Matthew chapter 21 is basically Jesus going around trolling people, which makes it my favorite chapter so far. It starts off with stopping outside of Jerusalem and telling a couple of His disciples to run ahead and steal a donkey so that he can ride into town in style. He advises them to just tell the farmer who it's for--I'm not sure if this is Jesus being all "I am Lord, give me things" or just generic socialism taken a bit far. Either way, the idea of Jesus sitting on a rock outside of town waiting for His friends to bring Him a stolen donkey to ride on is pretty funny.
Once he gets to town, He throws all the peddlers out of the temple and sets up camp to tell stories and perform miracles, which seems like a solid move to me.
The next morning, though, He sees a fig tree that doesn't have any figs, and He's just so miffed about it that he curses it forever (Matt 21:19). I get it, I'm cranky before breakfast too, but that seems a little harsh maybe. Though He does use it as an opportunity to tell His followers that if they're super super good, they'll get magic powers too. Not just to curse impotent fruit trees, but apparently to get anything they pray for (Matt 21:22). It makes me wonder how many people focus on this passage in trying to strengthen their faith. All you've gotta do is never doubt your faith ever, and you get the power to destroy mountains.
I admit I had to look up the meaning of The Parable of the Two Sons (Matt 21:28-32) to understand it. All I knew was Jesus was telling a story, and when they gave what I thought was the right answer to his question, He yelled at them "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you!" (Matt 21:31) which I found both confusing and hilarious. Apparently He means the tax collectors and the prostitutes are the "first son," initially disobeying but then behaving themselves, and the priests and elders of the temple are the "second son," saying they'll obey but really not. This is the start of many, many versus of Jesus finding creative ways of telling the priests and elders that they're terrible.
I felt a little dumb after looking up the meaning of The Parable of the Tenants (Matt 21:33-46) because it seems really obvious now. Just another version of Jesus telling the priests and elders "You guys are the worst and my Dad is maaaad at you!"
And then Matthew chapter 22 is mostly more of that. My favorite parts are always when someone asks Jesus a question, and His first response is to basically tell them they're dumb for not already knowing the answer (in this example, Matt 22:29).
I still don't really get Marriage at Resurrection (Matt 22:23-33). The only part that seems clear is also quite unpleasant, where we're reminded that Moses told everyone that, "if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him," (Matt 22:24). This comes with the disturbing language of a man "leaving" his wife to his brother, as though she were his property. Thumbs down to all of that.
The next passage is another one that a lot of Christians don't seem to take seriously: the greatest commandment is to "Love your Lord" (Matt 22:37), but then right after that the second greatest is "Love your neighbor as yourself," (Matt 22:39). I think there a lot of noisy people who use the Bible as an excuse to not do that, even though Jesus says right here that it's really, really important. I marked this passage as extra important in my own book.
And then Matthew chapter 23 is more of Jesus finding creative ways to tell off the priests and elders. Like the whole thing. I would love to see this scene depicted as a rap battle.
