Being Disciples (Fourth Sunday after Pentecost)
Sermons on YouTube…
So I pointed out last week that our lectionary readings this year simply move through Matthew’s Gospel, without regard to what we may be doing in our congregation this week or what’s going on in our secular society. But sometimes, you get lucky as we did last week, and there was a story about Jesus sending missionaries out to spread the good news on the same day that we were sending off our missionaries to Honduras.
This week, however, we continue reading through Chapter 10 of Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus says things like, “I have come to set a man against his father”; and “whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” So, Happy Father’s Day!
In fact, in all 15 verses of today’s Gospel reading, there’s hardly anything warm and fuzzy. It’s almost all about conflict, and stress and being unpopular even within your own family.
So whenever you find words like this coming from Jesus, you should ask, “why would Jesus say stuff like this?” After all, nobody really likes hearing these things, especially on days like Father’s Day or Mother’s Day. And, from a marketing standpoint, these are not the best things to say to get people to follow you!
And the second question you should ask is, “why would Matthew or any of the Biblical writers remember these words and write them down?” After all, it wasn’t like these guys had huge back-up drives to record every little thing Jesus said. And when they wrote things down, they had very limited space. So they chose which things they wanted to write very carefully.
I suspect that Matthew didn’t find these words of Jesus really warm and fuzzy either. And he would also have preferred not to think about stress and conflict and being unpopular even within your own family.
But the problem was that when Matthew wrote these words near the end of the first century, these things really were the way most people in his community were experiencing life. Matthew wrote to and for an early community of Christians, most of whom had been Jewish (and many of whom still considered themselves to be loyal Jews who followed Jesus the Messiah.)
But for those first Christians, it was often the case that trying to be faithful to God and follow Jesus in their daily lives:
- often got them ridiculed and insulted – Jesus’ words about being called Beelzebul – the devil – were words they could understand, because they were also being called names for following a “false god”… (“Jesus is Lord” was heresy to Jews and sedition to Romans …)
- caused stress in other relationships – Christians were indeed being disowned by their families and often thrown out of their religious communities because of their weird beliefs …
- was causing them to live and act in new and uncomfortable ways … take up your cross was an extreme example, but followers of Jesus were also being called to love their enemies and contribute to the needs of others – things that really did affect both their lifestyle and their wallets …
That was the reality for early Christians. And it made life uncomfortable and uneasy for them. But what really makes readings like this so uncomfortable and uneasy for us isn’t the history lesson, but the recognition that often being a follower of Jesus is still like this for us.
Deep down, most of us want God and our relationship with God to be something that makes us feel warm and fuzzy. I want Jesus to be the one who brings peace and joy to my life, not a sword. I want faith to be something that helps me escape from stress and conflict, not something that causes stress and conflict. And I’d like being a “person of faith” to be something that people say is a good and praiseworthy thing, instead of something that makes them look at me like I’m weird.
And so at some core level, I read these words and I want to say, “yes, but that was then and this is now. And it shouldn’t be like that today in my society.” But the reality for us is often the same as for those early Christians.
As much as I’d like for Jesus to make my life warm and fuzzy – and even when I do feel warm and fuzzy about Jesus – it’s often the case for me and for you, that being a follower of Jesus:
- isn’t always received as a positive thing by others – the fastest growing religious group in America today is the “nones” – people who aren’t interested in any kind of religion. Many folks who aren’t Christian often describe their experience of Christians as “hypocritical, insensitive, judgmental, anti-homosexual and arrogant.” And sadly, we know there are people who call themselves Christian who fit that description well. And really, that’s pretty much a modern definition of being called the devil; and even if it’s been earned by some folks who call themselves “Christian,” it makes it hard – but utterly necessary – for us to talk about what our faith in Jesus really means in outside of church gatherings…
- can cause stress in our other relationships – some of us do have families for whom faith and religious practice really are a source of great stress (even if it’s arguing about “being a real Christian”); but we also all live in a society where finding time and space to nurture faith means having to balance other commitments and relationships – there is no set-aside time for nurturing our faith as there might have been a few decades ago; now it’s common for us to have to balance work; kid’s sports and birthday parties; and even our own family and personal time in ways that mean that we need to intentionally set time and space aside for worship and prayer and serving others; and sometimes for us, setting those priorities and boundaries can cause stress and even conflict …
- often causes us to live and act in new and uncomfortable ways. If it’s true that some people have a messed-up idea of who we think God is, then Jesus is also calling us to be people who re-order some things in our lives so that our attitudes and actions convey a new reality about God in our lives. And that affects our lifestyle and our priorities and our wallets. A couple of decades ago, it could seem like serving God was going to be done by professional religious people, like missionaries. And somebody richer than me would pay for it. And we could always come to church in a building that seems to always have been there and where a lot of things just got done by a whole legion of people with more time than us. But that’s not the way things have worked for a while now. And if we’re concerned and impressed by Christians in other countries who are willing to face death and persecution for their faith in Jesus, we should at least be people who are willing to adjust and re-order how we spend our time and energy and money to show our faith in Jesus to the world …
I really wish that Jesus would tell me that being his disciple would make people like me and take stress and conflict out of my life. I’m sure his first disciples wished that, too.
But disciples of Jesus from the first day until now continue to be willing to put up with the conflict and deal with the stress and pay the price. And it’s not because stress or conflict or cost are happy things. I think it’s rather because at some point in our lives we realize that anything really worthwhile – anything that really brings life and joy and meaning into our lives – comes with a cost. And things that bring life and joy and meaning are worth the cost.
Disciples since the beginning have found life and joy and meaning in the relationship with God that Jesus brings. And so it’s worth the cost. But I think Jesus has something deeper in mind.
And that something is this: anybody can talk about God, or religion or values. But when people are willing to rearrange their lives, and put up with stress, and pay a price for what they say they believe, that’s what makes faith real in their lives. And sharing our faith in real and meaningful ways is what Jesus is always calling us to do. And in the end, being willing to put up with the stress and pay the price is really the only thing that just might make our faith real and believable and life-giving to those who have written off God or religion.
Amen.