During this liturgical year, on most Sundays, we will hear and preach from Matthew’s gospel. There is an advantage to having the same evangelist each Sunday. Such frequent exposure gives us a chance to get immersed in this gospel. We grow accustomed to Matthew and we can detect his way of telling the story; his particular design or outline; his emphasis and themes. He has his "touch" and though the stories vary, his concerns and purpose show through each Sunday’s pericope. This familiarity and growing awareness of Matthew’s uniqueness will help us in our own hearing of the Word and our proclamation of it through this liturgical year.

Our hearing of the gospel will benefit by some extra study. And we can spread this study out over the entire year. This essay will help get the study started, but if you have time and available resources of your own or in your parish library, there are introductory resources that will prove helpful in your devotional reading and study of Matthew. For example, you can read the introductory notes to this Gospel in any good commentary (THE COLLEGEVILLE BIBLE COMMENTARY, THE NEW JEROME BIBLICAL COMMENTARY, HARPER’S BIBLICAL COMMENTARY, etc.). Such an overview of the entire Gospel will help interpretation because you will more readily detect the themes as they show themselves in particular passages. The knowledge gained through such study might keep us from getting sidetracked by minutiae, or worse, an inappropriate interpretation. So, to introduce the study process, and help us get a sense of the entire Gospel, let’s first give a general look at Matthew

Matthew’s gospel was written around 80-85 CE. This was about 20 years or more after the apostle’s death. Thus, someone else wrote the gospel, maybe a disciple who, like Matthew, was trained in the Jewish law. (For the sake of convenience, we will still call the author Matthew in these reflections) As with other gospels, this one has its own unique perspective as it interprets the meaning of Jesus’ life for its intended audience .

The first readers were Jewish and Gentile converts to Christianity living in Antioch. The original Christians in Antioch were Jewish converts, but when Gentiles began joining the church, conflicts arose. For example, they had to decide if Gentile converts would have to first become Jews upon entering the Christian community. Would they have to observe the ancient Jewish customs and follow the Mosaic Law? This also raised the larger question of the validity of the Mosaic Law for all converts--- Jews included.

The author is trying to bridge the divide, showing how Jesus fulfilled God’s promises to Israel. The parallels between the former (O. T.) and the Christian testaments are evident in Matthew. For example, the structure of this Gospel is similar to the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Each of the five sections of this Gospel gives a narrative of Jesus’ activities, as well as a teaching or sermon by him (cf. below). Thus the Jewish audience would have been aware that this Gospel depicts Jesus as the new Moses, with a new Torah.

We notice Matthew’s frequent allusions to the Hebrew scriptures. This is clearly a Gospel written for Jews, showing how Jesus fulfilled Jewish hopes and expectations. Frequently one reads, "this was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet...", or, "that it might be fulfilled." Matthew is concerned to show that Jesus is the long awaited Messiah who is fulfilling the prophetic promises. This Messiah has not come to destroy the Jewish Law, but to fulfill it. For Matthew, the Jewish Law was special and so he shows Jesus fulfilling the true meaning of that Law. Jesus is like a rabbi in this Gospel, and like a rabbi, finds himself engaged in frequent rabbinical instructions, discussions and debates. He describes his ministry as being sent, "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" and he also sends his disciples, "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (10:5-6). Yet, Matthew sees all peoples as invited into God’s realm. The Gospel will end with Jesus sending his church to, "make disciples of ALL nations" (28:19).

The preacher notices an over-arching message in Matthew: with Jesus, the long awaited reign of God has arrived. Jesus performs powerful deeds that are signs of the presence of the reign of God. Individual passages will focus on particular ways Jesus is fulfilling God’s promises made to us through the Jewish people. Thus the gospel might address our own modern hungers for fulfillment, healing, forgiveness, peace and community.

Teachings play a central role in the Gospel. It is as if it were an early collection of Jesus’ teaching. Thus, the previously mentioned division of the Gospel into five sections is one in which each section contains a major teaching about the reign Jesus is proclaiming. Jesus sees the reign of God manifesting itself in the community of his followers, the new Israel. (Matthew emphasizes the importance of this community, his is the only gospel that uses the word "church.") We will learn of the role of the Christian community’s vocation to be a sign of the presence of the reign of God on earth by showing: forgiveness among community members, recognition of him in the poor and outcasts, faithfulness in prayer, perseverance in the face of persecution and opposition, hope in his return, etc..

His departing words to this community are an assurance that he will be in their midst, "...know that I am with you always until the end of the world" (28:20). However, the Gospel stresses that the visible community of disciples does not completely fulfill the hopes for the reign of God. This will only happen when Jesus returns. Matthew stresses this apocalyptic event and relates what Jesus taught about his second coming and the end of the word in chapter 24 and the parables of chapter 25.

A last word of caution. Matthew’s Gospel was written in a Jewish-Christian setting and reflects the early controversies of the church as it tried to settle its relationship to its Jewish roots and observances. It is filled with the controversy it was experiencing. That was then, this is now! We need to be careful not to develop an anti-Semitic attitude when reading and sharing Matthew with others. This Gospel has Jesus engaged in many polemical discussions with his major opponents, the scribes and Pharisees. But these opponents did not represent the true Judaism for they over attributed to the Law a self-sufficiency it did not possess and that no true Jew would claim for it. True Jews would never do what some of these Pharisees did---reduce the Law to a set of observances that would make humans righteous on their own before God.

----Jude Siciliano, O.P.

Promoter of Preaching

Southern Dominican Province, U.S.A.