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A Pastoral Experiment_ The |Re'Reading| of the Gospel of St. Matthew in its Jewish Context
Louise-Marie Niesz, NDS

"Necessity is the Mother of Invention"

The experiment I should like to describe here came into being because of the distress of a group of Christian catechists. I do not propose however to go into the situation of catechetics in general which, if not hopeless, is at least extremely precarious.

A group of discouraged catechists were waiting and hoping for some magical formula, some instant solution of a pedagogical or psychological nature that would enable them to make their message a living one. They recognised on reflection, however, that easy solutions were not forthcoming and that they would have to put much personal effort into searching for a complete change of mentality if they were to effectively fill the gaps that gradually came to light.

They became conscious, first of all, of their lack of biblical formation. They had some knowledge of the bible, it is true, but had no over-all view of the divine plan underlying revelation. They then found that their lack of a truly biblical theology limited them to a "moralizing" terminology in their teaching. Finally they became aware that they had no knowledge of the "sources" that would show them to what extent Christianity is rooted in Judaism. Where would they be able to supply the gaps they had found in their formation?

It was at this point that we began together to open the Gospel of St. Matthew in order to try to pick up the lost threads of the religious tradition of the milieu in which this Gospel was born. From that moment onwards one discovery led to another, each one becoming a self evident fact, then a conviction.

Our Christian teaching, cut off as it was from itsroots, did not have much impact or credibility among the young any more. We had to retrace its roots, return to its historical context, the Jewish milieu in which Christianity was born. Reading attentively we soon noticed that the message of the New Testament cannot be understood when it is cut off from its Jewish situation. There is an essential unity in the divine plan which must not be disturbed. We must therefore understand Judaism and Christianity as belonging to the same plan, as both being indispensable to the plan of God.

Reading St. Matthew "according to the Scriptures"

There are more than a hundred quotations from the Old Testament in the Gospel of St. Matthew and these are the basic materials of its structure as a book. If we want to understand how this biblical heritage is used by the authors of the New Testament, we must give up once and for all the destructive view that Jewish tradition, the one tradition that can give meaning to what is written there, can be left out of account. Furthermore, Jewish categories of thought, including the main data of rabbinical exegesis, must be restored to their proper place in our Christian thinking.

For example, Matthew wrote his Gospel to tell us of his own faith and the faith of his community in Jesus as the Messiah, but we cannot understand the term Messiah at all outside of Jewish tradition. It is not enough simply to refer to Scripture in order to understand its significance, determined as this is by the course of Jewish history. It is necessary to know and to take into account the growth, the real ferment of the messianic idea before and during the lifetime of Jesus in order to understand how the Christian phenomenon became possible within the Jewish milieu.

How do we know that the Jews of the Bible were waiting for the Messiah? — from rabbinical tradition. Without this tradition the belief, professed by Christians that Jesus is the Messiah, remains a mere statement devoid of authenticity. It is exactly this which explains the deadlock in our catechesis — its lack of roots.

What is meant here is not only the insufficiency of religious instruction for children but the religious crisis, the crisis of identity, the Christological crisis of our faith. Nowadays the Church does not have only one Christology but at least ten. Tomorrow, who knows? Where will the process stop if we do not go back to the true basis of our faith, the understanding of Scripture within a living tradition?

Jewish Tradition in St. Matthew

Let us go back to the Gospel of St. Matthew. How is it possible to explain the amount of space given to the genealogy of Jesus in this Gospel without knowing something of the significance in Jewish tradition of genealogy, of generation, of paternity, examples of which are to be found throughout the Bible? What meaning can the visit of the Magi (Mt. 2) have for someone who has no knowledge of the stories of the Midrash and how they are told?

What becomes of the "sign of Jonah" without the Midrash? What is the meaning of the presence of Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration without reference to the roles attributed to them by the oral tradition ofthe Jews and their place in Jewish liturgy? Matthew says that the disciples saw the transfigured Jesus standing between Moses and Elijah and that afterwards they saw him alone. But who is Jesus alone without Moses pointing to his roots in the oral and written tradition and in the whole existence of the Jewish people? Who is he without Elijah, his forerunner both messianically and eschatologically, who by his presence extends until the end of time the reality of Jesus the Lord? Only with Moses and Elijah can Jesus appear as the Lord of all human history, Jewish and Gentile.

The Beatitudes are always treated as the charter of the Christian life, the "new law" which is seldom discussed with reference to the Torah except in order to contrast the two, to put the so-called "new" law in the place of the so-called "old", although this facile confrontation goes against the very spirit of the Gospels.

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets" (Mt. 5:17). It seems that Christianity has over-spiritualized this message as though nothing were important except the final conclusion of the Revelation. But we have not yet reached that conclusion and we are not yet in that ideal state. We have yet to work towards achieving it, placed as we are in the tension between the "already" and the "not yet".

The field between these two poles provides the power behind all Christian dynamics. The "already" tells us that Jesus came "not to destroy but to fulfil" and the "not yet" places us in the reality of human history on its way to fulfilment. On this journey the Jewish people, the Church and all humanity are travelling together — all are awaiting the Messiah.

The Jewish people is there, living amongst us like a point of reference, a witness, a beacon set up for us all to prevent us from losing our bearings.