The 11th is coming up a bit quickly... over these next couple of days I'll definitely have to make up for a bit of skipped Matthew-reading. Hope you guys are starting out a little bit stronger than I am!
But anyway, of what I've read so far, several things have stood out. One is the juxtaposition of 7:12 and 5:17-19. In chapter 5, it kind of seems like Jesus is taking a fairly hard-line stance on the law: "I have come not to abolish [the law and prophets], but to fulfil them. For truly, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished." (Side note: I'm not sure when exactly "all is accomplished" - does Jesus mean on the Cross, or is this more about the end times? Important distinction.) He's serious about the law.
Yet, only a little while later, in ch. 7, Jesus does a little distillation: "So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." Suddenly He's all big picture; no more quibbling about jots and tittles.
I don't think I want to go all the way and say that "this is the law and the prophets" means that you can totally reduce the Hebrew Bible down to the Golden Rule. I'm too much a fan of Stanley Hauerwas's idea, brought up in REL 261 (MAJOR PLUG), about how the narratives in the Bible can't necessarily be distilled, and instead we have to locate ourselves in the narratives. I think that's beautiful and challenging. But preserving the integrity of narrative doesn't mean that we can't draw lessons from narrative, and I think there's room to say that Jesus doesn't necessarily mean that the Golden Rule is all we end up taking from the Hebrew Bible. It's a major component, but an acknowledgement of how central it is doesn't exclude those jots and tittles that Jesus was so fond of earlier in 5.
I also really liked Jesus' reasoning with the Pharisees about the man with the withered hand (12:9-13). It's based on what people simply would do in a fairly straightforward scenario, plus a little bit of gentle casuistry as we jump from saving sheep to saving people. I like it because it's not an elaborate, multifaceted, guarded ethical argument. Instead, Jesus is like, "Come on, guys. You know this is right." I really appreciate the appeal to human experience here.
Actually, I'm afraid I started out far weaker- I just read all of Matthew this morning! My blog post is coming soon, but I just wanted to comment on a few things that you said. I reread 5:17, and I think it might have something to do with what you commented on in your last paragraph, and what I am also going to mention- that Jesus could be really practical. I think maybe why he says to follow the law- and by law I'm assuming that it's the Jewish law of how to live properly with God- is because he knows people will slip up on following the Golden Rule- it's just too hard for most to always follow. If you also follow these other, possibly arbitrary, laws, you at least can stay on a religious path that will remind you of your duty to the Golden Rule. I can't remember what passage it is, but later on he does comment on the law being somewhat arbitrary.
ReplyDeleteAlso, would you explain Hauerwas's idea in more detail or even send me a paper on it, Brendan? It sounds interesting, but I'm not sure if I understand it completely.