Pentecost 6

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Pentecost 6
PROPER: 8A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: June 30,2002

This sermon is re-worked from June 27,1999 – Pn5-8A

TEXT: Matthew 10:34-42 - "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me . . . . and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me . . . . and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple - truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.

ISSUE: These Sunday readings from Matthew have been building on one another for the past several weeks. In today's passage there is (1) the call to the abandonment of family, which in the time was a startling, earth shaking, and call to near death experience. (2) It is also a call to reclaiming a spirit of hospitality to those who are of lower status. Jesus is calling for brotherhood in the family of God, not in stifled families of the world, and a call to genuine hospitality respecting the dignity of all people for whom God comes in Christ.
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Today's gospel reading comes as something of a shock! Jesus has not come to bring peace, and if you love your family more than him you are not worthy of him or a place in God's kingdom or empire. Whoever does not give a cup of water to one of the disciples will lose their reward. (This last line does not shock us quite as much as the others, but it did in Jesus' time.) Over the past weeks we've been reading passages from Matthew's account of the Gospel that have had to do with Jesus selecting his disciples and training them. First, we began with the shocker that he selects a tax collect as one of his own. Then he tells them to join with him in proclaiming the good news to the last, the least, and the lost. They are to join him in a healing ministry. And in this time of great secrecy and deception he dares them to honest and forthright and what they've learned from in the evenings they are to proclaim from the rooftops. Matthew's Gospel account is portraying a very very bold Jesus, and a very daring early church.
There were, of course, some indications that the coming of the Messiah to the Jewish community would usher in a time of peace. At the time of Matthew's writing there isn't much in the way of peace. Though Isaiah wrote that the Messiah would be called "Wonderful Counselor," "Mighty God," "Eternal Father," "Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6) there is anything but peace. The temple had been destroyed, and the Jewish community in the holy land was in great turmoil and now the new movement of Jesus' followers was creating another kind of dissention. We know that Jesus was not crucified be cause he was bringing peace and quiet. His ministry was bold, daring, and often quite shocking. Matthew saw that many families were in great turmoil. Jesus is saying that a person must love him and God more than him, if they are to be faithful followers. Men were set again their fathers, and daughters against daughters and mothers-in-law against daughters-in-law. Disciples must take up the cross, lose life, before they can find real life and the peace for which they yearned.
In Jesus' time family was for most people everything. You were born into and for your family. You were raised to never leave home. The prodigal son did, and you see where it got him, nearly dead in the pigpen. You were dependent upon family for education, food, and a roof over your head. Your work and job came from your family. Your friends and business contacts came from your family. Who you were to marry was selected by family, and the person you married was usually your first cousin. You did not even marry out of the family. Your life literally depended upon your family. Family was your life. So Jesus is saying unless you lose your life, and give all that up and follow him. You do not have a real life. God, not family must come first. A relationship with Jesus Christ who leads to God is top priority.
Some churches today talk a great deal about family values. Keep in mind, however, that Jesus did not. Jesus had little to say, if anything, about family values. In another place Jesus says, "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?" Then he pointed to his disciples and said, "Look! Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does what my Father in heaven wants him to do is my brother, my sister, and my mother." (Matt. 12:49)
Jesus was very obviously challenging an ingrown world that sought stability and security from the world and the world's institutions. For Jesus we were the children, the people of God, and were to do God's will, and see God as Father, as opposed to the world. Unless you break away from that which binds you and holds you down, that obsesses you, you will not find real life, fullness of life. You have to die to the older ways and accept the cross; in order to truly live as a child of God's in the new Empire, and Family (Kingdom) of God. It is as if you find your purpose, meaning and work through God, not the world. We are inclined to let the world dictate its values, fads, and philosophies upon us. Jesus is making another turn-around, or statement of repentance.
Another part of the culture of Jesus' time was the concept of hospitality. A person who was traveling from one place to another was to be welcomed and given appropriate safety and food provisions. Persons who extended hospitality were thought to be very gained honor and status in their communities. Traveling was extremely dangerous in ancient times, so the concept of hospitality was very important. Thus, in place of the family, Jesus provides and calls upon the concept of hospitality to replace it. People who are not blood related, not family, shall become brothers and sisters of one another, and give the safety and protection that is needed in the world. God will see to it that they shall not lose their reward, and that they will be honorable in his sight. Honor from the world so far as Jesus was concerned was worthless.
It should also be noted that in this time, people of differing social standing and honor would not eat together. Jesus is teaching that giving a cup of cold water to the least of his disciples - that is, the poor, the tax collectors, the fishermen, the outcasts who join him - will be held as the truly honorable in the eyes of God. Class distinction is being challenged and all are to be seen as the brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.
