had access to another source (whether oral or written) for many of the sayings of Jesus (the source is known as Q). This makes it completely unlikely that Matthew wrote, in Aramaic, or in Hebrew, the earliest account of Jesus.

And ascribing the authorship of this Gospel to the tax collector identified at Matt 9:9 is also a patristic move. The title of this (and the other) Gospels, identifying the alleged author, is found only in later manuscripts and patristic writings; the narrative itself fails to identify anyone as the author, let alone the tax collector named Matthew. This claim is a later apologetic move, most likely made to provide an “apostolic authorisation” to the Gospel.

See

What do we know about who wrote the New Testament Gospels? (2)

So what do we say, then, of “Matthew”, the purported author of this Gospel, a work which the author declares at the start to be “the book of origins of Jesus, Messiah” (Matt 1:1)? For me, a key to the way that the author of this “book of origins” operated is provided at Matt 13:52, where Jesus concludes a sequence of parables with the statement that “every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old”.

That description encapsulates very clearly, for me, who the author of this Gospel was—a scribe, “trained for the kingdom”, drawing on old resources, but reshaping them so that they are seen to be new. We can see this in many ways in the narrative that he constructs. We can especially see this in the way he presents Jesus as an authoritative teacher of Torah—the one whose words are to be heard, remembered, studied, and passed on. Thus, the reason for his writing of this Gospel.

In this Gospel, we are offered a distinctive, at times unique, portrayal of Jesus. Only in this Gospel does Jesus affirm that all of “the law and the prophets” stand, are not to be annulled, and indeed have been “fulfilled”, or given new life and meaning, by what Jesus teaches (Matt 5:17–20).

So the encounters between Jesus and his disciples, and the scribes and Pharisees, at various moments in the narrative (9:2–8, 10–13; 12:38–42; 15:1–20; 16:1–4; 19:3–9; 21:15–16; 22:34–46) inevitably revolve around differing interpretations of Torah prescriptions and include regular references to (Hebrew) scriptural passages.

Jesus debates the way that the scribes and Pharisees interpret Torah; he meets them on their terms, and engages in these debates in accordance with “the rules” of scripture interpretation. Far from abandoning the Torah, he rather keeps the commandments, valued as “what is old”, and provides distinctive insights and understandings, “what is new”, as he intensifies and radicalises them. (“You have heard it said …”, hard enough; “but I say to you …”, an impossible counsel of perfection?)

In this Gospel alone, Jesus affirms “the scribes and the Pharisees” as those who “sit on Moses’ seat” and teach well—but fail to live by that teaching in their lives (23:1–3). Accordingly, Jesus not only teaches how to live by the law, with a ferocious intensity (5:21–48; 23:13–36), but he puts his teachings into practice; he maintains the old but fills it with new meaning. He “brings out … what is new and what is old”. All of this is central to the way that this anonymous scribe has told the story of Jesus. And that is worth remembering today.

Dealing with divine violence (Matt 18; Pentecost 16A)

“Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” (Matt 18:21). We know the question—and we know the answer. “If a person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive”, Jesus says, at least according to Luke’s Gospel (Luke 17:4).

Not so in Matthew’s Gospel. Forgiving seven times, as demanding as that is, is not enough—at least according to the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel. “Not seven times”, says this Jesus, “but, I tell you, seventy-seven times” (Matt 18:22).

We hear this conversation, and an ensuing parable, on this coming Sunday, as it is the Gospel passage proposed by the lectionary. It follows on from last week’s passage dealing with conflict within the community (18:15–20).

And so, this particular Matthean representation of Jesus appears, on the face of it, to be a more generous, accepting, grace-filled version, than even the Jesus of Luke’s Gospel! Forgiveness is important—so important that it needs to be offered, over and over again, we might assume.

Well, hold on—not so fast. Because immediately after reporting this word of Jesus, the author of Matthew’s Gospel reports him offering a parable which contains a number of difficult—indeed, troublesome—elements. He sets a scene involving a king and a number of slaves. How those characters behave is interesting. The end result is that one slave is thrown into prison “to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt” (18:34).

