September 27th
Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount with shocking words. Anyone who hears and acts on Jesus’ interpretations of Torah builds a house on a good foundation. However, anyone who rejects his teaching will find their homes swept away. This is flood language. Jesus’ watery metaphor recalls the Noah story, where floodwaters swept away those who ignored God, but Noah’s household listened and lived. Jesus also echoes the prophets’ use of flood imagery to symbolize enemy “seas” of pursuing attackers (cf. Isa. 8:7-8; Ezek. 13:10-14). These old stories convey one common theme: Life comes from God. People who listen and act according to his instruction experience his protection through chaos and death. Notice, Jesus is suggesting that following his instruction will yield the same positive result as following God’s instruction. The gathered crowd is flabbergasted. They’ve heard teachers before, in the synagogue, on the streets of Judea, sometimes even in the dusty middle of nowhere. Jesus is different. Instead of citing credentials or quoting famous religious leaders, he teaches Torah as if it comes from his own heart, as if he wrote it. Then he comes down the mountain and does things only God can do. Look closely at the first three people Jesus heals: a leper, a slave, and a woman. What do all of these people have in common? Their world considers them to be “less than.” Jesus goes to them first. As he said in the Beatitudes at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount, the Kingdom comes near to the poor in spirit, the mourners, and the meek.
September 28th
God’s Kingdom is moving through the port cities, trade centers, and tiny villages in Galilee as Jesus loves every neighbor he meets and confronts demonization, disease, and death. Jesus fulfills the intense longing for restoration woven into today’s psalm through loving, healing action. Some friends bring their paralyzed companion to Jesus for healing. Jesus, in response to their faith, tells the man that his sins are forgiven. Some of the nearby religious leaders experience a full-body gasp. The audacity! Blasphemy! They wield significant power and see Jesus challenging their authority. Jesus remains undeterred, fully healing the man and instructing him to stand and return home. Jesus’ authority is self-evident. Consider the way sickness and sin intertwine in this passage. At times, biblical stories connect sin and sickness closely. At other times, the differences between the two receive more clarification. Both somehow signal humanity’s current corrupted state, living in alienation from God’s life-giving, Edenic presence. We experience sickness because of the world’s overall brokenness. Jesus’ healing ministry offers a glimpse of the Kingdom breaking in—banishing the powers of chaos, darkness, disease, and even death itself.
September 29th
How does one respond to Jesus? Some leave everything familiar to follow him into something new. Others meet Jesus and walk away confused. Some get hostile. Today’s reading asks us to ponder the same question for ourselves by illustrating some interesting responses to Jesus’ ministry. The crowds often react positively to Jesus’ work and wonder if he might be the Son of David. Jesus’ family and John the Baptist see the same work and ultimately respond with relative neutrality, even confusion. John witnesses Jesus’ unique baptism and hears God’s booming voice affirm Jesus from the skies. But Jesus doesn’t go on to accomplish the military victory John likely expected. So John wants to know: “Are you actually the real Messiah? Who are you?” As usual, Jesus answers indirectly. He describes his ministry with words from Isaiah (cf. Isa. 29:18-19, 35:5-6, 61:1), who spoke of God’s saving king as a restoring, loving healer. Jesus might not be the warrior king many, including John, had hoped for. But he is God’s saving king described in the Hebrew Bible. Jesus defeats not human enemies but the enemies of humanity by healing illness and injury, reversing death, and bringing good news to the poor.
September 30th
Israel desperately wanted God’s Kingdom to arrive. Most assumed this would happen through war, a divinely empowered victory over all of Israel’s enemies. Jesus’ kingdom parables suggest an entirely different way. It’s an infinitely powerful, evil-crushing kingdom as hoped for. But it starts small and grows slowly, defeating evil with love, forgiveness, and blessed healing, not war. Notice how Matthew 13 ends with suspicion around Jesus’ legitimacy, and Matthew 14 then begins with John the Baptizer’s beheading. John saw Jesus as the promised king, prophesied about through Isaiah, in whom God’s Kingdom was drawing near (Matt. 3). He probably wasn’t expecting to lose his head as a result. Rather than wielding his power to destroy John’s murderers, Jesus withdraws to the wilderness with suffering crowds. He uses his power compassionately to bless people with nourishment, just as Yahweh did. The 12 baskets of leftovers both recall the 12 tribes of Israel and point to the 12 apostles who will carry forward Jesus’ mission. Then, in Job 9:8 fashion, Jesus “treads upon the sea’s waves,” an activity reserved for God. Understandably, the disciples shriek in terror at the sight of God walking on the waters of Galilee. Jesus encourages them to be fearless because, as he says, “It is I.” Or, more literally, “I am.” Then Jesus calms the sea. Surely anyone bummed about his unwillingness to wage war can be hopeful about his ability to control cosmic reality. By feeding the crowd, walking on water, invoking the title “I am,” and rescuing from a raging sea (cf. Gen. 6:9-8:17; Exod. 14; Ps. 69), Jesus shows the Kingdom arriving and demonstrates himself to be not only Messiah but also God. Watch today’s video to see how the first half of Matthew builds to this divine claim about Jesus.
