Day 8: Matthew 23-25. Judgment
I don't know about you, but I find some parts of Matthew 23 difficult to read. This chapter is a long diatribe against the scribes and the Pharisees. In some translations, the words, "Woe unto you" are repeated again and again. The charge? Hypocrisy.
Certainly, given the controversies and arguments with the religious leaders, I can understand Jesus/ anger. On the other hand, I know a Pharisee named Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night... granted, his story is in Another Gospel. But does Jesus mean him? I also read these words considering many of the things that have come after between Christians and Jews: persecution, pogroms, Inquisitions, the Holocaust. I want to remind readers that Jesus is Jewish and that Matthew is the most Jewish of the gospels. There are more quotations from the Old Testament in Matthew than in any other gospel.
Chapter 24 is sometimes called the "little apocalypse". They are Jesus' teachings regarding persecution, the destruction of the temple, and other signs of impending doom. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D. There are also predictions of false Messiahs leading people astray, great suffering and always being ready.
Always be ready, Jesus tells us, and be aware of the "signs of the times." But he also reminds us that no one knows the day or the hour. So how do we balance these two? -- be ready, but don't try to predict the end times too closely. Do you think that we are in the End Times?
Theologian Robert Farrar Capon called chapter 25 "The Parables of Judgment", and they are. The parables are: the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids, the Parable of the Talents, and the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. The third of these is perhaps the most well-known: sheep and goats divided, in the end, by how they treat the "least of these" -- the poor and the hungry, the prisoners and the sick. Because in the "least of these", the King of Kings was present. And nobody recognized him.
In each of these parables, there is grace, but the final word is judgment: the goats are cast into the darkness, the five foolish bridesmaids are cast out, and that poor servant with one talent -- loses is talent and is cast into the outer darkness.
I admit to be most haunted by this parable, always worried whether I was using my talent (I was sure I only had one). But I am not sure, now that I am older, if that is the point of this parable. Even only one talent was a lot of money (something I didn't know as a teenager). Also, this poor servant is SURE that his master is hard and unforgiving -- and sure enough -- that is how his master treats him. And finally, what if the treasure, what if the talent, is the gospel itself? Do we bury this gospel, afraid to share it, because we don't realize it is not just for us, or for others?
Parables have answers; but they also have questions. I am not sure that the answers are more important than the questions.
What about you? Which of these parables is most challenging to you? What do you think they mean? Do you see grace as well as judgment here?
Certainly, given the controversies and arguments with the religious leaders, I can understand Jesus/ anger. On the other hand, I know a Pharisee named Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night... granted, his story is in Another Gospel. But does Jesus mean him? I also read these words considering many of the things that have come after between Christians and Jews: persecution, pogroms, Inquisitions, the Holocaust. I want to remind readers that Jesus is Jewish and that Matthew is the most Jewish of the gospels. There are more quotations from the Old Testament in Matthew than in any other gospel.
Chapter 24 is sometimes called the "little apocalypse". They are Jesus' teachings regarding persecution, the destruction of the temple, and other signs of impending doom. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D. There are also predictions of false Messiahs leading people astray, great suffering and always being ready.
Always be ready, Jesus tells us, and be aware of the "signs of the times." But he also reminds us that no one knows the day or the hour. So how do we balance these two? -- be ready, but don't try to predict the end times too closely. Do you think that we are in the End Times?
Theologian Robert Farrar Capon called chapter 25 "The Parables of Judgment", and they are. The parables are: the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids, the Parable of the Talents, and the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. The third of these is perhaps the most well-known: sheep and goats divided, in the end, by how they treat the "least of these" -- the poor and the hungry, the prisoners and the sick. Because in the "least of these", the King of Kings was present. And nobody recognized him.
In each of these parables, there is grace, but the final word is judgment: the goats are cast into the darkness, the five foolish bridesmaids are cast out, and that poor servant with one talent -- loses is talent and is cast into the outer darkness.
I admit to be most haunted by this parable, always worried whether I was using my talent (I was sure I only had one). But I am not sure, now that I am older, if that is the point of this parable. Even only one talent was a lot of money (something I didn't know as a teenager). Also, this poor servant is SURE that his master is hard and unforgiving -- and sure enough -- that is how his master treats him. And finally, what if the treasure, what if the talent, is the gospel itself? Do we bury this gospel, afraid to share it, because we don't realize it is not just for us, or for others?
Parables have answers; but they also have questions. I am not sure that the answers are more important than the questions.
What about you? Which of these parables is most challenging to you? What do you think they mean? Do you see grace as well as judgment here?
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