Steadfast Love

Matthew 22:34-46

Axiomatic is the word of the day.  The definition of this adjective is self-evident or unquestionable, and that is exactly what the Pharisees thought of Jesus’ question, “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?”  They answered without much thought, David’s.  Not unlike when the preacher asks a question of children, they answer Jesus and/or God before even thinking.  The Pharisees and most other Jews of Jesus’ time were waiting for this “Son of David,” the Messiah.  So Jesus gets them thinking by quoting a Psalm.  Some scholars believe it was considered a Messianic Psalm at that time, and others did not, but what is clear is those that follow Jesus does, for it is referenced directly and indirectly thirty-seven times in the New Testament, and even made it into the Apostle’s Creed.  So Jesus asked how can David be the father if he wrote:

Of David. A Psalm.
The Lord says to my lord,
   ‘Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.’ (Psalm 110:1)

Jesus is not denying the statement “Son of David,” as throughout Matthew who reports this scene, uses the term “Son of David” for the Messiah, for Jesus.  However, when Jesus is Baptized, Matthew reports,

And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ (Matthew 3:17)

When Jesus foreshadows His glory at the top of the mountain, transfigured, Matthew reports,

While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved;with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’ (Mathew 17:5)

We know Jesus called the Creator Abba.  It is clear that the Messiah’s father is Our Father who art in Heaven.  David through the lineage of Joseph is His step-father.  Jesus the Messiah, the anointed one, is not a warrior for the Kingdom of Chosen people rather the Lord of the entire world.  Who will not go to battle will rather, will be given victory by God.  Jesus goes to the cross and God provides the victory in the resurrection over the enemies of death and sin.  The Pharisees answered oh so quickly that the Anointed One, the Christ, is a David, and Jesus says basically be careful of thinking that question is axiomatic.

Now they had earlier asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, and He answered with the Shema, which would be the axiomatic answer to that question even today.  I imagine that others mouthed the words of His response along with Jesus nodding their heads. However, he also shared Leviticus 19:18:

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Jesus actually says that this second commandment He shares is “like” or better still the same as the first.  Jesus knows the Shema is the axiomatic answer to that question posed, but this other commandment demonstrates how the one on the door posts truly works.  He is telling them to love, and in Greek the word is agape.  Nothing truly special about that word, other then it does not refer to romantic and/or lustful love.  However, when the Messiah Himself, asks you to Love God (Love Him) and that is Like (or the same) as Loving your neighbor, one most realize that the Law or any commandment of God most not be considered axiomatic.  Just as the Shema as the greatest commandment is given greater meaning by Jesus saying it is like Leviticus 19:18, we as Christians most look at Love our neighbor as ourselves more carefully.  Most of us will mouth the two commandments Jesus shares when we read this scripture.  You will hear Christians say love your neighbor as yourself. 

When we Christians say “Love thy neighbor as yourself,” are we truly getting the point.  We probably find the statement axiomatic.  Thus I want to look at it closely, and remind you that the incarnate God-Man, Jesus, says this.  We know we are to love Jesus with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our might and Jesus says that is done also by following the commandment about the neighbor.  Incarnate Jesus, Emmanuel, says this an thus He had neighbors himself.  So how would God love?  The word agape is great because it demonstrated love that is not red hearts and romance.  Hesed is the word for God’s Love and or the love of charity and kindness in Hebrew.  This word is better translated in English as convental love, but to our ears that sounds legalistic.  Remember that the covenant was the promise by God to protect and lead the Hebrew people and thus they followed the Law in response to this great love.  A love they did not necessarily do anything to earn, but respond in kind.  Or we may call it steadfast love.  Love that is perfect such is our heavenly father, “…for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45b) 

We need to look at our neighbors with the love Jesus, Himself, told us He wants for him for all other people.  Steadfast Love; GRACE is axiomatic, that is it is the unquestionable answer, but we must find the answer as we strive toward loving as God loves, loving God.

Heads or Tails?

Matthew 22:15-22

The Pharisees have been trying to trick Jesus, and this time they brought a group of Herodians, for a specific question.  The question is about the Roman Census Tax, which honestly was something Pharisees were against in principle.  Hence, they needed to bring another who would have been truly insulted by someone denouncing the tax.  The Pharisees did not actively campaign against this tax in fear, but awaited a Messiah that would free them from all Roman control.

The Herodians were invested in the Roman system.  They supported the “puppet” king Herod, whose power was enabled by the the Roman’s power.  The tax was central to their power, to their identity.  Thus the Pharisees knew that if Jesus answered against the tax, they would have him arrested.  Even though they were against it themselves, they had apparently not questioned it, they would probably only go as far to say when the Messiah comes and saves Israel.  If Jesus spoke that the tax was lawful, the Pharisees hoped he would lose some of His followers.  Little did they know that even His closest followers would deny Him and He would still save the world.  The Pharisees were hoping to expose Jesus as not the Messiah, for the Messiah would certainly stand against the tax.

