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Matthew Bible Study – Session 1• (Announcements – Ash Wednesday & Feb. 29 retreat)

Begin With the End in Mind

• Matthew 28:16‐20

16 The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus

had ordered them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped, but they

doubted. 18 Then Jesus approached and said to them, "All power in

heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go, therefore, and

make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to

observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you

always, until the end of the age."

The Way – Matthew 16:13‐17, 21‐2513 When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 14 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16 Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.“

20 Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Messiah. 21

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. 22 Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, "God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you." 23 He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

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Clarence Jordan Reflection ‐ Handout

• The only way to understand the message, the good news of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, is through the cross and resurrection.

• Meaning, it is through surrender to self‐sacrificing love of the cross that God transforms our hearts & the world through Jesus Christ.

• The same is true for the disciples of Jesus.

• The only way to understand the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, and the rest of Matthew’s Gospel, is through cross and resurrection.

• Otherwise, if my focus is self‐preservation, I will be unable to embrace Jesus’ command, “Love your enemies” because I don’t grasp Jesus’ self‐sacrificing love.

• Let’s read the reflection by Clarence Jordan (handout).

Stanley Hauerwas on The Cross & Discipleship

“To be trained as a disciple is to learn why this Jesus, the son

of David, the one true king, must suffer crucifixion.

Matthew’s gospel is meant to train us, his readers, just as

Jesus had to train his disciples, to recognize that the salvation

wrought in the cross is the Father’s refusal to save according

to the world’s understanding of salvation, which is that

salvation depends on having more power than my enemies.”

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Stanley Hauerwas on God’s Transformation of Creation in Jesus

“For Matthew, Jesus has changed the world, requiring that our lives 

be changed if we are to live as people of that new creation.  

Accordingly, the gospel is not information that invites us to decide 

what we will take or leave.  Our task is not to understand the story 

that Matthew tells in light of our understanding of the world.  

Rather, Matthew would have our understanding of the world fully 

transformed as the result of our reading of his gospel.  Matthew 

writes so that we might become followers, be disciples, of Jesus.  

To be a Christian does not mean that we are to change the world, 

but rather that we must live as witnesses to the world that God 

has changed.  We should not be surprised, therefore, if the way we 

live makes the change visible.”

Overview of Matthew

• Matthew quotes the Old Testament more than any other Gospel.   

• In Matthew, Jesus is:

The Messiah: the long‐awaited One sent by God to bring all of God’s people into restorative justice and unity.  He is the New Moses, yet greater.

The Teacher:  Jesus teaches us what it means to be fully human in the sight of God.  We learn this by following Jesus, by becoming his disciples.  We do not learn this from book knowledge.  We learn it by observing Jesus and his witnesses in their words, actions, teachings, ways of prayer, loving, forgiving, confronting, and building God’s Reign.  In other words, we learn it by doing and the deepest lessons we learn are from carrying the cross when we embrace self‐sacrificing love as Jesus has done for us.

• The Structure of Matthew:  

a. Matthew is organized into two sets of five.

b. Five sections of narrative about Jesus.

c. Five sections of teaching or discourse by Jesus.

d. Why the number five? The Five Books of Moses, the Pentateuch.

e. Let’s see the handout on your tables about this.

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Matthew 1:1‐17   Genealogy of Jesus• If we read an Old Testament genealogy, we would find them filled with men and 

rarely find a woman in it, if ever.

• Lets read it now.  What strikes you about it?

• What blood link is there between Jesus and these ancestors except Mary?

• What do you notice? How many women make it?

• What person starts it? Is the starting order odd, since the second person,  Abraham, precedes the first person, David, by almost 1000 years?

• Why three sets of 14? If we take the numerical value of David, “D” = 4 and “V” = 6, while vowels have no points, it renders 

• D + V + D = 14

• 4 + 6  + 4 = 14

• Matthew is pointing to David’s legacy as king now bestowed and transformed by God on Jesus whose throne is the cross.

• This may explain why most Jews reject Jesus:  he is not the Davidic warrior king.

