The True Gift of Sight - Sermon for March 22, 2020

John 9:1-41      

            Part of the preparation for Confirmation classes includes instruction on the sacraments, so part of my conversation and teaching with our young people has to do with the how and the why of the sacramental life. In the Lutheran Church, we celebrate two sacraments, Baptism and Holy Communion. Why two, and why these? Because they follow two of Jesus’ commands, and they are each associated with a promise from him.

          Jesus told the disciples that they should go and baptize, and that whoever believes and is baptized will receive eternal life. So, that is the rationale for our inclusion of Baptism in the short list of sacraments (other denominations might include as many as seven). What a glorious command and promise enfolded in this one act by which God claims us and cleanses us of the weight of our sin.

          On the night in which he was handed over to death, Jesus instituted the second of our two sacraments, what we now call “The Lord’s Supper,” or “Holy Communion” or “The Eucharist”. As he gave God thanks, broke the bread and gave the bread and wine to his disciples to consume, Jesus commanded his disciples “do this in remembrance of me,” and he promised with this meal would come the forgiveness of sins.

          There are two things that make a sacrament what it is: an element and God’s word. The element is a visible sign that reminds us of the reality of the material world, created by God, in which we live and which, along with our bodies and our being, belong to God. Elements are things we can touch and feel and observe; things like water, and bread, and wine. By God’s grace and only God’s grace and blessing do they become anything more.

          Our sacramental life flourishes as the Word of God transforms the element and makes of it a sacrament, which believers receive in faith and obedience, (“go and baptize,” “do this in remembrance”). In and through them, by God’s grace, we are changed. Sin is forgiven, and faith is given, restored and nurtured.

          The healing of the man who is blind from birth is really a story of sacramental healing.

          Jesus uses water from his own body – spit – and dirt from the ground and forms a paste to use on the man’s eyes.  He then gives his Word, that what he is doing is the will of God who desires that God’s works might be revealed in him.

          The healing of course is miraculous – and transforms the man’s life. He cannot remember a time when he could see – anything. But after washing the paste from his eyes he has perfect eyesight!

          The healing, of course, is not without its challenges. The Pharisees object to how and when this healing work was done (it is the Sabbath). They accuse Jesus’ of failing to observe the Sabbath in accordance with the Law.

          They question whether the man had truly been born blind at all. When assured he had been blind all his life, they then lead the way down that rabbit hole of a question, “why?” Why had he been born blind? What did his parents do that caused this child to be born blind? Blindness and illness and misfortune are commonly perceived to be the punishment of God for sin, and that is why this question is placed before the man’s now fearful parents.

          “None’s so blind as them who cannot see,” is a proverb dating back to 1546 by English writer and poet John Heywood. It resembles Jeremiah’s admonition, “Now hear this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not”. Jesus delivers a challenging teaching on exactly what constitutes “being blind”.

          Recently, our renewal team was at a training event where a video of a famous experiment was shown. A group of people appear on screen, bouncing and passing balls back and forth like a basketball team might do as they warm up for practice.

          Into this group appears a moon-walking gorilla. He nonchalantly weaves and passes through the crowd, moving right across the screen. At least half of the observers of this video, and I think it was more like three quarters of our group that day, say they totally missed the gorilla – they didn’t notice him at all until he was pointed out to the crowd and the video was shown again.

          God often works in the most unexpected of ways and most unusual of circumstances. The fact that we see what we expect (and sometimes what we want to see) and can be blind to what we do not accept, believe, or want to see, extends to our experience of God. Convinced of our own “perfect sight” we can miss what God places right before us to teach us and bless us.

          Jesus notices hurting people, and he often acts before they even know their need or who he is and how he can heal them. The man had been blind from birth and didn’t even know to ask of healing from Jesus, for who, born from birth, could expect to receive that remarkable gift of healing, wholeness and restoration?

          By grace, this man receives a gift for which he is not even seeking, a gift neither he nor his community really understands, a gift that comes in the most obscure way. At first neither he nor his community knows how to respond, so they turn to our default response as they question, doubt and judge what has happened and how it has happened. They point fingers. They make accusations.

