Matthew 2:1-6
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
“ ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’ ”
Today we begin our study of Matthew’s gospel - the second of the four gospels to be written. Matthew was the name of one of Jesus’ disciples and for centuries it was taken for granted that this gospel account was written by the disciple Matthew. But this gospel is now pretty well accepted as having been written between ten and twenty years after Mark’s account – which was written in the early 70's, 40 years after Jesus. This puts the writing of Matthew somewhere between 80 and 90 AD, making it highly unlikely that was written by an actual eye witness – one who knew Jesus. There is also the fact that the writer lifted about 90 percent of Mark’s earlier gospel straight into this newer version. Why, Borg asks, would a real eye-witness use so much of the account of one who was not a contemporary of Jesus?
As with Mark, this gospel writer never identifies him- or herself. The name of Matthew was given to this gospel sometime in the 2nd century. We will however continue to refer to the writer as Matthew – just for convenience’ sake.
Besides using so much material from Mark, this writer also pulled a large amount from the Q Source as well as a sizeable chunk that is unique to Matthew and known to scholars as “special Matthew.” Included in this last bit is much of the Sermon on the Mount, and various parables like the Workers in the Vineyard and the Pearl of Great Price.
But the key to the whole of Matthew’s gospel is that he is a seemingly educated and passionate Jew who believes, heart and soul, that Jesus is the fulfillment of every Old Testament prophecy. For Matthew, Jesus is the one the Old Testament is pointing toward. I don’t have the time or space for details in this message but Borg makes an extremely convincing argument that the internal structure – the way Matthew’s gospel is put together – mirrors the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures – not only in its story but in its structure.
The story of the Pentateuch is the story of Moses - the story of a people enslaved in Egypt and the great leader sent by God to set them free and lead them to their own homeland forevermore. It is also the story of The Law given to Moses for the people - the Law that shows them how they must live to truly inhabit that promised home. Jesus, too, came to lead people to freedom and to give them a new Law which will allow them to live into their new kingdom. Matthew quotes the Hebrew Scriptures constantly using the phrase “it is written” over and over. For Matthew, Jesus is clearly the fulfillment of what “is written.”
In everything he writes here, Matthew is making the point that Jesus’ story is Moses’ story, and Moses’ story is Jesus’ story. From the slaughtering of innocent baby boys at the beginning of both men’s lives to the refusal of authorities to listen when both Moses and Jesus spoke God’s word, the similarities would have been recognized and noted by the Jews of Matthew’s time. The story of Jesus is the story of a new exodus and Jesus is the new Moses.
Furthermore, while the other gospels show Jesus growing and evolving into an expanded understanding of his own mission, Matthew’s gospel remains uncompromising in its assertion that Jesus has come only for the Jewish people – the Chosen People. It isn’t until after the resurrection that Jesus finally sends the disciples out to talk to the wider world.
For all that Matthew is a devout Jew himself there is a certain strain of hostility running throughout this gospel – one that has unfortunately been taken out of context and used against the Jewish people down through the centuries. When Matthew speaks of “the Jews” he never means anything nice. But it is important to point out that Matthew, when he uses “the Jews,” is referring to a particular sub-set of Jews -- not all of the Jewish people but those in authority who try to balk Jesus at every turn. Those who will eventually demand his crucifixion.
Much of Matthew’s hostility has to do also with current events in the writer of Matthew’s own time. The earliest Jewish followers of Jesus never saw themselves as anything new and separate from Judaism. They viewed their faith as simply the next step in Judaism. That’s why they didn’t originally refer to themselves as “Christians.” Those in Jerusalem still gathered at the temple daily for prayer and to teach from the temple steps. In Matthew’s time, the purists among the Jews began to agitate against them and eventually they were labeled apostate and expelled from the temple and synagogues. They were expelled not only from the worship centers but from Jewish community life – expelled, as Matthew and those around him saw it, from their own home. God sent Jesus to save the Jews and they rejected him - just as they had long ago originally rejected Moses.
There is much more to Matthew’s gospel than this, and we’ll get to that next week, but it is imperative that when we read this particular gospel we keep in mind its particular relationship with the Jewish people and the Jewish faith. Matthew was not writing to a broader early Christian world. His evangelizing was strictly for those whose people had been God’s own chosen people for well over a thousand years – those who were risking missing out on the natural evolution of Judaism in the person and teachings of Jesus.
