Sermon Tone Analysis

Identity of Jesus...

and

Authority of Jesus...

as we read through the stories in Matthew of Jesus proclaiming the new kingdom of heaven,

Keep thinking of this:

“These men who have turned the world upside down"

Paul and Silas in Thessalonica...proclaiming “another King, Jesus.”

proclaiming another King, Jesus.

I love that picture of what they were doing... the world being turned upside down.

,...that picture of the world being turned upside down as we read through the stories in Matthew of Jesus proclaiming the new kingdom of heaven.

We see where that started here in the ministry of Jesus… that same picture... wtud... in the stories about Jesus that Matthew is telling us… we recognize the upside downness of what Jesus is doing by the responses of those who encounter Jesus.

With Authority, Jesus purposefully antagonizes the “accepted way of things” in society, in order to make a sharp delineation between the things of the world, religious or otherwise, and the things of his father.

Remember from last week:

thats a gauntlet that he throws down in front those who question the company he keep, and in context we see Jesus claiming authority again.

Recall: [teaches with authority… over disease and illness and wind and water and demons and authority to forgive sin.

Now step back to v 9 to see the context:

Matthew 9:

So, Who is Matthew?

Hold that question… obviously something about Jesus struck him and called to him.

What do you do with Jesus when he crosses your path?

He calls us to Follow him!

That’s what Matthew did, apparently without hesitation.

Now Matthew’s dinner party:

Matthew 9:1

And Jesus [rebukes the pharisees] for asking the question.

“Go and learn what this means...”

Well, the pharisees WERE the teachers.

It was a stinging rebuke.

But moreover,

Jesus is claiming authority to redefine conventional wisdom about who’s in and who’s out!

Who has been in charge of that definition?

The Pharisees.

Religious leaders.

This is reminiscent of Jesus’ you have heard / but i say to you teachings...

You have heard… these are the qualifications of a righteous man, but I am not here for your qualifications… I am here for sinners.

And the group of Disciples that Jesus is cultivating here is quite the eclectic group...

Back in Ch 4:18 we met Peter and Andrew and James and John; all fisherman, right?

Back in Ch 4:18 we met Peter and Andrew and James and John; all fisherman, right?

And then we see his call to Matthew the tax collector in ch 9 v 9.

who is this guy?

well, This is a guy literally sitting in a little booth raised up on a platform… this is the guy who when, say, a fisherman heads past with a days catch of fish, requires that fisherman to give Caesar his due.

He collects Rome’s tax from his own people.

the Roman occupation of Israel was devastating to the Jews.

They longed for the promised messiah to come and free them.

The occupation was oppressive, certainly for the military presence, but day in and day out it was the taxes were hated.

The taxes kept Israel submissive and poor.

The taxes were the Roman boot on the necks of the Jewish people.

and Rome knew the best way to subdue a nation wasn’t to send a bunch of Romans over… it was to buy off the locals to do their bidding.

So you end up with Herod the Roman puppet king… and you end up with the likes of Matthew the tax collector, who’s allowed to become wealthy off the backs of his own people.

He skims off the top… if Rome wanted 20 percent, tax collectors might take 40.

That’s how it worked.

But Rome knew the best way to subdue a nation wasn’t to send a bunch of Romans over… it was to buy off the locals to do their bidding.

So you end up with Herod the Roman puppet king… and you end up with Matthew the tax collector, who’s allowed to become wealthy off the backs of his own people.

He skims off the top… if Rome wanted 20 percent, Matthew would take 40.

That’s how it worked.

How popular were the tax collectors?

How popular was Matthew among his people?

So, now Jesus and his fisherman disciples add Matthew to the team, and not only that, they go to his house for a dinner party with a bunch of tax collectors and sinners.

The dregs.

The scum.

The riffraff.

Why? Good question.

He says, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Matthew 10:2

Three of the list have extra info about them… Matthew the tax collector, Simon the Zealot, and the Judas, who betrayed him.

Let’s focus on Simon for a moment.

The zealots

I think when the disciples were confronted about this, Jesus answered for then becaus

And who was in the business of defining righteousness in those days?

defining Worthiness?

Again: Pharisees and other religious leaders.

Jesus turns their ideas on achieving self-righteousness upside down.

Paul says We are all sinners made righteous only by Christ.

romans 3:10

-21-24

With this dinner party, Jesus is emphasizing the ALL part of Paul’s statement by turning upside down polite jewish society’s definition of what’s an acceptable dinner party.

With this dinner party, Jesus is emphasizing the ALL part of Paul’s statement here by turning polite society’s definition of an acceptable dinner party on it’s head.

V 14-17 add another layer to this, and explains jesus purpose even further.

This dinner party of Jesus’ was held during one of the twice a week fasts.

So picture Jesus with tax collectors and sinners while the Pharisees and disciples of John were fasting.

Jesus answered them:

Matthew 10:1

1st: it is not an appropriate time to fast.

Another statement of authority.

And then two parables:

The structure that had grown up around the Law of God was incompatible for God with us.

Isn’t that ironic?

It is sobering.

The religiosity of that society based on God’s law, was incompatible with the life of the person of God.

And so Jesus claims authority over the definition of worthiness and over who’s allowed to be a part of what God is accomplishing through him.

And he claims authority over the religious traditions that had become a path to exclusion and self-righteousness.

And so these stories here are truly a message about unity.

And about identity.

Identity in that Jesus is in the midst of revealing the fullness of who it is that can truly call themselves a child of God; In revealing His identity, he also reveals for us our own true identity.

And checklists aren’t what give us identity.

remember that jews wanted to claim identity based on physical lineage to Abraham but Jesus said I can raise up these rocks as children of Abraham.

So far in the story jesus is emphasizing Followership.

Follow me, he says!

He didn’t hand out a list of things to do.

He showed a way to be.

Follow me.