          They probably wonder, “if Jesus is really a prophet and man sent by God, why not a more common-sense miracle”? A miracle more in keeping with what we expect a miracle to look like? When we think of miracles we think of them entering the scene in a flash and a bang, with wildly unexpected, fantastic special effects.

          But that is rarely God’s way.

          Instead, God meets us where we are, and amidst the turmoil and uncertainty of life, God enters our lives in everyday moments of grace, fueling the restoration and healing God has already begun in the world.

          Through the sacraments, God uses ordinary elements like water and bread and wine and God saves, renews and refreshes us, and prepares us for eternal life. In making a blind man see, God uses spit and dirt. What is God using in our lives today, offering us grace and light and life? What are we not seeing of God’s presence and power?

          We are living through some scary, uncertain times. We are uncertain about the future, so afraid of an invisible menace, wondering about our safety and security. Our lives and our world are thoroughly disrupted.

          We might as well be blind ourselves. We cannot see a clear path, we don’t know where this pandemic is taking us. We don’t know what path it will lead us down. But into the midst of that reality comes another.

          We have a relentless God who loves us and desires the best for us. We have a saving Lord who uses ordinary elements to utterly transform us. We have a God who creates magnificent creatures from the dust of the earth and who, with that same dust and a bit of spittle restores sight to the blind.

          The blind man didn’t know what Jesus was up to, could not have anticipated that Jesus would bring him healing, but miraculously, he trusted him and obeyed him. And he was given sight.

          Today, we are changed. We aren’t even able to stand together in worship and the presence of God in church. We can’t go to the places of work, school, routine activity or even go out to eat.

          We don’t know where this pandemic will lead us, but I believe it will change us. I believe that through it, God will transform us. I believe that the same God who restored sight of this blind man, who saw the hurt and need in the heart of a Samaritan woman, who spoke of being born anew and knowing the Word of God in flesh, can and will work in our hearts too. We need to trust him.

          Viruses, tests and trials like this do not come from God but grace and mercy and light and love come from God in the midst of such events.

          Despite the fear and uncertainty inspired by COVID19 God is working in and through individuals who are looking out for the most vulnerable among us, caring for one another, feeding the hungry, providing for the homeless, and accompanying the unemployed and unpaid workers. Caring for children of those lucky enough to work but who now have no childcare for their babies and small children.

          Generosity flourishes at times like these, and God’s mandate remains: that we love justice, pursue kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

          While we may not always see the gift of grace for what it is, let us trust that, blessed and equipped by God through the sacraments we will all not only get through this crises, but thrive, as we continually pray and seek God’s mercy throughout our days. May it be so.

Amen.

The Water of Life

Exodus 17:1-7 and John 4:5-42

Water. Clean water. Cleansing water. Life giving water.

Water is on our minds a lot these days. We are being told to wash with it, with copious amounts of it, because to wash in copious amounts of water with some soap mixed in has the effect of cleansing us from the virus that threatens us. Today, we are concerned first about water to cleanse with and second about water to quench thirst.

Water is the hook in both of our lessons today, too, but in both these cases, the water being discussed first is water to quench thirst.

In the wilderness, the Israelites grumble, and their grumpiness is driven by their fear. They are on a journey that would be difficult by anyone’s standards, and they fear that scarcity of water will lead them to death.

Their fear leads them to quarrel with Moses and test the Lord. They complain about their situation and they complain about the uncertainty of their journey and of their lives.

The people are thirsty for water and scared for their survival but God answers them in terms they never could have expected.

God uses Moses and his staff, the same staff that God transformed from rod to snake to rod again on Mount Horeb, when Moses was first called by God to lead them out of slavery in Egypt into freedom. With that rod God now miraculously produces water from a rock to slake their thirst.

Many in our world today know fear as we deal with the threat of the COVID 19 virus. “Wash with water” we are told, over and over again and it’s great advice, but it does nothing to mitigate our fear.

As people hoard everything from hand sanitizer – the great water substitute - to toilet paper, to drinking water and milk, to face masks there is a great deal of fear-driven grumbling now, too.

