Advent 4
Preaching
PREACHING MATTHEW'S GOSPEL
A Narrative Approach
Our Matthew text for this week comes from the first chapter of Matthew. Matthew's telling of the Jesus' story is certainly unique. Matthew tells of the early years of our Savior stressing that his name is Jesus and Emmanuel; that wise sages from the East attend his birth; that Joseph and Mary escape to Egypt because of Herod's wrath. No other Gospel includes these realities.
Matthew is also the only Gospel writer to begin his story with a genealogy. This genealogy is of vital importance to Matthew's narrative. Genealogies are rarely included in the pericope system. Too boring! In truth, however, genealogies were not boring in their original context. Genealogies were one of the chief ways that oral people understood issues of identity. We can be sure that people read and heard this first chapter of Matthew with excited anticipation. Matthew opens his Gospel in this exciting way!
We must take a brief look at these verses of genealogy here. So many of the foundations of Matthew's Gospel are laid in these verses which are omitted from our lectionary. They need to be included in some of our year's preaching on Matthew.
In fact, it would be well in some years to preach on Matthew 1 and 2 throughout the Advent Season.
Matthew's book of genealogy begins with Abraham. God had promised to bless all the families of the earth through Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3). In this very first name, the name Abraham, Matthew sends a clue to his Gospel. This story will include all the families of the earth. Gentiles and Jews. Sinners and saints. The first name, Abraham, hints at mission.
And then come the women. Genealogies of old did not include women. What are these women of old doing in a list like this? And such women! Tamar (Genesis 38), Rahab (Joshua 2, 6), Ruth (Book of Ruth) and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11-12). Most of them are Gentiles! Three of these women have been in involved in scandalous behavior: incest, prostitution, and adultery. Four women. Four Sundays in Advent. This would make a great Advent mission series. Yes, mission. God's grace clearly includes persons such as these. God's grace clearly includes sinners like you and me. Matthew sees these women as playing a crucial role in God's movement from promise to fulfillment.
In telling these stories we need to connect them to the end of Matthew's Gospel. Matthew's first word and last word are mission words. The last word is: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..." (28:19).
We can also connect the stories of these women to the fifth woman in Matthew 1: Mary.
...these women may be related not so much to Abraham at the beginning of the story as to Mary at its climax. Mary of whom Jesus was born (v. 16) is a fifth woman in the genealogy. God's sovereign and surprising use of these four ancient women foreshadowed the astonishing use of Mary (v. 20) in the fulness of time. All those women are signs that God has intervened and will do so yet again. History is wide open to God's fresh initiatives.1
The genealogy also lays out Matthew's view of history.
"So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations" (1:17). History has a plan. God is in charge of that plan. All of history comes to fruition and fulfillment in the birth of a baby boy.
The name of the baby is Jesus. The destiny of history is bound up in this child. That's a message we need to proclaim with power and clarity today as people look under every nook and corner and consult every so-called spiritual person they can find to discover some meaning to life. We know the meaning of history and his name is Jesus!
We come then to the text assigned for this Fourth Sunday in Advent: Matthew 1:18-25. The story is centered in Joseph, a righteous or just man. Righteousness is a key theme in Matthew's Gospel. Right at the beginning, in the first two chapters, he tells us the story of what a righteous person looks like. It looks like Joseph. Matthew weaves the story of Joseph and the story of Herod together in a series of five stories. These stories portray a righteous man who believes in Jesus and an unrighteous man who does not. We'll look at these interlocking stories on the First Sunday after Christmas.
Matthew spends very little time on the drama of the birth of Jesus. We simply hear that Joseph, the righteous one, and Mary were betrothed. When they came together they discovered that she was pregnant. The Holy Spirit is credited with paternity! As we indicated in the Preface, Matthew says very little about the Holy Spirit in his Gospel. He may have been faced with a community of Christians who had, as Luther once put it, "swallowed the Holy Spirit feathers and all."
