Instructions for the Journey

Matthew 10:24-39

Late last summer, I saw the movie “Hacksaw Ridge” for the first time. The movie tells the story of a young man, Desmond T. Doss, who served as an army medic during World War II, and specifically during the Battle of Okinawa. Before the war broke out, Doss was for the most part a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. Raised as a Seventh-Day Adventist, his faith was very important to him, and that, together with some early life experiences, led him to make a decision to live his life as a pacifist. He didn’t have a great deal of education – his family was too poor for that, but Doss did have an interest in medicine.

Then World War II broke out and Doss felt called to serve his country. As a pacifist, you can imagine the dilemma this created for the young man. Added to the tension, was his relationship with his father, who himself had served during World War I, and today would likely be diagnosed as having PTSD – his action during World War I left him scarred for the rest of his life, and his family bore the brunt of his war-induced mental illness.

The elder Doss was vehemently opposed to his sons serving in the war. Going against his father’s will created huge conflict and ultimately a schism between them. But the young Doss made up his mind. He had it all figured out. He liked medicine; he would serve his country as a medic. He couldn’t bear arms, but he could still serve, and he seemed to have an understanding with his recruiter that that would be exactly as things would go. But of course, they didn’t.

No sooner had Doss arrived as boot camp than he ran into problems with his drill sergeant and his fellow soldiers over his decision and refusal not to bear arms. He excelled physically but became an outcast in his unit for his refusal to handle a rifle or drill on Saturdays – his Sabbath. He was assigned physically grueling labor. An attempt on the part of his superiors to have him discharged for psychiatric reasons failed, and one night he is pretty badly beaten up by some of his fellow soldiers.  Still, he resists going against what his faith – and the Scriptures – had taught him.

He ultimately completed basic training but was then arrested and court martialed for insubordination. He refused to relent. He would not bear arms, could not go against biblical teachings nor his conscience. All he wanted was to serve as a medic, come what may. Finally, his father barged into the military tribunal bearing a letter from a former commanding officer of his, pointing out that pacifism is protected by an Act of Congress.

The charges were dropped, and Doss was assigned to the 77^th Infantry Division, deployed to the Pacific theater, which is how he ended up at the Battle of Okinawa, where through his actions, he saved the lives of 75 men and earned Medal of Honor, the first conscientious objector to ever earn that coveted award.

Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not easy. You and I might never have to make the kinds of choices and decisions that Desmond Doss did, but I think that looking at this morning’s gospel text through the lens of Doss’ story might help us to understand what Jesus is telling his disciples about the cost and meaning of the mission in his name.

In this chapter from the Gospel of Matthew Jesus, in fact, has very pointed advice for his disciples, and his words help draw a picture of the cost of Christian mission and ministry. The picture isn’t all that pretty.  Jesus paints a picture of discipleship that is more than just a little off-putting.

The Gospel text we heard this morning is a continuation of what is referred to as the mission discourse, or “Sermon on Mission.” It was being delivered to a people who were persecuted, who were needing to make tough choices about what following Jesus means, who were experiencing opposition and divisions among families and friends, and the cost of being disciples.

Last week our gospel contained the words of Jesus that come just before these: “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. ¹⁷Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; ¹⁸and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me…..  ²¹Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; ²²and you will be hated by all because of my name….”

As this Sermon continues today, Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come 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 own household.”

Between last week’s text and this week’s, the Sermon on Mission has moved from the sources of mission (Jesus’ compassion, praying disciples, spiritual gifts, and church fellowship) through Jesus’ travel instructions (travel light- “Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, ¹⁰no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff”), and now move on to the “trouble instructions” which basically, boil down to: “expect the worst”. Finally, we come to Jesus’ “trust” instructions - believe in me, acknowledge me

, and love me.

With all these instructions, Jesus seeks to bind the disciples to himself. He wants them to remember their bond with him, and to honor their relationship with Jesus and their identity as his disciples even and especially in the midst of the hardship and suffering they will surely face, as they serve this mission and ministry in his name.

“So, what does it mean to be a disciple of Christ?”

Bible commentator Frederick Dale Bruner puts it this way: “Jesus comes crashing into history, and then into our lives, and takes over, preempting our most instinctive loyalties, presuming on our deepest affections, usurping our natural ties, and asking (and so claiming) to be the most important person in our lives.”

Jesus knows that for the mission to be served well, the whole lives of his disciples must be marked by our relationship with him, by loyalty to him and that they be consistent with his own cross-shaped life, where the decisions we make, the interactions we have, and our every choice be made with God’s mission in the forefront of our actions.

Jesus knows well how difficult this journey will be and he isn’t pulling any punches. To follow Jesus is to cause the same kind of trouble Jesus caused, because Jesus’ way is countercultural. Absolute adherence to the ways and commands of Jesus are what Jesus demands from his disciples. Anything less brings destruction and chaos.

The thing is, Jesus knows that we like our comfortable little lives. We strive to make a “good life for ourselves” – for most of us, that kind of comfort and security is our ultimate goal and priority in life. Our lives include the relationships we have with family and friends. They include attaining and maintaining a certain status, perhaps living in the best neighborhood we can afford, to have the best things in our homes, to make the best connections in our community, all those things that go into making our lives pleasurable and secure. Given a choice we will choose the “easy way” of things.

And so, Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Jesus isn’t advocating violence here. These words have been misinterpreted in that way over the centuries. Rather, the peace that Jesus is here to disrupt and even tear apart is the “peace” of the status quo – the “peace” of self-sufficiency; the “peace” that allows tyrants to oppress and persecute those with little power; the “peace” of keeping about our neat little lives safe and secure while scores of people face death, disease, hunger, abuses and persecution.

The sword of Jesus is meant to cleave us from our complacency, our blindness to the inequality happening all around us, or our adherence to earthly values, idols, even those relationships that keep us from being wholly centered on Jesus and on the mission he sets us forth to serve.

Jesus says to us, “You know what? If your life passion is to “make it” you will be lost. If security is what you are after, your search will only lead to your destruction.”

We hear those words and realize that really, truly, this Jesus is trouble.

So central is trouble to the Christian mission that Jesus says that his purpose in coming to earth was division. Jesus will bind disciples to himself in faith and then move them out into life to love people on the edge, but the historic consequences of faith and love have always been as much persecution as reconciliation. A few will believe the truth of Christ, but most will oppose it. Jesus shoots from the hip here. This is as true today as it was in Jesus’ time.

Jesus is not triumphalist about the future of Christian mission; he knows that his mission is a rugged minority movement, a tough, divisive affair, and he prefers to make this clear rather than to give false hope. “The gate is wide and the way pleasant that leads to destruction, and many people [a majority] go this route; but the gate is narrow and the way tough that leads to real life, and very few people find this way.”

            Yet in the midst of all this sobering news, there is gospel good news for us as well. In the midst of this passage Jesus tells us, “Do not be afraid.”  These words for us are both challenge and promise. God will always be with you. God does not leave us alone to face this battle, but with the kind of care and love that knows and counts each hair on our heads, the Lord God will strengthen, supply, and keep us in steadfast love. Jesus encourages his followers to step out into the light and tell the truth about their lives – a truth that is seen as healing, as life-giving, as witness to the goodness of God who cares for the little sparrow, the faithful soldier, the struggling, disciple, and all those who cling to Jesus and to his Way.

            Jesus tells us that in losing our life we will find it. Paul reminds us in baptism we died to sin, and we were buried with Jesus in death, that we might arise and walk in newness of life. As disciples of Christ, we follow in the footsteps of Jesus, going without fear, knowing that though this new life, the life of discipleship might be costly, by his death and resurrection, Jesus has already made us alive to God, counted, treasured, accompanied and restored, for the sake of the kingdom of God.

Amen.

Crossing to the Other Side

Mark 4:35-46

        In the Gospel text today, we see the revelation of Jesus Christ as God’s power and authority in our world. Jesus is God’s abiding presence in the life of the kingdom of God – this life into which God is inviting all people. Jesus is God with us and in our gospel we see God’s power and authority at work as Jesus stills the storm on the Sea of Galilee.  

        In the wake of the events of this week, in the pain and turmoil, chaos and storm stirred up by the massacre that took place in Charleston, Jesus’ words, “Peace. Be still!” are words we desperately need to hear. We need to know that Jesus can and does still the chaos in our broken, terrified hearts. We need to hear that the power of God is still at work, can and will defeat the powers of evil.  

        We need to hear that in the midst of the maelstrom of our world and our lives, Jesus is the power and presence of God; God with us, withstanding and controlling the crashing of the seas and the deafening roar of the wind and finally, stilling them.

        We need to know that when the storm strikes, God remains faithful, eternally walking with us, and beside us, surrounding us with love and even, with peace.  

        Jesus isn’t just asleep in that boat. Jesus, God with us, is inviting us to a sense of calm. Jesus invites us to believe that he is the source of all peace for us, and that God is powerfully present in the midst of whatever storm may strike. Even the most terrifying.

        The name of the historic church in Charleston where such horror and tragedy unfolded this week is Emanuel.

        Emanuel – which means - “God with us.” Despite the way the events of this week brought yet another reminder of the deep brokenness in our world, there were also signs – so many signs of God’s presence – of the ways that God is with us still – in the outpouring of love and support, for instance; in faith communities across the country praying in solidarity with our AME brothers and sisters; in flowers and notes left at the church; in the outrage poured out against all forms of racism and bigotry.

        We were also reminded of how much work is yet to be done in this kingdom of God.

        The shooting this week brought a searing reminder that racism and hatred are powerful conditions of sin and evil that are fed by an increasingly broken and hostile society.

        This is a society in which you and I are members and, like it or not, we must admit our own complicity in the ills of prejudice and intolerance. Forgive us, Father, for the things we have done and left undone.

        We acknowledge that we benefit from the systemic illness of a world in which the divisions between rich and poor, black and white, Christian and any other group, are widening at an astonishing rate in our polarized culture. If nothing else, we begin by admitting that we don’t stand up fiercely enough, loudly enough or often enough – to speak against the daily hurts and assaults various groups in our world endure.

        My brothers and sisters, we not only live in a society in which these things take place, and are beneficiaries of the injustices, but we also participate in activities that influence the systemic ills infecting our world.

        More than ever before, the media, entertainment outlets, and the very rhetoric that surrounds us daily and in which we often engage, profit by images and language promoting violence and racism.

        Think of the last five movies you’ve seen or the last five television programs you watched, the last five books you read. Think of the images, the way certain groups of people are portrayed. Reflect deeply on the language and rhetoric which occurs on the nightly news program you may watch.

        Consider the inflammatory language and images that cross your computer screen, whether you read them or not. What happened the last time you were in a group and someone used derogatory imagery, language or characterization of African Americans or Muslims for instance? Did any one stand up and say that it was wrong? Did you?

        We live in a culture that is increasingly divided racially, economically and politically, though we would like to ignore that fact, or deny it, or hide it, sweep it under the banner of “look how far we’ve come.”

        Eventually, when the tensions and the truth explode in images and actions we cannot ignore, can no longer hide, and we are overwhelmed, the boat of our complacency becomes swamped, and we cry out in horror and fear as the disciples did that day, “Lord, do you not care…that we are perishing?”     

        This week, another senseless shooting, and this time, in a Christian church, right here in America, with brothers and sisters in faith cut down following a bible study and time of prayer with the shooter himself. Incidentally, they were shot and killed - by another Christian. An ELCA Lutheran, (that’s our denomination) in fact. Let’s let that fact sink in.

        Another act of hatred. Another list of names of those who, whether they were 26 years old or 87 years old, were taken far too soon.  “Truly,” we think, “our boat is going down.”     

        And yet, in the midst of this storm, I wonder if you heard what I heard? God with us.  Did you hear the sound of reason, the voice of peace, from what we might think would be the most unlikely of places? Did you hear God’s message of love and unfathomable calm in the midst of the storm as, one after another the families of the victims spoke up?

        They each testified to the deep pain and bewilderment that has overtaken them since Wednesday night. God with us. They each spoke to the searing sense of loss and grief that is, at times overwhelming. But there was also something else that they spoke to: that though they truly walk through the valley of the shadow of death, they will not let evil win the day. God with us.

        They spoke of forgiveness – for the shooter. They spoke of the light of Christ that is abiding with them, the LORD who is walking beside them. Many of the family members – the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters and even grandchildren of the victims testified to their conviction that they would not meet evil with evil, hatred with hatred, but instead would turn to Jesus for their strength both to forgive and to find meaning and healing in their staggering losses.

        There is no going back to the way things were Wednesday morning. The lives of so, so many people are irrevocably altered.  Acknowledging that change, these disciples of Christ extended forgiveness, perhaps as an act of hope – connected to the grace of God they themselves have received at the foot of the cross.

        This kind of forgiveness points to the Word of Jesus from the cross itself. In the cross, this incredible act of evil and hatred is met with love. In the cross of Christ, ironically, we find our peace. God with us.

        Jesus and his disciples are in “the boat” – when Jesus says to his disciples, “Let’s go on, across, to the other side.”

        Crossing to the other side with Jesus is transformational. It means being aware of the conditions in the world around us and committing ourselves to the kingdom work of expanding God’s loving justice, as Jesus himself did.

        Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee that day.

        Filled with awe and wonder, the disciples asked, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” We know the answer – God with us.

        God will not be shaken by any storm. Jesus is God’s peace in the midst of the storm. The wind and seas recognized God with us and obeyed his command. Now, in the midst of our storm, Jesus issues the invitation to discipleship, calling those who follow him to go where he has called, confident that he is with them, confident that no evil will truly overtake us when he is at our side.  

        With Jesus Christ, God with us, let us commit ourselves to crossing the racial divide in our land, the widening economic divide between rich and poor, and all divisions in our socio-economic landscape. Crossing to the other side can raise up storms and risk danger, even unto death, especially because people will get stirred up, but let us not fear, but hope, because Jesus is God with us.

Amen.