Musings Over a Napkin
Both ministers were wrestling with the same question: What does a church that is thriving look like? So breakfast became Bible study real quick. “Let’s take a look at Matthew,” I said.
The author of the first gospel was living up close and personal with the question of a flourishing church. It was not theoretical; he was living (many scholars believe) in Antioch, a major city in the Roman Empire. His congregation was made up of people from all over the world, including immigrant Jews and Greeks. Matthew’s passion was to see his congregation embody the reality of being the church even though it was made up of minorities and outcasts. Yet Matthew’s vision for the church was nothing less than a people whose communal witness would push over the very gates of hell.
The question, then, is how? How does Matthew articulate how God’s people live so that the work and life of the church flourishes? Here is what I inked out on a paper napkin on the breakfast table to my two minister friends:
Matthew makes a simple summary statement about Jesus’s ministry in Matt 4:23: “Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and every sickness among the people.” Matthew, in his very ordered way, is making a claim about the way Jesus does ministry. Pay attention to the participles (I know this is a little geeky—but I am using a term to describe the work of three words here) that modify or describe what Jesus went about doing. Do you see them? Jesus is teaching, proclaiming, and curing (healing). Nice, right? Matthew gave us a little summary, and then he moves on to other things.
Actually, that is not the case. Slip over to Matt 9:35. Matthew offers another summary statement: “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and every sickness.” Interesting, yes? Matthew repeats himself. He has already declared that Jesus teaches, proclaims, and heals. Why is he telling us again? Either he forgot, or he did this intentionally! I don’t think this is Matthew making a mistake. I think Matthew is framing something very clever and very important for his congregation (and us!) to know. To see what it is, we will need to do a little digging for what Matthew says between the first summary statement in chapter 4 and the second summary statement in chapter 9.
What do we find? First, what we discover is the best and fullest collection of Jesus’s teaching in chapters 5, 6, and 7. We call it the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew wants his congregation to know that Jesus is a teacher—that is, Jesus is using instruction to intentionally form a community to be like Him! The Sermon on the Mount is, for Matthew, the church’s curriculum for discipleship.
Following this insight, what might we find next? The second element in Matthew’s summary is proclaiming or announcing the kingdom. Jesus is constantly declaring that God’s rule or reign is showing up in the world. So, what is fascinating is that Matt 8 has five remarkable stories that demonstrate the amazing ways and places that God’s rule or presence is showing up. Where might God’s rule pop up? The first three stories of Matt 8 have an interesting twist. God shows up with three marginalized people: a leper, a Roman centurion, and an unnamed woman who is Peter’s mother-in-law. God shows up with people who have no normal expectation of God’s favor. And—pay attention to this—Matthew notes that two of these three people are persons who possess great faith! He then relates a narrative of the disciples freaking out on a boat ride, and yet God shows up through Jesus’s powerful words. And please note—Jesus says that the disciples have “little” faith. The persons whom we would expect to have great faith have little faith. Yet no matter, the kingdom arrives with great faith or with little faith (which is good news, isn’t it!). Fifth and finally, Matthew offers a deliverance story where Jesus demonstrates supernatural power reminding us that the kingdom of God makes itself known in natural or supernatural ways.
So if Matthew is reinforcing Jesus’s teaching ministry and the nature of his proclaiming work, and we know that Matthew is methodical and deliberate, what might we find in Matt 9? Here he demonstrates the nature and breadth of Jesus’s healing ministry. Once again, Matthew recounts five stories. Here we go. Jesus first heals the paralytic man let down through the roof (healing sin), then goes to dinner with Matthew and his tax-collecting co-workers and other unclean folk (healing separation), and then busts up the notion of holding on to scruples with the newness of gospel power. Fourth, Matthew tells the dual story of the hemorrhaging woman and the dying, dead daughter; he wants us to know that Jesus has the healing power to overcome sickness and even death itself. Up to this point, the healing work of Jesus is healing persons from something—from sin, sickness, and such. However, the fifth and final narrative is one that demonstrates a different kind of healing—Jesus heals for something. In another pair of stories, Jesus gives sight to two blind men and restores speech to one who could not speak. No wonder Matthew wraps up the capacity to speak with the words of the mute man who can cry out, “Never has anything like this been seen in Israel! (Matt 9:33).
Matthew has constructed most of six chapters to invite his church into a way of understanding Jesus’s ministry and their ministry that is simple and straightforward. Even in the way that Matthew gives us the words—teaching, proclaiming, healing—he is pressing his church to action, not reflection. They are actions—verbs turned nouns (participles). Matthew’s church is invited to do the formative work (teaching) of shaping a community of people to embody Jesus. They are encouraged to testify or declare or announce that God is showing up in our world. Completing the trilogy, Matthew’s church is drawn into the vital work of healing, evoking the powerful name of Jesus in all the ministry of care that the church offers to the world.
Such work—teaching, proclaiming, healing—is the work of Jesus’s ministry. And it is the work of Jesus’s people. Whether those believers are found in the ancient city of Antioch or in towns and cities across this land today, the work is the same.
My napkin at the breakfast table had three words on the three points of a large triangle and a bunch of Scripture verses smudged around the perimeter. What does a church that is thriving look like? My two minister friends and I all agreed: teaching well, people testifying of God’s presence, and a culture of healing and hope is the thing.
After the second summary statement in chapter 9, Matthew places the challenge in front of his church just a few verses later. And I offer the challenge to us today: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matt 9:37–38).
Maybe the place to begin in our churches today is to pray.
Carson E. Reed