The tradition of Jesus' origin in the Godhead was so strong, however, that Matthew cannot omit the work of the Holy Spirit in this instance. In Genesis 1:2 we hear that the Creator Spirit was moving over the face of primeval waters in order to give life to the creation and to humankind. Jesus is the child of this creative spirit. That's his identity. Matthew 1 is preoccupied with this matter of Jesus' identity. Jesus is Son of Abraham, Son of David, Child of the Spirit and of the Spirit's chosen instruments: Joseph and Mary.
As Matthew tells the story, however, the naming of Jesus is more important than his birth. His name is to be called Jesus. The Hebrew equivalent of Jesus is Joshua and it means something like: "Yahweh is salvation." Jesus is to be our Savior. He is to save us from our sins. This motif of forgiveness of sins occurs many times in Matthew's Gospel: 9:10-13; 11:16-19; 26:26-29.
We note that the naming of Jesus is said to be a sign of the fulfillment of prophecy: 1:22. Fulfillment of prophecy is a very important part of the way that Matthew tells his story. It is true throughout his entire Gospel but most particularly so in the first chapters that he notes for us that a given deed fulfilled what the prophets had said: 2:5-6, 15, 17-18, 23; 3:3; 4:14-16, and so forth. Matthew reports faithfully on fulfillment of Scripture as a key to the identity of the One who stands stage center in his story: Jesus. Let there be no mistake about it. Jesus fulfills God's plan of the ages. The implied message is that he fulfills the plan of the ages for us as well. God is a God who constantly intervenes in human affairs in order to move history towards its goal.
The first prophecy fulfilled has to do with Jesus' name: Emmanuel. Commentators note that Matthew is much more interested in the name of Jesus than he is in the story of his birth. Emmanuel. God is with us! This is the heart of the message of Matthew's Gospel. We saw above that the mission theme in Matthew is enunciated clearly in both the first and last chapters of Matthew. The Emmanuel theme is likewise enunciated in the alpha and omega of Matthew's story.
The very last words of Matthew's Gospel are: "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (28:20). "I am with you" is the equivalent of Emmanuel. God with us. That is the fundamental message of Matthew's story.
The key passages 1:23 and 28:20, which stand in a reciprocal relationship to each other, highlight this (fundamental) message. At 1:23, Matthew quotes Isaiah in saying of Jesus: in "Emmanuel... God [is] with us." And at 28:20 the risen Jesus himself declares to the disciples: "I am with you always...." Strategically located at the beginning and the end of Matthew's story, these two passages "enclose" it. In combination, they reveal the message of Matthew's story: In the person of Jesus Messiah, his Son, God has drawn near to abide to the end of time with his people, the church, thus inaugurating the eschatological age of salvation.2
There is one other specific reference to the Emmanuel-reality in Matthew's Gospel. In Matthew 18 we read instructions for the life of the Christian community. One of these instructions has to do with what one is to do, "If another member of the church sins against you..." (18:15). Finally such disputes are to be brought to the community. "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (18:20). Jesus is God's presence among us not only as past fulfillment of prophecy or future promise of presence. Our Emmanuel God is with us now when the community of God's people gathers together. Matthew is concerned with the nature of the church! When the church gathers today in the name of Jesus Christ they experience Emmanuel!
Homiletical Directions
In the text above we brought forward the possibility of preaching on Matthew 1 or Matthew 1 and 2 throughout an Advent season. Matthew's genealogy contains a marvelous surprise. There are four "Advent Women" here--Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba--whose stories cry out to be told! When else will they ever get told? We suggest either one "Advent Woman" a Sunday for the four weeks of Advent or abbreviated versions of their stories compacted into one story for the Fourth Sunday in Advent. Matthew's Gospel is all about God as a God who keeps promises with Israel. Promises have been made to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3) and David (2 Samuel 7:8-16). Promises have been kept. Matthew 1 clearly announces that Jesus is the fulfillment of age-old promises. Jesus is the climax of many fulfillments along the way. The women of Matthew 1 are the instruments of such promise keeping.
"I am a God who keeps my promises" is the word of God that reverberates through Matthew 1. That's a wonderful word for us to hear today.