Slaves, of course, were present in the world in which Jesus lives. Their presence is noted in scenes, such as when we see mention of the sick slave of a centurion (Matt 8:5–13; Luke 7:1–10) and a slave of the high priest (Mark 14:47; Matt 26:51; Luke 22:50; John 18:10). They are recurrent characters in the parables of Jesus (Mark 12:1–12 and parallels; Matt 24:45–51; Luke 12:35–40, 42–48; 14:15–24; 19:11–27; 20:9–19). Slaves are also referred to in a number of the sayings of Jesus (Mark 10:44; Matt 6:24; 10:24–25; 20:27; Luke 16:13; 17:7–10; John 8:34–36).

The character of a king appears in a number of parables of Jesus, in both the Gospel of Luke (Luke 14:31–32; and see also 19:27) and that of Matthew (Matt 18:23–35; 22:1–14; 25:31–46). In this last parable, the final scene of judgement of the nations (25:31–46), the king functions as God’s representative, delivering his commendation of those who acted correctly, but judgement on those who failed to do so.

In the parable we will hear this coming Sunday (18:21–35), the king initially demands repayment of a large debt owed to him by one of his slaves. When the slave cannot pay, he plans to sell him and all his goods and family. However, after being begged by the slave, the king remits the debt (18:27). This part of the parable clearly illustrates the instruction of Jesus concerning forgiveness (18:22).

In the next parable found in Matthew’s Gospel (22:1–14), whilst dealing with guests who turn down his invitation to attend a wedding feast and murder the slaves he had sent to them, the king does not act so graciously; we are told that he “was enraged; he sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city” (22:7).

Then, when a guest does enter dressed without his wedding robe, the king was initially rendered speechless, before ordering his attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (22:13). This is hardly the action of a leader who is following the exhortation to “forgive seventy times seven”!

This destructive rampage by the king fits alongside the reaction of the slave in the earlier parable. Although himself forgiven of his massive debt of “ten thousand talents” (18:27)—an impossible huge debt, completely unrealistic—he refuses to forgive his fellow-slave who owes him much less, “a hundred denarii” (18:28–30)—a more realistic amount to owe. He has this slave thrown into prison—but on hearing of this, his master, the king, who had earlier practised forgiveness (18:25–27), turns on his slave, now seen as “you wicked slave”, and condemns him “to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt” (18:34).

So I am somewhat bemused by the inclusion of this parable. Had Jesus stopped at verse 27 (“out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt”), the parable would have been a fine example of the principle of “forgive seventy times seven”. But it doesn’t stop there. It continues on for another eight verses, and those verses tell of the complete opposite of gracious forgiveness.

The idea of forgiving someone who himself had failed to show forgiveness is thus doomed to failure. And not only that—it is not simply the king in the parable who acts with vengeance, it is the “heavenly Father” who will act in this way towards anybody who “does not forgive your brother or sister from your heart” (18:35). It seems that God is fundamentally a God of vengeance, not of grace.

This should not surprise us if we look elsewhere in this Gospel, to see how Jesus portrays God. Whilst God feeds the birds of the air (6:24), “clothes the grass of the field” (6:30), casts out demons through the Spirit (12:28), commands the honouring of parents (15:4), joins together man and woman to be come “one flesh” (19:4–6), and is able to deliver “the one who trusts in him” (27:43), there are more ominous actions of the divine being that Jesus reflects in his teachings.

Whilst Jesus teaches that the kingdom of heaven will be characterised by being like a child (18:1–5), a number of parables indicate that what transpires in the kingdom will vary, depending on how a person has behaved in life. Those who commit to the righteous-justice that Jesus teaches (5:20; 6:33; 21:32) “will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (13:53) and will hear gracious words of welcome: “come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (25:34). Their fate is to enter into “eternal life” (25:46).

However, those who fail to live in accord with this way of righteous-justice will encounter a different message: “you that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (25:41). Their fate is terrible; the “eternal punishment” that is noted at the conclusion of this parable (25:46) is variously described in other places within this Gospel.

