A sermon preached at Carlton Church of All Nations on Matthew 10:24-39 for Proper 7 (12) Fourth Sunday after Pentecost Year A
This is a hard saying, who can accept it? What an uncomfortable passage to be confronted with, here in our beautiful nineteenth century church, in a safe, modern, pluralist democracy, where we work hard to not exclude people, to be open to the world outside these walls.
I wonder how real it all sounds to us? Sons against fathers, daughters against mothers, “one’s foes will be members of one’s own household”? It sounds, frankly, terrifying. Whenever I hear someone glibly talking about how family-friendly Christianity is, I want to wave this text under their noses.
When I read this text, I wonder why on earth anyone would sign up to be Jesus’ disciples if this is what we can expect?
First up, a little bit of context. We can see in Scripture that Jesus’ teaching and ministry was highly divisive. The religious authorities, of course, had him killed, and I don’t suppose they did that sort of thing lightly. Think of all the political capital they had to burn through, both with the authorities and with the crowds! They obviously saw him as a significant threat.
Even Jesus’ family had difficulty with accepting him. We see Jesus’ mother and his brothers come to fetch him home because they thought he had completely lost his mind. Of course, they do seem to get on board with his programme later on – Mary his mother is at the cross, and then with the disciples when the Holy Spirit is poured out on the Day of Pentecost. And James, described as the “Brother of the Lord” is a key leader in Jerusalem by the time we get to the Acts of the Apostles.
We also know that the religious authorities continued to persecute the dissident minority of Jesus-followers, martyring Stephen, for instance, and then sending Saul off to Damascus to round them up and bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment.
This conflict continued, and probably intensified, in the wake of the failed Jewish revolt and the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70AD. The whole future of Judaism was up for grabs and essentially split, very messily, into two parts: Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism.
And, of course, there was a long history of persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire, leading to the famous phrase “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Lots and lots of conflict and temptation to deny Jesus there.
In many parts of the world, the church is persecuted to this day. Here, being an unfashionably conservative Christian gets you disinvited from dinner parties. In a lot of the world, it can get you killed. Think of the plight of many Christians in China with the government cracking down on unregistered churches. Or the 21 Coptic Christian Martyrs of Libya martyred by Isis in 2015. According to Open Doors, 388 million Christians are exposed to persecution and violence, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. That’s about 1 in 7 Christians world-wide.
Stepping way from large scale oppression and conflict, it is also true that becoming a Christian can lead you into conflict with your nearest and dearest, precisely as Jesus predicted. We live in a much more atomised, self-sufficient society than Jesus did, and breakdowns in family relationship are painful even now. How much worse that must have been when it might have meant being thrown out of the family business, cut out of the will, disowned?
I blessed a civil wedding of an Indonesian couple a few days ago, the husband a Muslim, the wife Christian. I took the opportunity to gently talk about the God of Love, but, as I preached, I wondered what it would mean for my new friends if he were to convert. It’s legal to convert in Indonesia, unlike a lot of Muslim majority countries, but I think it is a pretty shame-based culture, and so the social cost for him and his family would be appreciable.
Even without overt oppression, being a Christian disciple is a tough gig. Scripture is full of warnings about this; stories about kings going to war without fully calculating the strength versus their opponents; people starting ambitious building projects without ensuring they had the money to finish the job as though they were starring in one of the more stressful episodes of Grand Designs.
Jesus says that to be his disciple is to “take up your cross and follow [him].” We have heard it so often that it just washes over us, but Jesus is telling us to take up the tool of your execution and walk to your death.
But yet, the paradox is, it is exactly here that we find life. The reason is right at the beginning of the reading, and again at the end.
It is enough for the student to be like the teacher.
Those who lose their life for Jesus’ sake will find it.
What does this passage tell us about Jesus, about God, and about the world? The last bit is pretty clear: it says that we can expect division. The world does not want to hear what Jesus has to say!
But, behind that, what does it say about Jesus that we are to choose him above acceptance by society, in the face of persecution, even to the point of horrible family conflict?
Who is this Jesus that we should prefer him to everything else?
