Saturday Night Theologian
20 March 2005

Matthew 21:1-11; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29

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.

For other discussions of this passage, click here, or here, or here.

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16

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.

For other discussions of this passage, click here or here.

Philippians 2:5-11

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.

For other discussions of this passage, click here, or here, or here.

Matthew 26:14-27:66

How much does it cost to buy a politician? What price can a rich celebrity pay to be assured of victory in court? How much money in campaign contributions does a corporation or an entire industry have to give to purchase legislation to its liking? I don't know the exact price, but I do know that it happens all the time. Money talks. Big-time polluters make large donations to a political campaign, and the Clear Skies Initiative emerges. Wealthy donors lobby state lawmakers, and a new tax plan is released that reduces the amount the richest 10% have to pay in taxes, while keeping the total revenue the same. Guess who pays the difference? Wall Street pushes various plans to get the government to invest Social Security money in the stock market; some investors will win, others will lose, but Wall Street will make out like a bandit. Like a bandit? Sometime in the week following Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, Judas went to the religious leaders and asked them, "What will you give me if I betray him to you?" Sometimes I think that Judas rather than Jesus has become the contemporary role model for Christianity. Judas' motto may well have been "Show me the money!" but isn't that true for many Christians today as well? We work for corporations and industries that engage in legal (sometimes) bribery of public officials, i.e., campaign contributions. We support politicians and policies that we think will benefit us, regardless of whom it hurts. We support foreign wars in places where oil is abundant or where our nation wants to get a monopoly on trade. We deny children health insurance because it might cost us an extra couple of dollars a month out of our paychecks (money that we could immediately recover if we scaled back out of control military spending). Our economic model says "Let the buyer beware." Our representatives are currently in the process of gutting bankruptcy laws to favor the already incredibly wealthy financial institutions that own the credit card companies. The amazing thing about the whole process is that we think we're actually getting something positive out of the deal, when all we're really doing is hurting ourselves and hurting others. Judas made a cool thirty pieces of silver, but he didn't live long enough to spend it, and his life ended in remorse and tragedy. We mortgage our air and water and other natural resources for a short-term fix of lower taxes. We are heating up the planet at an alarming rate, knowing that that the long-term prospects of flooding, disease, crop failure, and species extinction are devastating, all because we don't want to give up our oil-based economy. Yes, we're like Judas in many ways, yet we fool ourselves into believing that we're really imitating Jesus. Maybe we need to step out of the Christian tradition for a moment and listen to the words of the Buddha, who, when he met a man on the road who asked who he was, answered, "I am awake." It's time for Christians to wake up!