The Return of the King

IN THIS NEW LITURGICAL YEAR, the lectionary’s gospel readings are drawn from the book of Matthew, a story of the Messiah’s return. Matthew was a Jewish follower of Jesus living in the aftermath of the first Jewish revolt against Roman rule. The revolt, which lasted from 66 to 70 C.E., was not successful and ended with the Roman burning of Jerusalem and its temple, the very center of the Jewish world. One era of Jewish history ended, another opened up.

For some Jews, the destruction of the temple fueled their struggle against Rome, and they continued their hopeless revolt. For others—the successors of the Pharisees who led the early rabbinic movement—the fall of Jerusalem prompted them to craft a new Judaism based on the Book, instead of the temple. But Matthew’s gospel, the story of Jesus’ life and his collected teachings, offers a third option, based neither on revolt nor rabbinic tradition.

Roman reprisals after the uprising included the “Fiscus Judaicus”—a punitive tax levied on all Jews, male and female, free and slave, throughout the empire. The proceeds supported the Jupiter temple in Rome, dedicated to the deity that Rome considered responsible for the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. Humiliation was piled upon profound loss, inspiring virulent Jewish nationalism and rebellions around the Mediterranean basin. But all of the rebellions—led by Jews in Libya, Cyrene, Cyprus, and Egypt—were ruthlessly shut down by the Roman army. A final Jewish rebellion in Jerusalem gave the Emperor Hadrian an excuse to initiate a full-scale assault on Jerusalem and the villages of Judea. The results were decisive: The territory was depopulated and failed to recover.

Writing as a Jewish Christian, Matthew offered an alternative to this nationalist violence: the nonretaliatory teaching of Jesus. For instance, in his account of the temptations in the desert, Matthew concludes with Satan testing Jesus with a vision of the world’s kingdoms. “All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me” (Matthew 4:9). Here is a vision of empire, introduced into the imaginations of the time by the military success of Rome. But instead, Matthew shows Jesus, the Messiah-king, rejecting the option of empire, while linking that choice to another—servitude to Satan.

Rivals, not enemies

Matthew’s animosity toward the Pharisees has often fueled speculation about Matthew being anti-Jewish. But once we recognize his post-temple situation, we understand that this Jewish Christian writer was vying for the future of Judaism. In the rivalry between Jesus and the Pharisees of Matthew’s narrative, we detect a reflection of Matthew’s own rivalry with the early rabbinic movement. But this tension in Matthew’s gospel depicts a rivalry between siblings with competing proposals for God’s people, not a drama of good against evil. Moreover, Matthew’s gospel is not a story of Christian victory over Jews, as our Christian tradition has so often and so damagingly characterized it over the course of our history.

As often happens in rivalries over identity—communal, religious, or national—arguments turn on issues of authenticity. In Matthew’s account, Jesus famously called the Pharisees “hypocrites” (23:13-30). And at the end of the gospel, the Pharisees unexpectedly reappear with a request for a guard at the tomb. They characterize Jesus as an “impostor” who not only claimed to be messiah—the first imposture—but also claimed to rise again, an imposture they think “would be worse than the first” (27:62-65). Both hypocrites and impostors are pretenders, inauthentic claimants to the true identity. Matthew frames the struggle between Jesus and his opponents as competing claims to be authentic heirs of the ancient promises to Israel.

This competition about Israel’s authentic heirs is why Matthew appeals to the deep origins of the Jewish faith, often describing Jesus as a new Moses and establishing Jesus as the messianic Son of David—a claim that was bold and original. In a deft move, Matthew identifies the authentic heir to the promises, places the messianic claim in the context of the Judean history of exile and foreign occupation, and offers a rationale for the failure of Judea to recognize the coming of the true king. He does so by placing the story of Jesus up against a common cultural narrative.

A tale as old as time

It all begins in the infancy narrative. Unlike Luke’s Christmas story, which brings the family to Bethlehem only for the birth of Jesus, Matthew presents them as Bethlehem residents. Their lives are disrupted when the Magi arrive in Jerusalem and jumpstart the action of Matthew’s drama.

Thus begins a chain of events as Herod, alerted to the possibility of a rival, causes the family to flee. Their attempt to return is frustrated, since Herod’s replacement, Archelaus, proves as great a threat. The family turns then to a town in more distant Galilee, Nazareth, making its first appearance in this gospel. We learn nothing about Nazareth from Matthew, for his interests lie elsewhere. Upon reaching adulthood, Jesus leaves Nazareth to begin his mission. This will take him to Jerusalem, to the territory from which he was banished. But now he returns as messiah-king. His arrival is marked with a picture of a city amazed and questioning, echoing the arrival of the Magi in the city at the beginning (2:1-5; 21:10-11). A circle is closed.

