Carrying with me the slight loss of focus in my heart (interlude), I read on about Jesus taking our infirmities and bearing our diseases. (8:1-17) Jesus responds to our faith: 'God, let it be done for you according to your faith.' My faith must be weak; Lord, strengthen my faith.
#15
As if to mirror my own weak faith, a scribe says (seemingly disingenuously) 'I will follow you wherever you go'. Obviously this man does not mean what he says, for if he really knew who Jesus was - a man like none other - he would know that there are places Jesus must go on his own. Jesus replies (seemingly in an appropriately reluctant manner): 'the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.' He seems to say: you have misunderstood me when I said 'follow me'; you've taken me too literally. Jesus asks to listen and accept him, not follow him around blindly and obsequiously. And another says: 'first let me go and bury my father.' Again, Jesus responds in an appropriately off-hand manner: Follow me (now) let the dead bury their own dead. It seems that the man had misunderstood - when the word of God falls upon you, it is meant to fulfill its purpose then and there, not when you have scheduled it into your plans. That I am re-reading Matthew in this way now, must mean that whatever I encounter in spirit, I must act upon. Who knows, maybe the spirit will not come this time. But I push on.
#16
Is it my own fatigue, or does Jesus seem tired when he arrives in his hometown (9:1-37)? Does he ever wonder at the amount of sickness and suffering in the world - did he ever say: how am I going to heal all these people? He comes close to that when he gives instructions to his disciples at the end of the chapter: The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.' It isn't my mundane fatigue; I do feel overwhelmed by Jesus' ministry. How much he did - heal one by one - and how much more there is to do. He doesn't despair - knowing perhaps that God will accomplish what He has set out to accomplish - but there is a worry that whatever is going to accomplish God's will will have to be quite drastic. A frightening thought in the back of the mind.
#17
The disciples are given authority over unclean spirits - so Jesus seems to be preparing for the next (and the last) work. (10:1-42) He sends them to the Israelites - to gather the lost sheep. The disciples are to be fishers of men and shepherds, not converters and proselytizers. At this point. Gather your community of (lost) faithfuls, Jesus seems to be saying.#18
Jesus warns his community - his 'household' - that if the unfaithful multitude treats the master badly, the slaves will be treated even more so. (10:24-25) But he doesn't say: go hide and protect yourselves. Instead, he says: 'So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.' Not at all the way I would normally conduct my life, left to my own devices. I would have expected the maligned master of a household to say: hide and protect yourselves. But Jesus says: '...have no fear.' He goes on to explain: 'Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell... You are more valuable than many sparrows (that God cares for one by one).' These are the words of a master of a household, who knows he is under severe attack - knows he might even perish - but knows also that the household he has built will endure and live on.
#19
This fight / struggle is not for the fainthearted, Jesus warns. 'Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.' In order for faith to live on (and perhaps even for Jesus to be resurrected...?) nothing should come first, except Jesus. 'Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me'. This does not mean you ought to malign your parents, family and loved ones; rather that, you cannot be so protective of your own life and that of your beloveds' if you are to help faith / the faithful community live on.
#20
'Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.' I interpret this as: those who find life (something to live for) already in the (pre-eschaton) world around them are hanging on to something that will end (death and eschaton); those who turn away from their life (everything they have lived for - family, career, wealth) will gain something they have not experienced: eternal life. Lord, strengthen my faith.
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