• Why is Abraham mentioned? He is the patriarch of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and he was willing to sacrifice his own son to obey God, as Jesus will be sacrificed. 

Matthew 1:1‐17   Genealogy of Jesus• Let’s talk about the women, who are all ancestors of Jesus, in this genealogy. How

many are there? Why five? • Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy• Tamar – commits incest with Judah, her father-in-law who does not provide her with

a husband as he promised. Tamar is a Gentile & births Perez.• Rahab – prostitute in Jericho, hides the Hebrew spies. She is a Gentile who births

Boaz.• Ruth – Moabite woman, embracing self-sacrificing love to support her mother-in-law,

Naomi. Ruth births Obed, father of Jesse, father of David.• Wife of Uriah – Bathsheba – forcibly taken by David (sexual harassment or rape)

and he commits adultery and pre-meditated murder in killing Uriah, her husband. Bathsheba births Solomon.

• These four women use their intelligence to force the men of Israel to claim them as part of God’s people. Moreover, they serve God’s providential care of Israel by making the Davidic line possible from Abraham to Jesus.

• They prefigure the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21-28 who uses her intelligence to push back with Jesus, seeking healing for her daughter.

• Finally, there is Mary, the Jewish woman who says yes to God’s invitation to be the Mother of God when she is not married and risks death.

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Matthew 1:1‐17   Genealogy of Jesus• I want to suggest that God works through human failure and sin to

bring about God’s plan, so much so that, at times, human sin is a prerequisite, as we say at the Easter Vigil in the Exultet:

O wonder of your humble care for us!

O love, O charity beyond all telling,

to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!

O truly necessary sin of Adam,

destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!

O happy fault

that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer

Matthew 1:1‐17   Genealogy of Jesus• Let’s read Genesis 50:15-20

15 Now that their father was dead, Joseph's brothers became fearful and thought,

"Suppose Joseph has been nursing a grudge against us and now most certainly will pay

us back in full for all the wrong we did him!" 16 So they sent to Joseph and said:

"Before your father died, he gave us these instructions: 17 'Thus you shall say to Joseph:

Please forgive the criminal wrongdoing of your brothers, who treated you harmfully.’

So now please forgive the crime that we, the servants of the God of your father,

committed." When they said this to him, Joseph broke into tears. 18 Then his brothers

also proceeded to fling themselves down before him and said, "We are your slaves!" 19

But Joseph replied to them: "Do not fear. Can I take the place of God? 20 Even though you meant harm to me, God meant it for good, to achieve this

present end, the survival of many people.”

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God Accomplishing God’s Plan Through Human Sin• Noah got drunk and his son was ashamed of his nakedness.• Abraham lied about his wife Sarah to Pharaoh.• Joseph was arrogant towards his brothers who almost killed him and sold him into

slavery.• David slept with another man’s wife and had her husband, Uriah, murdered.• Moses lost his temper and hit the rock at Meribah for water rather than asking the

rock for water as God commanded.• Rahab was a prostitute who hid the Hebrew spies in Jericho.• Peter denied and betrayed Jesus when everything was on the line.

• God works through all these situations and redeems them.• God’s love for us has nothing to do with our ability to make right what we have

done wrong and even ruined.• How has God worked through my sin/brokenness to bring about God’s plan?

Let’s pray about this now with Jesus. I invite you to close your eyes and look into the eyes of Jesus now…

• When we get to the part of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 about Jesus calling us to be perfect, I invite you to see it, not as a call to live a life without sin (which is important), but rather a call from Jesus to love our enemies, which is how God the Father is perfect: he provides and loves those who hate and despise Him, as any parent provides for their children who can, at times, hate the parent. God forgives, God loves those who murder God’s Son. That is what it means to be “perfect” in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 1:1‐17   Genealogy of Jesus• This genealogy reveals many things.• God works through brokenness, sin, incest, murder, and our lowest moments to bring

about God’s plan, mission, election, covenant, promises, etc.• These Gentile women, Bathsheba, and unmarried Mary represent the reality that

God’s promise to Israel – “I will be your God and you will be my people” – has spread to the Gentiles.