With the addition of this series of events, Matthew evokes a popular and enduring story formula, as old as the tales of the Greek heroes and the biblical stories of Joseph and Moses, and as contemporary as The Lion King. A young prince escapes a coup against his royal family, but survives in obscurity. At maturity he is discovered to be the true heir, by special signs (such as pulling a sword from a stone), and with no other credentials he returns to regain the kingdom from the pretenders who have usurped it. Herod, the face of Rome, represents the imperial usurper, which is for Matthew the history of colonized Judea. In Jesus, the returning Messiah, true kingship itself returns, lost perhaps since the Babylonian exile, and most recently counterfeited under Herod.

The many variations of the story pattern have one thing in common, seen clearly in famous examples such as Odysseus and Hamlet: They end in a moment of comprehensive revenge. No trace of the corrupting influence is spared this vengeance. Matthew, however, characterizes this cultural narrative of retribution as inherently unstable. In the parable of the great feast, we hear of the fate of a city that fails to adopt Jesus’ program (22:7). In this regard, Matthew’s narrative of Jesus culminates in a refusal to retaliate. At the garden arrest we hear: “Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (26:52). Jesus’ alternative vision is seen in the insistence on unconditional forgiveness, 70 times seven, unlike the 77-fold revenge of Lamech (Genesis 4:24). And, of course, it is seen in the Sermon on the Mount, with its invitation to turn the other cheek, and to love one’s enemies—a teaching concluding with the call to “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (5:48).

But what about divine retribution?

But as soon as we introduce the idea of God as nonviolent, we come to a problem: Matthew’s theme of divine retribution. It emerges in his portrait of John the Baptist, whose initial preaching features axes lying at the roots of trees, winnowing forks in hands, and forests reduced to deserts—all emphatic symbolism of “de-cision,” a “cutting away.” And John’s harsh note of impending judgment is echoed by Jesus.

Or so at first. Matthew shows Jesus gradually tempering the expectations that John has aroused. Two significant episodes, featured during Advent, illustrate this vividly. Though John’s initial preaching favored images of forests reduced to deserts, when John sends from prison to inquire whether Jesus is the one who is expected, he is answered by quotations from Isaiah that picture the renewal of Israel as one of healing and reforesting the deserts. A change in direction is indicated.

In the parables we see most clearly how Jesus has redirected John’s promise. In the parable of the wheat and weeds (13:24-30), we learn that the threatened judgment is deferred indefinitely, to the end-times. Furthermore, the harvesting is not to be assumed by the disciples; it is to be left to God, who tends the fiery furnace “where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

And there is the crux of the matter. Is Matthew’s God nonviolent? Or does God insist that the disciples of Jesus be nonviolent, while retribution remains a divine prerogative only? Matthew seems to want it both ways, confusing us. Perhaps recalling the circumstances of Matthew’s day might again offer some insight. For while this gospel insists that Jesus’ policy of nonretaliation offers the only realistic response to the turmoil of the times, it will not do to draw from this the conclusion that God is not just, that God is not paying attention to the dreadful turmoil unfolding. Matthew employs the language available to him, that of divine retribution, to argue God’s justice, even while insisting that nonviolence remains the only realistic position that will allow them to survive, even prevail.

Nationalism, then and now

The perspectives opened up by this larger picture of Matthew’s story of Jesus allow fresh connections with what is happening in our own time, with our own struggles. We, too, live in an age when the impulses of a desperate nationalism suggest violent solutions. One of the expressions of our anxieties is a culture of overt violence, with the open display of firearms on the part of angry citizens, with almost daily reports of violent assaults on public gatherings. A yearning for force and the strong hand of suppression builds in response. Matthew faced a similar climate.

We live in a culture that finds forgiveness unthinkable, even subversive. When people at a church Bible study become the targets of a mass killing, their willingness to forgive disturbs others. Voices cry out that it is a violation of justice, and cannot be tolerated. Matthew’s message of forgiveness also encountered a nonreceptive setting.

We live in a time when familiar traditions, even faith itself, seem threatened. We witness cultural anxiety on the part of many who feel their heritage is being lost or diminished in an increasingly global society. Matthew points to a peace beyond our familiar customs.

We also are drawn to disputes about what best represents the authentic life. Here in the U.S., we are tempted to assign blame to outlier groups, maybe Muslims or Mexicans. Matthew’s community endured similar tensions, and his gospel makes a case for rootedness in the long tradition. Reflecting a crisis of identity, the gospel features a language of authenticity grounded in forgiveness and the rejection of vengeance.

In his own time of nationalist violence, Matthew offered an alternative for the Jewish community, one necessary but outrageous—the nonretaliatory teaching of Jesus. In our own cultural atmosphere of barely controlled violence, it remains as outrageous, and as necessary, as then.