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Seminar 15:
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Jesus: The Compassion of God: The Distinctive Spirituality of St Matthew's GospelThe Gospel of Matthew invites us to look out at humanity through the eyes of Jesus and see it as He sees it: in particular, as burdened and afflicted. Taking up the role of the Servant figure of Isaiah, Jesus comes among us as the healing presence of God ("Emmanuel: God with us"), who promulgates a burde-lifting, rather than burden-imposing interpretation of the Torah (Law). He does so on the basis that what God wants is "mercy, not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6; Matthew 9:13; 12:7) and that the "weightier matters" of the law are "justice, mercy and faith" (Matthew 23:23). By adopting and living out this mission of Jesus, the community of the Church takes up Israel's mission to be "salt of the earth" and "light of the world" . It is not a community of the perfect: it contains good and bad; its faith is often weak. Like Peter, it follows Jesus' bidding to come to him in faith across the water (14:28-33). In their dealings with each other, its members try to reflect the acceptance, compassion and forgiveness they have themselves experienced from God (Matthew 18).
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