Jesus said:
If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire.
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 18:8-9 – June 20, 2012)
This has to be one of the most troubling bits of the Gospels. Jesus is not suggesting that one engage in self-mutilation. Any suggestion that a person should actually engage in this behavior is to be rejected. ~ Self-mutilation is a serious issue in modern society. Psychiatrist Karl Menninger suggested that self-mutilation might be an effort to heal oneself. He wrote that local self-destruction is a form of partial suicide to avert total suicide. It is now recognized as symptomatic of borderline personality disorder. So this is clearly an example of a bit of Scripture which is not to be taken literally! ~ So what is it? It is an example of semitic hyperbole. Jesus was a native speaker of Aramaic, although his words have been transmitted to us in the koine Greek of the New Testament. Speakers of semitic languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic) use hyperbole so often and in such grossly exaggerated forms that to an English speaker it almost seems to border on lying. We can assume that Jesus said this originally in Aramaic in which hyperbole was an accepted way of making a point. By exaggerating something beyond the bounds of rationality, Jesus catches our attention, stating truths in a “bigger than life” way and waking us up to the reality of our own misbehavior. ~ As G. K. Chesterton noted, Jesus was a master of the hyperbole: “Christ had even a literary style of his own . . . The diction used by Christ is quite curiously gigantesque; it is full of camels leaping through needles and mountains hurled into the sea.” ~ So, don’t tear out your eye or cut off your hand, but do be aware of your own sinfulness and misbehavior . . . and do something less drastic but effective about it!
This is a weird little fish tale peculiar to Matthew’s Gospel. The temple tax about which it is told is a requirement drawn from Exodus 30:13: “Each [man] who is registered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as an offering to the Lord.” While Exodus does not make this an annual levy, most Jewish men paid the tax each year, including Jews who lived outside of Palestine. The tax provided a significant portion of the revenue needed to operate the Jerusalem Temple. There is an entire tractate of the Mishnah (Shekalim, fourth tractate in the order of Mo’ed) devoted to this tax which rather establishes its importance. Unlike Roman taxes, this tax was paid with patriotic pride by the Jews until the destruction of the temple by the Romans in A.D. 70. ~ Jesus asks Peter whether earthly kings tax their sons, to which Peter replies in the negative. Jesus seems to be implying that he, as Son of God, the King of the Temple, is exempt from the tax. However, were he to refuse to pay it, he would create a scandal, perhaps people would take his refusal to mean that he didn’t support or approve of the worship of the Temple, or that he was not loyal to the Jewish religion. They might get the idea that he didn’t think others should pay the tax. ~ So Jesus provides a way for Peter to pay the tax for him that underscores his divinity – the coin to pay the tax for both them miraculously appears in the mouth of a fish. That’s the weird part of the story. Like his walking on water and calming the storm at sea, this episode demonstrates that Jesus is the Lord of nature, but I don’t really think that’s his point here. Rather, I believe he is simply doing something that will leave an indelible impression on his disciples. ~ So there must be some lesson here for them (and for us). I think there are two. This story underscores Jesus’ humility before and on behalf of others; he declines to scandalize the community or to be a stumbling block for others. In this story he is an example of the humility we are called to exhibit, of the way in which we are to act on behalf of others, in which we are to the give up our own rights and interests for the good of others. We may not be able to produce valuable coins from the mouths of fishes, but we are able to give for others’ good even if we are not required to do so, especially when we are not required to do so!