These "Advent Women" stories can also be told under the theme of mission. Gentiles and sinners are part of God's saving activity. The Great Commission with which Matthew concludes is no surprise. We see it coming right here in Matthew 1.
There is, of course, a fifth woman in Matthew 1. Her name is Mary. She can be the focus of a Christmas sermon. If you don't use the "Advent Women" during the Advent season then use them in the Christmas season as the prelude to Mary's story. God works in incredible ways to bring promise to fulfillment. Mary is the last in a long line of God's miraculous workings toward fulfillment! The stories of these women bear this out.
Christmas is about such a fulfillment.
If we stay within the boundaries of this week's appointed Gospel a logical sermon theme would deal with Jesus as the name of the one who forgives sin. Tell this week's text as story with this reality as the focus. Jesus comes as the one who forgives. Other stories from Matthew can be told to carry forth this theme. Tell the stories of Matthew 9:10-13 and 11:16-19 and 26:26-29 as stories linked with the forgiveness of sins that is present for us in Jesus' name. The closing proclamation for a sermon on these stories will enable Jesus to speak his word of forgiveness to us today. Our proclamation might go like this: "My name is Jesus. I come to be born among you as a Savior. I come to be born among you as One who forgives sinners. I come not to call the righteous, but sinners. I came to be a friend to tax collectors. I came to give my body and blood that your sins might be forgiven. Listen, sinners. Today I say to you: 'Your sins are forgiven.' " Amen.
A third alternative for narrative preaching would be to focus on Emmanuel. Tell the textual story with the focus on the reality of God's presence among us. Tell the story of the Great Commission where Jesus ends by saying, "I am with you always, to the end of the age." Tell the story of Matthew's understanding that wherever two or three gather in Jesus' name he is present, he is Emmanuel, for us (18:15-20).
Our closing proclamation for this series of Emmanuel stories might go something like this: "I am Emmanuel come among you in the birth of a child. I am Emmanuel come among you whenever two or three of you gather in my name. I am Emmanuel come among you to empower your ministry and mission to the end of the age. I am Emmanuel come among you to fill you with my very presence." Amen.
____________
1. Robert H. Smith, Matthew: Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989), p. 33.
2. Jack Dean Kingsbury, Matthew As Story (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 41-42.
Matthew is also the only Gospel writer to begin his story with a genealogy. This genealogy is of vital importance to Matthew's narrative. Genealogies are rarely included in the pericope system. Too boring! In truth, however, genealogies were not boring in their original context. Genealogies were one of the chief ways that oral people understood issues of identity. We can be sure that people read and heard this first chapter of Matthew with excited anticipation. Matthew opens his Gospel in this exciting way!
We must take a brief look at these verses of genealogy here. So many of the foundations of Matthew's Gospel are laid in these verses which are omitted from our lectionary. They need to be included in some of our year's preaching on Matthew.
In fact, it would be well in some years to preach on Matthew 1 and 2 throughout the Advent Season.
Matthew's book of genealogy begins with Abraham. God had promised to bless all the families of the earth through Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3). In this very first name, the name Abraham, Matthew sends a clue to his Gospel. This story will include all the families of the earth. Gentiles and Jews. Sinners and saints. The first name, Abraham, hints at mission.
And then come the women. Genealogies of old did not include women. What are these women of old doing in a list like this? And such women! Tamar (Genesis 38), Rahab (Joshua 2, 6), Ruth (Book of Ruth) and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11-12). Most of them are Gentiles! Three of these women have been in involved in scandalous behavior: incest, prostitution, and adultery. Four women. Four Sundays in Advent. This would make a great Advent mission series. Yes, mission. God's grace clearly includes persons such as these. God's grace clearly includes sinners like you and me. Matthew sees these women as playing a crucial role in God's movement from promise to fulfillment.
In telling these stories we need to connect them to the end of Matthew's Gospel. Matthew's first word and last word are mission words. The last word is: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..." (28:19).
We can also connect the stories of these women to the fifth woman in Matthew 1: Mary.
