As I read it my immediate thought is that this was written for a people under persecution. In my last few blogs, I have become increasingly aware of that. Although it is impossible for most people in the Western world to really know the fear of persecution, it is certainly worth thinking about.
There are two different streams of thought on the dating of Matthew and either of the proposed dates would place it during a time of suffering and upheaval.
The widespread view dates it between 75-95 CE, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. This would place it during the aftermath of the Jewish-Roman War and a period which saw the expulsion of Jewish Christians from the synagogues because of growing theological conflicts with Pharisaic Judaism.
An earlier church tradition places it during the reign of Emperor Nero (54-68 CE), a time of intense and brutal physical persecution in Rome. This earlier dating suggests that Matthew may have functioned as something like a manual for discipleship preparing believers to face martyrdom, hardship, familial discord and emphasizing that worldly rejection was to be expected.
Set against this background of persecution, written for a specific people at a specific time, the text starts to make more sense. It is full of little adages:
"Do not fear those who kill the body." (28)
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth." (34)
"I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother." (35)
"One's foes will be members of one's own household." (36)
These were not words promising protection from persecution. They were words intended to encourage those going through persecution. The end was assumed to be inevitable. Some would die, some would be ostracized, some would face betrayal within their own families. This is not hard to imagine; history, including the Holocaust, has shown that family members sometimes betray one another when fear and ideology take hold.
I do not think the gospel is advocating violence or division. Rather, the gospel is describing the painful reality that discipleship itself can become divisive when the values of God's Realm clash with the values of empire, family expectations, or religious conformity. Faithfulness itself can carry a cost.
Perhaps the stinger in the tail is the warning that if Christ was denied on earth, then Christ in turn would deny them in the age to come, and that anyone who loves family more than Christ is unworthy. These are hard words to read today, and they must have been even harder for those facing persecution. Hard choices. Choices which I hope none of us will ever have to make.
Yet buried among these difficult sayings were small frissons of hope.
Not hope for a long life on earth. That option seemed already to have been surrendered. But hope that death is not the end and that the soul goes on.
And there is a second small thread of hope woven into this passage. Jesus points to the sparrows.
"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father-Mother." (29)
Notice that in the text Jesus does not say that sparrows never fall. They do. Nor is there a promise that disciples will be spared suffering. They too may fall. Persecution is not avoided.
But neither sparrow nor disciple falls outside the loving gaze of God.
Perhaps that is enough.
Not certainty. Not safety. Not even earthly peace.
But the assurance that even in betrayal, suffering and death, they are known and loved. That nothing, not rejection, not violence, not even death itself, can finally separate from the love of God.
For people living under Nero or Domitian, that was hope enough.
Perhaps it is hope enough for us today too.