Jesus spoke to the Pharisees and made it clear that He knew of their malice, and called them hypocrites.  In part for they were saying nice things to Him while trying to trap Him, but also because Jesus knew they believed the tax as being against the Torah.  So Jesus asked for the coin one would use to pay the tax, which required a Roman coin.  Jesus asks whose image and title are on that coin.  The Herodians so the coin and their power, so the answer given did not offend them.  The Pharisees saw the emperor and saw the titled “Tiberius Caesar August Son of the Divine Augustus” (or something very similar). They knew that the Roman Empire was also the Roman Religion, and that they believed the Emperor to be a god.   That certainly goes against Jewish Law.  Jesus says you can give that coin, that idol, back to Ceasar, for it is his, but give to God what is God’s.  Harkening to the creation when the image of God was put on earth:

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’
So God created humankind in his image,
   in the image of God he created them;
   male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:26-27)

While the Herodians looked at the coin and saw their own power, all others saw the image of God amongst themselves.  They knew what was God’s and it was not the coin, it was the people.  Paul emphasizes this very well,

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1)

Jesus answered quite bluntly that it was not simply about following the Torah (the Law) but that it is all turned head over heals, back to the garden.  God wants each person to know the “garden” that is the Kingdom of Heaven as come near.  For Jesus is quite clear on the mountain,

No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. (Matthew 6:24)

It is not a question of tax or no tax, head or tails, it is a new life in Christ, head over tails change.

Called to Live

Exodus 32:1-14; Matthew 22:1-14

What can you do to deserve salvation?  Is there anything one can do to be saved?  Well this is a question I will return to.

The Hebrew Bible scripture shows good with great compassion and forgiveness, unlike the stereotypical image or a wrathful God.  While Jesus tells a parable where the King (representing God) goes to war on a city and throws someone for not having the proper clothing into the outer darkness.  These scriptures demonstrate the wonderful tension between the judgment and the forgiving nature of the one true God.

The people waiting for Moses did a horrible thing in the making of the golden calf, and they have this story as part of scripture.  God was made and yet God forgave them.  That did not make the sin of worshiping to another God any less.

Jesus uses this parable with the allegory of the King as God.  It seems very harsh to expect a person from the streets to be properly dressed, which is our first clue it is truly an allegory and not a real event.  Jesus tells of the king being ready to celebrate his only son’s wedding when his servants discovered most of the invited guests were not coming.  The king sends a second set who are killed.  The first represent the prophets and the second the Christian apostles, and then he decides to go to war on their city.  That is odd that he would spend an afternoon on war when the food was ready for the wedding, not to mention war is usually not done in one day.  The war is on the invited guests’ city, the king’s own city as well.  This represents the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.  This event changed Judaism for ever, including those that followed Jesus.  The parable continues with the  invitation of anyone, the gentiles for the wedding has opened up the chosen people to the people of the entire world.

Now the one without the proper wedding robe, represents someone that had entered the religious realm of following Jesus, without truly believing.  A change of clothes represented a change of person in ancient times.  The key is Jesus is speaking to religious people, and Jesus is always speaking to religious people when He speaks of Judgment.  He is not trying to frighten us to believe. 

The forgiveness God showed at Mt. Sinai, the forgiveness Jesus showed to those who came to Him for healings, the command to forgive 77 times, and especially the forgiveness he gave to us all upon the cross, cannot be separated from His statements of judgment.  The judgment is for those of us that do believe not to scare us right, but to call us to live.  We did not do anything to deserve salvation, not even putting on a new robe of belief.  Nothing we can do is good enough to make us deserving of salvation, that is what Grace is, a free gift.  Even accepting it is not the act, nor appreciating it.  We are saved and in knowing that we live out today with the eschatological belief in judgment.  This tension allows us to live following Jesus’ model of Love, yet knowing we are forgiven already.

Upward Grace

Philippians 3:4b-14

Paul was a Jew of Jews as he claims in this passage, and it is important to note that he understood Jesus as per his Judaism.  Paul persecuted the church with zeal because he believed it went against the Law.  When Paul met the resurrected Jesus, he did not believe Christ as Lord and reject the Law, he understood Jesus to be Lord, because of his understanding of the Law.  Paul even writes that Jesus came first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.  Paul doesn’t care if you continue to follow the Laws, he did not tell the Jerusalem church to stop, he however did not like the hypocrisy and the requirement of the Law. 

Paul understood like the prophets, that once the Messiah came that this one God would reign over the entire world.  There were those that were monotheistic within their land, but Judaism was clear that the one true God was the God of creation.  Of the entire world, thus once the Messiah would come the world would be part of God’s kingdom.  Paul thus goes to the gentiles because of this Jewish belief.  Paul is critical of Judaism that does not understand this, because Paul knows Jesus as the Messiah.

In this passage, Paul is talking about the Judaizers, who want to require those in the Philippian church to follow the Law as well as Christ.  Paul is outraged at their requirement of others to know Jesus how they had discovered Jesus.  Paul even shares that in their method, he is far better to these Judaizers, but he says that those ways are rubbish.  Paul is not saying that was the wrong way to know Jesus, rather what is important is to strive to Jesus together.  We need only that.

I am reminded of a workshop in which was required by clergy to attend.  Early on in the workshop we were asked if anyone could help him out by cutting out some basic shapes for an illustration.  Well three of us raised our hand, and even though I was thinking “shouldn’t he have done this earlier,” I realized quickly that this was the illustration.  He gave us the paper with the three shapes and each a left-handed scissor.  Needless to say we struggled to cut out the shapes.

Paul understands that it is not important how we get to Christ, but that we strive to the call of Jesus, to Grace, holding fast to what we attained (v.16).  We can not require others to understand Christ exactly how we came to understand.  Just as we cannot require right-handed people to use left-handed scissors.  And if we make a requirement for Grace that is earth bound and not upward, heavenly bound, then those that don’t fit will not have them fully in our fellowship.  Just as any left-handed person would not volunteer for they would assume you would hand them “scissors” (which is what we call right-handed scissors).