On Reading Matthew

I've been reading through the Gospel of Matthew in a fairly desultory way (I do want to change that "desultory" part). The idea was to read devotionally, in small chunks, maybe with repeat readings of the same passage before moving on, keeping notes in a journal along the way. The idea was, in short, slow reading. Thoughtful reading. Devoted and worshipful reading. I'd flown over the forest many times, and knew its shape and contours from above, but now I wanted to walk straight through, taking my time, following the paths, keeping alert.

Well, that was the idea. In fact, since then I've been stumbling through the forest, taking long breaks, distracted, missing a lot of the signposts and trail markers, and a lot of the beauty as well. The plan was a good one . . . on paper. It was in the implementation that the problems arose. This reading plan calls for, well, certain commitments from the reader. Not merely hitting marks or keeping to a schedule (like a Bible-in-one-year reading plan), but commitments that reach to the level of character, maturity, the earnest engagement of the heart and the full attention of the mind.

In these matters I have been inconsistent at best. Jonathan Pennington, in his book, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing, presents the model of the ideal reader. The ideal reader reads with keen attention. The ideal reader is aware of his own presumptions and biases and tries to set them aside. And the ideal reader of Scripture understands his own need for personal transformation. He reads with that purpose in mind.

Pennington's book is surely the right book for me to be reading just now. So my plan is to continue my devotional reading of the Gospel of Matthew, but I'll be going back to the start. Pennington's outline of the structure of the text is helping me to see how much I've been missing. And his focus on reading the text for the purpose of character formation, which after all was Matthew's intent, is exactly what I need.

More thoughts on Matthew 12:7

I'm still thinking about Jesus' words, "And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not acrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless." [Matthew 12:7]

Jesus is quoting Hosea 6:6. It is God speaking through the prophet to his people. He says of them, "Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early." Their love was not "steadfast." It was passing. It was probably "situational." You have to figure h[out whether the love is deserved. Whether it is "worth it." Whether the cost is too high or not. O whether, perhaps, it'll just get boring after a while.

But getting back to Jesus. When Jesus questions or even rebukes these Pharisees, I have a feeling that we modern readers tend to fall back on what we've learned about Pharisees back in Sunday School, about how they were legalists and all that (supposedly), and then we feel a pleasant glow of satisfaction in watching Jesus put them in their place. All this, of course, is so as not to let the rebuke fall on us.

So I want to ask myself this question: do I know, do I really know, what it should mean to me that God desires mercy and not sacrifice?

This is the question that the text should force us toward. Have I understood the love of God at all? Do I rest on the mercy of God when mercy is what I most need, but require sacrifices of others when they sin against me (or maybe just bother me a little)? God loves me as I am, or so I like to say. But as for you, I certainly wish you'd change your ways (sacrifice) and then maybe I can start to show you some love.

I have this feeling that when Jesus talks about love and mercy, that's always a key passage. That's always a case of Jesus getting right down to the nitty-gritty. We're following Jesus, day after day, sitting at his feet,  hearing his teaching. Again and again, he comes back to this. Did you hear that? It reminds me of what he said about loving your enemy. Your enemy!

And if you think, dear Christian, that you can sus out how and when to apply this teaching, and when not to, then you have not understood it at all. The first need is honest self-assessment. No, I don't believe I have understood what it really means that God desires mercy and not sacrifice. One reason I know that I haven't understood it: I haven't lived it. My mercy is like the morning dew.

 I believe, though, that if I am to grow in understanding on this matter . . . understanding what it means for me, and how to live it out . . . I am going to need to keep following Jesus, keep sitting at his feet and drinking in his teaching. There is no other way.

Some thoughts on Matthew 12:1-8

It's chapter 12. Jesus and the disciples go through the grainfields on the Sabbath. Some Pharisees pose their "biblical" objection. This is not the first encounter with objectionists. Back in chapter 9, when Jesus told a paralyzed man, "Your sins are forgiven." "Wait, What?" was the reaction of some Scribes who were there.

Jesus' answer for these people always has something to do with his own identity. The objectionists need to deal with the question of who Jesus actually is. The answer to that question is not exactly stated directly, although Jesus keeps calling himself the Son of Man, whatever that might mean. Here, when Pharisees object to Jesus and his disciples "doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath," Jesus once again answers with a clue, a hint, as to his own identity. First, he puts himself on a par at least with David (12:3-4). Then, with the priests in the temple (12:5). Then comes the statement that really makes me sit up and take notice.

I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless. For th Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath. (12:6-8)

 I suppose this is blasphemous stuff. If I'm a disciple following Jesus, a good and observant Jew all my life, I might be having some doubts about this man. I might be wondering if I've chosen the right teacher. But of course there is this to keep in mind: the man himself. If anyone else had said these words, ok then. But it's Jesus. Who in his mercy has healed so very many. And whose teaching is something I simply can't pass by with a shrug of my shoulders or a cynical eye-roll.

And even here, in this encounter with the Pharisees, there is this: "And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'"

And do I know what it means? Do I, me, this non-Jew who never set foot in the Temple, never had anything to do with sacrificial systems . . . or have I? . . . do I too need to learn what mercy really means. When I hear the words of God, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice," do I simply smile and say, "You tell them nasty Pharisees, Jesus!" Or do I, perhaps, wonder if this is something I too have never really understood? And if not, who then will teach me?

I think I'll follow along with the Teacher a little longer. But I get the feeling that this matter of mercy, mercy and not sacrifice, is something that, if truly understood, may just undermine everything I've ever learned, and maybe even the very systems on which human society sustains itself.