It is especially important that we, reading today, don’t let ourselves get carried away with Matthew’s diatribes against “the Jews” and remember this gospel was never intended to be a blanket condemnation of an entire people – only of those who “having ears, do not hear.”
Next week we’ll pick up some of the elements – such as the nativity stories – that appear only in this gospel account.
As with Mark, this gospel writer never identifies him- or herself. The name of Matthew was given to this gospel sometime in the 2nd century. We will however continue to refer to the writer as Matthew – just for convenience’ sake.
Besides using so much material from Mark, this writer also pulled a large amount from the Q Source as well as a sizeable chunk that is unique to Matthew and known to scholars as “special Matthew.” Included in this last bit is much of the Sermon on the Mount, and various parables like the Workers in the Vineyard and the Pearl of Great Price.
But the key to the whole of Matthew’s gospel is that he is a seemingly educated and passionate Jew who believes, heart and soul, that Jesus is the fulfillment of every Old Testament prophecy. For Matthew, Jesus is the one the Old Testament is pointing toward. I don’t have the time or space for details in this message but Borg makes an extremely convincing argument that the internal structure – the way Matthew’s gospel is put together – mirrors the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures – not only in its story but in its structure.
The story of the Pentateuch is the story of Moses - the story of a people enslaved in Egypt and the great leader sent by God to set them free and lead them to their own homeland forevermore. It is also the story of The Law given to Moses for the people - the Law that shows them how they must live to truly inhabit that promised home. Jesus, too, came to lead people to freedom and to give them a new Law which will allow them to live into their new kingdom. Matthew quotes the Hebrew Scriptures constantly using the phrase “it is written” over and over. For Matthew, Jesus is clearly the fulfillment of what “is written.”
In everything he writes here, Matthew is making the point that Jesus’ story is Moses’ story, and Moses’ story is Jesus’ story. From the slaughtering of innocent baby boys at the beginning of both men’s lives to the refusal of authorities to listen when both Moses and Jesus spoke God’s word, the similarities would have been recognized and noted by the Jews of Matthew’s time. The story of Jesus is the story of a new exodus and Jesus is the new Moses.
Furthermore, while the other gospels show Jesus growing and evolving into an expanded understanding of his own mission, Matthew’s gospel remains uncompromising in its assertion that Jesus has come only for the Jewish people – the Chosen People. It isn’t until after the resurrection that Jesus finally sends the disciples out to talk to the wider world.
For all that Matthew is a devout Jew himself there is a certain strain of hostility running throughout this gospel – one that has unfortunately been taken out of context and used against the Jewish people down through the centuries. When Matthew speaks of “the Jews” he never means anything nice. But it is important to point out that Matthew, when he uses “the Jews,” is referring to a particular sub-set of Jews -- not all of the Jewish people but those in authority who try to balk Jesus at every turn. Those who will eventually demand his crucifixion.
Much of Matthew’s hostility has to do also with current events in the writer of Matthew’s own time. The earliest Jewish followers of Jesus never saw themselves as anything new and separate from Judaism. They viewed their faith as simply the next step in Judaism. That’s why they didn’t originally refer to themselves as “Christians.” Those in Jerusalem still gathered at the temple daily for prayer and to teach from the temple steps. In Matthew’s time, the purists among the Jews began to agitate against them and eventually they were labeled apostate and expelled from the temple and synagogues. They were expelled not only from the worship centers but from Jewish community life – expelled, as Matthew and those around him saw it, from their own home. God sent Jesus to save the Jews and they rejected him - just as they had long ago originally rejected Moses.
There is much more to Matthew’s gospel than this, and we’ll get to that next week, but it is imperative that when we read this particular gospel we keep in mind its particular relationship with the Jewish people and the Jewish faith. Matthew was not writing to a broader early Christian world. His evangelizing was strictly for those whose people had been God’s own chosen people for well over a thousand years – those who were risking missing out on the natural evolution of Judaism in the person and teachings of Jesus.
It is especially important that we, reading today, don’t let ourselves get carried away with Matthew’s diatribes against “the Jews” and remember this gospel was never intended to be a blanket condemnation of an entire people – only of those who “having ears, do not hear.”
Next week we’ll pick up some of the elements – such as the nativity stories – that appear only in this gospel account.
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