Hauerwas on Matthew 5, Part Two

Jesus charges members of the church to confront those whom we think have sinned against us. He does not say that if we think we have been wronged we might consider confronting the one we believe has done us wrong. Jesus tells us that we must do so because the wrong is not against us, but rather against the body, that is, the very holiness of the church is at stake. Moreover, to be required to confront those whom we believe have wronged us is risky business because we may find out that we are mistaken.

Anger and lust are bodily passions. We simply are not capable of willing ourselves free of anger or lust. Jesus does not imply that we are to be free of either anger or lust; that is, he assumes that we are bodily beings. Rather, he offers us membership in a community in which our bodies are formed in service to God and for one another so that our anger and our lust are transformed...Alone we cannot conceive of an alternative to lust, but Jesus offers us participation in a kingdom hat is so demanding that we discover we have better things to do than to concentrate on our lust. If we are a people committed to peace in a world of war, if we are a people committed to faithfulness in a world of distrust, then we will be consumed by a way to live that offers freedom from being dominated by anger or lust.

Our speech always takes place in the presence of God. “Thus disciples of Jesus should not swear, because there is no such thing as speech not spoken before God. All of their words should be nothing but truth, so that nothing requires verification by oath. An oath consigns all other statements to the darkness of doubt. That is why it is ‘from the evil one’” (Bonhoeffer)

[Jesus] does not promise that if we turn the other cheek we will avoid being hit again. Nonretaliation is not a strategy to get what we want by other means. Rather, Jesus calls us to the practice of nonretaliation because that is the form that God’s care of us took in his cross. In like manner Christians are to give more than we are asked to give, we are to give to those who beg, because that is the character of God.

To be a disciple of Jesus, to be ready to be reconciled with those with whom we are angry, to be faithful in marriage, to take the time required to tell the truth – all are habits that create the time and space to be capable of loving our enemies.

We are called...to be perfect, but perfection names our participation in Christ’s love of his enemies.

Excerpted from Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew (SCM Theological Commentary on the Bible; London: SCM Press, 2006), pp. 68-72.

The Church as a Corpus Mixtum in Calvin's Thought

John Calvin has much to say about the Church with a substantial part of The Institutes of the Christian Religion devoted to ecclesiology. Eduardus Van der Borght notes that Calvin’s ecclesiology was modified or refined over the years by pastoral experience, see “Calvin's Ecclesiology Revisited: Seven Trends in the Research of Calvin's Ecclesiology,” in John Calvin's Ecclesiology: Ecumenical Perspectives (T & T Clark International, 2011). But it seems clear that Calvin never held a “purist” view of the church. 

The following excerpt from The Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559) is from an 18th century translation by Henry Beveridge accessed at  http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.vi.ii.html.

“Thinking there is no church where there is not complete purity and integrity of conduct, they, through hatred of wickedness, withdraw from a genuine church, while they think they are shunning the company of the ungodly. They allege that the Church of God is holy. But that they may at the same time understand that it contains a mixture of good and bad, let them hear from the lips of our Saviour that parable in which he compares the Church to a net in which all kinds of fishes are taken, but not separated until they are brought ashore. Let them hear it compared to a field which, planted with good seed, is by the fraud of an enemy mingled with tares, and is not freed of them until the harvest is brought into the barn. Let them hear, in fine, that it is a thrashing-floor in which the collected wheat lies concealed under the chaff, until, cleansed by the fanners and the sieve, it is at length laid up in the granary. If the Lord declares that the Church will labour under the defect of being burdened with a multitude of wicked until the day of judgment, it is in vain to look for a church altogether free from blemish (Mt. 13).”

Here is what John Calvin had to say about the parable of the weeds in his Harmony of the Gospels (1555; cited from the 1972 translation by T. H. L. Parker):

"It seems quite inconsistent to many that the Church should nurse in her bosom the ungodly, or the irreligious, or the wicked. Add that, under a pretence of zeal, many are more awkward than they need be if everything is not settled according to their wishes (for nowhere is an absolute purity seen) and they go mad and leave the Church or upset and ruin everything with their harsh strictness. Hence, to my mind, the intention of the parable is simple. So long as the Church is on pilgrimage in this world, the good and the sincere will be mixed in with the bad and the hypocrites. So the children of God must arm themselves with patience and maintain an unbroken constancy of faith among all the offences which can trouble them." 