• Meaning, God’s offer of salvation in Jesus is for everyone on Earth, Jew and Gentile.• Matthew’s audience is a Gentile-Jewish Christian community.• Moreover, Jesus did not belong to a pious, clean-cut, tight-knit world of middle-class

respectability. Rather, Matthew’s genealogy reveals that God’s plan is usually accomplished through passionate, disreputable, people who can’t walk and chew gum.

• Rather, Jesus comes from a line of ancestry that includes murderers, liars, cheats, cowards, and adulterers. He belonged to us, came to help us…no wonder he came to a bad end…And it is God’s work through that necessary bad end - Christ’s death on the cross - that gives us hope when God makes Christ new in the resurrection.

• God will make all things new with every part of our hearts and lives, if we are willing to die to ourselves.

• At home, please Raymond Brown’s reflection on Matthew’s Genealogy, “As It Was in the Beginning and Is Now” (handout).

• What are the skeletons in my life or family history? Let’s pray about that now.

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Matthew 1:18‐25  The Story of the Birth of Jesus

• Who is the main character in the birth of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel?

• Joseph is the main character.

• Mary does not speak in Matthew’s Gospel.

• An angel appears three times to Joseph in dreams. Joseph, while surely startled by all this, is obedient to all three dreams and his obedience brings life to Mary, Jesus, and most of all – all people of the world.

• Matthew’s account of Jesus’ conception is unapologetically realistic. St. John Chrysostom praises Joseph as a person of exceptional self-restraint since he must have been free of that most tyrannical passion: jealousy.

• Unwilling to dismiss her to public disgrace and stoning to death, he planned to dismiss her quietly. He, therefore, refuses to act according to the letter of the law.

• Rather, Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, chose to act in a manner that Jesus himself would later exemplify by his attitude towards known sinners (see Matthew 9:10-13) – responding with mercy.

Matthew 2:1‐12 The Visit of the Magi• Let’s read it. What strikes you about it?

• What and who are the Magi? How many of them are there?

• They are probably Persian priests (Gentiles from Iran) who are astrologers, that is, they learn God’s revelations from the stars.

• There is little to nothing that indicates their number.

• What do gold, frankincense, and myrrh each symbolize?

• Why do they lay prostrate and do Jesus homage? What does that tell us about what they think of Jesus? To whom do we ever lie prostrate and offer homage towards?

• The wise men see Mary and Jesus, the child and they lay prostrate before the child and worship him. If this is not the Messiah, if this is not the one born to be king, if this is not the Son of God, then what these wise men commit idolatry.

• Often, we fail to see God or God’s messenger right in front of us. Herod, the King of the Jews, the chief priests and scribes have no idea that the Messiah is in their midst. Yet, the Magi do.

• This is the Feast of the Epiphany, the feast of Jesus appearing to the Gentiles. Most of the world celebrates this feast as the heart of Christmas, because God becomes one of us for all the peoples of the world, not just the Jewish people.

• Why do the Magi take a different route home?

• They have encountered Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Chosen One. When we encounter Jesus or God, we always go home a new way, because we have been changed. We call this change conversion.

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Matthew 2:13‐23 Flight into Egypt & Massacre of the Innocent Children

• Let’s read it. What strikes you about it?

• Matthew’s account of the massacre of the children two and younger in Bethlehem is painfully stark. No attempt is made to explain or justify this horror.

• The threat to Herod is not in the Magi but found in a child in Bethlehem. Herod is frightened by a baby, a toddler, for he rules out of instilling the fear of violence in his subjects.

• The Herods of the world know no limit when they are made to feel fragile. Thus, his power, born only of fear, is used to strike out with violence, for it draws its strength from the fear of death.

• Accordingly, Herod orders the murder of all children born in and around Bethlehem two years and under, the time he estimates that it took the Magi to reach Israel.

• Matthew quotes Jeremiah (Jer 31:15) about Rachel weeping bitterly.

• The Gospel message – the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus – is not a consolation for those whose children are murdered. Rather, those who would follow and worship Jesus are called to be a challenge to those who would kill children.

