Reading: Matthew 19-20, Psalm 90

This morning I sat and read a physical newspaper, an issue of the USA Today left in the lobby of a hotel. As I was paging through the articles, I came upon several things that I found interesting, none of which had to do with the content of the articles. The first was something that was written in article style, with an article headline, in article formatting, that was nevertheless not an article at all, but an advertisement for pain medication. There were signs of this early on in the text, but to an unwary reader it would not be obvious. This got me thinking about the rest of the newspaper, which of course is just as much bought space by the reader as the advertising space was bought by a medication company. To the unwary reader, each article is not part of a larger narrative. When one considers the readership of the paper, the personal positions of its editors, and the goals of the news industry in general, the articles take on more depth of meaning. Whether this is a good or bad thing is immaterial. It is simple true that small stories in a written medium are part of a bigger story.

Today we come to a series of very difficult scenes in the book of Matthew. It is an unfortunate reality that these have often been taken in isolation and used as proof for positions that I do not believe agree with the whole message of the Bible. People suffering the pain of a divorce have been browbeaten by Matthew 19:6. People with wealth have been accused of abandoning the cause of Christ using Matthew 19:21. Communists have sought justification for societal redistribution using Matthew 20:1-16. In all cases these uses miss the point, largely because they are not paying attention to the mission of the author. In his teaching about divorce, Jesus is answering a question brought to trap him. He avoids the trap by pointing to the design of the human being before they had a problem. Jesus isn’t handing down legislation about marriage, he is pointing to its purpose. When a rich young man who has faithfully kept the law wishes to fully commit to the Kingdom, Jesus challenges him to rely on God for his sustenance rather than his own possessions. When he cannot, Jesus mourns how hard it is for the wealthy to really trust God. He is not issuing a command, but making an observation. When Jesus tells a story of a landowner paying all his servants the same regardless of how much they worked, he is not saying all people should get the same, but making a point that God, who owns everything by right, may give to whomever he wants whatever he wants, and no one has the grounds to complain.

It is my belief that Matthew is building a narrative about authority and the proper way to be a human. He wants his reader to understand that the God of Israel is the ultimate authority, and that the way into the Kingdom of Heaven is submission to that authority. One cannot reach out and take their own knowledge of good and bad- they must rely on the judgment of their creator. Now, this so far sounds like the making of a dangerous authoritarian structure- and indeed that is the natural human response. But Matthew also presents the complete expression of submission to God’s authority as Jesus. The guy who gives authority away. Who heals and gives and takes nothing but faith. Who says that the first shall be last and the last first, who says that while others rule over one another with their authority, it shall not be so among you. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And there you have it. Matthew’s stories of Jesus teaching about divorce, fair wages, wealth and poverty, are all set in this context about authority and the correct behavior of humans with it. When humans have a problem they pursue dominance over others. When humans submit to the authority of God they because like the Servant of the Lord, who serves, gives, creates.