Lectionary: Proper 25(A)
Introduction
Who is Jesus
and what is his manifesto? These are the two central questions that swirl
around Jerusalem during the week starting with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and
his crucifixion.
Our reading
today comes from a part of that final week. Mark’s account has a more precise
timeline than Matthew. Days blend in Matthew’s account. Also, the sequence of
events differs between the accounts. Over the next little while, I will point
out some of these differences. Matthew borrowed from Mark but put his own spin
to the traditions around the story of Jesus. Matthew arranged things to better
suit his purposes. I think that too often, we have been told and taught that
these are historical records, but they are not. They contain history, but they
are primarily devotional memories of Jesus.
So…
Setting Up the Context
Jesus had
entered Jerusalem on Sunday where the crowds that were accompanying Jesus had
declared him to be “Son of David.”[1]
On the other hand, the rest of the people in Jerusalem thought him to be a
prophet from Nazareth.[2]
In Matthew Jesus
goes to the Temple on the same day and drives out the merchants from the grounds.
In Mark, this occurs on the following day.[3]
In Matthew’s account the children who then approached Jesus declared him to be
“the Son of David.”[4]
He leaves Jerusalem and stays overnight in Bethany.[5]
On Tuesday,
Jesus returns to Jerusalem and along the way he curses a fig tree. In Matthew’s
account, the tree immediately withers.[6]
In Mark’s account, the cursing of the tree occurs before the temple cleansing,
and the withering occurs the following day.[7]
The primary
conflict that Jesus encounters with the religious authorities occurs on this
same day. It begins with them asking Jesus about where he receives his
authority.[8]
Even though it does not directly question his identity, it is indeed a question
about his origins and identity. Jesus turns the question back on his questioners
and asks under whose authority John the Baptizer preached. They refuse to
answer, seeing that both the affirmative and negative responses would place
them in a bind. As a result, Jesus too, refuses to answer the question that was
posed to him.
This is
followed by Jesus speaking in parables, which is followed by a question about
paying taxes posed by some of the Pharisees in cahoots with some Herodians, and
then a question about the resurrection posed by the Sadducees.[9]
No one can trip up Jesus into giving a compromising answer.
Question Asked and Question Posed
It is in
this setting that the question about the Greatest Commandment is posed to
Jesus. In Matthew, it is posed as a hostile challenge to Jesus.[10]
In Mark, the questioner does not appear to have hidden motives, and appears possibly
to even be friendly.[11]
In Matthew’s
account, Jesus’ response to the question of the Greatest Commandment is then
followed by his asking a question about “David’s Son” to the questioners; and
these might be seen as the climax of the series of conflict episodes. The
series of stories ends with, “No one was able to give him an answer, nor from
that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”[12]
The Question of Jesus’ Identity
The question
of Jesus’ identity begins Matthew’s gospel. The gospel immediately identifies
Jesus as the Messiah and the son of David. It provides a genealogy in which
David is central (the fourteen generation divisions of the genealogy is a
reference to David).[13]
The irony is that Jesus is a son of David only through adoption.[14]
This question of Jesus’ identity and mission has come to a head during this
final, Passion week.
At first
glance, the two stories seem rather unrelated. The first one, about the
Greatest Commandment, is likely one of the most known and appears to be about
as straightforward as a story can be. The second one seems odd and the logic behind
Jesus’ question seems opaque.
Word Linkage in Hebrew Literature
One of the
ways in which two seemingly different subjects are linked together by ancient
authors is the use of a common word or phrase between the two sections. The two
sections in today’s text have the word and title “Lord” common to both. A key
to interpretation and understanding why the two sections can be related is to
read the text through the lens of the word “Lord.”[15]
The Greatest Commandment(s)
Jesus is
asked which is the greatest commandment. His answer comes from the Shema
prayer, one of the centerpieces of Jewish religion. “You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”[16]
But then, Jesus continues by adding a second commandment. “And a second is like
it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”[17]
And Jesus follows it with a commentary of his own, “On these two commandments
hang all the Law and the Prophets.”[18]
First, Jesus
affirms that religious traditions that help draw a person closer to God through
worship and rituals is valuable and necessary. These are ways through which a
created being can gain understanding of the awe and holiness of the Creator and
their relationship to God. It is to be expressed through love of the entirety
of being toward God.
Love, in
English, has the connotation of affection and feelings. But love, when found in
the Bible, is much more than that. It can include affections and feelings, but
it is also loyalty and total devotion. And it must include activities that
express total devotion. Love for God cannot be merely intellectual, and cannot
be merely meditation and prayer, or individual devotion and worship. Love for
God includes outward manifestations of devotion to God.
And religion
might be easier if it stopped there. It would be easier if holiness was a set
of rules that defined how to keep from becoming defiled. And it is easy for
religions to devolve into a set of such rules and outward expressions of devotion.
But Jesus
does not leave things that simple. He quotes a sentence from part of the
holiness code found in Leviticus. To be holy as God is holy is to relate to
others as God relates to God’s creation. Love for neighbor stands at the same
level as love for God. The two are not identical, but one cannot be expressed
apart from the other. When a person calls God “Lord” that means that person has
agreed to follow God’s commands, and that includes not just devotion and
loyalty for God, but devotion and loyalty to one’s fellow human neighbors.
