The cross looms over the manger

MATTHEW 20

God’s justice, our ambition

The disciples represent all of us: well, I qualify that – in gender terms, the 12 represent 50 per cent of us; but their qualities and character (which we only glean in part) and their humanity are all shared with us, male and female. I suggest this representative role because we see in them the courage and fear, the faith and the doubt, the seeing and unseeing, the ambition and self-sacrifice that is a mix in all of us. In the 20^th chapter, we are invited by Jesus to understand the absolute justice of God, the naked ambition of a mother and her two boys and the incredibly moving story of Jesus giving sight to two blind men as he began his uphill walk from the Jericho plains to the holy hill of Jerusalem.

In amidst all this, Jesus again warns the disciples that he is heading for the cross, and the resurrection.

First, the parable of the kingdom that again underlines that it is God’s kingdom and God’s wages (rewards?) are for God alone to dole out. One of the things that is so exciting and brilliant about God is the gift of grace. Grace by its very nature cannot be earned or merited or received in some kind of barter or exchange. Grace freely offered (though at the cost of the cross) is not like some capitalist exchange of labour for wages. Grace is given to all, whether long in the kingdom business or late to it. Approaching this parable as a trade unionist representing ‘the early morning workers’ one could put up an argument for an obviously unfair pay policy. But, as the manager says to these early workers, you took on your labour in the kingdom for the same fair pay (grace, freely given) as those who came late.

Here again is the Great Reversal. Grace is not measured in the labour of the those in the kingdom, it is freely offered to all. As Jesus says in his warning to the disciples about his impending death, he has come as a ‘ransom for many’; or as Petersen puts it: ‘The Son of Man… came to serve, not to be served – and then to give away his life in exchange for the many who are held hostage.’ The only exchange offered is the priceless life of Jesus as a ransom for all kidnapped by sin and held captive by its power. Jesus’ mission is a rescue mission, pure and simple. And no ransom payment on earth can pay the price except the life of the Saviour, freely offered, once for all. This is ransom theology, pure and simple.

In the middle of all this is the ambition of a mother for her boys. She is obviously on the road with them. I wonder how many other mothers, sisters, brothers, friends, had joined the journey to Jerusalem. Was Mary with them too? She obviously is there at the crucifixion, according especially to John’s account. You can imagine, can’t you, the anger of the rest of the disciples when they heard of James and John’s mother’s entreaties on their behalf. Is there something of the cunning of Rachel at work here, as she plotted for Jacob and against Esau? It is blatant isn’t it? She has not really got the message about the kingdom of Great Reversal yet. She and the Sons of Thunder (clearly larger than life types with big personalities and big emotions to boot) clearly wanted the inside track. What Jesus says next is interesting: he doesn’t shoo them away or tick them off exactly: he asks them if they can really ‘drink his cup’ (of suffering and death) and then says they will. Obviously, this was written down a long time after the event. But it was clearly remembered in the disciples’ oral tradition and recorded for posterity. And yet again, Jesus says the pecking order of the kingdom is God’s and God’s alone. No-one can buy special treatment. It is grace, pure grace. And then, just as it seems a huge rebellion or civil war within the 12 is about to break out, Jesus quells the mutiny with another example of the Great Reversal – greatness in the kingdom is found in service, in giving of self, not in lording it over others.

Finally, Jesus is again on the move, leaving the plains of Jericho and beginning his 3,325ft climb over an 18-mile dusty road to Jerusalem. The Prince of Peace walks by two blind men (Mark’s account has only one man, Bartimaeus). As Jesus’ shadow passes over them, they cry out for mercy from the Master. Why are the crowd wanting them to hush? Were the sightless duo an embarrassment to them? Were they too lowly to receive Jesus’ attention, in the eyes of the seeing crowd? What gave them the courage to cry out even more loudly – had they heard Jesus teach about this kingdom of the Great Reversal? You can see it unfolding can’t you.

Jesus hears them before he sees them, he stops in his tracks and calls out to them asking what they want. They ask for their sight. He gives it to them both. This is the kind of exchange the kingdom is about. An exchange based on honest acknowledgment of true human need and the rich resources of the Master of Grace. To them, God’s mercy was about sight. What does God’s mercy look like to you?

A final comment: the last healing miracle of Jesus before entering Jerusalem is the gift of sight. Is this important? Is this a literary device of the gospel writers? While we have no way of knowing exactly whether the sequence of anything in the gospels represents the actual chronology of Jesus’ ministry (indeed, we know that John’s Gospel contradicts at several points the chronology of the Synoptic gospels), it seems to be very important to all four gospels that we understand the link between ‘seeing’ with our eyes and ‘understanding’ with our hearts. 

We are beginning to see together in this blog how the radical nature of the Kingdom of the Great Reversal is challenging us to look at our own lifestyles as we enter the Feast of Christmas. The Cross, and all it stands for, looms over the Manger, and all it stands for. And the empty tomb is yet to come.