I try really hard not politicize these meditations, but I cannot help but think of the political rancor in our country during this election season, particularly the signs that have been paraded at so-called “tea party” rallies by persons who self-identify as “Christians” or more particularly as members of the “Christian Right”. There’s been plenty on the Left, as well, but it is from the Right that the most vile “hate speech” is heard. Just yesterday I saw a news item that Terry Jones, the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, the same fellow who threatened to burn a Qur’an several months ago, has now hung an effigy of President Obama on a gallows in front of his church. How can someone who presents himself as a Christian pastor do that? Especially in light of these words from Jesus? Especially in light of the words from Paul which are also in today’s Daily Office reading: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28) One hastens to point out to “Pastor” Jones that President Obama (despite the rantings of the far Right and no matter how one may feel about his politics) is a baptized Christian, a brother in the Lord, a fellow member of the church universal. How on earth can this man do this? ~ A couple of days ago some members of my parish and I were talking about the festival held each spring in an Ohio village near our town. It celebrates something like the return of the swallows to San Juan Capistrano in California, only in this case it is the return of the turkey vultures to Hinckley, Ohio. (You read that correctly . . . turkey vultures.) For some reason I once learned that turkey vultures (and other types of buzzard) defend themselves through the use of projectile vomiting. It occurs to me on reading this text from Matthew and considering our political discourse (especially antics like these of “Pastor” Jones) in its light, that the projectile-vomiting turkey vulture just might be the mascot of present-day American politics. May God have mercy!
The writer of the Gospel according to Matthew may have intended this story to show Jesus’ power over nature underscoring his divinity, or at least his status as a major prophet. But I have often thought it might be considered from an allegorical perspective, as well. ~ As Jesus walks upon the waters, he transcends that which would overwhelm him; the physical act represents the indispensable gift of grace, the ability to rise above the negative elements and events of one’s time. His defiance of the natural order symbolizes his life lived according to standards higher than any human code of conduct; his reaching out to Peter and inviting him to do the same demonstrates the extending of grace to others. ~ Madeleine L’Engle once wrote, “Peter was able to walk on the water until he remembered he didn’t know how.” The hand of grace extended to us is what gives us the ability to set aside the memory of not knowing how, the ability to rise above the flood that would otherwise inundate us. ~ Creedence Clearwater Revival sang a song entitled Walk on the Water in which the singer tells of seeing a man walking on the water of the river near his home, a man calling out his name and saying “Do not be afraid.” The singer’s reaction is exactly the wrong one! “I swear I’ll never leave my home again . . . I don’t want to go; I don’t want to go. No, no, no, no. I don’t want to go.” ~ Staying at home, cowering in fear, is simply not an option. The only option is to seize the hand of grace and forget that we don’t know how to walk on the water.
Did you listen carefully or perhaps even follow along in the Prayer Book when I offered our opening prayer today, the Collect for Trinity Sunday? Listen to it again:
A few verses later Matthew’s Jesus will interpret this parable, though most biblical scholarship agrees that it is Matthew (or some later editor) doing the interpreting not Jeus, that the interpretation is “nondominical” (as may be the parable itself). According to that interpretation, the enemy is supposed to be the devil, that the wheat that grows from good seed are all the people who’ve heard the gospel and responded appropriately, that the weeds that sprout from the bad seed are all the people who’ve followed the devil instead, and that when it’s all gathered and sorted (the wheat for the barn – Heaven – and the tares for the fire – Hell) it’s the last judgment. Martin Luther taught that the tares are “heretics and false teachers” who are “beautifully green and hypocritical.” But then he also said this parable teaches “that our free will amounts to nothing.” I’m not sure I buy that. ~ It seems to me that the parable in this form is a plea for inclusivity and tolerance. It’s not up to us who’s in and who’s out. The weeds depicted in this parable are probably darnels. Darnels look very much like wheat until harvest time and they cannot be told apart. Furthermore, their roots intertwine with the wheat’s roots so that they cannot be removed without significant damage to the crop. We’ve all seen what happens in a community when some group of “purists” starts trying to determine who gets to stay and who has to go. Better to let all stay and let God sort things out later than to destroy the community. ~ I remember reading some years ago that other rabbis have told a similar parable in which the mixing of wheat and weeds re-occurs over the course of several years. Finally, the owner’s steward decides to find out who the enemy is and stays up at night. When “the enemy” comes to sow the bad seed, the steward is surprised to find that it is the owner himself, sleep-walking in the darkness. This version suggests that we each sow the seeds of our own troubles, that we are each responsible for the good and often for the bad in our lives. The two versions read together underscore the reality that we frequently cannot tell the wheat from the weed, the good from the bad. Best to leave it to God to sort out!
