Sermon: Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Edgebrook Lutheran Church

June 22, 2008

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 10:24-39

²⁴A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; ²⁵it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!
²⁶So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. ²⁷What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. ³⁰And even the hairs of your head are all counted. ³¹So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
³²Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; ³³but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
³⁴Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
³⁵For 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;
³⁶and one's foes will be members of one's own household.
³⁷Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; ³⁸and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Good News: God, through Jesus, has erased all fear.

Do Not Fear. Follow.

This is a strange June, my friends.

Last week I was eating a Whopper at Burger King with my nephews, which is a big deal because Rhonda and I make it a point not to each fast food. But the nephews wanted it, and far be it from me to displace their view of me as the uncle who is fun, so of course we stop off there to eat.

And as I’m eating this Whopper, something doesn’t taste quite right. You see, in my younger days, I was a Whopper connoisseur. I ate them bi-weekly. I can still remember the taste. But this didn’t taste right.

And I opened the burger and realized that there was, indeed, no tomato on my burger. The salmonella outbreak had taken its toll and it totally affected the taste. I somehow found the will to finish the burger, but I was reminded of a Laurie Colwin quote that rang true at that moment:

“A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins.”

Luckily, we’re getting our violins back.

And for much of the past two weeks, we’ve all been glued to the reports of our neighbors to the West and North, Iowa, Wisconsin, border Illinois, hoping and praying for safety, even as we see the rivers well up to the point that the banks overflow, and the river borders are no longer sand and shore, but homes and businesses.

Our prayers and our support are still with them as we pray for receding waters.

And to go along with our strange June, today, we have a very strange text.

It mentions demons and swords, crosses and dissention.

^“and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

This is the only mention of the cross that Jesus has in Matthew before his actual crucifixion, and so we have to try to get at the heart of what Jesus is saying here.

You see, Jesus is not advocating that we go looking for crosses. Sometimes I think there is this idea among Christians that anything hard, or anything troubling is a “cross to bear.”

Sometimes I think we see any burden as a “cross to bear.” That’s simply not the case.

A difficult decision is not a cross. Taking children to school, or Sunday School, going to church, putting up with an annoying friend who dominates your time. Those are not crosses. And I think our strange June has made that abundantly clear to us. My scheduling conflicts are nothing compared to losing my house, my land, a family member or friend in a flood.

And suffering in general is not a cross. Illness, sickness, disease, these are not crosses. They are moments where God’s grace works wonders, they are moments where God can work and move in and through us. But I cannot, in good pastoral conscience, tell my brother or my sister suffering with AIDs, suffering from malnutrition, suffering from even glaucoma or hypertension, that that is their “cross to bear.”

And when we equate those to the cross of Christ, we cheapen that event. We cheapen that grace.

You see crosses are those things in our life that we run into when we follow Jesus Christ, and God’s work through him. Crosses are those things we run into when are faced with the reality of suffering, not in ourselves, but in the world, in others. Crosses are redemptive pieces of machinery.

You see, we don’t go looking for crosses because, in our life crosses will come looking for us.

And when we face a cross in our lifetime, we have a decision. We can pick it up and follow Christ, knowing exactly there it leads.

Or we can turn away.

Pastor Heidi Neumark, in her memoir Breathing Space, speaks of crosses. The memoir is full of crosses.

In one particularly moving entry, she speaks about going to see a woman named Ruby. Ruby comes to the food pantry of the Transfiguration Lutheran Church, where Heidi is called, and Heidi has only seen her there a couple of times. Ruby is not a member of the church. She doesn’t attend services. But Heidi goes to see her.

She knocks on the door, and after a moment or two of shuffling behind it, Ruby opens it up. And the place is a mess. There are no lights on because the power has been shut off. There is old food and clothes everywhere, and a small toddler in dirty clothes is seated on the floor. Ruby has struggled with abusive relationships, with crack, with a daughter who won’t go to school because her clothes are too ratty and wrinkled, to an apartment infested with rats to the point that they gnaw on the mattresses at night. And, most recently, Ruby has been diagnosed with HIV.

Now, these are not crosses for Ruby to bear. And think about it. If Ruby were to die on any of these crosses, from abuse or crack, from HIV or infestation, where would the redemption be?

No. You see, the one being faced with the cross at this moment is Heidi.

Is you and me.

Heidi followed Christ, the Christ that says, “Love your neighbors as yourselves.” The Christ that says, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And in following Christ she has found herself at this cross.

What will she do? What will she do?