The slave who was not prepared for the return of his master—in the first of four parables (24:45–51) which conclude the final teaching discourse of Jesus—ends with clear punishment: “put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (24:51). Jesus had spoken the instruction to “throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” in the parable where a person came to a wedding inappropriately dressed (22:14). This is a recurrent motif in Matthew’s Gospel.

He has also pointed to the same punishment for lawless and disobedient people in other places: in his words of judgement spoken in Capernaum, where he encounters a distressed centurion (8:12); in his explanation of the parable of the weeds and the wheat (13:42); in the parable of the good and bad fish (13:50); and in the parable of the talents (25:30).

It is a punishment that is taken from Hebrew Scripture texts: “the wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them (Ps 37:12); “the wicked gnash their teeth and melt away; the desire of the wicked comes to nothing” (Ps 112:10); “malicious witnesses … impiously mocked more and more, gnashing at me with their teeth” (Ps 35:11,16). The prophet laments that when Jerusalem is ransacked, “all your enemies open their mouths against you, they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry ‘we have devoured her!’” (Lam 2:16). It is a well-known form of torment and punishment.

The parable of the unprepared servant also has this apparently savage instruction: “he will cut him in pieces” (24:51). We find that in Hebrew Scripture, this was an action used in sacrificing animals (1 Kings 18:23, 33) and as a warning of judgement against sinners—in the terrible story of the Levite’s concubine (Judges 19:29), after Saul defeated the Ammonites (1 Sam 11:7), and also in direct prophetic warnings (Isa 45:2; 51:9; Ezek 16:40; Dan 2:34; also Judith 5:22). This is the fate decreed for the unprepared slave—a terrible end, indeed!

Throughout this Gospel, Jesus declares that sinners are destined for “the judgement of fire” (Matt 5:22; 7:19; 13:40, 42, 50; 18:8–9; 25:41). This picks up from the warning of John the baptiser, which Matthew has added to his Markan source: “You brood of vipers! who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? … even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 3:7, 10).

That place is described by Jesus, in parables unique to Matthew, as “the furnace of fire” (Matt 13:43, 50; 25:41). Sinners will be sent to a place of “eternal fire” (18:8; 25:41), “the hell of fire” (5:22; 18:9), the “unquenchable fire” threatened by John: “the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (3:12). This builds on the warnings found in Mark’s Gospel about the punishment in store for those who put stumbling blocks in the way of “these little ones”—they will be condemned to “the unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:42–48). These warnings are repeated by Jesus in Matt 18:6–9.

Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus is consistent in reporting that he warns his followers, again and again, of the fiery fate that awaits evildoers. Once again, this picks up on Hebrew Scripture passages in which various prophets declare that God will use fire to destroy people and places because of their sinfulness (Isa 1:7; 5:24; 30:27–28, 30, 33 18–19; Jer 4:4; 6:27–30; 20:47–48; Hos 8:14; Joel 2:1–3; Amos 1:4—2:5; Nah 1:15).

Amongst those prophetic oracles, Zephaniah, for instance, portrays utter devastation through divine judgement: “neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath; in the fire of his passion the whole earth shall be consumed” (Zeph 1:18).

However, the final prophet in the Christian Old Testament, Malachi, reworks this imagery, offering some hope; God’s messenger on The Day of the Lord “is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness” (Mal 3:1–4).

A number of psalms reflect the desire for God to punish evildoers severely; “pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them” is the cry of one psalm (Ps 69:24). Another psalm notes the vengeance of God—“in your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands deal out violence on earth” (Ps 58:2)—and suggests that “the righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked” (Ps 58:10). We must wonder: did Jesus pray these psalms? did he concur with their ideas? did he pray for God to act with vengeance?

The image of fiery punishment comes from the story of Daniel (Dan 3:1–30) and appears again in the last book of the New Testament, where the prophet describes his visions of “the lake of fire that burns with sulfur” (Rev 19:20; 20:10, 14–15), also described as “the second death” (Rev 20:14; 21:8). It is there that the devil, the beast, and the false prophet “will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev 20:10). Matthew appears to share some similarities with the writer of this book, for as we have noted, eternal punishment in a fiery furnace features also in the words of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel.

