Preaching Paths 28 June 2026

Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary

Today’s gospel text, Mt 10:24-39, continues Jesus’ discourse preparing his twelve representatives for their itinerant mission of preaching and healing throughout Israel’s villages. The reading combines dire warnings of coming opposition and threat, along with assurance of God’s watchful care.

This is not an easy text for preachers. Many modern congregations, especially in Western societies largely unacquainted with persecution, may find it off-putting. Jesus’ declaration, “I have come not to bring peace, but a sword” strikes some as “un-Christlike.” Others will find disturbing Jesus’ teaching that no one who loves father or mother more than the Master can fulfill Jesus’ mission.

Our listeners will benefit if we spend a few minutes at the beginning of the sermon sketching the historical context of this challenging discourse. Jesus’ statement that he has come to “bring not peace but a sword” resonates with the situation of Matthew’s late-first-century, Jewish-Christian community. Jesus has predicted earlier (10:17) that they will be oppressed by leaders of the synagogues; this was indeed the case for Mt’s community. Jesus predicts that the servant shall be treated as the master. 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 him/herself—whether with hospitable welcome or with hostility. Jesus has prepared them for rejection.

Early readers of Mt’s gospel would not be surprised at the admonition to love the Master more than family. Descriptions of the early church’s long, pre-Easter preparation for the baptism of converts to Christian faith (the “catechumate”) suggest that many renounced family ties and even their livelihoods to become followers of Jesus and part of the Christian community.

Yet this text is more than a curious window into Christianity’s early decades. Jesus’ teaching about the vulnerability of his followers to slander and rejection is perhaps more pertinent to today’s congregations today than it has been for decades. In the West especially, there is growing resistance to the idea that Jesus was radically inclusive of outcasts and social outsiders. Christians are discovering how threatening some find us when we embrace Jesus’ radically inclusive practices.

Historically, the Church has prospered materially and in social status, when it agrees to reduce Christian faith to a purely “spiritual” matter. It prospers when it tolerates state-sponsored harassment of the poor, refugees and immigrants, and those labeled socially unacceptable (as has happed to today’s LBGTQi population). Jesus deliberately embraced the “targeted” of his day. His followers are called upon to do the same. Faithfulness risks public criticism and persecution. 

Today’s text delivers a bracing dose of realism. When we dare in word and deed to represent the reign of heaven as Jesus lived it, we too will be perceived as a threat—even by many who claim to be Jesus’ “true” followers. We should not be surprised when we are misrepresented, harassed, and threatened with physical harm; Jesus predicted this long ago. It has been true for two millennia.

No less than three times in today’s text, Jesus admonishes us: “Do not fear” (vv.  26, 28, 31). No sparrow falls unnoticed by its Creator; are we not worth much more? God accompanies as we walk Jesus’ path. Holding lightly to life for his sake, we shall find, at journey’s end, life in true abundance.