I am truly amazed at the lengths some people go to deny that Jesus had brothers and sisters. The Greek here is adelphos (pl. adelphoi) and it means “brothers”. It could mean a countryman, a fellow employee, or someone of the same ancestral lineage in some contexts, but do any of those apply here? No! Here, some men show up in the company of Jesus’ mother and with her they are described as “your mother and your brothers”! Could anything be clearer? ~ Those who argue in favor of some alternate meaning (like “cousin”) do so because they want to preserve the supposed “perpetual virginity” of Mary. But if these men are Jesus’ cousins why wouldn’t Matthew have used the word anepsios (which means “cousin”)? The second-century writer Hegesippus, calls James and Jude “brothers of the Lord,” but he uses this word anepsios of Simeon the son of Clopas, the “cousin of the Lord”, so it is possible to distinguish the two relationships and certainly the gospellers could have done so! ~ Others argue that these men were Jesus’ half-brothers, Joseph’s boys by a first marriage. If that’s the case, where is the biblical evidence for that? Where is there even a hint that Joseph was previously married, let alone that he was bringing a bunch of kids along? ~ And as for Mary’s “perpetual virginity”, what does one do with Luke’s description of Jesus as “her firstborn son”? (Luke 2:7) Doesn’t that somehow imply that there was at least a “second born son”, if not a few others? And maybe some daughters? Both Mark and Matthew report that Jesus had sisters. (See Mark 3:32 & 6:3 and Matthew 13:56) If she’d had no other children, wouldn’t Luke have used the word “only” rather than “firstborn”? ~ And as for the virginity thing . . . . Matthew says that Mary became pregnant “before they [i.e., Joseph and Mary] lived together.” (Matthew 1:18) The Greek here is sunerchomai, which specifically refers to conjugal cohabitation! And Matthew continues, saying that Joseph “had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son.” (Matthew 1:25) I mean, really! Can the biblical witness to Mary’s non-virginal status after the birth of Jesus get any clearer? ~ Finally, there’s the cultural argument. For this “perpetual virginity” story to hold water, Joseph would have had to live a life of complete abstinence and chastity! This would not have been a societal norm and certainly wouldn’t be in accord with Jewish marital custom. Under Jewish law, sex is not considered shameful, sinful, or obscene; indeed, there is an halakhic obligation to procreate, and partners are not permitted to withhold sex from one another! Failure to abide by the law is practically unthinkable from the parents of a man who said, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets ; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:17-18) ~ Why is this important? I suppose in many ways it isn’t! But for me . . . . I have this idea that the Christian church oughtn’t to promote ideas that are patently absurd. If the church has to perform all sorts of silly linguistic contortions and rely non-biblical and a-historic pious legends to support its dogmas and doctrines, can we really blame those who shrug their shoulders and walk away? ~ A virgin? Perpetually? C’mon! Get real!
You have no idea how many times in 22-plus years of ordained ministry someone has said to me, “What exactly is the unforgivable sin of blasphemy against the Spirit? What is that?” I used to struggle to answer that question because I wasn’t sure myself. I’m not all that sure now, but I think the answer to to simply look at the context in which Jesus says these words. He has just healed a blind and mute demoniac. The Pharisees insist that “It is only by Beelzebul, the rule of demons, that his fellow casts out demons.” (Matt. 12:24) In this context it would appear that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is saying that Jesus did his miracles by the power of the devil. It was attributing to evil the work of the Holy Spirit. ~ I wonder if doing the opposite might also be considered here – attributing to the Holy Spirit words that she didn’t say, deeds that she didn’t do, and experiences that she didn’t produce, attributing to the Holy Spirit that which is not the work of God. There are plenty of TV preachers these days attributing to God lots of things (especially political positions) that I simply cannot believe are the work or word of God. Are they flirting with blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? ~ Here’s what I think . . . attributing to evil the works of good and, in the opposite vein, calling good that which one knows to be evil, these things destroy relationships and disrupt community for no reason or purpose other than promotion of one’s own agenda. If, as we believe, the church is a community created and constantly renewed by the Holy Spirit commissioned to go into the world to do the work of Jesus, then the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit are words and actions which disorder that community and disrupt that work. ~ There are some who say that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit can no longer be committed because it is specifically about the actions of Jesus himself; since Jesus is no longer in the world, one can no longer attribute his actions to evil. Others say that anyone who is a believer in Christ cannot commit this sin. I think they’re both wrong. I think people blaspheme the Holy Spirit on a regular basis . . . and a lot of them are (or, at least, claim to be) Christians.
