Gospel Notes

Through sermons, spiritual formation sessions after worship, and in these Gospel Notes, for the remainder of the church year, I hope to offer a deeper dive into Matthew, inviting us to live in Matthew’s story of Jesus.

With that in mind, I invite you to give our Gospel passage at least five minutes of pondering. Then, in my reflections below, I reference several passages from Matthew. You might notice any of them that get your attention and spend some time with them. Look them up in their context and prayerfully reflect upon them. Also, ponder them in light of the theme of these Gospel Notes – the theme of grace upon grace and compassion.

Foundational to Thomas Keating’s teaching is what he called the three emotional programs for happiness: survival and security, affection and esteem, and power and control. Additionally, Father Thomas taught that we become overidentified with seeking the approval of the culture of our upbringing. In the absence of experientially knowing the love of God, our individual lives become driven to get more and more from the emotional programs and more and more cultural approval. On the societal level, we create cultures and systems characterized by violence at all levels, including how we talk, war, and social injustice.

All of this flows from the trauma of being human.

Enter Matthew’s Jesus.

From the beginning, Matthew’s story is a story of grace upon grace. Matthew rarely uses the word grace, which, for me, makes the grace all the more powerful … if we don’t miss it! Like the air we breathe, we can take for granted that our story is a story of grace and grace only. And let us not forget that grace means unmerited favor. The human situation is so traumatic, that we could never “merit” the love of God. Rather, God loves us simply because we are and we are God’s children.

So, grace in Matthew, I will identify a few moments:

• The grace (remember “unmerited favor”) of Immanual, the God who is with us (1:23 and 28:20).
• The grace of Jesus’ baptism for us (3:13f).
• The grace of the opening of the heavens, the descent of the Spirit, and the voice from heaven. First, the grace that all of this is for us. Second, that all of it was done such that it was seen and heard (3:16-17).
• The grace of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness and victory over the enemy who accuses us (4:1-11).
• The grace of Jesus’ ministry to the multitudes – none were excluded (4:23-25).
• The grace that we were given the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7).
• The grace of the ten healings in chapters 8 and 9.
• The grace that Jesus, God’s Son, is moved with compassion for the trauma of humanity. Jesus does not blame us, condemn us, judge us, give up on us; he is moved with compassion for us such that he came to serve and to give his life for us (9:35-38 and 20:28).
• And he is moved with compassion such that he calls, mentors, and sends workers into the harvest (10:1f).
• When the warning in 10:15 is heard in light of the grace upon grace of Matthew’s Gospel, we see that it, too, is grace.

There is, of course, much more. I hope that in light of the moments I have identified we are able at least to begin to swim more fluidly in the waters of grace, and in those waters have a greater understanding of the trauma of the human situation as identified by Thomas Keating. I hope this helps us to look upon “the other,” whether that be the other side of the political aisle, the homeless person walking our streets, the other side of the planet, or the stranger in our midst, with some measure of the compassion with which Jesus looks upon “me.”

You remain in my prayers,

Jim