Where will this pandemic lead?

How many more people will be infected?

How many will die?

Is this punishment for the evil in our world?

Schools are cancelled, nursing homes shuttered to visitors, churches cease holding services inside their buildings, people who can work from home and a vast number of people wonder if this is the crisis that will cause them to become homeless, to lose their jobs, to stretch them past the breaking point.

How can we protect ourselves?

How can we protect our lives from infection by other people?

What about school? What about our jobs?

What will happen to our retirement accounts and our investment accounts and our livelihoods? How long, Oh Lord, how long?

These are all very practical concerns.

Then there are others like,

“What do you mean we need to cancel March Madness?”

Some claim all this is overkill, others fear it is still not enough to protect us, and yet others believe it’s all a great big conspiracy.

Then comes the plaintive cry,

“Where is God in all of this?”

Jesus comes to the well in Sychar, Samaria, tired and thirsty. He is a Jewish rabbi, sitting at the intersection of life in a Samaritan city, there at Jacob’s well.

This country and this city are not places of comfort and welcome for him.

As a Jew he is an outsider from a despised race. There is no love lost between Samaritans and Jews. The racist animosity and hatred between them goes long and it goes deep.

There in the scorching heat of mid-day sun comes a woman who has loved and lost enough in her life to have earned a reputation. She knows about loss. Before we go throwing stones of judgment at her, though, note that nowhere in scripture does it say why she has had five husbands and lives with yet another man now. Divorce was a husband’s prerogative and women of the time were set aside for any number of reasons, the inability to conceive and carry a child chief among them. We simply don’t know.

But we can guess that she suffers from a different kind of thirst as she comes to the well. She chooses a time of day that would allow her to avoid interaction with anyone else.

While Jacob’s well was a central gathering place for the drawing of water and for social interaction within the town each morning and evening when it would have been cooler, that is not when she comes. Only shunned folk would go there in the midst of the heat.

As she approaches carrying her water jug, she sees this stranger resting nearby. Jesus speaks to her, expresses his need to her. “Give me a drink,” he says.

She can hardly believe her ears, and she protests, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

Jesus then does an astonishing thing: he reveals his true identity to her.

Unusual details in this gospel begin piling up:

·         this is the longest recorded dialogue in the New Testament.

·         She is the first person and certainly the first outside of his religious and ethnic group to whom Jesus reveals himself in John’s gospel, and

·         this Samaritan woman is the first believer in any of the gospels to go directly from realization of Jesus’ identity to belief and then in lightning-fast trajectory straight to evangelist.

            In fact, so quickly does she react to share her remarkable encounter that she leaves her precious and much-needed water jug behind.

Fear aside, she runs straight to the people who on any day of the week gossip about her and shun her and she shares what has happened. And they listen and are amazed! In fact, they, who had nothing good to say about her and were formerly repelled by her came to believe in Jesus and to come to him and hear him teach because of her testimony.

            The water at the center of this gospel is not just any water, and Jesus doesn’t just come and throw it at the woman to save her. Rather, in love and mercy, Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well. He reveals a vulnerability there. He engages her on her territory and shares his humanity there. Revealing his need makes it easier to address hers.

            He knows everything there is to know about her, but he doesn’t reject her, preach to her, or judge her.

Jesus’ behavior toward her is radical and risky as is evident in the reaction from his disciples. But that is the way of God.

Jesus loves her where she is and he offers her the gift of everlasting water and life through the spirit, a gift that is not dependent on where she comes from, nor her gender, nor her background or history.

            The gift Jesus offers is the same gift given to us through his life, death and resurrection. It is the gift that God is with us through every storm, through every trial, through every adversity, virus, and uncertainty now and always.

            Jesus is the life-saving water that feeds our hunger and thirst. In his grace he loves us regardless of where we are from or where we have been.

Because of his love and the life-saving, life-altering grace he gives us, we have no reason to fear. No matter where this virus goes, or what it does it cannot take from us the only essential thing in life, the everlasting water that quenches our soul-deep thirst.