Now, believe it or not, Heidi has options. When faced with this dilemma, we’re torn I’m sure. Helping Ruby out could be a serious investment of time and money, could be a serious investment of sweat equity, and could be impossible.

Or, Heidi can continue to visit with Ruby, and at the end of their exchange, simply walk away. Perhaps visit another day.

So what do they do? They pray. And, believe me, prayer is the first thing to do when faced with a cross. After all, what did Jesus do when faced with his cross. He went up to the garden of Gethsemene and prayed for a way out. He prayed that there might be another way. There wasn’t in that case.

You see, when we follow the footsteps of Jesus, when we follow the commands that say, “Love your neighbor, embrace your enemy.” When we do those things that God has said are important in this life, we’re going to find crosses.

So, do we pick them up, or pass them by?

Well, I think the answer is that sometimes we pick them up, and sometimes we pass them by.

And that’s OK. It’s OK because, well, if we’re following in the path of Christ, crosses will appear at our feet all the time, every day. And folks, we can’t pick them all up by ourselves. We simply can’t. Even Jesus says we can’t. At the beginning of this section of Matthew he says, “The disciple is not above the teacher, the servant above the master.”

We are not gods. We cannot be crucified on every cross that is out there.

But then again, we are commanded to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. There are some crosses we simply can’t pass by. And so we are commanded to do so in following Christ. It is our vocation to do so. It is our calling.

But what happens when we do?

What happens when we pick up a cross?

Well, Jesus lays it out for us. You see, the disciples who were following Jesus thought he would be bringing military and political peace to the world. But Jesus says that disciples shouldn’t expect peace. In fact, if you teach and preach, if you reach out as Jesus did, you should not expect peace, but a sword.

Yes, a sword.

And you should expect to be called names. “Beelzebul” is the word used here. It literally, in Hebrew means, “Lord of the flies.” Expect to be called King or Queen of the dung-heap, it says.

And you can expect family discourse. Because, you see, sometimes following Christ puts us at odds with others, even our families. We live in a world that calls us to be greedy, to put people in a hierarchical order, to degrade some while lifting up others. But Christ calls us to be giving, to turn hierarchy on it’s head, to uplift all even if it means taking a lower place yourself. And that’s not going to sit well with everyone, even in families. Mothers will disagree with mother-in-laws, fathers with sons. There is dissention on the way of the cross.

But there’s Good News.

You see, the love of God that calls us to reach out to others, calls us to take up our crosses. But we don’t do it alone. We do it with God’s help.

Throughout this section of Matthew, Jesus continually reminds the disciples, reminds us that we are not to be afraid of this path.

“Do not fear.” You see, the work of Jesus has freed us from fear. The work of the Messiah has freed us from those things that hold us back from doing the work of God in this world.

Do not fear if people call you crazy for picking up the cross of that neglected child in your neighborhood, the one who is violent and mischievous, but also hungry. Jesus was once called crazy.

Do not fear the financial loss of taking some time out to work for the Red Cross in flooded parts of Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota. God calls us to care for our neighbors and is working in and through that effort.

Do not fear the derisive looks that some in this world will give you when you stand up against racism, sexism, homophobia, and greed. Do not fear their jokes, their snide remarks behind your back. Jesus is standing there with you, taking up that cross with you. They might be able to cut you with a sword of words, or even real swords sometimes, but they cannot touch your real self, your true self, the self that God knows. That is God’s!

Do not fear. Follow.

The hymn of the day today called The Summons, and is speaks to following Christ, no matter what crosses it leads to. The fourth verse is especially poignant:

“Will you love the you you hide, if I but call your name? Will you quell the fear inside, and never be the same. Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around? Through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?”

Do not fear, quell that fear inside. In following God we are standing with God against those things that threaten the world, against those swords that cut. And do not be afraid of those swords. God has promised that swords will be plowshares, that violence will not be the end of us. In following Christ, in picking up a cross, we can reshape this world with God’s help.

And yes, we are only a few. There are few people who pick up crosses, and the swords of this world are many and great. But in the face of such things, I am reminded of the poetic words of Tennessee Williams “The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.”

So lets not fear, lets follow. We’ll find crosses, lets pick them up. Jesus has laid it all out for us: there will be swords, there will be slander, there will be tough patches on this journey with Christ. But God walks with us, walks this path beside. God tells us not to fear, for what do we fear when God is near? With God’s help, we violets can break those mountain rocks.

The last verse of that hymn The Summons says it well:

“Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name. Let me turn and follow you and never be the same. In your company I’ll go where you love and footsteps show. Thus I’ll move, and live, and grow in you and you in me.”

Do not fear. God has erased all fear. Follow.