Proper 6: Exodus 19.2-8a; Psalm 100; Romans 5.1-8; Matthew 9.35–10.8 (9-23)

MATTHEW 9.35 has “a nice rhythm”, my commentary says, highlighting three activities of Jesus: “teaching”, “proclaiming”, and “healing”. That is Jesus’s ministry in a nutshell. Other elements of his being are revealed by different ways. The Passion, for example, reveals his identity as Saviour. The incarnation reveals him as the Word.

In this summary of Jesus’s ministry, the Evangelist adds some information. “Teaching” refers to communications of truth in groups gathered together to learn about God (the word “synagogue” means a coming together of people). “Preaching” moves out from faith communities, showing Jesus active in the wider world, spreading the good news to outsiders. “Healing” brings in a third aspect of ministry: not telling people about God, but showing people about God. For this, the NRSV refers to people’s “disease and sickness”. Other modern translations take a similar path. But the second word used (malakia in Greek) means first “softness”, then “weakness”, rather than “sickness”.

Only Matthew attaches this noun to Jesus’s healing ministry. It occurs three times (4.23, 9.35, 10.1), always after the word for diseases (nosoi). But it is not mere verbal variation. “Weakness”, after all, is not the same thing as disease. Two possibilities suggest themselves. One is that Matthew is thinking of different ways of needing healing: one for diseases (infections, viruses, cancers), the other for debilities such as paralysis, blindness, deafness, mutism. The other possibility is non-physical: outside the New Testament, this noun for “weakness” is used, in some non-Christian texts, to mean moral weakness, ranging from cowardice to “effeminacy” — a word hardly current, for good reasons, in modern moral discourse (the adjective, malakos, is found in Matthew 11.8, Luke 7.25, and 1 Corinthians 6.9).

I think it unlikely that Matthew is trying to represent Jesus as being on a moral crusade against — another dated term — “unmanliness”. Rather, he is ensuring that his audience understands the whole range of physical needs over which Jesus has healing power and authority.

Moving on to 10.1-2 brings a momentous shift. But, because it happens without introduction first or explanation afterwards, there is a real risk that we will miss it altogether. Between these two verses, the “disciples” turn into “apostles”. Putting this in less churchy terms, we might say that Jesus’s “pupils” become his “messengers”. That change of terminology may indicate that Matthew the Evangelist has switched from one source to another. Or perhaps he had his list of the apostles to hand, and thought that here was a good place to insert it. This is the first time in his Gospel (and so the first example in the New Testament) that the word “apostle” has been used. Yet Matthew does not explain its meaning, or say why he has introduced it here. Perhaps he expects his audience will know already.

Matthew’s picture of Jesus’s ministry in 9.35 recurs in those instructions to the Twelve, when he gives them authority and sends them out. They are not instructed to “teach” in the synagogues, but the other two elements of Jesus’s ministry from 9.35 are mentioned. When they are told to proclaim the good news (10.7), it is good news not just of “the kingdom” but of the “kingdom of heaven”. When they are sent to heal the sick, this is now itemised: it is to encompass raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and casting out demons.

Perhaps this last form of healing — exorcism — is intended to meet the needs that Matthew has in mind when he speaks of “weakness”. It seems consistent with the Gospel as a whole that the Lord’s response to humankind, and then that of the Twelve, is to provide strength for human vulnerability (another possible term for expressing that “weakness”).

One small point that I find touching in its humanity comes at 10.3. Almost from the beginning of Christianity, Matthew the Evangelist and Matthew the tax collector have been identified as the same person. That is still the likeliest explanation of why this Gospel, uniquely, tells of a tax collector called Matthew (9.9, 10.3). The other three Evangelists either do not associate the disciple Matthew with being a tax collector (Mark, Luke), or do not mention him at all (John). Perhaps the Evangelist adds “the tax collector”, like a medieval craftsman signing his work on a roof beam out of sight — a quiet mark of personal pride at the part that he has played in Jesus’s ministry of teaching, preaching, and healing.