Jesus, the Master Teacher
A Sermon by the Reverend Dr. Robert W. Prichard on the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 12, 2023.
From the Gospel: “You have heard that it was said . . . But I say to you.”
Most of our Gospel lessons in this liturgical year come from Matthew’s Gospel. That is most clear in Epiphany and Pentecost seasons. In Epiphany every Sunday Gospel except for one is from Matthew; in the season after Pentecost, every Gospel is from Matthew. I mention that because the lesson which we have heard today is quintessentially Matthew—part of a key section in Matthew in which he makes clear the way that his understanding is distinguishable from the approach of the other Gospel authors.
I have participated in ritual of college or graduate school visits from three different perspectives: as a potential student, as a faculty member, and as a parent of potential students. Our oldest grandson is now a sophomore in high school, so it may not be long before Marcia and I hear about college visits from a 4th perspective—that of a grandson—but given the speech patterns of teenage boys, we probably will not hear very much. Schools employ a variety of techniques to entice students to seek admission. They send out pamphlets and post materials on the web that depict the diversity they would like to have in their student bodies, though in most cases have not yet attained. They recruit good looking male and female students to serve as student guides. They suggest to the chefs of campus eating facilities that they spruce up the menu on prime occasions for visits. They show off historic buildings and provide a peek at the most up to date classrooms and dormitories. But the idea that I like best is the “master class.” Visitors are given the opportunity to sit in on classes of some of the best and most popular teachers, or mock classes are set up for visitors in order to provide a glimpse of the academic life of the institution.
The authors of the four gospels have their own techniques of attracting potential Christians to a faith in Jesus Christ. Matthew in his gospel chose the master class approach. The Sermon on the Mount is the master class; it is strategically located to serve as a foundation for the Gospel as a whole. In chapter 4, Matthews begins the story of Jesus’ public ministry, with the call of the first four disciples and with a few summary sentences about Jesus’ healing, teaching, and gathering crowds but with no details. Then comes the The Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5 to 7. Jesus chooses a very public place and waits for the crowds to arrive, aware that they are more interested in healing then in his teaching. He assumes the seated posture of a teacher, summons the disciples that he has called, and begins to teach them within the hearing of the crowd.
Of the Gospels, only Matthew sets the scene in this way. Luke 6 does include a shorter discourse with content similar to that in Matthew but arranged very differently. In the preceding chapters in Luke, Jesus has already called all 12 of his disciples, and we are provided details of his healing and teaching. Jesus stands rather than sits. He is on a level place rather than a mountain, and there is no declaration that he is specifically teaching his disciples, though we are that Jesus glance at them before he began to speak.
Matthew’s Gospel was probably written in Syria, in an area where many of the earliest Christians were Jewish Christians who had fled from persecution in Palestine. They were naturally interested in the difference between the followers of Jesus and the supporters of other movements within first-century Judaism. I think that is in response to that interest that Matthew adopted the master class approach; he distinguished Jesus’ teaching from that of others. There were at least four other religious parties in first century Judaism: that of the Scribes and Pharisees, that of the Sadducees, that of the Zealots, and that of the Essenes.
Of these, the Sadducees were preoccupied with the details of Temple worship. They play an important role in the gospels, because it will be members of the Sadducee party that play a leading role in Jesus’ arrest, trial before the Council, and his handing over to the Romans for execution. They do not, however, have much to say about personal religious life outside of the importance of supporting Temple worship. We hear much less about the Zealots, with the only gospel reference to them in Luke. Luke identifies the disciple that other Gospels call Simon the Cananaean as Simon the Zealot [1]. There is no direct reference to the Essenes, who were a monastic community, but some have suggested that the reference in Mark 14:12 and Luke 22:10 to a man carrying a jug of water may be an indirect reference; the work of carrying water was usually done by females, but would necessarily have been done by men in a all-male monastic community. That leaves the Scribes and Pharisees.
Matthew understood them as the major alternative to the Jesus’ teaching on everyday life. The Pharisees (from a work meaning separate) sought to describe obedience to the law in minute detail that was not found in Scripture itself. The Scribes recorded and organized that teaching. The Scribes effort would be preserved in a volume called the Misnah, a collection of teaching about the law from the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD [2]. Because of his concern with distinguishing Jesus’ teaching from that of the Pharisees, Matthew uses their name (31 times to Luke’s 27, John’s 19, Mark’s 11 references) and that of the scribes (27 times to Mark’s 21, Luke 15, and John’s single reference) more times than any other Gospel.
The form Jesus’ master class takes is what is often called the antitheses. There are six of in the Sermon on the Mount, four of which are in today’s lesson: You have heard it said, but I say. There is enough material here to occupy a preacher for weeks. I will focus on just two of the issues—divorce and the taking of oaths.
