Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
June 22, 2008
Genesis 21:8-21
Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17
Romans 6:1b-11
Matthew 10:24-39
Well, so much for family values. Especially biblical family values. We certainly have our share of dysfunctional families in our scriptures, but today we get to hear not one, but two challenges to the very family values we so often extol in our culture. In our lesson from Genesis Abraham is forced to give up his first born son. If you remember Ishmael was conceived by Sarah’s slave Hagar with Sarah’s encouragement and blessing, because she was sure she would never have a child herself. But when her own son Isaac is weaned from her breast and begins to assert his childhood independence Sarah becomes protective of the role Isaac will play in God’s promise to Abraham that he will be the father of a great nation. Sarah surely does not want Isaac to have to share that role with is older half brother. So she tells Abraham that Hagar and Ishmael must go. We can see that Abraham is sorely distressed by Sarah’s ultimatum, but God intervenes to assure Abraham that he will take care of Hagar and Ishmael. In fact, he promises that Ishmael will also be the father of a nation. And we know that Muslims claim Ishmael to be the father of Islam. Are we surprised, then, that a family feud continues to characterize these two great religions—Judaism and Islam.
Sad enough that this biblical story of family dysfunction continues to function in the modern world. But today we hear Jesus threatening to bring division and conflict to God’s human family. “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” says Jesus. “I have come to set a man against his father and a woman against her mother…a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And one’s foes will be members of one’s own family.” Well now, I wonder. Do you recognize some of that dysfunction going on in your own family. I do. In fact, I am inclined to think that every family who ever existed experiences some kind of dysfunction. But I don’t expect Jesus to be encouraging it. These seem to be harsh words coming from Jesus. Surprising words, too, for one who claims also to have come into the world to be the Prince of Peace.
Then again, as I often remind us in my sermons, Jesus’ words do make sense when we understand them in the social, political and religious context of the time in which they are written. And they also have much to teach us if we are willing to understand them in the context of our own time. Matthew’s gospel account reflects a violent time in the life of vulnerable Jews who have become followers of Jesus. Rome has recently destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and the Roman Empire is putting the screws to the Jews for the many ways they challenge the authority of Rome. This new sect of Jews is following a scandalous leader and they are causing quite a scandal themselves, not only among Jews, but among Romans, as well. These followers of Jesus are a scandal to their Jewish brethren because of the new way they understand God and the new way they are living in the world. Their words and actions often subvert Jewish law and challenge Jewish custom and tradition. Jesus’ disciples form relationships with unclean people like beggars and prostitutes, they elevate the role of women and children to a place of dignity and respect in the community, they encourage slaves to claim their freedom as children of God and they care for the neglected and outcast of society, like widows and orphans and those who suffer disease and disability. Yes, these followers of Jesus are a disgrace to conventional Judaism. And they are no less a scandal to Roman officials. They are not afraid to challenge Roman rule and authority because they believe that their only obedience is to the rule and authority of the God they believe in. And they are willing to suffer and die for what they believe.
This is the context in which Matthew conveys Jesus’ words to scripture. It is a violent time, and it is not an easy to live by your faith. But Jesus doesn’t promise his followers a rose garden. Not then and not now. Jesus makes it clear that by following him you are making an unpopular, even unacceptable choice—you are sending a message to your family and to the world which cuts like a sword. A cut which can bring lasting wounds and even death to a relationship. The equivalent in today’s world might be the coming out of gay and lesbian persons coming to families and friends who cannot and will not accept them for who they are. Coming out to your Jewish family and religious community as a follower of Christ had the same effect, perhaps even worse. A follower of Jesus became a Shiva—an outcast. As far as family and friends were concerned, you were already dead to them. It had to take much strength and a lot of courage to leave the teachings and practices of a faith which no longer seemed relevant to your world or useful to your life. And you had to know that living your faith would challenge the rule of Jewish law and the authority of Roman government which would just as soon take you out of this world than deal with you in it.
So, Jesus’ words not only sound harsh, they are harsh. However, they do not condone division and conflict in God’s human family as much as they describe them. Jesus’ sword becomes a metaphor by which Jesus shows us the cost of discipleship. The price we are likely to pay when we truly follow him by faith, without fear. Without fearing the consequences. Consequences of alienation from family, friends, neighbors. Consequences of ridicule and scorn and abuse. Consequences which can even threaten our life and our well-being. But Jesus also tells us what we will gain by following him. “Those who find their life will [first have to] lose it,” says Jesus, “but those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” And what do we find? We find that we are living the life God meant for us to live. And we are living it without fear.
