Saturday Night Theologian
16 March 2008

Matthew 21:1-11; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 (first published 13 March 2005)

Does God exist? If God does exist, does God have a plan for history, or do events just unfold randomly while God sits idly by? For the author of the gospel of Matthew the answer is clear. God has a plan, and God is working through ordinary events to ensure that the plan is carried out. Both of the other Synoptic Gospels include the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, but only Matthew cites the passage in Zechariah 9:9 as providing the prophetic backdrop for the Triumphal Entry. Matthew's rendering of the passage from Zechariah more closely reflects the Hebrew text than that of the Greek, including the parallelism reflected in the phrases "humble and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden." This parallelism leads to the very strange picture in verse 7 of the disciples putting their clothes on both the donkey and its colt and Jesus riding on both (side by side? one at a time?). It may be that the author misunderstood the nature of Hebrew poetic parallelism, which repeats an idea in different words, giving "sense rhyme" rather than "auditory rhyme." On the other hand, the author may have pushed his narration almost to the edge of common sense (he doesn't explicitly say how Jesus rode the two animals) in order to emphasize the parallels between prophecy and fulfillment in the life of Jesus. In either case, the main point of the passage, and others like it throughout Matthew, is that God has a plan of redemption for the world at whose center is Jesus Christ. It is this Jesus whose life and teachings we rehearse and try to emulate week in and week out throughout the Christian year, and it is this Jesus whose ultimate sacrifice we remember during Holy Week with a mix of awe, gratitude, and introspection.

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16 (first published 13 March 2005)

As I write this a week before Palm Sunday, a gunman has killed three people in an Atlanta courthouse. Another man killed the husband and mother of a judge a few days ago and today has taken his own life. In Iraq, hundreds of civilians have been killed in recent weeks by suicide bombers, and a few allies have died at the hands of U.S. soldiers in friendly fire incidents. Violence is all around us, and the world at times seems to be spinning out of control. Opponents of gun control in the U.S. say, "Guns don't kill people; people kill people." If that's true, then why isn't it our national policy to let any country that wants nuclear weapons to build or buy one? After all, "Nuclear weapons don't kill people; people kill people." Both statements are true as far as they go, but this caveat needs to be added: "Guns (or nuclear weapons) don't kill people; people with guns (or nuclear weapons) kill people." Those of us who take seriously Jesus' call to be peacemakers often take positions that are at odds with many of the most powerful in society: the gun lobby, defense contractors, the Pentagon, the White House, the Congress. When opposition to our cause seems overwhelming, yet violence continues to spiral out of control, we can imitate the prophet, who said, "The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near." Despite the violence of our society--and we are perpetrators just as much as we are victims, perhaps more--there is hope if we will return to the roots of our faith. Jesus rode into Jerusalem that Sunday morning almost two thousand years ago as Prince of Peace, and it is our duty as his followers to champion the cause of peace in a dark, dangerous world.

Philippians 2:5-11 (first published 13 March 2005)

The church in the first two centuries struggled to defend itself from external attack and to define itself in the midst of internal contention. Once Christianity became a legal religion and external attacks were no more, Christians turned with enthusiasm to the question of defining itself. The question that most often captured the minds of early Christians seems to have been, "What is the relationship between the divine and the human in Jesus Christ?" The Council of Nicea insisted that Jesus was of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father. Those who disagreed were excommunicated from the Great Church (eventually; first, there was a decades-long struggle between Niceans, Arians, semi-Arians, etc.). Later councils debated whether Christ had one nature or two, whether Christ's natures were combined or separate, and whether he had one will or two. Official positions were decided, and those who had different opinions were browbeaten into changing their beliefs or they were expelled from the church. The problem with all these decisions is that the were based on prevailing philosophical or theological beliefs, not the clear teaching of either scripture or tradition. Each was reasonable in itself, but the result of the lot was to create a set of doctrines that made little rational sense but that were imposed upon Christians at large as "orthodoxy." Our reading from Philippians calls us to look once again at the issue from the standpoint of Christ's role as a servant. Though both the divinity and humanity of Jesus are hinted at (he was in "the form or God" or "the form of a slave" or "the likeness of humans"), the detailed relationship between the divine and human is not spelled out. The point of the hymn being quoted is Christ's obedience to God, not the relationship between his divine and human characteristics. God calls us today to obedience, and God also calls us to abandon useless arguments that divide Christians from one another. We are called to be united in Christ, not united in doctrine; united in service, not united in philosophy. The mind of Christ which we are to imitate is one that focuses on following God, not on excluding others for differing with us on debatable matters of insignificant import.

Matthew 26:14-27:66

If Jesus were to visit America today, I don't think he'd be able to distinguish many who claim to be his followers. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, a symbol of peace, but many American Christians apparently imagine that he rode into town on a war horse. Jesus drove the moneychangers from the temple, but many churches today proclaim the "gospel" of wealth, and even in those that don't, Christians frequently support government policies that take money from the poor and give it to the rich, inexplicably equating unfettered capitalism with the message of Christ. Jesus is sometimes called the great physician, because of the countless healings he performed on those in need, but many Christians oppose plans that would guarantee access to health care to the poor, and even to children. We in America--and elsewhere as well--have created a Jesus that is in many ways the polar opposite of the Jesus revealed in the gospels. In doing so, we inadvertently reflect a story found in many witnesses to Matthew and present in the New Revised Standard Version as well, a story in which the crowd is offered a choice between two men named Jesus. The first, Jesus Barabbas, is called a notorious prisoner, and Matthew gives no details about his crimes. The other is Jesus, "who is called Christ." The fact that Barabbas's crimes are unspecified lends an interest twist to the story as Matthew relates it. Given a choice between a Jesus who was the righteous, anointed one of God and a Jesus who was, well, just different, the crowd chooses the latter. It's as if they're saying, "We can't deal with Jesus the Christ, so give us anyone else, and get rid of the Christ!" Too many Christians today follow in the footsteps of the multitude in that Passover season so long ago. They don't want to follow a Jesus who demands justice, who says to love one's enemies, who commands forgiveness and compassion and love. They prefer a different kind of Jesus, one who is a virile he-man warrior, who evokes nationalistic pride, who gives one hope of fabulous riches, who says to his followers, "It's OK to be a little selfish, to look down on immigrants from other countries, to take classes at church to learn to accumulate wealth, to tell the poor, 'I worked for what I have, so get lost!'" In short, they want a very different Jesus from the one whom we revere as the founder of the faith. Twenty centuries later, the question still reverberates through time: which Jesus do you want?