...these women may be related not so much to Abraham at the beginning of the story as to Mary at its climax. Mary of whom Jesus was born (v. 16) is a fifth woman in the genealogy. God's sovereign and surprising use of these four ancient women foreshadowed the astonishing use of Mary (v. 20) in the fulness of time. All those women are signs that God has intervened and will do so yet again. History is wide open to God's fresh initiatives.1
The genealogy also lays out Matthew's view of history.
"So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations" (1:17). History has a plan. God is in charge of that plan. All of history comes to fruition and fulfillment in the birth of a baby boy.
The name of the baby is Jesus. The destiny of history is bound up in this child. That's a message we need to proclaim with power and clarity today as people look under every nook and corner and consult every so-called spiritual person they can find to discover some meaning to life. We know the meaning of history and his name is Jesus!
We come then to the text assigned for this Fourth Sunday in Advent: Matthew 1:18-25. The story is centered in Joseph, a righteous or just man. Righteousness is a key theme in Matthew's Gospel. Right at the beginning, in the first two chapters, he tells us the story of what a righteous person looks like. It looks like Joseph. Matthew weaves the story of Joseph and the story of Herod together in a series of five stories. These stories portray a righteous man who believes in Jesus and an unrighteous man who does not. We'll look at these interlocking stories on the First Sunday after Christmas.
Matthew spends very little time on the drama of the birth of Jesus. We simply hear that Joseph, the righteous one, and Mary were betrothed. When they came together they discovered that she was pregnant. The Holy Spirit is credited with paternity! As we indicated in the Preface, Matthew says very little about the Holy Spirit in his Gospel. He may have been faced with a community of Christians who had, as Luther once put it, "swallowed the Holy Spirit feathers and all."
The tradition of Jesus' origin in the Godhead was so strong, however, that Matthew cannot omit the work of the Holy Spirit in this instance. In Genesis 1:2 we hear that the Creator Spirit was moving over the face of primeval waters in order to give life to the creation and to humankind. Jesus is the child of this creative spirit. That's his identity. Matthew 1 is preoccupied with this matter of Jesus' identity. Jesus is Son of Abraham, Son of David, Child of the Spirit and of the Spirit's chosen instruments: Joseph and Mary.
As Matthew tells the story, however, the naming of Jesus is more important than his birth. His name is to be called Jesus. The Hebrew equivalent of Jesus is Joshua and it means something like: "Yahweh is salvation." Jesus is to be our Savior. He is to save us from our sins. This motif of forgiveness of sins occurs many times in Matthew's Gospel: 9:10-13; 11:16-19; 26:26-29.
We note that the naming of Jesus is said to be a sign of the fulfillment of prophecy: 1:22. Fulfillment of prophecy is a very important part of the way that Matthew tells his story. It is true throughout his entire Gospel but most particularly so in the first chapters that he notes for us that a given deed fulfilled what the prophets had said: 2:5-6, 15, 17-18, 23; 3:3; 4:14-16, and so forth. Matthew reports faithfully on fulfillment of Scripture as a key to the identity of the One who stands stage center in his story: Jesus. Let there be no mistake about it. Jesus fulfills God's plan of the ages. The implied message is that he fulfills the plan of the ages for us as well. God is a God who constantly intervenes in human affairs in order to move history towards its goal.
The first prophecy fulfilled has to do with Jesus' name: Emmanuel. Commentators note that Matthew is much more interested in the name of Jesus than he is in the story of his birth. Emmanuel. God is with us! This is the heart of the message of Matthew's Gospel. We saw above that the mission theme in Matthew is enunciated clearly in both the first and last chapters of Matthew. The Emmanuel theme is likewise enunciated in the alpha and omega of Matthew's story.
The very last words of Matthew's Gospel are: "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (28:20). "I am with you" is the equivalent of Emmanuel. God with us. That is the fundamental message of Matthew's story.
