Preaching Paths 25 June 2023

Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary

Today’s gospel text, Mt 10:24-39, continues Jesus’ discourse, prompted by his compassion for Israel’s “troubled and abandoned” multitudes (Mt 9:36, New American Bible), in which Jesus prepares his twelve disciples for an itinerant mission of preaching and healing  throughout Israel’s villages. The reading contains dire warnings of coming opposition and threat, along with assurance of divine care and admonitions not to fear. 

The lection is not an easy one for preachers. Many modern congregations, especially in Western societies comfortably untouched by persecution, will find the text off-putting. Jesus’ declaration, “I have come not to bring peace, but a sword” strikes some as “un-Christlike.” The teaching that no one who loves father or mother more than the Master is unworthy of discipleship is disheartening.

Many congregations will benefit from a few minutes at the start of a sermon spent situating this text’s difficult sayings within their historical context.  Jesus’ statement that he has come to “bring not peace but a sword” signals to Matthew’s Jewish audience that Jesus is not that longed-for sort of messiah many of his day expect—one who comes to throw off Roman rule and, by force, inaugurate Israel’s longed-for eschaton of eternal peace.  Jesus’ statement that the servant shall be treated as the master puts his disciples on alert that the towns they visit may rebuff them, as they have done to Jesus. Ancient custom dictated that a messenger arriving at a household or court could expect to be treated as that household or court would treat the master himself/herself—whether with hospitable welcome or with hostility.

Later readers of Matthew would not be surprised at the warning about loving family more than the Lord and Master. In the early church, those who committed to the catechumate, the long and arduous preparation to cross the threshold of baptism, often renounced livelihood and family.

Yet this text is more than a curious window into Christianity’s early decades. The theme of the church’s vulnerability threads these diverse sayings together, and is perhaps more pertinent to today’s congregations today than it has been for decades.  Perhaps we need to be reminded that Jesus long ago promised risk and vulnerability to any who dare lay aside the safe norms of conventional piety to embrace his radically inclusive teachings and practices.

Historically, when the Church has aligned itself with power and wealth, making  purely “spiritual” Christian practices or legalistic oversight of social behavior its business, its coffers and reputation have swelled. By contrast, when congregations refused to make peace with inhuman conditions among the poor and despised, have dared to expose practices in high places that perpetuate poverty and oppression, and have spoken up for the rights and dignity of society’s outcasts, they have found themselves targets of public criticism and even physical threats.

Today’s text delivers a dose of realism. When we dare in word and deed to represent the reign of God as Jesus understood and lived it, we will be perceived as a threat, just as he was. We “take up the cross” as we accept this reality. Yet, no less than three times, Jesus tells us: “Do not fear” (vv.  26, 28, 31). No sparrow falls unnoticed; we are worth far more. God watches as we follow the risky road of discipleship in this divided and dangerous world. Losing life for Jesus’ sake, we shall find it.