So we can’t simply brush aside the closing words of the parable which is in focus this coming Sunday—the Heavenly Father, we are told, will follow the example of the unforgiving servant, who will be “tortured until he would pay his entire debt” (18:34–35), in the service of ensuring that faithful people do indeed forgive one another! (How he will be able to pay off his debt while he is being tortured in prison, I do not know!)

Such punishment is consistent with the way that God’s justice will be implemented, according to the various teachings and parables of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel that we have already noted. It will be incredibly hard to be let off the hook by this fierce, punitive God!! We are left with the conundrum: what are we to make of this aggressively violent, retributive God?

*****

I have had a go at addressing this conundrum in terms of how it is presented in Hebrew Scripture, at

The Day, The End: themes in The Prophets

and

Justice, and only justice, you shall follow.

Let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector (Matt 18; Pentecost 15A)

The Gospel we ascribe to the authorship of Matthew the tax collector, the first of the four in the canon of the New Testament, is distinctive for a number of reasons. One of those is that it contains a collection of the sayings of Jesus which relate to life in the community of faith—a kind of a miniature “community rule” for the people for whom the author was writing.

Those sayings are collected together in chapter 18, which is the fourth of five teaching blocks in the arrangement made by the author of this Gospel. We will hear and read some of those words this coming Sunday (Matt 18:15–20, Pentecost 15A), and then a parable relating to these teachings next week (Matt 18:21–35, Pentecost 16A). And this week’s reading contains some stridently harsh words from Jesus: if a person who has “sinned against” refuses to be reconciled, then “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collectors” (18:17)!

These five teaching blocks canvass ethical imperatives (5:1–7:29), missional guidelines (10:5–11:1), parables of the kingdom (13:1–53), relationships within the community of faith (18:1–19:1), and apocalyptic predictions about the coming kingdom along with strengthened indications of what righteousness is required in that kingdom (23:1–26:2). These teachings are demanding and comprehensive.

In each block of material, the author has drawn together teachings of Jesus that have been assembled from various sources, and arranged in a manner that presents these collected sayings and teachings as a cohesive, sermon-like presentation. The hand of the author is clear, just as the voice of Jesus is strong.

So the first fourteen verses of this chapter comprise words which are found at various places in the Gospel of Mark, one of Matthew’s sources, as well as in the sayings material which is believed to have been collected earlier, in the hypothetical source known as Q. (Material in Q, according to this theory, was known to and used by both Matthew and Luke, but in different ways and in different places in their works.)

The first five verses (18:1–5) report the words of Jesus about the child and the kingdom of heaven, which are included in all three Synoptic Gospels. When a child is placed before him, Jesus declares that “unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven; whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (18:3–4). The same saying is found in slightly varied forms at Mark 10:14–15 and Luke 18:16–17.

The conclusion to this short scene, “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Matt 18:5), is a variant on an earlier Matthean saying, “whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” (Matt 10:40; and the subsequent variations, 10:41–42).

This, in turn, is derived from Mark’s own earlier account of when Jesus “took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me’” (Mark 9:36–37). Luke replicates this at Luke 9:47–48.

So the first section of this chapter already shows the dependence of the author on an earlier source, and his willingness to appropriate and reshape the material for his own purposes.

The next four verses (18:6–9) deal with skandala, a group of sayings that Mark reports in his account: “if any of you put a stumbling block [a skandalon] before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:42). Mark himself then extends this saying with reference to having a hand or foot cut off, if it is a skandalon, as well as an eye plucked out if it, also, is a skandalon (Mark 9:43–48).

Matthew includes all the material that he finds in his Markan source—the little ones, the errant hand and foot, and the eye—and expands it, adding some words that intensify the warning: “Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes!” (Matt 18:7).

Luke reports the initial words of Jesus (Luke 17:1–2), but then places the word about forgiving another member of the community (Luke 17:3) and the command to “forgive seven times seven” (Luke 17:4)—a word which provides the basis for the last section in Matthew’s fourth teaching block (Matt 18:15–35). So Luke and Matthew have each collated diverse words of Jesus, but in different combinations.