The key passages 1:23 and 28:20, which stand in a reciprocal relationship to each other, highlight this (fundamental) message. At 1:23, Matthew quotes Isaiah in saying of Jesus: in "Emmanuel... God [is] with us." And at 28:20 the risen Jesus himself declares to the disciples: "I am with you always...." Strategically located at the beginning and the end of Matthew's story, these two passages "enclose" it. In combination, they reveal the message of Matthew's story: In the person of Jesus Messiah, his Son, God has drawn near to abide to the end of time with his people, the church, thus inaugurating the eschatological age of salvation.2
There is one other specific reference to the Emmanuel-reality in Matthew's Gospel. In Matthew 18 we read instructions for the life of the Christian community. One of these instructions has to do with what one is to do, "If another member of the church sins against you..." (18:15). Finally such disputes are to be brought to the community. "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (18:20). Jesus is God's presence among us not only as past fulfillment of prophecy or future promise of presence. Our Emmanuel God is with us now when the community of God's people gathers together. Matthew is concerned with the nature of the church! When the church gathers today in the name of Jesus Christ they experience Emmanuel!
Homiletical Directions
In the text above we brought forward the possibility of preaching on Matthew 1 or Matthew 1 and 2 throughout an Advent season. Matthew's genealogy contains a marvelous surprise. There are four "Advent Women" here--Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba--whose stories cry out to be told! When else will they ever get told? We suggest either one "Advent Woman" a Sunday for the four weeks of Advent or abbreviated versions of their stories compacted into one story for the Fourth Sunday in Advent. Matthew's Gospel is all about God as a God who keeps promises with Israel. Promises have been made to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3) and David (2 Samuel 7:8-16). Promises have been kept. Matthew 1 clearly announces that Jesus is the fulfillment of age-old promises. Jesus is the climax of many fulfillments along the way. The women of Matthew 1 are the instruments of such promise keeping.
"I am a God who keeps my promises" is the word of God that reverberates through Matthew 1. That's a wonderful word for us to hear today.
These "Advent Women" stories can also be told under the theme of mission. Gentiles and sinners are part of God's saving activity. The Great Commission with which Matthew concludes is no surprise. We see it coming right here in Matthew 1.
There is, of course, a fifth woman in Matthew 1. Her name is Mary. She can be the focus of a Christmas sermon. If you don't use the "Advent Women" during the Advent season then use them in the Christmas season as the prelude to Mary's story. God works in incredible ways to bring promise to fulfillment. Mary is the last in a long line of God's miraculous workings toward fulfillment! The stories of these women bear this out.
Christmas is about such a fulfillment.
If we stay within the boundaries of this week's appointed Gospel a logical sermon theme would deal with Jesus as the name of the one who forgives sin. Tell this week's text as story with this reality as the focus. Jesus comes as the one who forgives. Other stories from Matthew can be told to carry forth this theme. Tell the stories of Matthew 9:10-13 and 11:16-19 and 26:26-29 as stories linked with the forgiveness of sins that is present for us in Jesus' name. The closing proclamation for a sermon on these stories will enable Jesus to speak his word of forgiveness to us today. Our proclamation might go like this: "My name is Jesus. I come to be born among you as a Savior. I come to be born among you as One who forgives sinners. I come not to call the righteous, but sinners. I came to be a friend to tax collectors. I came to give my body and blood that your sins might be forgiven. Listen, sinners. Today I say to you: 'Your sins are forgiven.' " Amen.
A third alternative for narrative preaching would be to focus on Emmanuel. Tell the textual story with the focus on the reality of God's presence among us. Tell the story of the Great Commission where Jesus ends by saying, "I am with you always, to the end of the age." Tell the story of Matthew's understanding that wherever two or three gather in Jesus' name he is present, he is Emmanuel, for us (18:15-20).
Our closing proclamation for this series of Emmanuel stories might go something like this: "I am Emmanuel come among you in the birth of a child. I am Emmanuel come among you whenever two or three of you gather in my name. I am Emmanuel come among you to empower your ministry and mission to the end of the age. I am Emmanuel come among you to fill you with my very presence." Amen.
____________
1. Robert H. Smith, Matthew: Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989), p. 33.
2. Jack Dean Kingsbury, Matthew As Story (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 41-42.
