Saturday, July 19, 2014

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Matthew 26:26-35

The Gospel of Matthew is one that is often acknowledged as a “complex text”*

and Chapter 26 has much reflect upon. This chapter contains some of the critical moments in the lead up to the Crucifixion. Within Chapter 26, we see the moment when Judas approaches the High Priests and is offered the thirty pieces of silver to betray Jesus; we see the lead up to Gethsemane where Jesus is betrayed and arrested and we see the conclusion of the chapter with Jesus’ appearance before the high priest Caiaphas. Today’s passage — Matthew 26:26-35 — is found just over halfway through Chapter 26, just before Jesus and the disciples make their way to Gethsemane. These ten verses make up one of those ‘weighty’ passages of Scripture that contain words and themes so familiar and so fundamental. Thematically, this time, in the lead up to the Passion, is an ‘essential’ time: a time when things must have been fraught, when the disciples are facing great transitions and challenges. It is a time when Jesus is facing the immanency of his own mortal death on the Cross. And, it is a time on this journey to Gethsemane when, as theologian Raymond Brown notes, that the relationship between Jesus and the disciples comes to a “dramatic finale."**

To me, the events described within the latter half of the Gospel of Matthew—and particularly within Chapter 26— have always seemed to have taken place within a period of great disorder and uncertainty. Reading this chapter has always made me feel edgy. Throughout the second half Matthew’s Gospel there have been hints and some instruction about the end times, about the coming of the Son of man and about the salvation which will lie ahead so there should be no particular surprise about what may come.  But, now in Chapter 26 as the disciples take time and sit down to the Passover meal [beginning in Matthew 26:17] it seems that it has all come at us rather quickly and we find ourselves at the outset of Chapter 26 coming to the end times sooner rather than later. Surely, the disciples themselves must have felt somewhat dislocated in all of this. 

Yet into this disorder and ‘noise’ comes a moment of quiet and of pause, as in Matthew 26:26 Jesus and the disciples gather to share the Passover meal. In this intimate setting Jesus speaks directly to his disciples and, for me, the heart of this chapter lies with the verses that begin this passage and which lie in between the eating of the meal [Matthew 26:26] and the hymn they sing before they go out to the Mount of Olives [Matthew 26:30].

²⁶ While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ ²⁷Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you; ²⁸for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins

And here, we find not only what must have been a quiet and important moment for the gathered as they shared together in this most important of meals, but also a moment which resonates for contemporary Christians.  These words, this sharing of bread and wine found within the Gospels, are words preserved within the heart of the Eucharist. For Anglicans both the Book of Alternate Services (BAS) and the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) have kept these words within both the ‘Eucharistic Prayers’ (BAS) and in the ‘Prayer of Consecration’ (BCP) and — whether in ancient or modern language — have retained these words — almost unchanged — as part of the most sacred moments of the Eucharist. In some Anglican churches the importance and essentialness of these oh-so-familiar phrases is marked with bells and incense as the Elements are elevated. Some Celebrants choose to emphasise these words with lowered voice and with bowed head. Regardless of the way in which they are intoned, these familiar few sentences are the point at which one pricks up one’s ear, knowing that it is the moment to focus, to pay attention, to settle to the task of this very essential prayer and to this fundamental moment of sharing first offered to us by Christ himself.  

Notwithstanding the importance and resonance of these two phrases, there is more. Within the second half of this passage there is also a promise. Jesus, as he concludes the sharing of the bread and wine, makes a promise to the disciples. 

I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.

This promise is not just a promise for that time — for the time when the disciples may be facing uncertainty and loss. Instead, this is a covenant for now and it is also a covenant for the future, for all time.

For the disciples this promise would have come right in the middle of the uncertainty and dislocation that they must have been experiencing.  Jesus himself had just told them that they “will all become deserters because of me this night; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered’.” [Matthew 26:31]. That moment has to be one that weighed upon the disciples: it must have been scary, it must have been worrisome. Cut off from the one to whom they’ve made a promise, followed and in whom they have held such faith, the disciples are now told that they are to become deserters because of Him. Yet, here, in the midst of this dark moment, there is also a promise and that promise is a ‘big promise’…from Jesus Himself. It is a promise that offers hope, that offers an assurance of things to come; and, it tells us that along with loss or change there is also gain or constancy. Yes, the shepherd will be struck, and the sheep of flock will be scattered [Matthew 26:31] but there is also the promise of a risen Christ who will appear before them when the disciples gather again in Galilee. It is a promise that even those who have become deserters will again find themselves together and as one with Christ Jesus. 

Thus, it is within this passage that we are reminded that it is not just the sharing and the offering of the bread and wine but it is also the covenant offered to us of salvation by Christ Himself. And we remember that promise and that hope of coming together with Him to “drink it new” in the Kingdom of Heaven and, in the words of Eucharistic Prayer 2 (BAS). 

Remembering therefore his death and resurrection, 

We offer you this bread and this cup 

      Giving thanks that you have made us worthy 

      To stand in your presence and serve you 

- Mary-Cate Garden

[Mary-Cate Garden is Co-Head of the Divinity Class at Trinity College in Toronto]

* cf. Anthony Saldarini (1994) Matthew’s Christian-Jewish Community  

** Raymond Brown (2008) Christ in the Gospels of the Liturgical Year Ronald D Witherup (ed) p 166