The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (June 26, 2005)
Matthew 10:34-42
‘Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword. For I have come to set son against father, daughter against mother, daughter–in–law against mother–in–law; a person’s enemies will be the members of his own household. ‘No one who prefers father or mother to me is worthy of me. No one who prefers son or daughter to me is worthy of me. Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me. Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it. ‘Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ‘Anyone who welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet will have a prophet’s reward; and anyone who welcomes an upright person because he is upright will have the reward of an upright person. ‘If anyone gives so much as a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple, then in truth I tell you, he will most certainly not go without his reward.’ -- New Jerusalem Bible
Sermon Delivered at St Nicholas Episcopal Church June 26, 2005
Open our minds, Lord, to understand your Word, and shape our hearts to show your Word forth in our lives. Amen.
The late science fiction writer Rod Serling created the Twilight Zone television series that is still in syndication today. Each episode begins with Serling calmly reciting the invocation: “Imagine, if you will…..” There’s a fairly benign setup, a little plot development, and then slightly stranger and stranger plot twists that result in a totally unexpected ending leaving us …. amazed.
Today’s gospel inverts that: it begins with a powerful statement – not peace, but a sword -- and spends the remainder of the story developing what leads up to it.
[Trouble in the World]
So … imagine, if you will …, that you are an everyday resident of Galilee, or Judea. Maybe you are a tenant farmer just barely eking out a living by farming land that you lost because you couldn’t afford the Roman taxes and the temple taxes. Maybe you are a day laborer, working for one or two denarii per day building yet another gaudy Roman building. Or maybe you’re totally marginalized like a widow: homeless, unemployable, truly a non-person. And so you’ve come to the nearby village for the day to beg alongside those who came to trade or to go to the local synagogue.
It’s 30, A.D. For the last 67 years, the Romans have occupied this land, land given to your ancestors by YHWH. It’s not that your fellow Jews haven’t tried to get rid of the Romans; it’s just that every time they’ve rebelled, the ever-present Roman army garrison has displayed its amazing power, cruelty, and efficiency. The Romans capture and crucify the rebels, hundreds at a time. Their victims line the roads on crosses, for miles and miles and miles. Nobody could stand up to that much organization and manpower and the deadly … earnest ... willingness to use it at the drop of a hat.
[Trouble in the Text]
And into this scene, and into our little village walks the man they call Jesus, with a few dozens of followers. And the first thing he says to them is, “… it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword!”
Oy!
OK, maybe this is the one we’ve been waiting for. After all, we’re expecting a son of David to be the new anointed one, to rule us as David did, to make Israel a great nation once again, to get rid of these cursed, impure, pagan Romans, to let us live sanctified lives under the Law, again.
But then Jesus goes on.
“For I have come to set son against father, daughter against mother, daughter–in–law against mother–in–law; a person’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”
Wait a minute. The word Jesus used for “sword” also means “butcher’s knife,” like the one we would use to cut the meat away from the bone (if we had any meat). It’s the way that our family might be dissected away from us by having different views of YHWH and what YHWH intends for us to do – different from the “approved” standard.
If a Jew were to begin to follow Jesus, to eat with those whom the Pharisees disapproved, to talk to Samaritan women, as Jesus did, as Jesus taught by His own example, then that Jew wasn’t helping himself.
The president of the local synagogue was always on the lookout for marginally-observant Jews: Jews who weren’t keeping any one of the 613 various rules – mitzvots -- that attempted to keep Israel separated from non-Jews and their de facto impurity.
And a Jew who strayed far enough afield could be kicked out for a month …. or forever. Suddenly, nobody would have anything to do with that straying Jew, wouldn’t sell him food, or buy his goods. He just ceased to exist. Even worse, the cost of discipleship to Jesus for a first century Jew could be one’s life.
The Temple leadership and the Roman occupiers were alike, at least, in that respect. Having cultist Jews talking about a Messiah and the destruction of the Temple and such were disturbing to the peace. One person’s life for good order and discipline? It seemed well worth the price, especially if it was a peasant’s life.
