Edgework

We have already made the point that when Jesus read the Old Testament he tended to leave the images of violence behind and draw forward those images that portray God as nonviolent. But we have also said that the New Testament is multivocal, reflecting the fact that human agency was a factor in writing the books and letters of this second volume of our Bible. So, even when reading the New Testament, we are required to continue wrestling with the text – sifting it, as it were – to ascertain the message God is intending us to hear and follow.

The question we will address head on at this point is what to make of the violent images of God that appear in some of the parables told by Jesus. As J. Denny Weaver notes in The Nonviolent God, reading the Gospels honestly, “…requires acknowledgement that different images of God do in fact appear in the Gospels. And, as with the Old Testament, it requires acknowledgement that the Gospel writers posed materials in ways that were comfortable with or assumed the idea of a violent God” (121).

In his book, Disarming Scripture, Derek Flood makes the observation that most of the images of a violent God appear in the Gospel of Matthew: “It is striking that many of the parables (in Matthew) seem to be clothed in violent descriptions of God’s judgment, emphasizing divine retribution and the suffering of the damned with an apparent relish” (213).

A case in point is Matthew’s parable of the wedding banquet (Matthew 22:1-14). According to Luke’s version of the parable, when the invited guests don’t show up and people from the roads and country lanes were invited instead, the strongest words used about those who didn’t show up are, “I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet” (Luke14:15-24). But Matthew tacks on the account of how one of these latter guests is condemned because of failing to wear proper wedding attire: “Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

In response to the claims of Weaver and Flood, I combed through all four gospels and discovered that their assertions are correct. On a few occasions in the other gospels, Jesus speaks of harsh consequences for bad behavior: For example; in Luke 12:47, the servant who is unfaithful to his master will be beaten with many blows; in Luke 19:27, his enemies are to be killed; and in Luke 20:47, unscrupulous teachers of the law will be punished severely. But Matthew seemingly cannot keep himself from adding elements to numerous texts that refer to people being thrown into a fiery furnace or utter darkness where extreme torture will elicit responses of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth – again and again!

So what are we to make of Matthew’s version of these accounts over against those of the other gospel writers? The irony is that it is the Gospel of Matthew that seems also to have the clearest call to love our enemies even unto death.

Flood asks a probing question: “Is it possible that Matthew’s violent additions to the Jesus-story are a reflection of the worldly religious thought-world that Jesus was trying to move us ‘away’ from, and that Matthew was perhaps, to some degree, still captive to it” (216)?  Is Matthew’s perspective influenced, perhaps, by the fact that he is writing for a Jewish audience to prove that Jesus was the Messiah and that his account, therefore, is often rooted in Old Testament thought patterns? And does the fact that Matthew wrote his gospel in the troubled period shortly before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. affect his violent rhetoric?

Miroslav Volf makes a point that it is, indeed, more difficult to come to the conclusion to love our enemies even unto death when we are actually being threatened. Even so, Matthew clearly calls his readers to love their enemies, but seemingly allows for the possibility that it is God who will wreak vengeance on those who oppose them and the way of God’s kingdom. Picking up on this thought, Flood says: “If the hope of God’s future retaliation on our behalf can help people to cope with their feelings of hurt in the face of being wronged, allowing them to restrain themselves from being pulled into the self-perpetuating cycles of revenge, then this can be regarded as a positive move in the right direction… It is an appeal that speaks to people  who feel a need for vengeance, beginning there, and pulling them in the direction of nonviolence and peace” (222-223).

As modern Bible readers we have the advantage of seeing that, at least according to the other gospel writers, Matthew’s view represents a less-than-ultimate view of God, just like we can see that the New Testament represents a less-than-ultimate view of slavery, for example. At the same time we can see that Matthew’s view – leaving the vengeance to God – is farther along the way toward the Kingdom than the eye-for-an-eye approach used in the Old Testament. This explanation may not be entirely satisfactory to all, but I think it does represent an honest attempt to explain the stark difference between the way Matthew and the other gospel writers portray God.

J. Denny Weaver is helpful here as well. He suggests that ultimately it is the “narrative of Jesus” that should be the arbiter when it comes to understanding the nature of God: “If God is revealed in Jesus, as Christian faith professes, then God should be considered nonviolent as a reflection of the nonviolence of Jesus” (125).

So the question we are left with is, if we read the New Testament like Jesus read the Old, whether we are called upon to leave Matthew’s violent images behind. Flood and Weaver think so.