Before that, however, Matthew has Jesus tell the parable of the lost sheep (Matt 18:10–14), which is found also in Luke 15. In Luke’s recounting of the story, it is the first of three parables focussed on seeking the lost and welcoming them home with joy.: a list sheep, a list coin, and then two sons, each list for very different reasons

In Matthew’s narrative, however, the parable stands on its own, as a hinge between the warnings about skandala and instructions about dealing with conflict. The orientation is clear: stumbling blocks present problems, but the Gospel includes a call to seek reconciliation and embrace the return of a repentant one—for “it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost” (18:14).

So the theme is set for passage which is offered by the lectionary this Sunday (18:15–20), which deals with conflict within the community. There is a short and direct statement about such a situation that is made by Jesus in Luke’s account: “if another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive; and if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive” (Luke 17:2–3).

It seems that this word comprises a reflection that sits neatly alongside an independent Markan saying: “whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:25). That word provides the undergirding for the instruction to forgive: God offers forgiveness.

Divine forgiveness is a theme that the Hebrew prophets of old surely knew (see Isa 33:24; Jer 31:34; 33:8; 36:3; Ezek 16:62–63; Dan 9:9, 17–19; Amos 7:1–3; Hos 4:4–7) and which the psalmists regularly sought (Ps 25:18; 32:1; 65:3; 79:9). They know that, “if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered” (Ps 130:3–4). And so Jesus instructs his disciples, when praying, to ask God to “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us” (Luke 11:4; and compare Matt 6:12).

In Matthew’s reworking of this Q material, it takes no less than twenty verses to get from the presenting problem—“if another member of the community sins against you” (18:15)—to the final resolution, that we are to show mercy and forgive—for “if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart”, neither will God forgive you (18:35). Matthew does this through some direct instructions (18:15–20), which we hear in this week’s lectionary readings, and then an extended parable (18:21–35), which we will hear in the following week’s lectionary offerings.

The construction of this instructional section is clear and informative. There are four “if” clauses, setting out a hypothetical situation: “if another member sins” (v.15a), “if the member listens” (v.15b), “if you are not listened to” (v.16), and “if the member refuses to listen” (v.17). We know that this is a hypothetical situation, because the syntax of the Greek at this point does not use the simple construction for a “real present condition”, ei followed by the verb in the indicative mood, with a resolution also in the indicative.

Here, the syntax is ean followed by the verb in the subjunctive mood, followed by a resolution in the indicative. That pattern appears four times in these three verses. Jesus (via Matthew) is setting out a possible scenario, with clear guidance as to what course of action is to be taken in that scenario.

For the first three times, the response is clear and compassionate. If a sin occurs, “go and point out the fault” (v.15a). If the person listens, “you have regained that person” (v.15b). If the person does not listen, “take one or two others with you” (v.16). And as the situation increases, the inclusion of others in the process broadens the responsibility for possible resolution.

It is thought that the “one or two others” in the third step reflects the need for “two or three witnesses” in the prescriptions of Torah (Deut 17:6, and especially 19:15). Indeed, the author of this Gospel, as a pious Jew immersed in the details of Torah, would have known well the process that is outlined in Deut 19:15–21, which provides that “a single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing” (Deut 19:15).

It is this passage, famously, that proceeds through a process of clarification—particularly in relation to identifying a false witness (Deut 19:16–19)—before the culminating sentence is pronounced: “so you shall purge the evil from your midst … show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Deut 19:19, 21). Justice is clear; justice is hard; justice is demanded.

Seen in the light of this Torah provision, we can therefore understand the sequence that Jesus, via Matthew, envisages: a private conversation, then a conversation with witnesses , and then, if required, a full, public declaration of the sin—and the punishment, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matt 18:17).