Protestant reformer Martin Luther, in his well known hymn A Mighty Fortress is our God, captures Jesus’ message in today’s gospel. “The body they may kill; God’s truth abideth still. His kingdom is forever.” Luther would have us know that once we become followers of Christ we no longer live only in this world; we are already living in the Kingdom. And to quote Luther one more time, “nothing, nothing can undo us.” Nothing can separate us from the love of God, and nothing can keep us from living our life as God would have us live it. Not separation nor abandonment, not abuse nor pain, not imprisonment—not even death.
It’s no wonder that so many ordinary people, people like ourselves, have become saints of the church. Saints seem to know the cost of discipleship when they choose to follow Christ, and they are willing to pay the price—often with their death. Saints like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for instance. When God called Dr. King to form a movement for civil rights he was compelled to leave family and friends, the security of a home and a church he loved to minister in so that he could do the work God was calling him to do. Like Jesus, he came into our world with a sword to cut through bonds of racial injustice. It was a sword which divided our nation deeply for a time. But Dr. King knew the cost of discipleship. And he did not fear paying the ultimate price because his life had become more than just his body; his life became part of Christ’s body. He became empowered by a soul on fire, a soul passionately in love with a just and righteous God and deeply committed to one of God’s most cherished family values. Justice and equality of opportunity for everyone in God’s human family. Dr. King, and many others along with him, paid the price for civil right and now, many years before we thought it might ever happen, a young black man is his party’s candidate to become President of these United States.
Jesus’ words also remind me of a young German Lutheran Pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who answered a call to discipleship during the dark and dangerous years of WW II. Just before he died in a German prison camp for resisting the Nazi movement and helping to plot Hitler’s death, Bonhoeffer wrote a book which he entitled, “The Cost of Discipleship.” He was convinced that one could not live a life of discipleship if he is mindlessly enslaved by dysfunctional institutions like the church, or when one he is willing to be deceived by dangerous powers of political and military authority in the world. It took a sword, the deadly sword of warfare, to separate Bonhoeffer from the people and institutions and the national policies which were keeping him from being the disciple God was calling him to be. Dietrich Bonhoeffer also paid the price of discipleship with his life, but what he gained was his soul. A soul which fed his passion to bring an end to war and an end to the atrocities sanctioned by an unjust and inhumane dictator. And isn’t it ironic that Hitler claimed his policies to be the family values of an Aryan nation.
I am certain that people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dietrich Bonhoeffer would not want us to think of them as saints. I believe they would be honored, however, to be called followers of Christ who answered the call of discipleship in a time and place where they were sorely needed. But we also need to ask ourselves, what happens when people like us, people who claim to be followers of Chris, become afraid to answer a call to discipleship in a moment where courageous action would make a difference for good in our world. Those of us who recognize too late what we could have, should have, would have done if only we had been able to separate ourselves from the comfort and security of our self-serving life. A life not threatened by anything except the fear of living it for a higher purpose other than to protect itself.
Well, another German Lutheran pastor, by his own experience, tells us exactly what happens. Martin Niemoeller writes of his shame and remorse for not taking a stand against the government atrocities of WW II. Niemoeller spent six years in Dachau reflecting on the consequences of his own inaction and he writes a powerful statement about it. His words are a warning to those of us who ignore God’s call to discipleship. This is what he said. “In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists. I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. They came for the Catholics; I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time, there was no one left to speak for me.”
Pastor Niemoeller wants us to know the price we pay for not paying the price of discipleship. None of us here will likely be called to pay the ultimate price of discipleship as did Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dietterick Bonhoeffer. But Jesus’ message to us in today’s gospel lesson is clear. “Do not fear,” says Jesus. (And we will hear these words often in his life and ministry.) Jesus tells us that we are not to fear the sword he brings to the world. Because his sword is meant to open the wounds of injustice in our human family so that we can be healed of those things which divide us and bring conflict to our life. Jesus’ sword is meant to divide us and separate us into those who are willing to follow and pay the price, and those who are not. We are meant to die to our old life by that sword so that we can find the new life God is calling us to live.
The lessons I take away from our gospel account today is this. Don’t be afraid of Jesus’ sword. It is the sword of truth, and justice and righteousness. The sword which restores God’s values to his human family. And don’t be afraid to take the sword of truth into your own hands in that moment when Jesus calls you into discipleship. Jesus’ sword is the tool of saints and martyrs and disciples, people like us, who are willing to pay the price to make our earthly home a more just, and humane and godly place for God’s human family to dwell in.