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How do you resist oppression? Is nationalism ever right? Can a group be nationalist while at the same time collaborating with the imperial oppressor? Can a movement draw deep from it's own national heritage but still be transnational? Those are the questions that today's episode wrestles with through this second passage of Matthew 16.

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The Pharisees and Sadducees join forces to challenge Jesus, but Jesus isn't interested in their credential system.

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The encounter with the Canaanite Woman in the last episode broke open a whole new frontier for the movement. The movement for a new society can now include all people.

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The story gives us a surprise twist. Is Jesus showing his humanity, or is he a really clever teacher?

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When an oppressed people express their desires for liberation, they often do it by demonstrating zeal for their national culture and traditions. But oppressed people are often divided into factions, each accusing the other of not being sufficiently dedicated to the cause, not demonstrating sufficient zeal for the national traditions. That is what we see playing out in the first passage of chapter 15 in Matthew.

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This second sea crossing recalls both Israel's seminal story of liberation and the boastful thoughts of a Seleucid emperor.

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The rich and the powerful party at the expense of the poor, but the common poor can create their own new society of abundance for all!

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This is a long episode, but a very important one. In this episode, I make clear something that I have been saying throughout the series, that Jesus, as portrayed in Matthew, is opposed to the power of Temples and Priests (all of them, not just in Israel). 

This episode contains longer musical interludes (to break it up and give listeners time to absorb the concepts), all composed by David Martyn.

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This episode concludes a chapter in which Jesus speaks in riddles, revealing the hidden things, the wonderful secrets of the new society. Again, nothing is as it seems. Jesus attempts a great scribal reversal, making the peasants scribes, and leaving the scribal class on the outside, lacking understanding. This reversal is rejected...but wait...nothing is as it seems.

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The movement for the New Society is sneaky and spreads through the unwashed masses.