This Week: Proper 25A
Gospel: Matthew 22:34-46
I suspect that most of us enter this week’s gospel with the idea that there are two halves to it. And we all know which half to talk about.
Noticing this usually sends me in the other direction.
That sensation: to zig when others zag: is pretty predictable from certain personalities. Yes, including mine.
But in the pulpit, I don’t only go for the novel.
Mine is more the moral conviction of going straight for the thing we are most inclined to avoid. And this week is a perfect example of that.
Jesus offers the perfect elevator pitch.
In the first half, we have the one moment in which Jesus really does seem to sum everything up. And I think Jesus would go along with that. If we had to take one thing from the gospels, this would be it.
Love God. Love neighbor as yourself. Everything else hangs off of these two.
It is the perfect elevator pitch.
The second half, on the other hand, is different. It is frustrating and opaque. It’s hard to break down and to even figure out the point. Really, whether it is nonsense seems an open question to me.
So, if there ever were a time to focus on one half over the other, it would be this one.
So…
Here goes nothing.
Jesus could have ended the discussion, but he doesn’t want to end it on their question. Even when it afforded him the last word. I suspect he wanted to have a say in the final terrain for the conversation—leaving people with the message he wants to deliver.
Remember, they are in the Temple. Leaders, students, and followers of Herod have all taken turns trying to trap Jesus. Each time with a trap that seeks to either:
- Condemn his credibility with the people.
- Open him to charges of heresy or sedition.
The traps have all tried to force Jesus to pick his poison. And in each, his authority has been on the line.
Jesus returns the focus to authority.
It is a weird question that he asks.
‘What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?’
And just like his earlier questions of his interlocutors, he asks something he can rightly predict their response to.
David.
Of course, the title Son of David bears a dual identity. At once, the moniker of a messiah. And also a sign of lineage—the family line. Not the literal son of David. Not Solomon (or any of the others killed in the Succession Narrative). But a descendent. A member of the royal line.
Then Jesus plays with the concepts of son and Lord. He plays with a potential messiah who follows the first messiah. And the first Lord being below the second.
Jesus plays up the incredulousness of such a thing, but it doesn’t really feel like a takedown of any note.
It reads a bit like a stupid logic trap. A bit of nonsense.
And maybe it is.
But his point is clearly about authority.
It isn’t about the ordering of a Judean power structure. Nor is it really about the levels of authority within Davidic royalty.
I suspect he’s making a callback to the very first question they ask him:
‘By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?’
-Matthew 21:23
And therefore, also, to his response. He asks them about divine authority. And it is a bit of a puzzle itself:
“Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”
-Matthew 21:25
Jesus’s response calls into question, not the divine foundation of the Temple, but of the leaders themselves. Because where is the focus of God’s divine guidance: God or people?
Or, to put it another way, are the people there moved by God by the grace of God or by virtue of their station?
When we covered this a few weeks ago, I put it simply: Do we trust that God does things? Or do we trust in degrees and hierarchies?
Returning to authority is returning to God’s providence
The very reason the Temple leaders refused to answer Jesus’s question is the reason we get tangled up in this stuff ourselves.
Do we trust that God actually does stuff? That God changes their mind? Or goes in a new direction—literally ever?
Or do we trust in the safety of hierarchy, of power, and titles? People who get degrees, make the big bucks, or have done this sort of thing before?
It isn’t that we are choosing predictability over unpredictability. It is to say that we choose predictability over the very idea that maybe God could possibly be unpredictable.
We’re usually betting on the safety of hierarchies, monarchies, governments, and even churches to handle the “God stuff” rather than face the idea that God might be calling any of us to lead.
In drawing our attention back to authority, Jesus reminds us of where our purpose comes from. That brilliant elevator pitch itself is predicated on God investing love in us. In it mattering one bit that we love God. Or one another. That God has a part to play in that encounter at all.
How do we preach this?
I don’t know. At least not with any easy images or clever stories. Not in the explaining. Perhaps you are more in tune to that than I am.
But I think we can all think of times when we’ve seen the divine in someone else. Someone who isn’t authorized.
I think of a friend whose father offered a death-bed communion with water and crackers. He didn’t worry about the rules or see his actions as not “real” communion. But he saw it for what it was: a divine encounter for all of them with one another.
That works, I think.
But one other part works, too.
Jesus undermines the leaders. But not because they are leaders. Or because he has a problem with the structure itself. Or because he opposes any structure of authority.
He undermines the leaders for undermining people. For abusing their station and God’s part in the equation. And proving unable to acknowledge the possibility that their authority wouldn’t match God’s.
In that sense, they don’t seem to love God because they don’t love their neighbors as themselves.
Jesus walks into Jerusalem to challenge people claiming to speak for God while acting like they don’t even know God. And their response to this? Well, it won’t sound anything like God.