Matthew 22:34-46 No More Questions

Matthew 22:34-46

NARRATOR: When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.

PHARISEE: "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"

NARRATOR: He said to him,

JESUS: "`You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

NARRATOR: Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: Jesus: "What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?"

Narrator: They said to him,

Pharisee: "The son of David."

Narrator: He said to them,

Jesus: "How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,

`The Lord said to my Lord,

"Sit at my right hand,

until I put your enemies under your feet"'?

If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?"

Narrator: No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

BACKGROUND

NOT A PARABLE… rather a “dispute story”, of which there are many in the gospels.

NOT AN ORIGINAL TEACHING…Jesus simply quotes the Book of Deuteronomy. The Pharisees undoubtedly believed the same thing.

In Luke’s version of this story, the questioner presses Jesus to define what he means by “neighbor.” Jesus answers by telling the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

C.S. Lewis wrote The Four Loves, in which he pointed out that the English word “love” is used to translate four different Greek words used in the New Testament. These are

Storge= “affection”

Philia= “friendship”

Eros= “romance”

Agape= self-giving, unconditional, God-like love…love that is inhabited more than felt.

Guess which word is used in this passage?

JESUS CONFRONTS THE PHARISEES with his own question…

THE IDEA OF MESSIAHSHIP grew in importance in proportion to Israel’s misfortune as a nation-state. The destruction of the Jewish State in 586 B.C. made the tradition of a divinely-ordained Davidic monarchy seem impractical… and, in Jesus’ day,  the succession of unsavory politicians who ruled parts of Palestine as proxies for the Romans made that tradition even more far-fetched. The hopes of Israel were fulfillable only by means of a drastic intervention into history by God. The “Son of David” Messiah was to restore the ancient kingdom with the assistance of angelic armies and dramatic demonstrations of divine power.   

Jesus repudiates this version of Messiahship by quoting Psalm 110:1: “The LORD [i.e. The God of Israel] said to my Lord [the Davidic king of Judea in the psalmist’s time], ‘sit at my right hand, * until I make your enemies your footstool.” Jesus, (presuming along with others that David was the actual author of the psalms…which no serious contemporary scholar accepts) makes a play on Hebrew words to confuse the Pharisees and subvert the concept of a military messiah.

Psalm 110, if one reads on to verse 6, relishes the idea that “[The Messianic King]…will heap high the corpses; * he will smash heads over the wide earth.”

This is not what Christians have meant by proclaiming Jesus as Messiah/Christ, although there have been, and still are, voices ascribing to this view.  

SUMMARY

“Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come into being.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything.

Thomas Merton

“Love is all you need.”

 The Beatles

The notion of a Davidic Messiah dies hard, even in Christianity. The Puritans in new world thought they were establishing a “new and purified Israel;” colonial powers justified their rule by forcing native people to become Christian and save their eternal souls; Mormons established their settlements in Utah as a new manifestation of the kingdom of God.  Can people be coerced into the kingdom of God?
      
Perhaps Jesus fulfills the expectation of a Davidic Messiah in an unexpected way, by manifesting aspects of David’s life that do not reflect the “Head Smasher” image. 
    

In 2 Samuel 16, we read how King David was betrayed and temporarily replaced by his beloved son Absalom. In this passage King David is less of a Conquering Hero and more like a Suffering Servant. “So David and his men went on the road, while Shimei  went along on the hillside opposite him and

cursed as he went, throwing stones and flinging dust at him.” Is not this evocative of the passion of Christ?