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Advent Sunday on 2nd December will see us beginning Year A of the Lectionary, during which Gospel readings will be predominantly from Matthew.
Matthew’s gospel has traditionally been regarded as the most Jewish of the gospels – and with some justification. In Matthew, Jesus insists that his mission is ‘only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (15:24), and apparently he never seeks out any Gentiles, nor does he encourage his disciples to embark upon a Gentile mission in his lifetime. In fact, the disciples are sent out with a specific injunction to ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans.’ They too have a mission to ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’.
To reinforce the impression of a mission to the Jews only, we find that Jesus’ attack on the purity laws in Mark (7: 1-23) is reproduced in Matthew (15:1-20), but the sweeping conclusion, pronouncing all foods clean (Mark 7:19), is pointedly (and fastidiously) omitted by Matthew. When Jesus is approached by a Syrophoenician woman, in Mark ‘s gospel (7:24-30), he boldly enters her house, the home of an ‘unclean’ Gentile. However, in Matthew, the woman becomes a ‘Canaanite’ and Jesus does not set foot in her house, presumably because a Jewish rabbi had a fear of contamination. (Matthew 15: 21-28).
Jesus in Matthew also enjoins upon his disciples a strict observance of the Law and insists that their righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees (5:20).
He tells them: ‘Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven (5:19). The kind of observance that this entails is spelt out more clearly in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7), where Jesus is presented as a new Moses, or better, as a law-giver and interpreter of the Law who is greater than Moses, because he speaks on his own authority and is able to see beyond the letter of the Law to the spirit which inspires it and to the true nature and will of God. Nevertheless, the impression is given that we are very much in a ‘Jewish’ setting and that Jesus is somehow fulfilling the potential of the Law of Moses.
So, to sum up, it is clear that, in some passages, Matthew’s gospel has a Jewish Christian community in its sights. Nevertheless, having said that, there are elements of Matthew’s gospel which appear to indicate an openness to the Gentiles and, at the end of the gospel, a Gentile mission. In chapter 28 (vv. 18-20), we read the passage often called ‘The Great Commission’, which runs as follows:
‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’
This passage might well connect up with a passage in Isaiah 49 (verse 6), which reads, ‘[The Lord] says, It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel: I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’
Clearly the death and resurrection of Jesus have changed many things and a new age has dawned. From now onwards, Jesus’ ministry and mission are apparently no longer restricted. He will be with his disciples wherever they go and his mission is to the entire world. The disciples, with their limited vision, have now become apostles to the nations: the local crowd who used to collect together casually to listen to Jesus’ teaching has now become a coherent community called ‘The Church’. Matthew’s is in fact the only gospel to use the word ‘ekklesia’ – Greek for Church - and only he mentions the work of the Church as baptising in the name of the Trinity and teaching and training new disciples.
Matthew’s 4 Alls
The very term ‘making disciples’ has now moved from being Jesus’ own primary responsibility to the work of the disciples themselves – it is they who now teach, heal and impart faith. The baptising of disciples also means that the disciples act on their own authority and draw believers into a new life – the life of the Trinity and the worship of the risen Lord. Everything seems to have been universalised: notice the ‘Alls’ of this short passage – all authority, all nations teaching, observing all the commands, I am with you always.
Interestingly, Jesus’ own role has also changed since the resurrection. Earlier in the gospel, when he calls himself Son of Man, he is regarded as ‘the suffering servant’; but now he becomes the Son of Man of Daniel chapter 7, appearing in clouds of glory at God’s right hand as judge of all humanity. When Jesus is called ‘Lord’ earlier in the gospel, it simply means ‘master’, but now he is the Lord of heaven and earth. Where earlier ‘teacher’ simply meant ‘rabbi’, now it means the giver of a new Law and new way of life. Where ‘Immanuel’ earlier referred to the baby in the manger, now it refers to the Lord who is always with us in love and power. Jesus’ role is thus transformed by the resurrection. He relates to his disciples in a new way. The gospel is also transformed. It is no longer a movement restricted to one country (Israel), but is becoming a worldwide community (The Church) whose teachings are applicable to all peoples and all cultures.
Not an isolated boulder
The Great Commission is clearly therefore the culmination of the whole gospel. But it should not be seen as an isolated boulder, standing alone, saying something quite different from the rest of the gospel. On the contrary, this passage resumes and gathers together in a new way some of the leading themes of the gospel as a whole. Let us briefly illustrate this by looking at a few of the key words of the passage.