Matthew 2:13‐23 Flight into Egypt & Massacre of the Innocent Children

• Children demand a reordering of our time, resources and love to raise them.

• Notice that “All Jerusalem” was frightened by the news of this child’s birth. This same fear continues to possess cultures then and now – our culture today in the USA – that believes we have no time or energy for children, to reorient ourselves to give them life, and life in abundance.

• Abortion is one of the names for the fear of time that children make real.

• Children rightfully frighten us, pulling as they do into an unknown future.

• Yet, that pull is the lure of love that we cannot begin to fashion on our own power.

• It is, rather, God’s undying love, that moves the sun and the stars, the same love that overwhelmed the Magi with joy.

• It is this love that makes the followers of Jesus, the Church, an alternative to the world that fears the child.

• The revelation of the Magi, the revelation of God’s presence in Jesus’ conception and birth brings an enormously violent response from Herod, one of the empire’s kings, because the Herods of the world, like Pontius Pilate and the Jewish leaders who will crucify Jesus, only know one form of power: that which flows from violence and death.

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Matthew 2:13‐23 Flight into Egypt & Massacre of the Innocent Children

• The Gospel story in Matthew, on the other hand, tells us of a prophetic figure, Jesus, who provokes such a violent response from the empire as a baby or a toddler.

• This prophetic baby would grow up to create a community of followers who believed in drawing their strength from a different source of power: God and God’s Son whose weapons are: self-sacrificing love and cross and resurrection.

• Matthew’s Gospel tells the story of Jesus who suffers the worst that the empire can do to him: execution by crucifixion.

• Yet, his resurrection and coming in power expose the limits of imperial power.

• The Gospel community, the church in the power of the resurrection, constructs another world, resisting imperial claims that death gets the last word.

• It refuses to embrace the lies that God’s creation is ordered along the lines of fear of violence and death.

• Rather, the followers of Christ believe in the way of Jesus, the way of the cross, the way of God’s love found in the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

• In Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, Jesus will teach this way of life in what is called the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 3  John the Baptist

• Malachi 3:23-24Now I am sending to you Elijah the prophet, Before the day of the Lord comes, the great and terrible day; 24 He will turn the heart of fathers to their sons, and the heart of sons to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the land with utter destruction.

• Let’s read Matthew 3• What strikes you about it?• John is the last of the prophets who comes to announced the Day of the Lord. • Who is John? Who has returned that never died but was taken up to heaven in a

chariot?• As Jesus says in Matthew 11:13-14, “All the prophets and the law prophesied up to the

time of John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah, the one who is to come.”• Elijah lived in the desert, dressed in camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist

and ate crickets. Elijah returns as John the Baptist.• John proclaims repentance, he baptizes for repentance. Yet, John cannot carry the

sandals of Jesus, meaning, John lacks Jesus’ authority to forgive sins, which is why Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

• The baptism of John is not the same as Christian baptism that is based on the death and resurrection of Jesus.

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Matthew 3  The Message of John the Baptist• The temptation for us in the modern world is to think of John the Baptist calling us to repent in

terms of individualistic terms. This misses the mark.

• John is a prophet of Israel and when these prophets call people to repent, they are talking about preparing the way of the Lord who will bring restorative justice to God’s people.

• John is in prison and he wonders if Jesus is the One, so he sends his disciples to ask. Jesus responds in Matthew 11:2-6,

2 When John heard in prison of the works of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to him 3 with this

question, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?" 4 Jesus said to them in

reply, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers

are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to

them. 6 And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”

• Jesus’ response comes straight out of Leviticus 25 and Isaiah 61:1-2 about what God’s Messiah will do:

“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; He has sent me to

bring good news to the afflicted, to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives,

release to the prisoners, 2 To announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by

our God…”

• This may explain John the Baptist’s raging response to the scribes and Pharisees who are concerned about the letter of the law but not changing their hearts that serve others.

Matthew 3 ‐ The Message of John the Baptist (Stanley Hauerwas)

• If Jesus’ response is based on Leviticus 25 and Isaiah 61, then repentance is not what I do so that I can released from something in my life that makes my life better.

