Sunday’s Readings: Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

Proper 17: Jeremiah 15.15-21; Psalm 26.1-8; Romans 12.9-21; Matthew 16.21-28

IT IS still officially summer, although not for for much longer: an odd time of 12 months to wrestle with a Gospel about final judgement and the approaching of the Son of Man. After all, within the Church’s 12 months, such matters belong to the start of winter and to the season of Advent.

But, if there may be a way of incongruity, the fault lies with us. We have put the ultimate judgement in a box, where it might be rigorously controlled, as a substitute of listening to the Lord’s advice — repeated advice — from later in Matthew’s Gospel, which we should keep always in mind: “Keep awake due to this fact, for you have no idea on what day your Lord is coming” (24.42); “Keep awake due to this fact, for neither the day nor the hour” (25.13).

Jesus’s warnings suggest that we’d like to take a more thoughtful approach to judgement and to the approaching of the Kingdom. We needs to be living with them always in mind. If I were translating Matthew 16.28, it could read like this: “The Son of Man goes to are available the glory of his Father, along with his angels, after which he’ll repay each of us in response to how we have now behaved.”

Naturally, we would favor to interpret “repay” as promising us a reward. But the Greek verb (apodosei) may be interpreted as “payback”, which points to retribution reasonably than reward. Either way, given the importance of “the Kingdom” and the “coming of the Son of Man” in Matthew, a bit attention outside Advent isn’t an excessive amount of to ask.

Whose kingdom can we expect to see coming on the time of judgment? We flip-flop between “the Kingdom of heaven”, “the Kingdom of God”, “the Kingdom of the Father”, and “the Kingdom of the Son of Man”, as if there have been no real distinction between them; as in the event that they all referred to roughly the identical spiritual reality. It is reasonably like the way in which we use “Lord” in our prayers, without considering whether we’re using that title to deal with the Father, the Son, and even the Spirit (“the Lord and giver of life”, in response to the Nicene Creed). With the same lack of precision, we may discuss with Jesus interchangeably by his name or his titles (“Christ”, “Word”, “Son of Man”).

In Mark and Luke, Jesus comes proclaiming the “kingdom of God”. He refers back to the “kingdom of God” 14 times in Mark and 32 times in Luke. Matthew has a measly five references to “the dominion of God” (John has only two). But if we search for Jesus using the phrase “kingdom of heaven”, there are 32 examples in Matthew, but not one reference to the “kingdom of heaven” in the opposite Gospels. And we don’t even translate it accurately. A literal translation can be “the dominion of the heavens”.

Either Matthew has some distinctive idea in his head here — a theological take of his own on Jesus’s mission — or he’s following a source to which the opposite Evangelists had no access. It can’t be only a variation of phrasing with no distinction of meaning. The proven fact that Matthew uses each phrases, but with this heavy preference for the Kingdom “of heaven”, suggests as much.

One theory to clarify this unique Matthaean tackle Jesus’s message puts an emphasis on verbal sensitivities greater than theological formulations. Jewish writers were reluctant to entrust the word “God” to writing. They would favor to make use of divine titles like “El Shaddai”, or periphrases resembling “heavens” or “the Name”. In some Dead Sea scrolls, writers didn’t use words, but tetrapuncta: 4 dots rather than God’s name (YHWH).

If Matthew’s is the “Jewish Gospel”, and if Matthew himself was Jewish — perhaps remained Jewish (as was possible before Christianity separated from its Jewish matrix) — he would naturally prefer to say “kingdom of the heavens”, with “the heavens” being meant in its place word for “God”. I still wonder why those five references to a “kingdom of God” haven’t been adjusted to suit. But I can at all times blame it on Matthew’s sources (a normal last resort).

This late-summer Gospel shows that Matthew understood the approaching of the Son of Man when it comes to future expectation, not present reality during Jesus’s earthly life. But that isn’t any excuse for us, now, to not “Keep awake!”