I had the good fortune on Thursday last to attend a lecture by Archbishop Rowan Williams on the subject of theology and biography. Drawing on the biographies of four twentieth century saints, his thesis was that while God writes the lives of those who open themselves to his direction as the body of Christ in the world, it is the task of the theologian to interpret and decipher those biographies, discerning in them the revelation of God’s purposes in our contemporary world. Thinking about his lecture afterwards, it occurred to me that this was one way of thinking about the gospels themselves, and not least about Matthew, whose gospel is a carefully constructed pattern of narrative (biography) and discourse (theology), by means of which he aims to interpret – to make sense of – the life and death of Jesus. And this morning’s gospel reading, which of course forms the conclusion of his narrative, skilfully draws together the chief threads of that interpretation.
After Jesus has very briefly greeted the women running away from the empty tomb, and given them the message that the disciples should go back to Galilee where they will see him, Matthew gives us no further post-resurrection appearances – he simply wraps up his gospel narrative with this one short paragraph recording that final meeting on a Galileean mountain. At first sight it may appear to be little more than a terse account of Jesus’ final instructions, but as a concluding paragraph in the context of Matthew’s gospel it is full of meaning.
First, throughout Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is presented as a second Moses, the giver of the new law. This is an important element in a gospel written primarily for the instruction of Jewish Christians. Moses ends his life on a mountain overlooking the land of Israel, so it is fitting that Jesus should do the same; and just as the aged Moses passes his authority to his successor Joshua and the Lord promises to be with Joshua just as he has been with Moses (Josh 1.5), so Jesus passes his authority to his disciples, and promises to be with them to the end of the age. Just as the Israelites were taught to regard the death of Moses as the closing of one chapter certainly, but also as the opening of a new chapter in which they would at last take possession of the promised land, so the disciples are to understand Jesus’ return to heaven not in negative terms as the end of his life on earth, but in positive terms as the opening of the age in which his authority, and with it the influence of his new law, would be spread beyond the land and people of Israel to all nations – not this time by Joshua’s sword of conquest, but by the gift of baptism in the name of God now fully revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Second, the statement that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me (v18) is a final affirmation of the Messianic credentials which were first set out in the genealogy of Jesus with which Matthew opens his gospel, then in the words echoing Messianic texts which accompany his baptism and transfiguration, and finally in the references to Daniel’s vision of one like a Son of Man, coming on the clouds of heaven to whom is given all dominion and authority. The very vision which had given Caiaphas grounds for condemning Jesus to death, is now realised in the presence of the disciples, and seen by them – or at least by Matthew as he interprets their experience – as the final and definitive confirmation of his Messianic destiny and authority. Moreover, as the disciples worship him on the mountain against the backdrop of a world at his feet and now subject to his authority, we are reminded of the moment earlier in the story when Jesus rejects the false route to just such authority when it is offered to him by the Devil. By such allusions Jesus’ triumph and authority is seen to be complete.
Third, Matthew picks up the theme of Jesus’ example, which has run through his earlier teaching. Jesus has already instructed his disciples to proclaim what he proclaimed, to do what he did; the disciple is to be like his teacher, the servant like his master (ch 10). Now, in a further allusion to Moses’ commissioning of Joshua (Josh 1.7), the disciples in the first instance, and beyond them the members of the church, are to go out to all nations, ‘teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you’ (Matt 28.20), by which we are to understand him to mean not just the teaching of his words, but the example of his whole life, lived in obedience to his Father’s will. And again like Joshua the command goes hand in had with the promise: ‘remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age’. The same Lord who commands difficult obedience, is also the ever graceful divine presence at our sides.
Indeed, as the body of Christ, the co-operation of Christ and his church is potentially taken to a still deeper level of intimate interpenetration. In Rowan Williams’ terms we recognise in the life and work of such disparate figures as Dick Sheppard, Sergei Bulgakov, Edith Stein or Dietrich Bonhoeffer new expressions of the body of Christ in to-day’s world, or at least yesterday’s world, God himself in his servants saying and doing in twentieth century terms what he said and did in his own life, witnessing with them to his love, going with them into suffering and even death, and finally exercising his power in them and through them to change and save the world, even in its darkest hours, perhaps not immediately, but over a period of time as the truths for which they stood have ultimately triumphed over the evils under which they suffered and in two cases died. The imitation of Christ, which has always been a difficult strand of the gospel message, is not so much about the slavish re-enacting of past models of Christian spirituality, still less about re-enacting the life of Christ as if that were possible, but rather about re-discovering what it means to be the body of Christ in the world to-day. As the pressures grow in the twenty-first century, on our limited resources of water and fuel, land and even the air we breathe, presenting new and disturbing challenges to the way we exploit and share the generous but ultimately limited resources of our planet, it is not difficult to foresee that new crises will arise at the cutting edge of our common life, new witnesses will need to discover how we are to respond as the body of Christ, and as God writes their lives and perhaps in some cases their deaths, we will have to rewrite our theology to interpret and embrace the new truths to which they will bear witness.
Matthew was writing his gospel for a community of Jewish Christians who were having to come to terms with the destruction of the city whose temple had been at the heart of their faith and culture. In the Jewish communities dispersed around the Roman empire, those who believed, as Matthew did, that Jesus and his community of believers were the fulfilment of the law and the promises made to the people of Israel, faced persecution from the Romans as well as opposition from traditional Judaism made more defensive and inward-looking by its own defeat. This is the background against which Matthew sets out his interpretation of the life and teaching of Jesus. For a church facing conflict and persecution, he asserts the triumph and the authority of one who, when caught up in the conflict which will cost him his life, nevertheless proclaims a gospel of hope and reconciliation, of love and peace, of mercy and forgiveness (see especially ch 18).
This is his gospel, his interpretation of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection. His message, arising from that interpretation, is expressed within the context of the Jewish scriptures and traditions in which he and his community were steeped, but it is of universal significance. He invites us to see, in the withdrawal of Jesus’ physical presence, not the end of the story, but rather the beginning of a new stage in the journey, the opening of a new and yet more exciting chapter in the life of God’s people. In Matthew’s carefully constructed gospel, it is no accident that the last words of Jesus, Mathew’s last word to us, should be a message of courage and of hope. For us as for him, the future may well be troubling and uncertain, but it is also lit by the same hope, the same assurance that to Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, and it is he who says to us: ‘remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age’.