Reading the Gospels Together The Storyline of Matthew’s Gospel – Part 5 As Jesus comes down from the mountain, Matthew picks up Mark’s story where he had left it. He begins by telling Mark’s story of the healing of a leper. Matthew then inserts a story that he shares with Luke and perhaps even with John of a centurion’s servant who is healed by Jesus from afar. As with the Magi, this foreign Gentile recognizes Jesus when Jewish people don’t. Matthew now goes back and picks up Mark’s story of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law. Then Matthew inserts a story of someone who wants to be a follower of Jesus, but is rejected because he wants to first bury his father. This is a story Matthew shares with Luke though in a different context. Matthew now reaches ahead in Mark’s gospel to tell the story of Jesus asleep in the boat on the sea while the disciples react in panic. Mark had followed the story with the healing of the demoniac named Legion so Matthew continues with that story but changes it by dropping out the name of Legion and telling his readers that there were two demoniacs. Matthew also changes the place where this happened since Mark’s setting for the healing of Legion was several miles from the sea and it would have been impossible for the herd of swine to have plunged into the sea in Mark’s setting. Matthew has shortened both of these stories. At this point Matthew returns to pick up Mark’s story of the healing of the paralytic man and Jesus’ pronouncement that his sins are forgiven. As in Mark, the religious leaders question in their hearts regarding Jesus. Following Mark, Jesus tells the story of the call of a tax collector who Matthew identifies as a man named Matthew and not Levi. When Mark listed the twelve Apostles’ he listed a Matthew and not Levi. It is likely that Matthew saw himself as “correcting” Mark at this point. There is likely nothing more invested in this name change than to make certain for Matthew’s readers that this tax collector called to be the fifth disciple was a member of the twelve. Following Mark, Matthew tells of the banquet in Matthew’s house and the questioning of the Pharisees about the appropriateness of such an event. Matthew adds to Mark’s explanation that Jesus has come to heal the sick, an OT reference where God says he desires mercy and not sacrifice. Again following Mark, Matthew tells the episode of the disciples of Jesus being question about their lack of fasting which the Pharisees and disciples of John the baptist do fast. Absent for the time being are the stories of Jesus disciples “harvesting” on the Sabbath and the healing of the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath. Matthew will tell those stories later. Once again, Matthew jumps forward in Mark to tell the story of the healing of the woman with a flow of blood and the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue in a much condensed version than Mark had told these same stories. Matthew concludes this series of stories which he has mostly gathered from Mark by adding two stories that Mark did not tell – or at least Mark did not tell at this time and in this version. The first is the story of Jesus healing two blind men. Mark does tell stories of the healing of blind men later. The first story is that peculiar story of Jesus needing to heal the blind man twice. Matthew does not tell that story. And the second will be the healing of Bartimeaus which is a story that Matthew also tells in the same place as Mark does but dropping out the name Bartimeaus and instead telling again about the healing of two blind men. Mark will also tell the story of the healing of a deaf mute man in a peculiar way where Jesus uses saliva. Matthew does not tell that story but drops it out of Mark’s order at that point. So if these two stories are related to those two stories of Mark the connection is at least veiled. Matthew ends this series of stories with the ominous note that the Pharisees claim that it is by the ruler of the demons that Jesus casts out demons. As we follow Matthew’s storyline we need to notice a few things. We have noticed how Matthew has mixed Mark’s stories together in a different order. Matthew has jumped around in Mark and gathered a whole series of stories together that Mark had ordered in a different way. By doing this Matthew has dissolved what was for Mark a particular reason for telling these stories in the order that he did. In Mark the first set of stories were gathered and ordered by Mark in a particular way to expose the religious leaders as the deadly opposition to Jesus. Matthew’s reordering of the stories loses that impact. And we need to notice that something very important for Mark is simply missing from Matthew. Matthew does not tell the story of Jesus’ family coming to take him home because they think he has gone out of his mind. Matthew will pick up a part of that story in which Jesus comes into conflict with the religious leaders who accuse him of casting out demons by the power of the devil. In fact, Matthew adds that in an abbreviated way at the end of this series of stories. And Matthew will speak of Jesus’ mother and brothers waiting outside as he defines his family as those who follow God’s will. But both of these will come at a much later time in Matthew’s gospel and in a completely different context. Why did Matthew reorder all these stories? Actually, Matthew seems to have far less interest in their ordering. Did he recognize what Mark was doing and decide to undo it? Perhaps, but more likely Matthew was simply providing his readers with a hodgepodge of stories all examples of the power of Jesus to work miracles. There is no point to their ordering for Matthew. He doesn’t want to make a point with the telling of them. He simply wants his readers to hear stories of how Jesus healed many. And, by the way, by doing this Matthew has taken much of the tension and uneasiness out of the story Mark has told. To be sure, the exposing of the religious leaders as the deadly opponents of Jesus remains. But readers of Matthew’s gospel do not know about the tragic opposition of Jesus’ family or of the disciples at this time. Matthew will need to deal with the weakness of the followers of Jesus later, but for now Matthew has left that out, sparing his readers of that tension.