In the last post you wrote about Matthew, you seemed to say that Jesus was a kind of populist who was leading a rebellion—not violent, but still a rebellion—against the established religion. Did I get that right?
I may have overstated that a bit. For one thing, he wasn’t trying to overthrow the religion of the Jewish people. Rather, he was seeking to rebalance it and revive some overlooked aspects of it, as we’ll be seeing in chapter 12. At the same time, he was deeply suspicious of the motives of the religious authorities and the devout because their public standing was so closely identified with their religious stance. It is the problem that always threatens religious leadership when it becomes politically powerful; the leaders confuse the goal of maintaining their power and that of being true to their faith. Any one who questions their authority is doubly suspect
Again, I don’t think Jesus was a populist—certainly not in the sense of assuming that the crowd is always right. It’s true that the crowds have been relatively supportive up to now. But he has already warned the Twelve against expecting popular success (10:16-25). And one suspects that he was not entirely surprised, later on in Jerusalem, when the crowd called for his crucifixion. In the material we begin with today, he even makes fun of popular enthusiasms as childish and fickle (11:16-19).
John and Jesus were both celebrities—to use a modern term. That is, they attracted crowds of enthusiasts who then may have felt some “ownership” in these people they idolized because they were so identified with them. Hence Jesus’ acknowledgement that both he and John were popular figures, but with very different characteristics. But he doesn’t trust this kind of crowd psychology.
Still, Jesus’ criticism of “this generation” in 11:16 doesn’t focus primarily on the enthusiasms of children’s games, but on the equally common capacity of children to switch sides and sit in judgement on one another. It is this judgmental turn that Jesus sees in the devout and the religious authorities—the people who are starting to say that he’s in league with the devil.
He’s accusing all those very substantial and reputable people of behaving like children?
Exactly. Children playing games and arguing with each other about the rules and who’s in charge. And that’s exactly the issue. The scribes and Pharisees are in charge in Galilee and they are determined to stay in charge. They’re the people who make the rules. That means that they object equally to both John the Baptist and Jesus, since neither was willing to play by their rules.
And yet, as Jesus says, John and he are extremely different from each other. John is an ascetic figure. Jesus eats and drinks freely and with all sorts of questionable people. “Yet Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds,” he says. Each of these two, in his own way, was serving God’s Wisdom, and this is their vindication.
“Wisdom” started out as an attribute of God but, by this time, was often spoken of as almost a distinct persona. You can see this, for example, in Proverbs 8-9 and Wisdom of Solomon 6-8. (You’ll find Wisdom of Solomon in the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament—not quite full-fledged scripture for most Christians today, but very much revered by early Christians.) God’s Wisdom was regularly conceived as female, perhaps because both the Hebrew and Greek words for “wisdom” were of feminine gender.
So he’s poking fun at the dignified religious leaders here? But then he really savages them in what follows.
Yes, 11:20 marks a drastic change in tone. He attacks cities in Galilee where he’s been at work—Chorazin, Bethsaida, even Capernaum where he’s been living. Matthew doesn’t tell us any details of Jesus’ activities in Chorazin or Bethsaida; but we had several stories from Capernaum in chapters 8-9. We also know that some of Jesus’ Twelve came from Capernaum. (The Gospel of John 1:44 says that some were from Bethsaida, too.) So the issue isn’t that everybody in these towns rejected Jesus. This attack must be aimed specifically at the religious leadership. And, just as in the story of the centurion (8:5-13), Jesus says, in effect, “Even Gentiles can do better than you people”—a point he will make yet again in chapter 12.
Whew! Even Sodom will do better! He’s really twisting the knife here, isn’t he?
Very much. And what was the great sin of Sodom? Not homosexuality, as was long claimed and is still believed by some. Not even same-sex rape, but rather their hostility toward foreigners (xenophobia) and their eagerness to take advantage of defenseless visitors. The religious leadership of his own time, Jesus is saying, is committing an offense worse than the very worst one recorded in the Torah. They are not only attacking strangers; they’re trying to keep their own neighbors from receiving the healing message of the Gospel.
But next we get another instance of whiplash from Matthew: with verse 25, the subject changes, the tone changes.
True. But it’s the other side of the same coin, so to speak. The people who see themselves as “wise and the intelligent”—the religious leadership, the people who should have welcomed Jesus’ message as authentic—are only trying to obstruct it. Who, then, actually “gets it”? The people you would never have expected—metaphorically described here as “infants.” Infants can’t argue the complexities of religion. But they know love when they experience it.
But then in verses 26-27, Matthew’s Jesus starts sounding very strange—more like he does in the Gospel of John than he usually does in Matthew.
It’s true, isn’t it? Jesus, in John’s Gospel, often speaks of his intimacy with God as that of Son with Father. Matthew’s Jesus usually speaks of God as “our father” or “your father.” But the language here claims an exalted status for Jesus as the perfect intermediary between God and this world: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” In John’s Gospel, this wouldn’t surprise us at all. In Matthew’s, it is really unexpected.
I have no explanation for how this brief “thunderbolt from the Johannine heaven,” as it has been called, came to Matthew. But, however it did, we already know that he arranges his materials with great care. Jesus asserts here that he has a distinctive, indeed a unique, closeness to God. And he makes this assertion precisely at the point when his opponents have decided that he’s an agent of the devil.
And the next question, I suppose, has to be “Who is this person to whom the Son reveals God and how does he go about it?”
Right on!
It must refer to the sort of people Jesus has just described as “infants.” They’re the ones prepared to hear Jesus’ proclamation of God’s love and see it enacted in his miracles and trust themselves to that love.
And then another case of whiplash! Verses 28-30 seem like a complete non sequitur.
It does seem that way in relation to what immediately precedes it, especially the woes of verses 20-24. On the other hand, Jesus’ invitation to the weary and promise that “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” are very reminiscent of the end of chapter 10.
Both chapters, in fact, follow a similar pattern. Each begins with a positive depiction of Jesus’ ministry (the sending out of the Twelve in chapter 10; his response to the questions from John in chapter 11). Then the middle part of each chapter focuses on conflict. Finally, each closes with words of encouragement. We’ve actually been encountering this sort of dialogue between warning and encouragement all along, starting in the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7).
There must be something important to Matthew about this pattern. He doesn’t want us to forget that those who trust and follow the gospel of God’s love can expect opposition. But he is also certain that accepting the gospel of love makes for a uniquely rich and hopeful human life—a burden, of a kind, yes, but a life-giving one that is not, when all is said and done, difficult to bear. Why? Because it gives strength for difficult times.

Next up: OPEN CONFLICT BEGINS (12:1-8)