The appearance of the risen Jesus in Galilee has an echo of a crucial statement in chapter 4, when Matthew deliberately characterizes Galilee as ‘Galilee of the nations’ (4:12) and regards it as the place where Jews and Gentiles mingle together and where Jesus conducts his ministry mainly to the Jews but in the sight of the Gentiles. It may be that another phrase in the Great Commission passage also relates to this point. When the disciples gather, Matthew explicitly points out that ‘they worshipped him but some doubted’ (v. 17). Does this mean that even after the resurrection Jesus had some disciples who doubted him? Why should that be? In the light of Matthew’s gospel as a whole, surely it means that the Church is now a mixed community of Jews and Gentiles, with some still rather unclear and ignorant of exactly who Jesus is. They are observing matters with a degree of faith but still need a lot of training and education in what to believe and how to behave – a Matthean theme. Nonetheless, they are included in the Church’s life and even in its mission.
The mention of ‘the mountain’ in verse 16 shows how a mountain can be the place of revelation – but in Matthew we are specifically reminded of the mountain on which Jesus delivered his great sermon. (chs. 5-7). This resumes the theme that Jesus, like Moses, is able to speak God’s will and deliver God’s word from the mountainside. He remains the ‘Teacher’ par excellence, thus fulfilling a first century expectation that the Messiah, when he came, would give the true interpretation of the Torah, that all people might know God and understand God’s will. Throughout Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is the one who ‘speaks with authority’ (e.g. 7: 28-29) When he heals the centurion’s servant, he simply gives his word - and the servant is healed ‘at that very hour’ (8:13) When we come to the Great Commission, Jesus has ‘all authority in heaven and on earth.’
This authority is expressed in what Matthew calls Jesus’ commands (28:20). This is shorthand for all Jesus’ teaching. There are five major blocks of teaching in this gospel, and clearly Matthew is much concerned with the training of disciples in understanding Jesus’ interpretation of the Law, but also with reinforcement of their faith through obedience to the commands – in other words, faith in Jesus must be applied and deepened by observance of a new Christian moral code and a new way of living. This is a major task for the Church – to instil Jesus’ teaching and to maintain a pastoral discipline on behalf of all members.
Even the final phrase of the Great Commission - ‘I am with you always, to the end of the age’ - harks back to the earlier part of the gospel. The name given to Jesus right from the beginning is ‘Immanuel’ which means ‘God is with us’ (1:23). At the end of the gospel, this has taken on a new complexion of course. Jesus is now promising to accompany his disciples on mission and to encourage them and assist them wherever they go and in whatever situation they may find themselves.
Thus, I hope I have demonstrated that the Great Commission, far from standing alone as a puzzling and isolated passage in the context of a ‘Jewish’ gospel, can be seen as the key to the whole gospel: the passage which reveals many of Matthew’s themes and preoccupations.
People open to the gospel message
Matthew’s gospel is a fascinating work, combining as it does words for Jews and for Gentiles. Clearly, at the time the gospel was collated, written and published, Matthew’s community was undergoing a most exciting transition. Having begun as a Church for Jewish disciples of Jesus as Messiah – a Church which retained much of its Jewish heritage and many of the synagogue practices - it came to realise, through its mission to the world around it, that the Gentiles were open to the gospel message and that God was blessing the message of Jesus crucified and risen by bringing in many ‘foreigners’ who had to be accommodated in the Church’s life.
This may well have caused big problems – but what are the problems of success? Surely, if the Church in our day and in our land was successful in mission, even if we had surprises and problems, we would rejoice and be glad and make sure that we could accommodate new converts and new members. Change is always tricky and is sometimes painful, but when it brings new life and the exciting prospect of great advances, then it is something to be welcomed. Matthew’s community, to its great credit, wrestled with their heritage and with their beliefs and practices and came to see that the influx of the Gentiles was not only God’s will but was God’s blessing upon his people. In our day and age, we must have a similar openness to people of every nation and culture and provide a welcome and a place of honour for them, even if it means that we have to change our ways and our traditions. Our central beliefs – the truth about God and about Jesus Christ – remain, but must always be adapted to new conditions and a new culture. Like Matthew, we take from our storehouse things old and new and we make sure that we are worshipping, not dead forms, but a living Lord.
Revd. Dr. Geoffrey Harris is Senior Tutor for Biblical Studies at the East Midlands Ministry Training Course, which is part of the School of Education at University of Nottingham. He has had considerable experience both as a Circuit minister, in Swanwick, Derbyshire, Exmouth, Devon and Lincoln South, and as a teacher of the New Testament, in Yaounde, Cameroon as well as with the East Midlands Course.
His book Mission in the Gospels was published by Epworth Press in 2004 and he has recently written a chapter in Mark, Gospel of Action edited by John Vincent and published by SPCK 2006. Geoffrey lives in Lincoln with his wife Jane and they have three children, Joseph, Ruth and Kate.
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