within the structure of the second phase of Jesus’ ministry

In the second phase of his ministry (Mt 16:21–25:46), Jesus announces his coming suffering and death three times (Mt 16:21; 17:22–23; 20:17–19).

With each announcement, Matthew follows the same repetitive pattern.

(cf. Grobbelaar 2008:313–315). Firstly, he describes the announcement by Jesus. After the announcement follows the disciples’ total lack of understanding of Jesus’ words. Each time, Jesus reacts with an image.

Each image has more or less the same message: unless you change. With these images, Jesus calls his disciples to a radical life conversion or transformation. The radicalism of these images lies in the fact that each one clashes with the core values of the 1st-century Mediterranean world.

It challenges the disciples to start living a new culture with new core values in the midst of the surrounding Mediterranean culture and even their own Jewish heritage.

The first announcement is in Matthew 16:21. The misunderstanding comes to the fore in Peter’s reaction. He reprimands Jesus (Mt 16:22)! It is a clear sign that two different value systems are at work here.

Kingsbury (1986b) describes these two different value systems as follows:

[T]hat grounded in ‘thinking the things of God’, and that grounded in ‘thinking the things of men’ (16:23). Since Jesus thinks the things of God, he is ‘self-giving’ and

construes his passion in terms of rendering to others self-sacrificial service (20:28).

Since Peter and the disciples think the things of men, they are ‘self-concerned’, bent on saving their lives and avoid suffering and death (16:25). (p. 15)

After Jesus’ reprimand to Peter follows a discourse with the disciples (Mt 16:24–28). In this discourse, Jesus calls them to a radical life change through the image of taking up your cross (Mt 16):

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (vv. 24 –25)

In Matthew 17:22–23, we find the second announcement. This time, the disciples become very grieved. Again, their self-directed value system comes to the fore. Their reaction to Jesus’ pronouncement of his coming death is to ask Jesus about the most important ones in the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18:1). This is followed by Jesus’ discourse with the disciples in Matthew 18:2–35. As part of this discourse, Jesus calls the disciples again to a radical life change through the metaphor of becoming like children (Mt 18):

He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’ (vv. 2–5)

It is quite ironic that, after the announcement of Jesus’ death, the disciples are concerned about who is actually the most important amongst them (Hagner 1995:517). The fact that this important question did not just have a theoretical bearing amongst the disciples becomes clear from the painful events that followed Jesus’ third announcement of his suffering (Hagner 1995:517).

With the third announcement in Matthew 20:17–19, Matthew records the understanding of Jesus’ followers in two ways. Firstly, he

mentions the reaction of the mother of the sons of Zebedee. It is followed by the reaction of the disciples towards her behaviour. The woman’s reaction is to come to Jesus with her two sons. Just like the disciples in Matthew 18:1, she asks Jesus: ‘Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom’ (Mt 20:21). The disciples become very angry with the two brothers. Their mother’s question creates the impression that they themselves want to be more important than the other disciples. These reactions are followed by the discourse in Matthew 20 where Jesus calls his disciples to a radical life change – to be not like the authorities but rather to become servants:

But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you;

but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’ (vv. 25–28)

Kingsbury (1986b:113) indicates that Matthew’s story of the disciples in this second phase of Jesus is dominated by the motif that the willingness to serve others is an essential aspect of being a disciple.

Matthew 18:1–14 forms part of Jesus’ attempt to build into his disciples’

lives this essential aspect of discipleship. To follow Jesus and to serve other people require a great transformation in each disciple’s life. It seems that this transforming process described in the three pericopes, namely to take up your cross and to lose your life, to become like a child and to become like a servant or a slave, is similar to one another and has the same meaning and intention. Jesus calls the disciples who want to follow him to lay down their old selfish lives and to become new persons with a new value system, the value system of the kingdom of God.

Comparison with the passages in the other two