A look at the gaps in the lectionary.
This week: the gap between Trinity Sunday and Proper 5A
The text: before Matthew 9:9 and 9:14-17
Let’s kick it back a little. Remind ourselves of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). How it speaks of the Kingdom of Heaven, how it presents itself differently than we expect. And we connect with it, not as aggressors or receivers, but as interveners, peacemakers. The kind who expose the sin of abusers, courts who protect them, and the oppressors who take advantage of them.
The Sermon on the Mount is abundantly countercultural. So much so, that when Jesus comes down the mountain, surrounded by amazed crowds who genuinely want to get in on this action, find the very first thing this zealous punk, Jesus does: cleanses a leper. The quintessential avoid-at-all-costs and kick-’em-out person.
But he doesn’t stop there.
He heals the servant of a Centurion. Which is tripley-problematic:
- Not a Hebrew
- Oppressor
- Soldier
Then he goes and heals a bunch of people at Peter’s house, stills the storm, and exercises the demons of two demoniacs.
All of that is in chapter 8.
Chapter 9
The chapter turns to another healing. This time: a paralyzed man.
What is interesting is that this time, Jesus is confronted about it. Precisely because he says to the man that his sins are forgiven.
This reveals the contour of the normative belief of the time. It is quite subtle.
Notice that they don’t blanch at the idea that Jesus is healing the man. That doesn’t give them pause (like it would us!). But what does give them pause is that he proclaims the man’s sins are forgiven. This, for them, is a bridge too far.
While we attend to this story with the exact opposite orientation (we can’t imagine the healing and think the forgiveness of sins is no big deal), we might miss why this is substantive.
They perceive Jesus as doing something that only God is allowed to do: pronounce the forgiveness of sins. This is the beginning of those claims of blasphemy. That Jesus has no right to claim the power of God or, in this case, speak for God.
It is quite notable that we have ZERO trouble with that. Which, in a way, is a slight simplification on our part.
But when Jesus responds to their criticism, he does so by naming their evil intent. Which, if it were anyone but Jesus, we’d say sounds a bit like hyperbole. But Jesus is naming, not only what they assume, but how they choose to see him because of it.
Assuming the worst
Jesus confronts them by naming their assumption about him as an evil intent. That they are assuming the worst about him. They have jumped to a conclusion, yes. But one that is relationship destroying.
This bothers Jesus far more than any accusation.
A corollary of this might be calling someone a “pedo” because they are a teacher, or a “thug” because they’re black. We know the intrinsic political or racial bias at work here. This is itself a transgressive activity. But what makes these remarkable is that these assumptions work to break the community.
The challenge isn’t just the bigotry. It is the way we use bigotry as an excuse to demoralize, abuse, deceive, destroy, and dehumanize others.
When Jesus confronts the challenge, he isn’t only saying, don’t assume these things about me. He’s saying, **you are the ones breaking community.
His follow-up line is money:
“For which is easier, to say, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Stand up and walk”?”
We might think this idea is a no-brainer, but Jesus is reinforcing his greater point: that forgiveness, too, is the work of God. Division isn’t.
The donut hole
The reading this week proceeds to the calling of Matthew and another transgressive moment with Jesus eating with tax-collectors and sinners.
Then the lectionary skips over a few verses. This is a question from disciples of John the Baptist. They ask why if Pharisees and John’s followers fast a bunch, why don’t Jesus’s?
Solid question, right?
Jesus’s response is glib: I’m not planning to be around that long. They need all the time they can get.
Which seems pretty straightforward, right?
This, however, isn’t a grind-while-its-daylight sort of teaching. He is being quite literal. I’m not going to be here long, so they’ll have lifetimes to fast.
The fact that Jesus then wanders into a proverbs about not putting new wine into old wineskins leads us to think of this whole sequence in terms of handy aphorisms and universal truths. But I don’t know, man. That’s so…generic holy man far more than it is a Jesusy thing.
The way Jesus has been transgressing the laws and revealing new ways of being that better embody the spirit of the ancient teachings, I’m left with a more curious posture.
That these aphorisms aren’t him teaching them about general ideas, but about him. That they shouldn’t be putting him, the new wine, into old wineskins for healers, prophets, or even the Messiah.
A challenge
This presents a newish challenge for us, then.
As Jesus is showing the limits he is transgressing in his world, he is doing so for a purpose: to help us more fully engage with divine purpose for all of creation.
In a sense, it is a big recalibration, fine-tuning of the instrument that is the cosmos.
So what ways does Jesus continue this work? What ways does Jesus transgress the boundaries of our tradition we have based on his teaching? How is he serving us to bring us into service of others?
One thing, for sure, is that he isn’t telling us not to fast. Or to rest on the Sabbath. Nor is he saying we should work twice as hard. Or work on the Sabbath so we can accomplish more while others sleep.
Like his Sabbath teachings elsewhere, Jesus is shifting our assumptions about them. That our expectation that they be black and white, easily-enforceable rules, is misguided. Not because these things are inherently wrong.
But because we think it is our job to enforce them rather than practice them. To judge, divide, abuse—with justification.
Instead, we’re invited to fast when it is time. And the only way to know if it is time is to pay attention.