Simple
trust beside
the
Syrian sea
Word has got around the region of
Galilee and barely has Jesus stepped off the mountain and he is being called
upon to take action to heal a leper, a Roman soldier’s servant, Peter’s
mother-in-law, unnumbered afflicted people and two men excluded by their village
for no longer being in their right minds. In between these encounters, Jesus
rejects those hangers-on who are not willing to rough it or have other more
pressing priorities. And he takes on the forces of nature and calms a storm and
the very real fears of his disciples.
Matthew’s account portrays a gathering
urgency as emergencies seem to swirl around Jesus in sometimes chaotic
uncontrollable circumstances. Yet he seems to be the still calm centre at the
eye of the storm.
His unhurried response to deep human
needs is always clear and straightforward. The ‘ask, seek and knock’
instruction of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is taken up by the leper and by
the centurion. The leper is healed as Jesus reaches out and touches an
untouchable – no fear of being contaminated, only a deep desire to heal. The
centurion is praised for his simple trust that one word from Jesus would be
enough to heal his servant.
It is this simple trust which is praised
by Jesus and contrasted with those who grew up in the faith but did not live in
faith: and as Jesus reaches out to outsiders in the community, Matthew is signalling, again, that the liberating message of Jesus and
the gravitational pull of Jesus would draw people from all over the globe.
From morning till night, Jesus was at
work taking on the illnesses and carrying away the diseases of many who were
brought to him (thus fulfilling Isaiah's prophecies, according to Matthew). He cured the inwardly tormented and the bodily ill. Sometimes
his healings prompted fierce reactions, especially when the restoration of two demon-possessed
men threatened the economy of a village whose herds of pigs died in the process.
‘You cannot serve God and Mammon’ is given an unexpected twist.
Jesus identifies with the suffering, the
poor in spirit, the meek, the ones shown no mercy. He embodies the Beatitudes
as he apparently calmly, purposefully, enters the chaos of broken, hurting, crumbling
lives. Again, it is his authority which astonishes those who watch and see him
at work. ‘Even the wind and waves obey him,’ say his stunned disciples. And in
simple trust, still they were learning to follow Jesus.
In
simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside
the Syrian sea,
The
gracious calling of the Lord,
Let
us, like them, without a word,
Rise
up and follow Thee.
Rise
up and follow Thee.
Trouble is, we find simple trust needs explaining to us in our cynical and hardened times. But was it any different then?
When I was at school, a year or sixty ago, I used to enjoy mathematics. I well remember the threefold arrangement of the textbooks (although I have forgotten most of the maths!). First came an explanation of a new principle, then there were worked examples on how to use it, and finally you had to answer the questions at the end yourself to show that you understood the teaching. I think you can read Matthew in a similar way. The Sermon on the Mount is packed with principles, and we are now getting into the worked examples as Jesus applied them in his own life and in his relationships with those he met on the road of life. Finally, we are expected to ‘go and do likewise’ in our own life, as we answer the questions daily living poses to us. Like the maths questions, life’s challenges are often fairly simple at the start, but get more taxing as we progress. Doesn’t it seem like that as we get older? but remember – we do have more experience and growing confidence to tackle the challenges.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know whether Matthew collected these healing events together or whether they really did occur so early in Jesus’ ministry, but it really doesn’t matter. What we have is picture of the healing Christ, making people whole in body, mind and spirit. The sick or their friends start to approach Jesus for a cure, and Jesus responded in love. This chapter and the next are crammed with healing miracles, before Matthew moves us on to other aspects of Jesus’ ministry and the recorded instances of healing become fewer – perhaps the point has been made. However, it seems that Matthew is deliberately trying to establish at the outset that Jesus is all about wholeness, healing and restoration.
It is not just episodes suitable for ‘Casualty’, however, since there are other important aspects of Jesus’ ministry slipped in with the healing stories. Take the centurion and his servant, for example. In Matthew he comes himself, but in Luke’s account (7, 1) he sends some Jewish elders to ask Jesus for help, before coming himself to meet Jesus on the way. Both writers have Jesus expressing the depth of that Roman’s faith, pointedly, that of a Gentile. Matthew alone makes the wider point about many coming from east and west into the faith, and so foretelling at this early stage the expansion of the Gospel worldwide. The Gospel is for all people, not just Jesus’ immediate, largely Jewish, hearers.
A second point Matthew slips in here is that following the Gospel may be costly. Jesus and the disciples had no home as they wandered around the country, wherever the need took them and God led them. For the disciples, this meant having trust in Jesus, something we all need in life. As we try to work out for ourselves the answers to those questions of life, such trust is the antidote to any doubts, fears and uncertainties we may have – trust in Jesus and trust in God. Rather like the trust of the leper and the centurion, representing those of Jesus’ own Jewish community and all people everywhere.
I was only thinking of that hymn verse yesterday. Its comforting melody makes simple trust sound so easy. Matthew's account of healing after healing, by touch and word, makes trusting in Jesus' power to save and heal also sound so easy. Jesus' authority is undeniable but that doesn't seem to make trust either simple or easy in the face of sickness and disease. "Lord I believe; help my unbelief".
ReplyDeleteWell I find nothing simple in this chapter or even in our leading introduction. Nothing is simple but it should be.
ReplyDeleteThe hymn quoted is one of my favourites but I know it comes from a long poem by John Greenleaf Whittier a Quaker. It’s called The Brewing of Soma and it’s about a group of men who drink this potion that probably contained magic mushroom juice in the bid to have visions, so nothing is what it seems.
We have a God in the Old Testament who chose the Jews as his Holy people and now here we have his son who is opening up the gates to everyone, I don’t think Jesus was the calm in the centre of the storm, I think Jesus caused a riot in those days. Just imagine the order of things that you had known for a long time turned on its head by a lone figure, who had started to performed miracles? Who had calmed storms? Who had healed without even seeing the patient? A young carpenter from Galilee doing all that yet all he had was three years. It’s like being a super star.
I like the thought that God uses the bad or the not so good as well as the good to do his work. Anyone and everyone can be in the plan.
Then it was the ill, the lowly, the down at heel and the ones in need who Jesus targeted, he spent his time with them rather than the families who were the runners of the synagogues.
Jesus is Lord, but it’s also comforting to know that whether you believe that or not, He loves you anyway.
"Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead." I find these words harsh. How could you not be allowed to bury your own father. What kind of love is it that is so selfish that it has no time even for the dead or the bereaved? I looked this up, and the explanation I found was that the custom in that time was to wait up to a year after the death to rebury the bones. The other explanation was that this man may have wanted to be close to his father to claim his inheritance.
ReplyDeleteThe word dead was also used to express indifference or having no influence. eg being dead to the law, dead to sin Romans 7:4 and 6:11.