Reading the Gospels Together The Storyline of Matthew’s Gospel – Part 8 Still following Mark, Matthew now tells the story of Jesus teaching by use of parables. Matthew follows Mark nearly word for word in the telling of the parable of the sower and its explanation. He also follows Mark’s peculiar statement that Jesus uses parable not to reveal but to conceal. Matthew now drops out Mark’s parables about the lamp on the lampstand and the seed growing on its own and inserts a deadly parable about weeds growing in the wheat along with its explanation. Matthew retains Mark’s parable about the mustard seed and adds to it another parable he shares with Luke about yeast in the flour. And Matthew finishes off this section with three more parables only he will tell. While it is not as clear as the previous two discourses, Matthew’s expansion of Mark effectively turns this section into a third discourse of Jesus. This time its point is aimed mostly at the rejection of the Jewish people of Jesus. The parable of the weeds in the wheat is a parable only Matthew tells and its explanation speaks of children of God and children of the devil. Matthew’s own community is made up of the children of God and their opponents, the Jewish people who have rejected Jesus as the Messiah are the children of the devil. Even the parable of the sower is now likely directly mostly at those who do not receive Jesus as the Messiah. Matthew has subtly shifted the emphasis of this parable section warning his disciples, and through them Matthew’s own community, that not everyone receives the kingdom of heaven. Yet Jesus also promises them that the kingdom will indeed come. As Jesus concludes this discourse he asks his disciples who have been his audience if they understand all of this. They say they do and we have no reason to doubt that Matthew thinks that is in fact the truth. Such a thing would never have been said by Mark regarding the disciples, but as we have noted Matthew has characterized the disciples in a much more positive light. Since Matthew had already reordered Mark’s stories of the deeds of power done by Jesus and moved Mark’s stories of Jesus stilling the storm, the healing of the man possessed by demons who lived in Gentile territory across the seas, and the healing of Jairus’ daughter and the woman with the flow of blood earlier in his gospel, he now picks up Mark’s story of Jesus’ return to his hometown of Nazareth. Matthew tells this story in essentially the same way Mark. And since Matthew had moved his account of the missionary journey of the disciples to an earlier time, he omits it here but does tell his readers the account of the murder of John the baptist which Mark had inserted into the missionary venture. Matthew is following Mark quite closely at this time and changes nothing in Mark’s stories. From the murder of John the baptist, Matthew moves on to the story of the feeding of the 5000 which is essential the same as Mark’s and then on to Mark’s story of Jesus walking on the water – two stories as we have noted that are shared in this exact same order by Mark, Matthew and John. Matthew does make some significant changes to the story of Jesus walking on the water. First of all Matthew expands the story in a way that none of the other three gospel writers do by telling of Peter walking on the water with Jesus. Matthew has also changed Mark’s perspective by removing from it the notion that Jesus was attempting to reveal himself to the disciples by “passing them by.” Matthew and John tell their readers that the disciples are terrified at the sight of Jesus. Finally, and this is the most important change, Matthew tells his readers that when Jesus gets in the boat his disciples worship him and say to Jesus, “Truly you are the Son of God.” Matthew places the disciples in a very positive light. Once again Matthew has not retained Mark’s view that the disciples are total failures. Following Mark, Matthew ends this section by telling of the healing of many at Gennesaret. Matthew continues to follow Mark without any change as he relates the contentious discussion with the Pharisees and scribes about the tradition of the elders and the Gentile woman who lives in the region of Tyre. Mark had called her a Syrophoenician woman and Matthew changes that to a Canaanite woman which is only a minor change although calling her a Canaanite does seem to make her even more ineligible for help. At this point Matthew omits Mark’s story of Jesus healing the deaf mute man by putting his fingers in his ears and saliva on his tongue and provides a summary statement of the ministry of Jesus along the shores of the Sea of Galilee. We might remember that Mark had used some rather strange geography to bring Jesus to the Decapolis on the south side of the Sea of Galilee which is Gentile territory via Sidon. Matthew omits this journey and simply brings Jesus back to Galilee. That means that the second feeding of the 4000 takes place in Galilee and not Gentile territory. Only Matthew and Mark tell us this story of a second feeding of 4000 people. Luke and John have only one feeding story which matches Mark’s and Matthew’s earlier story. As we begin to look at these storylines together we will need to ask the question if perhaps there was only one feeding story that Mark chose to tell twice to highlight the ineptitude of the disciples or if there were actually two feeding stories. Matthew does not soften Mark’s portrayal of the disciples in this second feeding. One can only wonder why they can’t figure out how Jesus is going to feed these people since he has just a short time ago fed the 5000. But that does not seem to be a concern for Matthew. He found the story in Mark and repeats it. Matthew also follows Mark in telling of how the religious leaders demand a sign in spite of the miraculous feeding. Matthew concludes this section by following Mark in telling of the disciples out in the boat. We may remember that Jesus is incredibly frustrated with the disciples in Mark’s story and bombards them with a series of questions that highlights their dullness. Matthew repeats most of Jesus questions and comments; however, Jesus does not wonder if his disciples’ hearts are hardened as in Mark and in the end Matthew tells us that the disciples do understand.