A common objection to identifying "his kingdom" in Matthew 13:41 with the church is that the wheat and the weeds are obviously gathered from the field and the field is explicitly said to be "the world" (v. 38). Calvin is unperturbed by this.

"And it is a most apt comparison when the Lord calls the Church His field, for believers are His seed. Although Christ afterwards adds that the field is the world, there can be no doubt that He really wants to apply this name to the Church, about which, after all, He was speaking. But because his plough would be driven through all the world and He would break in fields everywhere and sow the seed of life, He transfers by synecdoche to the world what is more apt of a part of it."

This reading follows Augustione for whom the parable provided an important framework in his writings against the Donatists. Augustine observed that the wheat must grow in the whole world. A community that only exists in Africa (the Donatists) therefore cannot claim to be the whole church because the wheat grows across the field (the world). So, e.g., in his Letter 76 (in WSA 2/1, 298).

"Why do you believe that the weeds have increased and filled the world, but the wheat has decreased and remains only in Africa? You say that you are Christians, and you contradict Christ. He said, Allow them both to grow until the harvest (Mt 13:30); he did not say, “Let the weeds increase, and let the grain decrease.” He said, The field is the world; he did not say, “The field is Africa.” He said, The harvest is the end of the world; he did not say, “The harvest is the time of Donatus.” He said, The harvesters are the angels; he did not say, “The harvesters are leaders of the Circumcellions.” And because you accuse the wheat in defense of the weeds, you have proved that you are weeds, and what is worse, you have separated yourselves from the wheat ahead of time."

The Christening of Jesus

Baptism, christening, name-giving. How does this apply to “Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1)? 

Jesus is the son of David. This is prepared for in the David-patterned genealogy (1:1-17), ratified by Joseph’s naming of God-with-us as Jesus (1:18-25), and recognised by wise men from the East when they pay homage to the one born king of the Jews (2:1-12).

Jesus is the son of God. This is prepared for in the sojourn in Egypt (2:13-23) with the citation from Hosea (“Out of Egypt I have called my son”), the massacre of the infants being interpreted with the help of a citation from Jeremiah as a sign that Israel is still in exile, awaiting return from captivity. Jesus is the son of God not only because he is the Davidic king but also because he embodies (the holy remnant of) Israel. (his favour the view that the primary allusion in “He will be called a Nazorean” (2:23) is to Isaiah 4:2 (with Isaiah 11:1; 42:6; 49:6 also deserving attention, see the ICC 1:274-281 for details).

This is ratified in the baptism of Jesus. Israel is prepared for the coming of God, the Lord, through the ministry of John the Baptist (3:1-12). John recognises Jesus as the one who brings the Holy Spirit (and the fire of judgement) and therefore at first seeks to prevent the baptism of Jesus. But Jesus is the servant of God Israel failed to be. Embodying Israel he is declared to be “my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

After the baptism, Jesus must be recognised as “son of God” (4:1-11; the two references in verses 3 and 6 echo the two uses of “my son” in chapters 2-3). If being God’s son were all about being superhumanly divine, maybe the spectacles proposed by the devil would be appropriate. But it is about being Israel, the servant of God led by the Spirit of God in the worship of God.

Because Jesus is God-with-us (Immanuel), he is the son of David who saves (Jesus). Because he is the holy one (Nazorean), he is the son of God who restores Israel.

In the baptism of Jesus Israel is again named “my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”. In our baptism we are united to Jesus and become ourselves beloved children of God with whom he is well pleased – nominally through water baptism, dynamically through baptism with the Spirit.* 

The baptism of Jesus belongs with the other baptisms John performed because in it Israel is re-made. It belongs with our baptism because this restored Israel grew into the body of Christ into which we are  incorporated in Christian baptism.

*Finding the right adverbs here is difficult. The alternative outwardly – inwardly is unsatisfactory because the Spirit-filled life is very much evident outwardly; ritually – actually is unsatisfactory because rites can affect an actual change (of status), e.g. a marriage rite or, indeed, baptism.

Men and Women in Matthew 1

David is the key to the patterning of the genealogy in Matthew and thus to the genealogy itself. David’s name is fourteenth of the list, exploiting traditional reckoning of fourteen generations from Abraham to David, and the numerical value of (one version of) David’s name is “14” which prompts the omission of three kings from the monarchical period to arrive at another set of fourteen names.

Begetting (“fathering”) is important to Matthew (note the absence of the verb in Luke’s genealogy) and the inclusion of women is striking. Three of the women are foreigners and the fourth is referred to not by her name but as “the wife of Uriah,” another non-Israelite.