            The knowledge of God’s presence with us through every trial inspires our courage, and invites our confidence that indeed, God will never leave us or forsake us. Over and over again throughout the Scriptures we here the divine message – “have no fear” and, “do not be afraid”.  

God defies our natural inclination toward fear as much as he defies convention in this gospel by engaging with a Samaritan woman and using her testimony to lead many to faith.

            Many of us have had our lives disrupted in recent days, and we see no end in sight. There is a great deal of uncertainty and fear.

On Friday of this week, as I was trying to determine whether or not to hold worship services in the church this week, and how to proceed with an abundance of caution while still keeping and encouraging faith I struggled. How to make the best decision? In a time when we need to come together in prayer and mutual support, the idea of canceling worship was repugnant. It sort of still is. But it seemed to be the best way to love and care for my siblings in Christ and our neighbors.

None of us likes the insecurity with which we are surrounded. Hence the hoarding of resources.

            But into the storm of our present day circumstances, God reaches out and touches us with moments of calm. With opportunities still to love and serve our neighbor.

Our vulnerability, our need and our thirst are all answered for us in the waters of our baptism. Once again it is water that saves, water that reassures, water that quenches our thirst. Through those waters and God’s Word, we remember that God has chosen us for faith, for courage, and for sharing our confidence that ultimately, all will be well because God has ordained it. Not promising that it would be easy or without pain, God has given us life that really is life.

So, my friends, fear not. These are not empty words – God is with you.

May the peace of Christ that is in, under, around and over you guide your hearts and minds as you face the challenge of these days. Amen.

           

  

Beggars Made Worthy

October 15, 2017

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon Series, “Barriers to Generosity” – Entitlement

          I have a keen interest in the British royalty. I love to read both history in general and historical fiction of England. I’m fascinated with the lives royals lead, and with the ritual and tradition that surround them.  Last year, for instance, the two television programs I most enjoyed binge watching were “Victoria” – based on the life of Queen Victoria I, and “The Crown,” based on Elizabeth II, the reigning Queen of England.

          As a result, I find royal weddings kind of exciting. The first royal wedding I very clearly remember was that of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. I recall the excitement of the crowds, straining to get a look at Lady Diana in her royal carriage on the way to St. Paul’s Cathedral; the pageantry; her charming stumble over the order of her husband-to-be’s multiple names. What fun to be invited to such a spectacle and party!

          So, I have to tell you that if I received an invitation to a royal wedding, I would feel enormously honored and grateful to be among those to be included. There is no way I can expect to ever receive such an invitation. Therefore, if I indeed received one, not only would it come as a great surprise but I would do everything in my power to come, prepared to show not only my gratitude and joy, but my utter respect and desire to please and honor the queen or king issuing the invitation.

          So, what’s wrong with the people who were the first to receive the invitation to the king’s son’s wedding in today’s gospel text? The king must have been so pleased to issue the invitation. With great pride and with over-the-top generosity, surely, he looked forward to having the grateful recipients of the invitation come to honor both him and his son by their presence. What a party he was prepared to throw!

What’s wrong with these people who surprisingly declined the invitation? Who simply would not come? Who had better things to do with their time – more important things demanding their time and attention?

          Not only did they decline the initial invitation, but they made light of it – they behaved as if they were entitled to the invitation, and could simply choose to attend only if it were convenient enough for them to do so – only if they had nothing better to do. They behaved as if this invitation and the honor it conveyed was all about them and had nothing to do with the honor, fealty and praise that was the king’s due.

          Now, we all know that rulers can be incredibly thin-skinned. When thwarted they can behave like children having a full-blown and devastating temper tantrum, with devastating and deadly results. After all, kings expect the ultimate respect, honor, and worship of their subjects.

So, when we read what seems to be the over-the-top reaction of the king to the insult that has been dealt him when even a second invitation he issued was rejected, we are shocked.

But the people hearing this parable for the first time would have gotten it. They would have understood the disconnect - the deep disloyalty of these invitees, who have repaid the king’s generous invitation with disregard and insult; they would have understood the tragic ramifications of their rejection.