Whose Son Is Jesus?
After
answering the question posed to him, Jesus asks a question of his own. “What do
you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?”[19]
This question brings things back full circle to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem,
and for Matthew’s gospel account, the very reason it was written.
The
Pharisees respond, “The son of David.” This answer is correct, but incomplete.
Jesus
follows up with a riddle. “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him
Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put
your enemies under your feet”’? If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his
son?”[20]
It needs to
be noted that the longed-for Messiah had no inherent connotation of divinity in
Jewish understanding. Messiah simply means Anointed One, and in theory, it
could be applied to any individual.
The Messiah
from the line of David was most likely expected to be in the pattern of David,
a warrior and a king; one who would defeat foreign occupiers and fulfill the
nationalistic desires of the people.
Adding New Interpretation to Scripture
What Jesus
does is redefine the identity of the Messiah. He uses the quote from Psalm 110
to show that the conquering descendant of David would be someone that David
would and could call as “Lord.”[21]
To call someone “Lord” necessarily means that person or being is greater than
the other. No sovereign would call one of their descendants “Lord.”[22]
So, is the Messiah David’s son or not? If the Messiah is someone greater than
David, who could it possibly be?
The
religious leaders have no response and dare not ask any more questions of
Jesus. From this side of Christ and as Christians, we assume that they should
have known the answer and just didn’t want to admit that Jesus was son of
David, the Messiah, and Lord. But perhaps that is not being entirely fair. There
is no surviving record that Psalm 110 was viewed as a Messianic psalm.[23]
The use of Psalm 110 as pointing to the Messiah, and Jesus in particular, is a
New Testament innovation.[24]
Perhaps this
was Jesus’ cryptic way of self-identifying as Messiah and Lord. That through it
he wanted to break his audience out of traditional understandings and
expectations of the Messiah. Or, to look at it another way, if you claim God as
your Lord, if David called one of his descendants Lord, if the Messiah is the
son of David, and if Jesus is being proclaimed as the son of David, and if
Jesus is performing signs that signify authority that appears to be straight
from God, perhaps one should consider the possibility that Jesus is the
Messiah, and if the Messiah, then also Lord.
Conclusion
If one
concludes that Jesus is Lord, then up to this point he has lived and
exemplified what it means to love God and to love neighbor. And over the next
few days, Jesus will further live out what it means to be fully devoted and
loyal to humanity and loyal to God’s desires to be with humankind, to the very
acceptance of death on a cross.
If God’s
love and holiness means being devoted to the good of even one’s enemies, ones
that would torture and kill you, what does that mean for those who claim that
Jesus is Lord? If God’s love and holiness means being devoted to the good of
even one’s enemies, to ones that would torture and kill you, what does that
mean for those who claim that Jesus is Lord? Are we willing to take up our
crosses and follow him? In this day where hostilities are real, to encourage
and promote division is encouraged, where violence is all too frequent, and where
historical enmities flare into wanton murder, how shall we live? Who is our
Lord?
Works Cited
Feasting on the Gospels: A Feasting on the Word
Commentary. (2013). Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, Volume 2.
Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.
Feasting on the Word: preaching the revised common
lectionary. (2011). Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 4. Louisville,
KY: Westminster John Knox Press.
James, J. T. (2023). Psalms for Normal People.
Harleysville, PA: The Bible for Normal People.
McGrath, J. F. (2023). The A to Z of the New
Testament: Things Experts Know That Everyone Else Should Too. Grand
Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
[1]
Matthew 21:9.
[2]
Matthew 21:10-11.
[3]
Mark 11:12, 15.
[4]
Matthew 21:15.
[5]
Matthew 21:17.
[6]
Matthew 21:18-20.
[7]
Mark 11:12-14, 20-21.
[8]
Matthew 21:23.
[9]
Matthew 21:28-33.
[10]
Matthew 22:34-40.
[11]
Mark 12:28-34.
[12]
Matthew 22:46.
[13]
Gematria was used to denote significance of names.
[14]
No, Luke’s genealogy doesn’t provide a tracing back to David through Mary.
[15]
“Having identified ‘Love the Lord’ as the greatest of all commandments, Jesus
next probes the term ‘Lord’ with his Pharisaic interlocutors.”
[16]
Matthew 27:37, from Deuteronomy 6:5.
[17]
Matthew 22:39, from Leviticus 19:18.
[18]
Matthew 22:40.
[19]
Matthew 22:42.
[20]
Matthew 22:43-45.
[21]
There is plenty of evidence that David didn’t write Psalm 110 (and likely
little to none of the Psalms). But Jesus makes the assumption that David did.
That doesn’t prove David wrote the Psalm, contrary to some traditional
interpretations and logic.
[22]
[23]
[24]
And this raises the question, did Jesus actually quote Psalm 110, or was it the
New Testament authors who provided these connections based on their
interpretation of Jesus?
.jpg "the Providence Lithograph Company, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons")