Sunday, June 25, 2023 Pentecost 4
St. Andrew’s East Presbyterian Church, St-André d’Argenteuil
Gordon McPhee
Matthew 10:24-39 [The Message]
“A student doesn’t get a better desk than her teacher. A laborer doesn’t make more money than his boss. Be content—pleased, even—when you, my students, my harvest hands, get the same treatment I get. If they call me, the Master, ‘Dungface,’ what can the workers expect?
“Don’t be intimidated. Eventually, everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are. So don’t hesitate to go public now.
“Don’t be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies. There’s nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life—body and soul—in his hands.
“What’s the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries.
“Stand up for me against world opinion and I’ll stand up for you before my Father in heaven. If you turn tail and run, do you think I’ll cover for you?
“Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy. I’ve come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over me, you don’t deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don’t deserve me.
Introduction:
In Matthew’s Gospel account of Jesus life and ministry, he ends chapter 9 with Jesus making a circuit of many towns and villages, healing broken lives and many infirmities, speaking the good news of the kingdom of God, and proclaiming to his disciples that the people were like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus pleads with his disciples to ask God that workers be sent out into the harvest. Moved with pity for the crowds whom Jesus describes as, “frightened sheep without a shepherd” he remarks that there aren’t many workers for such a great harvest. Matthew begins chapter 10 with Jesus gathering his 12 chosen disciples to send them out on a mission to spread the Gospel with evidence of healing power. The rest of chapter 10, in which we find our Gospel reading this morning, is preparation and instruction to his disciples for this mission.
And it's this I’d like us to talk about today because it's a passage we don’t consider in terms of ourselves. Jesus is saying some hard things and we often read it as a fanatical commitment to a mission or cause, and not something relevant to what our day-to-day lives are like. We don’t understand it, it seems to apply to others, not us, so we gloss over it, which I think is a mistake. When we grasp what Jesus is saying it affects the most important areas of our lives; our relationship to Jesus and to our family, friends, and neighbours. We need to get this right for the sake of all the loved ones in our lives.
“How Not To Get Elected”
I think we’d all agree that to get people to follow you in a venture, whether for pleasure or business, starting with a list of the difficulties, risks, and probable personal costs is not necessarily the course to follow. To get elected to a position the candidates will tell you of the pitfalls of the opposition’s proposals and the sure benefits of adhering to their platform. To win approval we say the guy on the left will bankrupt the system fulfilling his promises, and the one on the right will renege on almost everything he’s promised, but I’ll keep a tight rein on the budget and give you everything you are hoping for. That kind of platform is a far cry from what we see Jesus saying in this 10th chapter of Matthew.
Jesus chooses and sends twelve of his disciples out in twos with this charge. To go to the lost sheep of Israel and preach that the kingdom of God is at hand, curing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and casting out demons. In other words, to meet the needs of the most needy. But to do so freely, asking nothing in return. To go without any provisions, extra clothing, or footwear, not even a staff to lean on. Their lodging and food will depend upon the good grace of - not those most able to provide for them, but those seen as worthy, who will receive the gospel message, as poor as they may be.
And if that commissioning wasn’t stark enough, Jesus continues warning them of a cold reception. They are going out amongst wolves and Jesus warns them to keep a low profile, not drawing undue attention to themselves because they will surely be persecuted by the religious and government authorities. Even their own family members will turn against them when they hear the truth of what they are preaching. As we come to the portion of chapter 10, we read this morning Jesus focus becomes more personal.
He relates what the disciples are going to experience to His own experience and ministry. In a kind of backhanded encouragement, he tells them they will be regarded the same way he was, not better, but not worse. They have been with Jesus for some time and have seen both the fame and accolades but also the persecution and rejection. They have witnessed God’s love and care of his Son and now Jesus extends this care to them. They are worth infinitely more than the sparrows whom God sees and cares for. They already know and have born witness to God’s miraculous power poured out in Jesus and he tells them that if they persevere, and are faithful to the commission, He will proclaim them before God the Father. And this is where I’d like us to begin to focus this morning.
This assurance that if we stand by Jesus in this world, he will make our case to his Father in heaven. Let me reread these few verses for you from The Message,
“Stand up for me against world opinion and I’ll stand up for you before my Father in heaven. If you turn tail and run, do you think I’ll cover for you?
Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy. I’ve come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over me, you don’t deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don’t deserve me.”
Tough words, and certainly not ones to get elected with, and maybe not ones to get me invited back to speak to you again. And I have no intention of softening them or explaining them away. Jesus meant what he said, and it might be useful to note that he is actually drawing on and paraphrasing a passage from the book of the prophet Micah 7:5-6,
“Don’t trust your neighbour,
don’t confide in your friend.
Watch your words,
even with your spouse.
Neighbourhoods and families are falling to pieces.
The closer they are—sons, daughters, in-laws—
The worse they can be.
Your own family is the enemy.”