October 1st
Jesus messes with our most normal, acceptable ideas about what it means to belong to God. In today’s reading, a group of religious elites challenges Jesus. They think they’re the authority on who belongs inside and who belongs outside the community of God’s people. When Jesus’ response to their challenge proves unsatisfying in their eyes, they reject Jesus as an “outsider.” In the very next story, a Canaanite woman approaches Jesus. She is for sure an outsider, given that Canaan was an ancient enemy of Israel. She trusts in his goodness, but Jesus responds with a food metaphor about table scraps for dogs to imply that her request must be inappropriate. What business does an outsider have with “insider” matters? Undeterred by Jesus’ challenge, the woman presses Jesus for mercy and refuses any rejection. The disciples want the outsider woman gone. The religious elite want the same. But Jesus (who is also God) waits patiently, engages honestly, and allows everyone to see the Canaanite woman’s faith shine through—a faith that means she’s living in the Kingdom already, belonging to God, receiving his mercy and life. Then, Jesus goes on a healing tour and feeds 4,000 people with seven loaves and a few small fish. Wait a minute … haven’t we heard this story before, but it was 5,000 people? It’s similar, but this account differs in both number and audience. This is a Gentile crowd, or perhaps an outsider crowd, whom Jesus blesses with divine, loving generosity. Through the Canaanite woman and this crowd, we discover that Jesus is the bread of life not just for Jewish insiders but to all the families or nations on Earth (Gen. 12:2-3). Watch the video to preview the second half of Matthew and to see how the good news of Jesus belongs to everyone.
October 2nd
A few disciples are in for another mountaintop moment. As you’ll learn in today’s video, that means we’re heading to a place where Heaven and Earth join together. Mountains are a big deal in Scripture. Today’s reading has us following Jesus up a mountain, hiking with Peter, James, and John to the summit. There, Jesus glows. Moses and Elijah appear. A bright cloud covers them all, and a voice speaks from within the cloud. Wait, rewind—Moses and Elijah have been dead for centuries at this point. What’s going on? Moses is the icon of Israel’s law. Elijah represents the prophets. We’re getting a picture of God affirming Jesus as the one who will fulfill the Law and the Prophets. Seeing Jesus glow with living-dead guys and hearing a voice from the cloud, the disciples naturally freak out. “Listen to him [Jesus],” the voice says. This harkens back to the time God said the same about Moses to Israel, “Listen to him” (Deut. 18:15). The hyperlink to Deuteronomy and Moses paints Jesus as the new, more complete prophet who is nevertheless carrying out the same thing Moses was working toward. When the disciples emerge from their fear, they see only Jesus before them. Imagine trying to tell others about that surprise on the summit, about the intense yet guiding experience of meeting God in the space where Heaven and Earth unite. When the story unfolds entirely, we’ll see that entering into the way of Jesus is like entering the Heaven-and-Earth space. There, as Jesus said earlier, God’s will is “done on Earth as it is in Heaven” (Matt. 6:10).
October 3rd
In our world, what matters most? What elevates or lowers our social status? That would depend on when and where you’re living, for sure. However, a few fundamentals seem constant everywhere. Whether it’s an ancient empire, a modern republic, or any other social world (nation, small town, workplace, etc.), those with wealth usually live at the top. Kings and presidents, celebrities and billionaires—money means status, and status brings power. Historically, the power-wealth combination largely stays with men, male heirs, and those who maintain strong militaries. Jesus sees it every day. But his world, God’s Kingdom, flips every human status system upside down. It isn’t about material wealth or powerful control. Love for all compels God’s Kingdom. Notice how Jesus refuses to diminish women and children. First, he speaks into a religious controversy about divorce. Rather than upholding the male-dominated status quo, he protects women from abandonment and destitution. Today’s video helps unpack Jesus’ teaching on divorce. Notice how he never treats women as lessers. When the disciples start shooing away children, who had no status, Jesus welcomes them. These kids have the right attitude, he says. Children trust their parents’ guidance implicitly. Those who trust God like that, he says, are closest to God’s Kingdom. Then we read about a wealthy man. He had a much higher status than women and children in his day. He wants the good life Jesus offers. He follows the Torah carefully, but Jesus exposes the man’s love for wealth and says he needs to let it go. Love for wealth is not part of God’s Kingdom. Love for God and neighbor is. Throughout these chapters, Jesus shows the upside-down nature of God’s Kingdom. The disciples aren’t seeing it yet. They argue over who among them will be most powerful in the future. As they leave the city with Jesus, two low-status blind men call out. Physically blind, those men still “see” that Jesus alone can heal them. Unlike the disciples, these men want mercy, not power. Jesus, true to his message, heals them and treats them as valuable human beings.