Matthew 21:12-27
Mercy above Sacrifice
Matthew 21:12-17 Jesus Prophetically Shuts Down the Temple
(Mk 11:15-19; Lk 19:45-48)Matthew diverted from Mark’s timeline (perhaps because he would choose to treat Mark’s reflection on the cursed fig-tree differently).
12 Jesus entered the temple. He threw out all those selling and buying in the temple, and overturned the tables of the currency dealers and the benches of those selling pigeons.Currency dealers, licensed by the chief priests, were essential to the operation of the temple. Jews arriving from overseas could use only the agreed currency in the temple precincts. They needed to buy lambs to be sacrificed, and then, later in the week, eaten at the Passover meal. By disrupting business, Jesus effectively shut down activity in the temple – at least in theory (The whole temple precinct was huge. Jesus could have interrupted only a minimal amount of its bustling activity.).
13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house is a house for prayer’,The words were taken from Isaiah (and trimmed somewhat). Matthew’s concern may have been that, under the inadequate leadership of the chief priests and scribes, the spirit of prayer had disappeared from temple worship.
… and you have made of it a ‘den of thieves’.”The second part of Jesus’ comment came from Jeremiah. Jeremiah was not referring to shady deals by moneychangers, but to the fact that the whole leadership had become a band of robbers. Jesus deplored worship without faith, precisely the faith that took practical shape in mercy and justice. Earlier in the narrative [9:13], Matthew had shown Jesus quoting to a group of Pharisees a text from Hosea: I desire mercy, not sacrifice [Hosea 6.6]. Later, Jesus would accuse Pharisees for having: neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith [23:23].
By the time Matthew wrote his Gospel the temple had already been destroyed. People had learned to live (and worship) without it.
14 Blind people and cripples gathered around him in the temple,and he cured them.The addition was Matthew’s. Normally the blind and the cripples were excluded from certain areas of the temple. Matthew chose to show Jesus as the one who exercised the authentic role of shepherd, in clear distinction from the current leadership (as he would soon make clear). By his juxtaposing Jesus’ disrupting temple worship and his reaching out to the blind and the crippled, Matthew showed Jesus living out, in practice, the lines from Hosea [6:6], already quoted on two occasions earlier in the narrative: What I want is mercy not sacrifice.
15 The chief priests and the scribes noticed the remarkable deeds he didand the young people shouting out in the temple, “‘Hosanna to the Son of David’!” They were indignant, 16 and said to him, “Do you hear what they are saying?” Jesus said to them “Yes, I do. Have you never read, ‘From the mouths of infants and sucklings you have brought praise to perfection’?”Young people, and with them the blind and the crippled, could recognise Jesus (as could the Gentile wise men of the Infancy Narrative) but the chief priests and scribes were closed to faith. Matthew was not surprised – he saw precedent in the Scriptures. Jesus accepted the children’s designation of him as Son of David.
17 He left them, went out of the city to Bethany,and passed the night there.Opposition had taken clear shape. The die had been cast. The chief priests and scribes would soon have him executed.
Temple Cult Replaced by Faith
Matthew 21:18-22 Jesus Blights the Fruitless Fig Tree
(Mk 11:12-14, 20-25)Matthew drew the story from Mark’s Gospel, though he blunted its point. How the story originated and, more importantly, how it is to be understood and interpreted, are uncertain.
18 Early in the morning he went up again to the city. He felt hungry. 19 He saw a single fig tree beside the road. He went up to it, but found nothing on it except leaves. He said to it, “May you never produce fruit forever”; and forthwith the fig tree withered. 20 The disciples saw this and were astounded, and said, “How did the fig tree immediately wither?”Jesus’ blighting of the fig tree occurred between two incidents in the temple. Already, Matthew had dismissed the temple as no longer a house of prayer: worship without mercy was like a tree without fruit. Jesus had clearly insisted that disciples bear good fruit [7:15-20] – fruits of faith. Matthew was particularly concerned that the members of his own community likewise heed Jesus’ message.
21 In reply to them Jesus said, “I assure you, if you were to have faith and not doubt, not only would you do the same as what happened to the fig tree, but if you were to say to this mountain, “Be lifted up and thrown into the sea”, it would happen. 22 Indeed, whatever you ask for in prayer, really believing, you will receive.”By the test of faith, the Jewish leadership had certainly failed. The crowds were still indecisive. The little faith of the disciples needed to grow. Membership of the Christian community was never enough of itself – just as temple and worship were not enough without faith. With faith, the impossible became possible. [Refer 17:20]
Jesus’ blanket promise of the efficacy of faithful prayer demanded precisely that – prayer illuminated by the faith that Jesus had taught, the faith expressed perfectly in the prayer he had himself shared with them [6:9-13].
The Issue of Authority
Matthew 21:23-27 The Authority of Jesus Questioned
(Mk 11:27-33; Lk 20:1-8)Not surprisingly, the temple management confronted Jesus for his conduct in the temple the day before.
23 He went into the temple, and the chief priests and elders of the people came up to him while he was teaching. They questioned him, “By whose authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?”In many ways, the question was more an accusation than a question. The chief priests themselves were those who licensed others to operate in the temple. They may have wished to force Jesus publicly to claim divine authorisation, in the hope that they could accuse him of blasphemy (as they would do later at his trial [26:65]).
24 Jesus answered them, “I shall ask you something myself. If you tell me, I shall tell you by whose authority I do these things. 25 John’s baptism – where did that come from? from a heavenly or from a human source?”Jesus was unwilling to give them reason to indict him on a charge of which they would be the judges. His response deftly deflected their question and served to place them in an impossible position.
They debated among themselves,“If we say, ‘From a heavenly source’,he will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ 26 And if we say, ‘From a human source’,we are frightened of the crowd,because they hold John to be a prophet.” 27 So in answer to Jesus, they said, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them,“Then neither shall I tell youin whose power I do these things.”The battle-lines were firmly drawn. But for the moment the leadership could not move.
Next >> Matthew 21:28-32