MATTHEW 19
The Great Reversal
The
last shall be first. The first shall be last. The rich of this world will find
it very hard to get into the coming world, the kingdom of God. The childlike,
not the schemers, will make up the coming world, the kingdom of God. Those who
give up or let go of material things (and even family) because of Jesus will
receive even more (even family) than they once had. This is the Great Reversal.
Jesus
is on the road again. He has left Galilee for the last time. He has crossed the
Jordan and is on the way to Jerusalem. Here, Matthew collects together
fragments of his teaching and more examples of being ambushed by the Pharisee
party who are tracking his every move, it would seem.
His
first confrontation is a question over divorce and marriage. Jesus is again
shown to have a quick and ready mind and a compassionate grace-filled heart,
able to give clear and concise answers to knotty conundrums.
Jesus
describes marriage, as God intends it, to be an example of how a woman and a
man become an organic one; this unity should not be undermined or divided or
desecrated by anyone. But Jesus then goes to the heart of the matter. He says
divorce is not God’s ideal, but it is there because things do go wrong – he says
it is because of hard and adulterous hearts, hearts that cannot commit to one
person but are themselves divided. Divorce is not God’s ideal, but because of
divided hearts, it is allowed. Jesus then goes on to say, with grace and
realism, that marriage is not for everyone.
In
Petersen’s paraphrase, he says: ‘If you are capable of growing into the
largeness of marriage, do it.’ I find this a very beautiful interpretation. For
it also is borne out of the wisdom of how marriage is about change and growth;
it also recognises that marriage is about spaciousness as well as closeness,
faithfulness and loyalty, loving support and sustaining mutuality. On same-sex
marriage, of course Jesus says nothing. What are we to make of that? We might
say that culturally or experientially same sex relationships were not accepted
or understood in Jesus day. We might say that because Jesus’ teaching on
marriage assumes those cultural norms it is limited to them now or that,
indeed, the ‘largeness of marriage’ is not limited to a man and a woman.
The
next phase of teaching is about earthly power and powerlessness and the
impossible being made possible through God. It is the theology of the Kingdom
of God as the ‘Great Reversal’. The childlike shape and make this kingdom. The
rich, who are always also powerful, do not. Those who do everything to keep the
law of faith (and maybe this is where church people like us need to be really
careful) may miss the point entirely of the kingdom. We may very well be ‘the
last’ – and yet, there is grace in this also. The last are not the lost. They
are not excluded. They just are the last. The first, the most honoured, the
highly prized (so there is a pecking order in the Kingdom of God – responding to
Terry) are those who are overlooked in this world: those who are humble and meek
and poor and mourning and lowly; the suffering ones, the weak and fragile ones;
these are ‘the first’, the people of the Great Reversal.
We
know that the Trumps and Putins and Assaads of this world, the hard-hearted rulers
and tyrants of this world, will face the Great Judgement. We know that we all
will face the Great Judgement.
But,
the Great Reversal, the coming of the Kingdom of God, does not wait for that
day. It is happening wherever the Kingdom of God is growing, in time and in
places and with and through people now. Are we ready for the Great Reversal?
This is turning point in Jesus’ ministry, literally since he is leaving Galilee and turning his face southwards towards Jerusalem for the events that would really set him apart from the many wandering preachers of his day. The main blog deals well with the question of marriage and divorce, so we will concentrate on his radical teaching on the use of wealth.
ReplyDeleteThe rich young man had kept all the Jewish Law, lived by all the rules of his faith including the Ten Commandments given to Moses. He would have been seen by his neighbours as a good religious man. As Christians we try to live similarly within the tenets of our faith, and would like to be regarded similarly, so we are not that different from the young man. But this kind of observance was not enough for eternal life in the Kingdom, and no amount of earthly wealth would be able to buy that. Jesus has already warned that no man can serve both God and money (6, 24), and the young man is trying to do both. After this encounter Jesus repeats the warning, perhaps with a sigh, ‘How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven’.
Most of us, Christian or not, are also torn in two ways. Most people want a higher salary, a bigger pension, a better return on our savings, more material wealth to ease or enhance our lifestyle. Most of us want to spend it on ourselves and our family and friends, ‘me-money’, rather like the ‘me-time’ that people extol these days. That is the dynamic driving the society we live in; so we are torn.
It is the ‘radical’ Jesus giving this warning to the rich man: your money is a barrier as you currently spend and hold on to it, but not if you give it away to those in need. He is radical because he sees this earthly life as a way to a heavenly life whose entry ticket is a loving, generous life here, not just as the upholding the traditional rules of faith. He is radical because this perspective seldom dominates our actions on an individual, national or international scale. There is a warning here for all his followers – ‘for unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required’ (Luke 12, 48).
The Great Reversal is this radical change, and if we believe that the kingdom of heaven is already breaking into the world, then surely the Great Reversal should be underway here and now in the lives of men and women, in our generosity and love to one another, and in our social structures. Sometimes it is hard to believe this when you look at the ten o’clock news or hear the statements of our leaders or look at the actions carried out by supposed men of faith. It seems impossible! And it is for men. ‘Who can be saved?’, Jesus was asked. ‘It’s impossible by the actions of men and women, but with God everything is possible. Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.’ In effect, Jesus was still answering the question from the previous chapter about who would be greatest in the kingdom. If there is a pecking order in heaven, it will not be the one expected from our earthly experience of power and wealth! Quite the reverse.
Jesus' teaching to the young man to sell all his possessions and give to the poor is a great reversal of the greed and excess of Christmas commercialism. But as I write that, it sounds like being a Christian means being a killjoy, dour and frugal, not free to have generous fun and abundant celebration. In some circumstances writing "Happy" Christmas in cards can be difficult.
ReplyDeleteI've recently heard about the "4 Christmas gifts challenge" where parents are challenged to "only" buy 4 gifts for each of their children: something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read. What about giving just one gift: a gift for those living in poverty?
How is the Church, which will soon be celebrating the birth of Jesus, who was born into poverty, being a Church for the poor? What does it really mean to the way we live and to the life of the Church that Jesus favoured the poor, be they poor financially, poor in spirit, poor in health, poor in status? We find out by having the courage to respond to Jesus' call to "come, follow me" (v.21)
ReplyDeleteDeuteronomy 30:9,10
....The Lord will delight in you and make you prosperous, just as He delighted in your fathers, if you obey the Lord your God and keep His commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul.
Deut 30:16
For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord you God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
They also believed that one won God's favour by giving alms. The more you gave, the greater you were in God's eyes. It was easier for the rich to give. Those who were poor were considered not to have been blessed by God.
Deuteronomy 26:13, 15
13 Then say to the Lord your God: “I have removed from my house the sacred portion and have given it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, according to all you commanded. I have not turned aside from your commands nor have I forgotten any of them.
15 Look down from heaven, your holy dwelling place, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us as you promised on oath to our ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
When Jesus said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, it is no wonder the disciples were amazed.
I am sorry, but the first bit of what I typed just disappeared. This is what I wanted to say before the first quote from Deuteronomy:
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to see how Jesus constantly offended the religious leaders. He kept refuting what was taught, and overturning what was widely believed. The Jews believed that wealth and prosperity were God's reward for being obedient to him.