          But, as the parable goes on, it is not just the outright rejection of those on the king’s first invitation list that is brought under scrutiny. Another group of people is invited.

These are the ones who probably think the likelihood of them ever receiving an invitation from the king is about the same as my ever being invited to the next royal wedding. Null. So, when they do receive an invitation, they are excited. They don’t even care that they weren’t in the first group, they never expected to be. Instead, they are grateful to be thought of at all.

Anyone accepting this invitation would want to put their best foot forward, to be seen as grateful for the generosity of the king, and worthy by the king’s grace to be in the mere presence of the king and his son, let alone to be their honored guests.

          So it is surprising – shocking, even, when this one person behaves in a manner that shows his hosts less than the honor and praise they deserve. He seems to think that all he needs to do is just show up.

While those attending this wedding would be given the appropriate wedding dress provided by the king himself, this person eschews even that tradition. It just doesn’t suit him. He’s happy to come to the party, but seems to take the rest for granted.     

The problem with the first group who were invited and with this single invitee seems to be the same. They lack the proper attitude toward their gracious host and king. They lack the respect to accept the generosity of the king as pure gift and not simply as their due. They forget to respond with the proper sense of gratitude and awe for being included in the party at all.

Their basic sense of entitlement gets in the way of any gratitude at all.

          Each week, we are invited to the greatest feast imaginable. This is the feast, Martin Luther wrote, of the marriage - the union between heaven and earth. We come together in worship as undeserving guests, to praise God and offer our thanksgiving for this marriage, the incarnation of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. We are invited to the banquet to celebrate God’s love and generosity and our inclusion in the marriage feast.   

On our own, we are not worthy to be here, but by God’s good grace we are among both the good and the bad, saint and sinner both, who have received the invitation. We don’t deserve this honor, in fact there is nothing we could do to be so deserving. We come not because we are great but because God is great and steadfast in love, mercy, and generosity.

The problem with entitlement is, that whenever we allow ourselves to believe that we deserve what we have, or are somehow more worthy than another, we will find ourselves incapable of gratitude. The proper response to the king’s invitation is to run breathless to the banquet, dressed for the marriage of heaven and earth, wondering how we ever got on such a guest list.

When we come to church, we answer God’s gracious invitation to unite around the table. While we find community here, we don’t come for community. While we find lovely music and pleasing surroundings and friendships here, we don’t come for those things.

We find forgiveness of our sins here, but we should not forget that we come as beggars in need of God’s mercy, neither entitled to it nor deserving of it. But, because God loves us so, we come to be surprised, humbled and grateful to be among those Christ serve at the table of life. Such gratitude requires us to sing out for joy, and cry out in thanksgiving and praise of God.

In the traditional eucharistic liturgy still in use in some places is this confession: “I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.” We would do well to use these words in our liturgy as well, and to embrace the truth within them.

Our birthright as followers of Jesus Christ is to remember that none of us is worthy – none of us deserves to be here; therefore, we should respond to this invitation with nothing short of humble gratitude and thanksgiving.

Like the guests invited to the wedding feast in our gospel story, we too are provided a garment appropriate for the celebration.

The garment we are provided is the righteousness that comes from God.

This garment, in which we become clothed in baptism, sets us apart as the glad recipients of God’s grace. It is the outward expression of the inward change God performs in us in the sacrament through which God calls us Child of God.

It is no ordinary garment, even by the finest of standards. For this garment is comprised of threads of compassion, generosity, kindness, and forgiveness. The fabric of this garment is knit with concern for social justice, care for the poor and the marginalized. The golden thread that holds together the seams of this garment was spun from the blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and it compels us, to welcome other to the feast.

It compels us to be not only guests, but servants. It reminds us that in the eyes of God, whether we came from the stock of the good or the bad, we are forever transformed by God’s grace, united with Jesus Christ and with one another at the table.

Worthy? No, except by the love and mercy of God, which knows no bounds. Deserving to be here? No, but our inclusion compels us not only to come to the party, but to come prepared to give honor and glory to the host with thanksgiving, joy, respect and love. May it be so.

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.