A look at the gaps in the lectionary.
This week: the gap between Proper 25A and 26A / All Saints
The text: Matthew 22 / Matthew 4:23-25
The first Sunday in November is often used as All Saints Day. In this calendar year (2023), it falls on the Sunday we’d otherwise use the lections for Proper 26A.
If you choose to use Proper 26A…
The gospel continues straight from Proper 25A, which concluded Matthew 22.
The very next scene, Matthew 23:1-12 has Jesus speaking directly to the crowd with a brutal condemnation of the religious leaders. Those who have been following since Jesus showed up at the Temple to be challenged by all the different groups, can see what’s happening.
Jesus has just endured a battering of tests and beat each one. And more than that, the cynical nature of the tests—meant to destroy his credibility or worse, condemn him to death—can only serve to betray our own discomfort with Jesus’s own public reprimand.
Out of this context, Jesus’s words may be heard as harsh. But in the context, we can see something else.
Jesus is appealing to the crowd.
He is speaking to the crowd as if it were a public debate. He came to share the love of God. These others, the small groups of leaders, came to shame, discredit him, and potentially kill him.
They are trying to get the crowds against Jesus. But he remains the more appealing choice.
This moment, then, is the direct appeal. Which I’ll dig into later in the week.
If you choose to use All Saints Day…
The gospel jumps back to the Beatitudes in Matthew 5.
While big feast days are less about hearing the gospel story, it may be useful to remember the context for the beloved beginning of the sermon on the mount.
The first thing to note is that this early in Jesus’s ministry. But it is hard to tell how early. What is important for the reader is that it’s presence in the structure of the plotline is as the third thing Jesus does as the Christ.
- Calling the disciples
- Healing people
- Sermon on the Mount
After the baptism and quarantine in the wilderness, the evangelist tells of John the Baptist being arrested and Jesus begins his ministry (4:12). Which was primarily preaching repentance.
Jesus then collects his first four disciples (4:18-22).
And then he starts ministering to crowds of people (4:23-25).
This brief sequence describes the manner and scope of the ministry of preaching and healing across a multi-stop journey. One could imagine this taking weeks or months. But it is told in summary. This is what he was up to. What he did.
When the gospel turns, it becomes…
This is what he says to them.
And what follows is a three-chapter sermon that challenges the nature of the tradition, faith, and hopes for their people. It is a message that praises meekness and love and condemns exploitation and empire.
It is a challenging sermon. It challenges a culture of dominance and control. And it challenges us to be better than that. To be a people of love and compassion.
Receiving this mission after the Great Commandment is perfect.
It drives us back to the beginning. What he would, 17 chapter later say can be summed up as a command to love.
In a real sense, this is how we get there. Being blessed in our poor spirit and meakness, in our longing and in our peacemaking.
Our liturgical orientation, to these Beatitudes, then comes after being commanded to love God and everyone. An idea that now feeds back into this earlier sequence. To receive blessing in our outward connection to our neighbors—in loving them.