• Rather, repentance must be my surrendering to God through embracing the cross, so that God can bring about what we hear in Lev 25 and Isaiah 61 – wholesale restorative justice.

“We think we must know what repentance is…just as those who heard John the Baptist… God gets to determine the character of repentance. John was not offering a better way to live…But it is the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven that creates the urgency of John’s ministry. Such a kingdom does not come about by our trying to be better people. Rather, the kingdom comes,making our repentance imperative.” (God is always the initiator.)

“John’s call for Israel to repent is not a prophetic call for those who repent to change the world, but rather John calls for repentance because the world is being and will be changed by the One whom John knows is to come. To live differently, moreover, means that the status quo can be challenged, because now a people are the difference.”

• John is saying that God makes the changes in our hearts and lives. • Repentance for us is surrendering to God, dying and being raised up by God, so that God can

make these changes in our hearts, lives, and society.• For a prophet of Israel, I can be quite holy and just, yet if my neighbors and society are not just,

then I do not have salvation in God’s eyes. See Matthew 25:31-46 when Jesus calls the nations (not individuals) before him for judgment. Jesus will judge nations, not individuals.

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Overview of the Structure of the Gospel of Matthew

• Introduction: Infancy Narrative: Chapters 1–2 First Narrative Block: 3–4 Jesus’ preparation for ministry, temptations, etc.

o First Discourse: "Sermon on the Mount" 5–7:28

Second Narrative Block: 8–9 – Jesus the Healer

o Second Discourse: "Missionary Instructions" 10:1-11:1

Third Narrative Block: 11–12 – Mounting hostility to Jesus

o Third Discourse: "Collection of Parables" 13:1-53

Fourth Narrative Block: 14–17 – The Kingdom & his disciples, Journey to

Jerusalem

o Fourth Discourse: "Community Instructions" 18:1 – 19:1 Fifth Narrative Block: 19–22 – Jesus’ exchanges with opponents, encounters,

parables, and he enters Jerusalem. This section is a mix of narrative and discourse by Jesus who gives a few parables in it.

o Fifth Discourse: "Sermon on the End Times" 23–26:1

• Conclusion: Passion & Resurrection Narrative: 26–28

Note: We know where the discourse or teaching sections of Jesus ends in Matthew, for we find:

7:28-29, When Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. 11:1, When Jesus finished giving these commands to his twelve disciples, he went away… 13:53, When Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there. 19:1, When Jesus finished these words, he left Galilee and went to the district of Judea… 26:1, When Jesus finished all these words, he said to his disciples…

Encounter Jesus in John’s Gospel

Lent Retreat – Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020 8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

• Three Encounters with Jesus in John’s Gospel

The Woman at the Well

The Man Born Blind

The Raising of Lazarus

• Jay Landry will offer three talks where we encounter Jesus Christ in these Gospel passages where Jesus calls us into a love relationship with him that makes all things new.

• The retreat includes talks, quiet time, and prayer.

• Lunch will be served. A donation of $5 is suggested to help cover lunch costs.

• Please bring a bible and a friend. Hospitality begins at 8:30 a.m. The retreat begins closer to 9:00 a.m. Child care is available.

• If you wish to come, please RSVP to Jay at jlandry@stcatherinesiena.org or 269-978-2331 by Thursday, Feb. 27. Early RSVPs are appreciated. Please inform Jay of food allergies.

December 15–21

Matthew 3 ‐ The Baptism of Jesus

Let’s read the baptism of Jesus in Matthew 3:13-1713 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. 14 John tried to prevent him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?" 15 Jesus said to him in reply, "Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he allowed him. 16 After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened [for him], and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove [and] coming upon him. 17 And a voice came from the heavens, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

• What has Jesus done in ministry up to this point? Healed? Taught? Raised from the dead? He has done nothing at this point.

• Am I good so that God will love me? Or does God love me first so that I can be good? St. Augustine on why God created us…

• God’s love is always first in our lives and it empowers us to live as disciples of Jesus.

• Praying with a partner.• Matthew 4 if we have time.