Matthew is an inspirational teacher. In a later generation Matthew would have been a rabbi: a master of rich, allusive stories that draw on the ancient themes of Judaism and interpret them afresh. Jesus and his followers were dividing the synagogues of Matthew's city: Was this Jesus a prophet or a fraud? His followers were making heady claims.
The synagogue leaders were asking: Could such people, with such an allegiance, be members of the synagogue at all? Jesus' followers were wondering in their turn: Should they be attending synagogue? And if not, where did those stand before God whose allegiance to the synagogues was still secure? There was uncertainty on both sides, and an increasingly angry suspicion. A moment of decision has been reached. "Who do you say I am?" Matthew's answer is leading him and all who follow his teaching away from the synagogues and into a community of their own: the church.
Matthew builds his gospel in careful sections of miracles and teaching; he offers his readers a new Book of the Law shaped on the Law received from Moses that Moses in turn had received from God. Matthew flags up prophecies and their fulfilment at every turn: here in Jesus is the promised Immanuel, "With us God." The Law itself, declares Matthew, with all that it foretold, has been brought to its innate conclusion by a stately, commanding Jesus whose standing puts even Moses' in the shade.
Matthew searches the scriptures for clues to the identity and standing of this baffling Jesus. The terms in which he pursues his search are inherited from the synagogues and their vast knowledge of The Old Order. Matthew draws from deep wells of tradition unknown to most of his Christian readers today. But their streams still flow, deep beneath the ground of the church's belief. And these streams break through the surface still, running fresh and clear, in the Judaism which Matthew knew and loved well.
Matthew sifts the evidence about Jesus; he is awed by the solution to which it leads him. Was Jesus a leader like Moses, bringing his people out of slavery into some Promised Land? We see him on a mountain, teaching obedience to the Law of Moses - and in the next breath, it seems, rewriting it.
Blessed are those who know themselves poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Or was Jesus a king after all, as spoken of in those ancient oracles? Was he destined, despite his disgrace and death, to bring Israel to freedom at last? We see him acknowledged by the mysterious Wise Men and hounded by the murderous Herod; but when the devil offers him all the kingdoms of the earth -- he refuses them.
You have heard that it was said: "You will love your neighbour'"and will hate your enemy. Well I, I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you might be the children of your father in heaven. For he has the sun rise on the wicked and on the good, and he has the rain fall on the just and on the unjust. If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even those who make a profit from collecting taxes do the same? So you must be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect.
None of the categories that Matthew had to hand said quite enough. Everything called for a deeper explanation. Who can Jesus have been who must he have been, if all the disparate pieces in Matthew's jigsaw were to fit together?
Jesus' adherents in city after city had to make a crucial decision: to be loyal to the synagogues or to establish a separate church? There were practical, day-to-day questions to answer, and above all: Should the Jewish Law be obeyed by Jewish and by gentile Christians? Radically different answers were being reached by different teachers.
Those for whom our Matthew wrote have been on the cusp. Matthew believes that the decision is now clear: they must leave the synagogues behind. We too know of the pain to which differences in deep belief can lead: bitterness, separation; and before long, an angry misunderstanding. Matthew trod a distinctive path: his was a careful, subtle route - but one that called for brave, final decisions from his readers.
Among Matthew's main themes some ring out loud and clear. They were all too easily learnt by the church and all too often played: Matthew's disappointment at the synagogues fuelled, for centuries, Europe's hatred of the Jews. But this was not Matthew's real music. Matthew foresaw doubts and difficulties that would face his readers, the knowledge without which they could make no responsible decision, the key recognition that without his help would lie quite beyond their control. These are the themes on which Matthew plays; they were not audible for long. It is time to hear this sensitive scholar once more, whose harmonies were distorted out of all recognition in the polemics of a later age.
Mark knows of fear, Matthew of bitter division. A new community is coming to birth: the church is emerging from the synagogue. There is a fervor here, a clarity of purpose that sees a glowing future for its own adherents -- and a terrible destruction threatening its opponents. For the new is separated from its parent by painful decisions, divided families and contested loyalty. Old loves and long allegiances are being sundered. The church's leaders were growing more confident of their independence. They grew to define themselves by opposition to the synagogue leaders whose control they had left behind. But ordinary people with less power of their own were less sure of their leaders'. Some were still hedging their bets three hundred years after Matthew finished his gospel: they were going to synagogue on Saturday, and on Sunday to church. No such loyalty, divided and wavering, could satisfy Matthew. Hard decisions faced his readers; and he writes to help his readers make them.
So who can this Jesus be, who must he be, to wield the extraordinary authority that his followers claim for him? Matthew draws an answer from Judaism that puts the break with Judaism beyond doubt: Jesus is indeed "God with us" -- here and now.
All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go out, therefore, and make pupils of all the gentiles, baptising them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Breath of God, teaching them to keep all the commandments that I have commanded you. And look, I am with you always, every day, until the aeon's completed end.
But where and how, then, is "Jesus-with-us" to be found? God was "with us" in the life of Jesus; and as those very last words of the gospel make clear, that is the same Jesus who is with us still. From With-us-God at the gospel's beginning to "I am with you" right at its end: everything between these two poles describes the Jesus who was With-us-God and the Jesus who is with us still. It was the life described in the gospel that was With-us-God; and the description in the gospel that is with the readers now. The presence of Jesus with us is, for Matthew, the text of the gospel itself.
Seeing the crowds Jesus went up onto the mountain. He sat down -- as a Jewish teacher would -- and his pupils gathered to him, and he began to teach them:
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who are hungry and thirsty for justice, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for the justice of God,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
You have heard that it was said: "An eye for an eye'"and "a tooth for a tooth." Well, I say to you: Do not oppose the evil one. But whoever hits you on the right cheek, turn the left cheek to him too. And if anyone wants to sue you and to take your shirt, give him your coat too. And whoever makes you walk one mile, go with him for two. To those who ask of you, give; and those who want to borrow off you - do not turn them away.
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Was Jesus somehow a new Israel, overcoming the temptations in the desert to which the old Israel had succumbed? What exactly might such a claim be thought to mean? He is announced as God's Son; he creates around himself a "new" people, a community with new rules and rites and leaders but where does this leave the Israel of old, declared by God's irreversible Law to be his own people, his "child"?
The eleven pupils went to Galilee to the mountain at which Jesus had told them to be. And when they saw him they fell prostrate before him -- but some hesitated. And Jesus came up to them and spoke to them saying,
