Friday, June 30, 2017

Come On, Jesus! You’re Supposed to Be the Prince of Peace!



Brad Sullivan
Proper 7, Year A
June 25, 2017
Emmanuel, Houston
Genesis 21:8-21
Romans 6:1b-11
Matthew 10:24-39

Come On, Jesus!  You’re Supposed to Be the Prince of Peace!

Several times last week, someone would ask me what the Gospel reading is for this Sunday, and every time I told them, their reaction was, “Oh, yuck, I hate that passage.”  Honestly, that was my reaction too.  “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.”  Come on, Jesus, you’re supposed to be the Prince of Peace, not the Prince of Jerry Springer.

I could say that Jesus’ talking about family members being against each other harkens back to Micah 7:6 - “For the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”  Obviously that passage was in Jesus’ mind, but the context was that things had gotten so bad in Israel, that Micah was describing how things were, families were against each other, and children were treating their parents with contempt.  It would be a little disingenuous, therefore, to say, Jesus was just trying to remind people of scripture.  He didn’t say children were treating their parents badly.  He was saying that because of him, because of people believing in him and following his teachings, parents and children were going to turn against each other.  Those who didn’t follow him were going to turn against those who did.

This really isn’t all that surprising to those who have read the Gospel.  Jesus was a polarizing figure.  On the one hand he healed people and was a champion of the outcast and downtrodden.  He had a lot of wonderful teachings which we love to hear like “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  On the other hand, Jesus wasn’t just the easy listening station.  There was a lot of metal in him too, a good bit of raging against the machine of religious moral superiority coupled with economic and social injustice. 

Jesus did not mince words when denouncing religious leaders who demanded  religious perfection from others and yet did not care for the vulnerable and needy.  “Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widow’s houses and for the sake of appearances, say long prayers.”  (Matthew 23:14)   Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, because y’all are supposed to be using the money given to you by faithful Jews to help the vulnerable.  You’re supposed to be helping widows and helping others who have a hard time getting by.  Instead, you’re demanding that they do their religious duty and pay up in order to beautify the Temple.  Do you really think God will be pleased with a pretty building when his people are suffering? 

If you really want to please God, Jesus taught, then love God and love people.  Love people.  Care for them.  Help them mightily in their hours of need.  Take up your cross daily, and follow me.  Sacrifice your own safety and security in order to help people who are vulnerable, needy, down and out, rejected, and downtrodden.  Love God and love people…and don’t even pretend that you love God if you don’t love people.  There’s no way we can love God through our religion, if we don’t love people through our daily lives and actions. 

Folks like the Scribes and Pharisees, who dotted the “I”s and crossed the “T”s of their religious duties, didn’t like hearing that they actually had to care about people.  They didn’t like hearing that they would actually have to sacrifice some of their own comfort and security in order to help those less fortunate and (according to their theology) less deserving people.  “I have what I have because I’m a good, God-fearing person, and I earned it,” they thought.  “Those others would be better off than they are if they feared God like I do and worked harder.” 

That was pretty well what folks thought of the poor and the down and out back then, and Jesus was having none of it.  “No guys, the kingdom of God belongs to them too, and the kingdom of God is actualized in this world when you who have enough and more than enough, do all in your power to make sure that those who don’t have enough are cared for as well.”  Folks didn’t like hearing that.  In fact, folks killed Jesus for saying things like that.

Jesus was a polarizing figure.  Folks who really engaged with Jesus either loved him or were pretty turned off and scandalized by him.  He claimed to be God.  He claimed to be the way and the truth and the life.  He upset people’s comfortable focus on themselves, and forced them to take a hard look at others and their needs, and he taught folks to take a hard look at their own lives and see how their lives might be harming others.  Truly taking Jesus seriously today, he is still a polarizing figure.  You can love him, you can be pretty turned off by him, or you can assume he really didn’t mean or say much of what he said. 

When we do take seriously living as he taught, believing in Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, then some people are going to turn against us.  Heck, even grace is going to turn people against us.  Grace is great for those whom we feel deserve it, but what about when we follow in Jesus’ way and offer grace for those who don’t really deserve it?  That’s going to anger some people, and Jesus would have us do so anyway, rather than take the easy road and get on the bandwagon of self-righteousness and condemnation. 

“Take up your cross daily,” Jesus said, “and follow me.”  Let parts of you die, daily, in order to offer grace to others.  Let some of your needs die in order to help provide for the needs of others.  Be willing to accept the deaths of relationships that will come when people turn against you for truly taking Jesus seriously. 

A friend and colleague of Kristin’s was at a fundraiser and raffle to support a girls’ softball team in his community.  One of the raffle items was an AR-15, and this man really doesn’t like guns.  So, he spent thousands of dollars on raffle tickets, won the rifle, and had a friend help him turn it into gardening tools.  Swords into plowshares.  He took an instrument of death, and turned it into instruments of life, and he has received death threats for having done so.  He’s lost friends, received thousands of hateful messages, and he’d do it again, seeking life, rather than the possibility of death.

Jesus’ teaching that he has come to set family members against each other is still not my favorite passage to hear.  It’s not exactly the feel good film of the summer.  The reality of suffering ridicule, of straining and even losing relationships over taking Jesus seriously is, however, the way of Jesus.  What Jesus taught in our Gospel passage today is the way of him who is the truth and the life.  Do we dare take Jesus seriously?  Imagine the world if we do.  Imagine the changes in the world when we and other Christians acknowledge and share our faith in Jesus not through religious moral superiority while ignoring the problems of others, but rather through living and sharing our faith in Jesus by daily sacrificing greatly for the sake of others. That’s life following the way of Jesus, life in the Jesus movement. 

Thinking only about myself, hearing today’s passage leaves me not wanting to hear Jesus’ words.  Thinking about others, however, I want to hear more of today’s passage.  Thinking about others, I find hope and joy in today’s passage.  We get to be part of the Jesus movement in which we sacrifice some of our own safety and security for the sake of others, to provide safety and security to those who don’t have enough.  We get to accept grace for all those times when we don’t follow Jesus all that well, and we get to offer grace to those who don’t deserve it.  We get to offer grace even to those who would turn against us for taking Jesus seriously and following him as the way, the truth, and the life.  We get to be part of the Jesus movement, knowing that there will be consequences, and choosing for the love of others, to follow Jesus.

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