Micah is prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem that occurred in 587 BC by the Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar. He is describing the conditions in Israel leading up to this. and they are not so far unlike our own, nor in Jesus time. Let me read you Micah 7:1-3, Micah says,
“I’m overwhelmed with sorrow!
sunk in a swamp of despair!
I’m like someone who goes to the garden
to pick cabbages and carrots and corn
And returns empty-handed,
finds nothing for soup or sandwich or salad.
There’s not a decent person in sight.
Right-living humans are extinct.
They’re all out for one another’s blood,
animals preying on each other.
They’ve all become experts in evil.
Corrupt leaders demand bribes.
The powerful rich
make sure they get what they want.
The best and brightest are thistles.
The top of the line is crabgrass.”
He could easily be describing Canadian leadership today.
But allow me to refocus our attention on things less sweeping than the condition of our world and country, which I think is exactly what Jesus was doing in paraphrasing Micah. Although implying the far-reaching nature of getting the gist of what he was saying Jesus is still making this very personal to his followers and to us. He’s speaking about family, friends, and neighbours. As he said, “a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law.” “Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy.” Following Jesus is not going to make everything in your life rosy and smooth. However, this isn’t to discourage you but to prepare you so that you don’t doubt whether you’re doing the right thing when things don’t work out in the nice rosy way you anticipated. If you’re true to your faith in Jesus there will be conflict. “Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies,” Jesus says. They won’t understand why you come to church, why you hold to this faith when they don’t see what you do in Jesus. There will be pressure to give it up, just this once, for just this one thing. You don’t have to be so charitable; you give too much; you’re spending yourself and letting people use you. Jesus knows that when these criticisms come from family members and close friends, they are the most heart-wrenching of temptations. And yet he says, “If you prefer father or mother over me, you don’t deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don’t deserve me.” That is really hard. And it’s confusing.
One of the tenets of our Christian faith is loving our Mother and Father and children and our neighbour. It’s bound up in the Ten Commandments. How can we resolve Jesus demand for a commitment to him with love for our family and neighbours?
Well, I think if we shake ourselves a bit and don’t get stuck on the idea that loving Jesus and committing ourselves to his cause and ministry somehow negates and eliminates our family ties, we’ll be open to understanding what Jesus is telling us. He isn’t asking us to give them up and stoically leave everyone we love behind. Jesus is telling us that the only way to love them, to help them, to save them is to stay true to our commitment to him. Jesus restates what he just said about deserving him in this way, “If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me.” In other words, no matter how long it takes, no matter what things look like, not matter how bad things seem to be getting; no matter if your Father, Mother, Son, Daughter, Uncle, Aunt or neighbour seem completely alienated and lost, through thick and thin, the only answer for you is to remain true to your faith in Jesus. Because then you’ll deserve him, you’ll be one of the worthy ones who Jesus sent out to spread the Gospel and on whom Jesus peace will remain.
Jesus goes on to say, “If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself.” Looking after yourself is to look after your earthly concerns; your family and friends and neighbourhood and country and this world. But the moment you set any of that first, before Jesus, you’re lost. You’ll never find yourself and so all the rest that you’re concerned about will be lost as well. It sounds very much like that other scripture from Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
And finally, Jesus says, “But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.” And here’s the wonderful, wonderful hope I want you to take home with you today. If you make Jesus your first commitment in life, he says you’ll find both Jesus and yourself. You see, nobody loves your family members better than Jesus. The parent or child or grandchild, niece, nephew, or cousin you think you’re alienating or discouraging with your commitment to Jesus is loved by Jesus far more than you ever could. Unlike us, Jesus loves them selflessly, far better than we ever could. When you focus on Jesus, you find yourself, because he loves you, and you begin to love them, not with your flawed selfish human heart, but with the perfect love that Jesus has for them as well.
It is a hard thing, as faith always is, and I think Jesus made clear these hard saying in this passage from Matthew because he knew so well from personal experience with his own brothers and sisters, his own family, just how hard this is. And yet we know that although they maligned him most of his ministry, they eventually followed him as the Messiah and his brother James was a leader in the church in Jerusalem as witnessed in Acts. Jesus knew how hard this is for us and he assures us that his love is sufficient to accomplish even miracles in his name.
I have family and friends who love Jesus and walk with Him and they are a great joy in my life. But I also have many more loved ones, close to me and dear to my heart, who do not yet know Jesus and who wrench at my heart when we pray for them, both their happiness and protection and also their salvation. And I wonder at times if I wasn’t so “religious”, going to church, preaching, studying theology, would I relate them better, be able to influence them for Jesus more effectively. And it would not be a difficult path to take. But I know in my heart and have this commitment, that if I deviate away from Jesus face and what he has for me to do, if I leave my loved ones and their salvation in my mortal hands, then they are assuredly lost. Thank God, I love them enough to put them in Jesus’s caring hands knowing he will be faithful in all he promised to “stand up for [me] before [his] Father in heaven.” May you today find the faith to, “forget about yourself and look to [him, and] find both yourself and Jesus” for the sake of all the loved ones in your life.
Amen
