Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States - Lutheran Seminary's God Pause "Moved by the Promise" for Friday, 24 October 2014 - Matthew 22:34=45

Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States - Lutheran Seminary's God Pause "Moved by the Promise" for Friday, 24 October 2014 - Matthew 22: The Most Important Command
34-36 When the Pharisees heard how he had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: “Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?”
37-40 Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”
David’s Son and Master
41-42 As the Pharisees were regrouping, Jesus caught them off balance with his own test question: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said, “David’s son.”
43-45 Jesus replied, “Well, if the Christ is David’s son, how do you explain that David, under inspiration, named Christ his ‘Master’?
God said to my Master,
    “Sit here at my right hand
    until I make your enemies your footstool.”
“Now if David calls him ‘Master,’ how can he at the same time be his son?”(The Message)
Tough one, eh? (I had to get that Canadianism in someplace; perhaps a Norwegian Uffda might do, too.) In forty-five years of preaching, I likely ignored this passage more often than not—in favor of the preceding seven verses of the lectionary text. In this passage, Jesus uncharacteristically becomes the aggressor in questioning, and his logic may seem convoluted, at best. What is he saying?
He may have been contrasting his own messiahship with the then-prevalent concept of a Davidic messiah who would come to restore a political realm through military force by necessity, if not by preference. It's a concept that prevails to this day as nations seek to become dominant politically, militarily or economically. (Canada, being a middle-power, is, by default, somewhat immune to this seeking of domination, with one notable exception: hockey!)
Along came a different kind of messiah: One who, instead of inflicting suffering and death upon others, took that suffering upon himself and died with it, breaking the cycle of retribution. Then there can be new life—a resurrection. And there is. Thanks be to God.
Forgive us, O God, in our seeking to dominate one another, personally, in communities and as nations. Lead us to follow the messiahship of Jesus as he gave of himself unto death and was brought to a joyful resurrection. Amen.
Lanny Knutson
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada 
Master of Divinity , 1969
Matthew 22:34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together,
35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.
36 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"
37 He said to him, " "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'
38 This is the greatest and first commandment.
39 And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question:
42 "What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David."
43 He said to them, "How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,
44 "The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet" '?
45 If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?"(New Revised Standard Version)
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