All of these concepts boldly challenged the ways and the thinking of Jesus time. To follow Jesus so far as Matthew and the early church was concerned was to die, to give-up, to for go, the exclusiveness, and the traditions of the time, and to become alive again in inclusiveness, in seeing the worth and the dignity in all people. It was also a time for reclaiming God as truly one's Father, and to walk in his ways of justice and re-claiming all the outcasts, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized for God.
Now as we consider a passage such as this one today, we need to consider how it relates to our own situation and world culture. Many people today still have great respect for the importance of the family, and that is as it should be. However, we function in our family life very differently from ancient times. Ancient peoples raised their children to stay at home for the good of and for safety and security of the clan or tribe. We raise our children today to leave home. We are very committed to individuality, and to self-reliance and self-dependence. Those are the values of the American way. People who stay at home are often somewhat suspect. We commit ourselves to the hope and expensive proposition of education so that children will grow up secure and with good incomes. We are economically oriented. Being successful in the world, healthy (which comes from a commitment to some healthful sport), self-reliant and independent with a good practical education are the values our culture cherishes. These values in our American culture can supercede our religious and spiritual values, which frequently take second place. It is simply another side of the same coin: safety and security.
It might be well worth the effort to contemplate just what Jesus might say to his disciples and to the people of today along these lines. He might still say that we have to die to family, to education, to success, and good jobs if we are to truly follow him. We still have a cross to take up and way of life to abandon, to get back to the roots of being a servant faith.
Another one of the values of life and certainly of the church today is tradition. We like keeping certain things the way they are. But change challenges us. It is what keeps us alive, and keeps the church from becoming a museum as opposed to a living mission of hope for the people of this land and community, and around the world. Do we really think Jesus is impressed with our being 300 years old, possessing Queen Anne Pewter, and having a beautiful a one hundred year old stone church? Maybe it would be better in the sight of the Lord to be well known for the community church that served human need for some three hundred years, which was and is rich in hospitality and caring. There is sometimes fear in changing things, and if we do the change becomes labeled as a loss of our history. But, if our history is one of stagnancy, then it should be changed.
Jesus called upon his disciple to be truly hospitable and to share a cup of cold water, or a meal with all people, and not just those of their own class and persuasions. We are often hospitable but maybe to people like ourselves and within our own class. Keeping to our selves and within our selves is comfortable, but the Gospel is bold and challenging, encompassing, and extremely generous. We must look for opportunities to expand our horizons, to know people different from ourselves. Hospitality in our culture is guarded. If we are too hospitable we might now have enough resources for ourselves. Hospitality may make us too vulnerable. Hospitality might at times be a little too forgiving, if not frightening. Yet Jesus dared to proclaim hospitality and generosity that shocked the rigid leadership of the period that preferred to keep certain elements in their place.
A significant part of the Middle Eastern Culture was that it was fond of exaggeration. Jesus got a lot of people's attention by calling for the abandonment of family. No doubt many of disciples ended up doing that very thing. But we must be aware of what was at the heart and meaning of what Jesus proclaimed. He was re-claiming the loveliness and the compassionate love of God to be first and foremost. It was important to Jesus that the world not be exclusive where people are physically and spiritually abandoned and separated. He called for a family of God where all people are brothers and sisters to one another, and who could work interdependently with one another to be the world's force for justice and goodness. He called for a genuine hospitality where all people could sit down to meal together, and to give a cup of cold water to all people without reservation. Jesus called for an expanded sense of service and generosity, for caring and concern for one another.
Sometimes old things have to give way to new thoughts, new decisions, new sensitivities, and awareness. Is this not what Jesus was attempting to say to an exclusive and inbred world? This week a new secretary began working in the office. She immediately began by making considerable adjustments to how the office will be run, and adjustments to our computer arrangements. At first it is somewhat frightening to me, but over all these new arrangements may well expedite and bring us into the 21st Century. In the same way, we need to be alert to our past and aware of needs for the future development of our Lord’s church in the future.
We live in a world where we want to be liked. We don't want anyone to dislike us, and we're comfortable not rocking any boats. Racist jokes, American fondness for violence, and greed, unchallenged tradition in church and family become a part of our lives that we believe is either harmless or doesn't matter, or that there is little we could do about any of these things anyway. But Jesus would say hate those things that are not of God or that take God's place or become too obsessively important. Die to them. Take up the cross, and follow him into a generous and renewing dimension of life and servanthood. Dying to sin, meaning exclusiveness, alienation, separation, is for Jesus to rise to oneness with God, to genuine love, to participation in a new world, a new empire of God's making, The Kingdom of God. We look forward to the coming of God’s Kingdom in which a true brotherhood in Christian love becomes the ultimate reality.