We are so used to this sort of passage that it is hard to see how very strange it is. A lot of moral teaching is, essentially, this is how to have a good life. A prosperous life. Practical advice, like that doled out by my grandfather – always be early to work, it makes you look keen – is justified in terms of outcomes.
More ambitiously, if, for instance, everyone did not do unto others what they would not want done to themselves – the so-called “Silver Rule” – it can be justified in terms of better life outcomes. If you leave people alone, then they will leave you alone. It makes for a safer life for everyone.
More systematically, Utilitarian ideas have influenced our culture deeply. You don’t need to know anything about Jeremy Bentham or economics; just think about Dr Spok, Star Trek’s famously rational alien, with his dictate that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Under this consequentialist view, it is the outcome, measured in a pretty abstract idea of “utility” that is the guideline for wise action.
Classical philosophies are also concerned with how a wise person should live. Aristotle famously talked about the Golden Mean: nothing too much. Putting so much weight on your devotion to Jesus – how is that going to help you? It’s unbalanced, even fanatical, not the way a wise person would live.
But both of these are limited. How, exactly, do you balance the needs of the many against the needs of the few? When you have carefully measured out your life by the principles of “nothing too much”, what do you really have? A certain measure of material prosperity perhaps, though that’s chancy. But then what?
It leaves one with the question: What does it all mean? Here I am with my enlightened self interest reasonably satisfied, and thinking: so what? Is this really living?
Jesus does not have any other justification for his extraordinary claims other than himself, and his unique relationship with the Father. The sorts of things he says, don’t make any sense unless he is more than a great moral teacher. What sort of moral teacher says that we should be prepared to die, not for some grand moral scheme, but specifically because of his name?
It only makes sense if the great moral cause and the teacher are one and the same. It only makes sense if the call of Jesus is the call of God on our lives. And that is the key to understanding what Jesus is talking about. That is what blows the reasonable moderation of Aristotle or the greatest good for the greatest number out of the water.
All those things are based on a desire to protect ourselves in the face of a universe which we can’t guarantee is on our side, where, if there is an unmoved mover, the creator of all, then it is entirely remote from our sordid affairs down here on earth.
Anything based on calculations of relative utility, or a carefully reckoned self-protective self interest are left in the dust because through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the one who is behind and above and upholds all things not only reveals Godself to us, but, astonishingly, comes to us.
Not just comes to us, but rushes towards us impetuously, summoning us to all sorts of surprising acts of self-sacrificial love, and giving us God’s own self.
Amazingly, this love comes to us not because of anything we have done, but because God loves us first, and, in the person of Jesus, gives up his life to save us from all that alienates us from God and from one another. And that includes things that alienate ourselves from ourselves, and from our true desire for God.
The things we do that put ourselves at odds with God count for nothing in the balance compared to the love with which God loves us.
All we need to do is to put our trust in him.
Which is simple, in that it is only one thing, but hard – for the reasons that Jesus talked about.
This will not resolve all the problems of our lives. In fact, it will probably create all sorts of new problems – being unpopular with the world and worrying our families definitely being part of it. Beyond that when we join in God’s mission to the world our hearts will be opened to all sorts of people and situations which we wouldn’t otherwise have to pay much attention to, because the whole world of rational self-interest is gone to us, and this new world of love opens up to us.
We will have life – real life, open to God and the world, because that is what life really means. Not material prosperity, not the greatest benefit to the greatest number, but living into God’s love for the world, trusting that Jesus will be with us.
I said I was going to try to relate this to the 49th anniversary of the Uniting Church in Australia’s formation, so let me close with this: the union of the three founding churches – Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian was a step of trust in God, and of obedience to the call of Jesus to be one as Jesus and the Father are one. This call on us continues in the new situation in which the church finds itself. It does not guarantee success or popularity, but, if we obey the call of Jesus in our lives, corporately and individually, but we know that, in the end, it is enough for the student to be like the teacher. It is enough for us to lose our lives from Jesus’ sake, because that is precisely where we find the true life that lasts.
To the holy, blessed and glorious Trinity,
three persons and one God,
be all glory and praise, dominion and power,
now and forever.
Amen.
Alister Pate 