The Pharisees exercised minute care about the details of a divorce: how the written bill of divorce—called a Gett—was to be phrased, who could serve as a witness to it, how it would be affected if written in another country, and the like. There was relatively little concern for the fact of the divorce. At the end of the chapter in the Misnah about divorce there is a single statement about permissible causes, offering a variety of opinions [3]. The school of Rabbi Shammai says that divorce is only permitted in the case of unchastity, that of Rabbi Hillel says that a wife can be dismissed for spoiling a dish, while Rabbi Akiba allows a divorce so a man can marry a woman that he finds more attractive. Jesus approaches the question in a different way. He does not weigh in on the details of writing a bill of divorce, and he does not offer an array of opinions on when divorce is permissible. In an age in which women had little or no rights and very limited possibility of earning a living in any respectable way, divorce could result in total disaster for a woman. Jesus recognizes that and takes a simple but demanding stance. He tells his disciples that they should never divorce “except on the ground of unchastity.”
In Matthew’s understanding, Jesus is also very interested in the taking of oaths, a subject that Luke omits in his Sermon on the Plain. Oaths were important to the Pharisees. There is a whole section in one of the divisions of the Misnah that deals with them. It is a close examination of the kind of oaths that one might take, according to the subject matter (oaths that one has maintained ritual purity, that one has not had food or drink during a fast, that one has not stolen property of another; that one would do something that was not subsequently done; that one has or lacks not knowledge about a third party, etc.), as to the person making the oath (male or female, Jew or Gentile, free or enslaved person), as to the situation in which the oath is taken (to family member or an unrelated person, in business, before the Council). There are separate sections dealing with oaths taken in relationship to betrothal, marriage and divorce. It can make your head spin. One verse notes an argument of which Jesus seems to be aware: “If a man must take an oath before his fellow, and his fellow said to him, ‘Vow to me by the life of [your] head,” Rabbi Meir says: He may retract. But the Sages say: He cannot retract.” [4] I take that to mean that if one person requires an oath be sworn by another on his or her head, the Sages do not allow imposing some other kind of witness to the oath [5].
Again Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter and says to his disciples: “I say to you, Do not swear at all. . . . Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.” Matthew then illustrates the truth of that insight elsewhere in his Gospel. He tells us twice of the oath to give anything requested that King Herod gave to the daughter of his wife Herodias; the daughter took him at his word and asked for the head of John the Baptist (Matthew 14:7 and 14:9). He tells us of two oaths that Simon Peter took on the night before the crucifixion as part of his denial that he knew Jesus (Matthew 26:72 and 26: 74) [6]. He also includes an a detail to the trial of Jesus before the Jewish Council not found in any other Gospel; in his account the high priest demands an oath of Jesus (Matthew 26:63).
There is a clarity and simplicity to Jesus’ teaching that exceeds that of the Pharisees. Notice, however, what Matthew has done with his story of Peter’s oaths. Peter was one of the early founders of the Church in Syria. He was much revered, and Matthew’s Gospel has more to say about him than do any of the other Gospels. Yet even Peter falls short of following a relatively simply command from Jesus about not taking oaths. I don’t think the conflict between Jesus’ command in the sermon and Peter’s behavior is somehow a slip up on Matthew’s part. I think he is clear: Jesus calls us to follow the law, but Matthew knows that even the disciples will fall short of that goal. That prepares the way for the really good news: Christ will die for us as sinners and rise again, bringing us forgiveness of sin and everlasting life. Jesus will do for us, what we cannot do for ourselves.
In a similar way, we learn from the Epistles that the early church will not be uniform in following Jesus’ clear instruction about divorce. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul cites the Lord’s teaching against divorce but then provides instructions about what is to be done when there is a divorce. Jesus gives us clear instructions, and yet has compassion for those who fall short.
And Jesus said: “You have heard that it was said . . . But I say to you.”
[1] Compare Luke 6:15 with Mark 3:18 and Matthew 10:4.
[2] For an English translation of the Misnah see Herbert Dabney, The Mishnah, translated from the Hebrew with introduction and brief explanatory notes (London: Oxford University Press, 1933).
[3] Gittim 9:10.
[4] Sanhedrin 3.2.
[5] There does not seem to be a section in the Mishnah about oaths on the Temple or on Jerusalem, about which Jesus had something to say. The absence of that discussion may reflect the fact that Roman soldiers destroyed the Temple and ejected Jews from Jerusalem after Jewish rebellions around the years 70 and 130.
[6] Mark includes a single reference to Herod’s oath and a single oath by Peter (Mark 6:26 and 14:71). The other gospels do not mention either of the oaths.