These three similes – I am like a vulture in the wilderness; I am like an owl in the ruins; I am like a lonely sparrow – intrigue me. They are metaphors of solitude but worse than solitude, of loneliness, of being completely cut off. ~ The word translated as “vulture” in the NRSV is qa’ath; older translations rendered this as “pelican”. According to the lexicon the word signifies “a ceremonially unclean bird”, but the lexicon admits that the exact meaning of the ancient Hebrew is unknown. The root of the word is qow’ which means “to vomit”. From some bit trivia learned long ago, I recall that vultures defend themselves with intentional projectile vomiting. The simile depicts one so distraught , so distressed, so stricken that she keeps others away, spewing her grief onto those who would comfort her. ~ The Hebrew word translated as “owl” is kowc: owls also are ritually unclean birds. The lexicon tells us that it is “from an unused root meaning to hold together.” This simile perhaps suggests the same thing as the English phrase “barely holding it together”; amidst the waste and devastation of his life, the psalmist is barely holding on, hanging from his last thread, unable to handle one more thing even a small expression of sympathy and support without “losing it altogether.” ~ In the third simile, the psalm uses the word tsippowr, here translated as “sparrow” although more generically it simply means “bird”. This simile holds out hope where the others do not. The same word is used by prophet Ezekiel to paint a picture Jesus will later use as an encouragement to faith: “On the mountain height of Israel I will plant [a cedar], in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind.” (Ezek. 17:23) Jesus will change the cedar to a mustard tree and promise that even the smallest amount of faith, faith the size of a mustard seed, can accomplish miracles. (Matt. 13:31-32; Matt. 17:20) For the lonely sparrow on the house-top there is the hope of flocking with others in tree planted by the Lord; for the lonely sparrow there is the hope provided by faith. ~ The rest of the morning psalm expresses that hope. The psalmist acknowledges gratefully that God “will look with favor on the prayer of the homeless; he will not despise their plea” and “their offspring shall stand fast in [God’s] sight.” No matter how cast out, unclean, despairing, or distraught, even the vulture and the owl, together with the sparrow, can come and make nests in the branches of the tree planted by God.
This is such a great verse! Matthew could have made some christological or soteriological comment about “the Son of Man” – in fact, he has done so earlier in this story and will do so again in the next chapter. But here the power and authority to heal is specifically described as being given not just to Jesus but “to human beings” . . . to you and to me! That’s great! ~ A couple of years ago the American Psychological Association reported that the first decade of the 21st Century saw a dramatic increase in the number of American adults praying about health issues. Even though attendance at formal religious services has fallen in the same period, informal and private spiritual practices such as prayer seem to be on the increase. One of the interesting results of a study by the Centers for Disease Control was that those who exercise are 25% less likely to pray than those who don’t…. One wonders if those who pray are less likely to exercise. ~ I’m not an exerciser myself. I admit that I should be; I’m just a lazy procrastinator who can’t get around to it. But I am a person who prays, and I often pray for health and healing for myself and for others. ~ The teacher of prayer who looms largest in my life is my late paternal grandfather. One of the things he taught me about prayer is “never pray for something you aren’t willing to work for.” His point was that God’s answer to your prayer just might be that God would send you into the midst of whatever the situation is to work toward a solution. I’m beginning to think that there’s a lesson here about exercise and health, too. I really shouldn’t be praying for my own physical health if I’m not willing to get off my duff and work for it. God has given me the authority to live a healthy life. I guess I’d better claim it and start doing it. ~ Tomorrow . . . maybe.