All three women mentioned between Abraham and David showed initiative in preserving their family line, assuming that “Rahab” invites us to think of Joshua 2, but in the case of “the wife of Uriah” the initiative was David’s and from then on no more women are mentioned until “Mary, of whom Jesus was born.” In two of the three references to Mary by name, she is called the husband of Joseph, in the other reference is made to her engagement with Joseph.

Matthew substitutes the impersonal plural “they shall name him Emmanuel” instead of the singular form attested both in the Hebrew and in Greek renderings (καλέσεις in Vaticanus and Alexandrinus, καλέσει in Sinaiticus). This may be significant because in Isaiah 7:14 the mother names the child, in Matthew it is emphatically Joseph who names the child (1:21, 25).

Men are important in the genealogy because “the king's heritage passes only from son to son” (Sirach 45:25). Women are included to remind us of the universal significance of the son of David in line with the promises to Abraham. 

All women in the genealogy of Jesus hint at extraordinary, and potentially scandalous, circumstances in the line was continued, thus preparing for the extraordinary, and potentially scandalous, union of Mary and Joseph. But do the women in the genealogy prepare us specifically for Mary, pregnant out of wedlock, or also for Joseph who in Matthew’s Gospel is the one who has to take some initiative?

Tamar had to overcome a broken promise. Mary had not in fact broken her promise but it sure looked to Joseph as if she had.

Rahab had to take initiative to save her family in Jericho before establishing an Israelite household with Salmon. Joseph will have to take measures to save his family from Herod before making a new home in Nazareth.

Ruth had to find a redeemer to perpetuate the line of her dead husband. Joseph will find in his son a redeemer who revives the house of David.

The wife of Uriah lost her first husband and her first son (with David) but was instrumental in helping her second son (with David) to the throne. Joseph nearly lost his wife-to-be and prospect of children with her and in some ways had to give her up to God but in naming Mary’s child he incorporates the son into the royal line and thus becomes instrumental in the child’s accession to the Davidic throne.

Joseph is like the women in his genealogy – only that he needs dreams to get going in the right direction.

The New David who is also a New Solomon

If the arrival of wise men with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh suggests that this newborn king of the Jews is a new Solomon, and if the concurrence of gold, frankincense and myrrh in connection with the altar of incense (Exodus 30) points us towards Solomon as builder of the temple (cf. previous post), then this is interesting:

Michael Barber argues in "Jesus as the Davidic Temple Builder and Peter's Priestly Role in Matthew 16:16-19," JBL 132 (2013): 935-953, which you can download here, that Matthew portrays Jesus as the new temple builder. Here is the abstract:

It is widely accepted that Matthew presents Jesus as fulfilling Jewish eschatological expectations, particularly, Davidic hopes. However, although Jesus frequently speaks positively about his disciples' participation in the cult in Matthew's narrative (e.g., 5:23-24), little attention has been paid to Matthew's interest in Christ's fulfillment of the cultic dimensions of future hopes. In fact, ancient Jewish sources repeatedly express not only the belief in an eschatological temple but also expectations of a reformed and/or new priesthood. In this article, I argue that such hopes inform Matt 16:17-19. I begin by arguing that Jesus' building of the church is best understood in light of Matthew's Davidic Christology, an aspect of the evangelist's portrait of Jesus that many scholars have noted. Specifically, building on the work of others, I contend that Jesus' response to Peter's confession involves allusions to Davidic traditions of temple building (cf. 2 Sam 7:12-13; 1 Chr 17:7-10) (e.g., Ådna, Meyer, Wright). Going on, I demonstrate that Jesus' description of Peter's role in the following verses seems to portray him as one holding a priestly role. In particular, as many scholars have noted, Jesus' words to Peter appear to echo the description of Eliakim in Isaiah 22 (e.g., Davies and Allison, Hagner, Willis). What is frequently overlooked is that this passage describes Eliakim as wearing garments usually associated with the high priest (cf. Isa 22:21 with Exod 28:4), an aspect of the passage not lost on Jewish readers (e.g., Tg. on Isaiah; b. Ta'an. 29a). "Binding" and "loosing" also seem linked to responsibilities typically associated with the priesthood (teaching, judging, mediating divine forgiveness). In light of this I argue that this passage provides Jesus with the perfect quarry: if the church is a temple, its leadership is naturally described in terms related to priestly responsibilities.