“Fine,” we say. “We’re not occupied by bloodthirsty Romans, and we aren’t in that religious system. How does this apply to us?”
There is, of course, the timeless message about family and friends becoming obstacles to following Jesus. It’s likely that each of us has family members, and friends, who just don’t understand a faith that requires no obvious evidence, a faith that has no foundation in any obvious science: in short, a faith that’s willing to wait until the evidence changes. And the temptations to shave the moral edges on things like taxes, or school exams, are ever-present tests to our commitment to honoring our Creator’s vision for us.
We whose lives are lived free from physical oppression and religious domination, we are far from the wretched conditions in which those villagers lived. Yet the promise that Jesus offered almost two thousand years ago, is, like Jesus, unchanged for us. The difference between the time the story was written down, and now as we read it, ought to be that the things that oppress us are different.
We have no Roman oppressors; but we do have global outsourcing, downsizing, and corporate megalomania. National governments use force in shameful ways for dubious reasons. Wouldn’t we rather have a government with its priority interest in providing education, food, medicine and shelter for its weakest and poorest citizens, whether they are children or old people?
And we are called to witness the global poverty that exists in stark contrast to the lives we lead. Jesus calls us just as strongly today to care for the least among us, as he did through Father Bill Sassman, with Food for the Poor, who visited with us right here, just a few weeks ago.
What would cause someone in first century Palestine, then, to choose Jesus?
You have already imagined the lives they led; anything would have been better than those lives, and Jesus offered them the promise of salvation plus eternal life with YHWH, starting … right now, today.
And what’s different about us, today? Yes, we experience different qualities of fear and oppression and injustice -- usually, thankfully, only as witnesses for others. But they are just as real to the victims.
[Grace in the Text]
So whether it’s a sword or a butcher’s knife, it really doesn’t matter. Remember, this gospel text isn’t the entire message He left for us. He did come to bring peace for us, after we have accepted the claim He lays on us to follow him and to welcome him into our hearts and minds and attitudes and actions towards others. And He didn’t say it would be easy going. But we know what we feel in our hearts, and the great joy that comes from accepting a risen Christ who is with us, as he said – no, as he promised -- even unto the end of the age.
[Grace in the World]
We have the same uncertainties about our relationships today with our fellow human beings as they did then in Palestine, and with our Creator. And yes, having the promise of the Kingdom appearing in our lives, today, is just as powerful now as it was two thousand years ago.
The late Roman Catholic monastic, priest, and prolific writer Henri Nouwen lived some of the most productive years of his life in a Canadian retreat home for the severely disabled and retarded, L’Arche. In his book of Daily Meditations, he says
Peace is Shalom --- well-being of mind, heart, and body, individually and communally. It can exist in the midst of a war-torn world, even in the midst of unresolved problems and increasing human conflicts. Jesus made that peace by giving his life for his brothers and sisters. This is no easy peace, but it is everlasting and it comes from God. Are we willing to give our lives in the service of peace?
It is a good thing when we have met together here on a Sunday. We have expressed publicly our attitudes of love for one another and for our Creator. Jesus reminded us to do both of these things when He summarized the Law and the Prophets. It is a far greater thing, however, to leave this place with the Peace that passes all understanding, sure and certain of God’s great love for us as his beloved children. We can exhibit, every day, the same confidence that Jesus did, sure in His Father’s love, sure that the Father is watching over us, caring for us … listening to us. And the more of our lives that we lose for Jesus’ sake, as this gospel text says, into God’s boundless love – surely the more we will find our lives new and alive and refreshed by the Spirit, in wonder, love, and peace.
This prayer, written by a doctoral student, Jason Whitehead, seems very fitting both for this gospel and our times:
Like a sword you sent your son to remove us from our comforts,
To place us in the wilderness so that we might wander and wonder.
Give us the strength for the journey ahead,
So that we might do what little we can in order to further your kingdom here on earth,
One where justice rolls down like a mighty river,
And peace flows like an ever-present stream…
Amen
