Sermon 6/19/05
Family Values - Matthew 10:24-39
(view lectionary notes for this text)
As Paulette Pierce and I were talking about our plans for today, this day of celebration in our church, I showed her this gospel passage I just read, and asked her what she thought about including it today, amidst our celebration. I watched her read quickly through the passage, and I watched her expression change from interest to the “Ugh” she ultimately expressed at the conclusion of the passage. “Alright,” she said, “but you better explain it.”
Today’s text is full of all sorts of good stuff from Jesus, each one worth its own sermon, I think. In the first section, Jesus tells us: “it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the Master.” Sometimes we get confused, Jesus suggests – disciples thinking they are above their master, or that they are the master. As Christians, we can get confused too: we think that we have to be Christ, instead of seeking simply to be Christ-like. We’d rather play God than serve God, and in the process, we hurt others and ourselves. Seek to be like the Master, Jesus urges, and so we seek to be imitators of Jesus.
The second section is a jumble of sayings altogether. The part that sticks most clearly in my mind, though, is this: “are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from you Father. And even the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.” These words are so comforting. They say to me that in a life where we are defined by our numbers: ATM codes, Social Security Numbers, phone numbers, account numbers, and more, when who we are can be pared down so simply, classified, categorized, and filed, these words remind me that the one who created me still knows me better than I know myself and values me beyond my imagination. And values you. And values every single created thing with such intensity, that each part of us, each hair on our head is known to our God.
But finally we come to the hardest part of the passage, and it’s hard to deal with it in light of the words we’ve just examined, hard to deal with it in light of this day of celebration and graduation and picnicking, hard to deal with it even if it was there standing on it’s own as a few lines. It is this part that made Paulette go, “ugh.” Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have come not to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
On a day that we might label a “family celebration,” of our own families or of our church family, these words serve as a shocking wake-up. We often hear the phrase “family values” tossed around these days, or even “biblical family values,” and I always wonder what people mean when they say that – the Bible is home to some of the most dysfunctional families I know, from Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers, to Abraham trying to pass Sarah off as his sister instead of his wife, to Rebekah scheming with her son to trick the other son out of his birthright, to scandalous affairs like David and Bathsheba. And in the gospels – here we find Jesus once asking, “who is my mother,” when he’s told Mary is asking for him, urging people to drop everything to follow him, and here, telling his disciples they must turn against their closest relatives to be disciples. Family values indeed.
“I come not to bring peace, but a sword,” Jesus says. What is Jesus really saying? Does he mean it? Is this the same person who talks frequently of the peace that he brings into our lives and hearts when we are in relationship with him? Later, when Jesus is being arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, he tells his disciples to put away their swords. “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword,” he says. This is the Jesus who refused to be the revolutionary leader that many wanted him to be. So he must mean something other than a vision of an armed Christ who breaks up families. How do we understand, accept these words? To me it is amazing how one passage from the bible can contain words of such tenderness, like those about how much God values us, and then contain words of such challenge and heartache, like these that would divide us from those we love most.
Jesus is speaking in a time when discipleship carried greater risks than it does today, at least here in the United States. Then, to be a disciple of Jesus meant a completely new way of life, and it meant almost certain persecution, and it meant traveling to preach the gospel, literally going from village to village to talk about God’s kingdom. No wonder families divided over such decisions of discipleship. Today, perhaps discipleship doesn’t carry the same tangible requirements. Perhaps it is less overtly risky. But the sword that Jesus brings still calls us to challenge ourselves. Bishop MaryAnn Swenson writes that the sword is “divisive and decisive. It cuts through with a clear identity. It’s about purpose.” It is “the cutting edge,” this sword, that “cleaves between” what we have been, and what we are becoming, that signifies that knowing Christ has caused radical changes in our lives. God calls us to the edge of life – the edge where we find ourselves with the least, the lost, the last, and there at the edge, we find our purpose. Swenson continues, “Our identity is Christ’s mission in the world . . . It is that purpose that binds us, that names us, nothing else. No matter what our words have been . . . if the world is not different because you and I have come here, then it’s because you and I have put something other than Christ at the center of our lives. Jesus comes with a sword. The sword cuts to purpose, to results. And I believe that Jesus is extremely impatient for the results. He is impatient for the results because he is passionate about people. It is a divine, consuming love that cuts to the results.” (1)
Does any of this make Jesus’ words easier to hear? If we are looking for a way to be more comfortable with Jesus’ words today, there aren’t any easy solutions. But we can remember that the same Jesus who makes us squirm in our seats also speaks to us with such compassion about God’s great love for us. Always challenging, and always comforting. Because Jesus loves us, Jesus wants us to not settle for what is less than the best God has called us to. And because we are precious and counted as loved, Jesus wants us to experience the life of discipleship that promises rewards nothing else offers. For “those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for Christ’s sake will find it.” Amen.
(1) Swenson, MaryAnn. 2000.org/dca/pdf/0513/DCASermonSwenson0513.pdf