The process that Matthew envisages is oriented towards “regaining” the one who has sinned. The Greek word in verse 15 which is translated in this way was used by Paul to indicate success as he seeks to convince people to follow Jesus as Messiah (1 Cor 9:19–23; notice the reacting “so that I might win”). It may be that Matthew has this in mind in his use of the word in verse 15; the aim is to “win” or “regain” a person back into the community, through a process of intensified persuasion.

I confess that I once wrote a detailed exegesis of this passage which argued that this word provided the key to the passage: the aim was to regain a person, to have reconciliation. I even went on to claim that “like a Gentile or a tax collector” in verse 17 did not mean, banish this person from the community, but consider them to be providing a new opportunity for them to be “converted”, persuaded of the value of the Gospel. My professor said it was very well argued, even though he did not agree with my somewhat optimistic conclusion. (I got a good grade, though!)

In the decades since then, a number of conversations with my wife Elizabeth—who has spent more time focussing on Matthew’s Gospel than I have, even though I have taught courses on Matthew for 20 years now—convinced me that the clue lies in the words used in verse 17. After all, neither a Gentile nor a tax collector is highly regarded in this Torah-informed Gospel.

Jesus, in Matthew’s account, instructs his disciples “do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do” (6:7), noting that “if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? do not even the Gentiles do the same.” (5:47), and also that “it is the Gentiles who strive for these things” that are of passing value—food and drink, the length of life and our clothing—on contrast to “the kingdom of God and God’s righteous-justice” (Matt 6:32–33). The Gentiles do not get a good rap from the Matthean Jesus.

Indeed, in this Gospel, Jesus quite distinctively commands his disciples, “go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:5-6), and dismissively informs a Canaanite woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”, and so “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (15:24, 26). Keep away from the Gentiles is his persistent message! (Until that is reversed by the risen Jesus, in a great turnaround, at 28:19–20).

And as for tax collectors: the first thing to say ist hat whilst the traditional understanding is that this Gospel was written by a tax collector (the one identified at 9:9), scholarly interpreters regularly dismiss this as later tradition, and note that working from the text leads us to conclude that the author was more likely a fervent, pious Jew, Torah-abiding and also deeply committed to regarding Jesus as rabbi, teacher, and Messiah.

Of course, Jesus was known for eating with tax collectors (Mark 2:15–16 and parallels)—but not so much with Gentiles (especially in Matthew’s Gospel!). Here, however, the tax collectors to whom the errant community member are to be dispatched (18:17) are those linked with sinners (9:10–11; 11:19) and with prostitutes (21:32), those who, rather than loving their enemies (5:44), “love those who love you”. “Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”, Jesus asks (5:46), placing them on par with the Gentiles, as we have already noted (5:47). So in this Gospel, it seems that to be with tax collectors and Gentiles is to be amongst those, outcast from God, who are determined to live in a way that does not reflect how Jesus understands God wants his people to live.

So the Matthew passage results in the Sam end as the Deuteronomy passage” “purge the evil from your midst” (Deut 19:19), let the sinful one “be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matt 18:17). In both cases, the need for a clear boundary, marking off the faithful from the evil ones who surrounded them, was paramount. No gentle Jesus, meek and mild, here!!

The decision is undergirded by words about binding and loosing which harken back to the authority given to Peter (16:19). It is a decision reinforced by divine authority—what is decided on earth “will have been bound (or loosed) in heaven”.

The paradox of discipleship (Matt 16; Pentecost 14A)

The section of the Gospel that is offered in the lectionary this coming Sunday (Mark 16:21–28) contains a striking paradox. As the author of this passage portrays Jesus, looking forward to the public shaming that he will experience on the cross, he places on his lips a call to his followers, to take up the cross themselves. The cross is at the centre of the story that the evangelists tell—and at the heart of Christian faith. And yet that cross subjects Jesus to the shame of being subjected to this degrading punishment.

The cross is introduced by Jesus himself, when he teaches his followers “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” (16:21). So important is this teaching, that Jesus repeats it twice more, following the threefold appearance of this prediction in one of Matthew’s key sources, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus, Messiah”, which we know as Mark’s Gospel (Mark 9:31; 10:33–34).

So Jesus restates this briefly: “the Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised” (Matt 17:23); and then, with more details: “the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified; and on the third day he will be raised” (Matt 20:18–19).

I don’t think that these three predictions were spoken, historically, by Jesus, as he made his way towards Jerusalem. Rather, the author of a placed them in this strategic place in the centre of his narrative (Mark 8:27–38). The author of “the book of origins of Jesus, Messiah”, which we know as Matthew’s Gospel, sees the value of this repetition, and follows his source.

These statements mark the turn in the story from Galilee, where the earlier activity of Jesus took place (Matt 4:12—18:35), towards Jerusalem, where the final days of Jesus will play out (19:1—28:15). The dynamic of the narrative indicates that, as Jesus leaves behind the days of preaching and teaching, healing and casting out demons, his focus turns to the confrontation that he knows lies in store for him.

The public nature of crucifixion was humiliating and shaming. The typical process of crucifixion involved moment after moment of humiliation, undermining any sense of honour that the victim had, increasing the sense of public shame that they were experiencing.

In the Roman world, crucifixion was variously identified as a punishment for slaves (Cicero, In Verrem 2.5.168), bandits (Josephus, War 5.449-451), prisoners of war (Josephus, War 5.451), and political rebels (Josephus, Ant. 17.295). These were people whose situations or actions had generated shame.

In the case of Jesus, he is accused of treason through the inference that he is King of the Jews—a claim that was anathema to the Romans (John 19:12)—and he is crucified in the company of political rebels (Mark 15:27; Matt 27:38; the term used, lēstēs, is the one most often found in the writings of Josephus to denote a political rebel).

A public trial, followed by a public execution on the cross, was a ritual in which the accused person was shamed, through a public ritual of status degradation. Cicero, in speaking as the counsel of Rabinio, a man accused of treason, asserted that “the ignominy of a public trial is a miserable thing” and described a public execution as “the assembly being polluted by the contagion of an executioner … [exhibiting] traces of nefarious wickedness” (Pro Rabinio 11, 16).

I have explored the humiliation and shaming inherent in the act of crucifixion in more detail in a blog at

Reading the crucifixion as a scene of public shaming

And yet, immediately after he spoke this prophetic word, Jesus issued his disciples with a call to take up their crosses themselves: “if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matt 16:24). He invites them—indeed, he commands them—to enter into the public shame that he will experience in his own crucifixion.

In the narratives that recount the crucifixion of Jesus, it is not so much the physical torment of Jesus which is highlighted (although, admittedly, a slow death by suffocation whilst hanging on a cross for hours, even days, was a terrible fate). Rather, it is the various ways in which Jesus was shamed: he was spat upon, physically struck on the face and the head, verbally ridiculed and insulted, and treated contemptuously.

This is the way of Jesus; and the way of his followers. Instead of saving their life, the followers of Jesus are instructed to lose their life (16:25). Instead of aiming to “gain the whole world”, and thereby “forfeit their life”, a follower is, by implication, to let go of all hopes of “gaining the world” (16:25–26). To gain the world was presumably referring to occupying a position of power, prestige, and popularity—precisely the kind of issues that later writers, Matthew and Luke, reflected in their more detailed accounts of the testing of Jesus in the wilderness. (See https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/johntsquires.com/2019/03/05/a-testing-time-forty-days-in-the-wilderness-1/)

Then, Jesus specifies the sense of shame that is involved in “taking up your cross” and “losing your life”, but he turns the tables as he declares that “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” (16:27).

This reversal of fortune, repaying everyone for their deeds, reflects the shame, in God’s eyes, of rejecting Jesus. (The way this saying is expressed in Mark’s earlier version is clearer in this regard; see Mark 8:38.) Here is the paradox: to gain honour, Jesus had to be subjected to the shame of the cross.

Likewise, to gain honour as a disciple following Jesus, a person must take up the shameful instrument of punishment (the cross), lay aside all desire to gain prestigious and powerful positions of honour, give up any claim on life itself, and (as Jesus later asserts), live as a servant, being willing to be dishonoured for the sake of the shame of the Gospel.

And that’s the paradox of discipleship that this passage illuminates.