'Jesus said to the twelve disciples, “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it 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!
“So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
“Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For 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;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
Whoever 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; 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.”'
--Matthew 10: 24-39
During Lent we began having a Bible Study on Tuesday mornings in my parish. We intended for it to simply be a practice for the Lenten season, but it’s been popular enough that we’ve kept it going. It is based off of the ancient study model of Lectio Divina, developed by Saint Benedict of Nursia. Here's how it works: we take the Gospel for the upcoming Sunday and ask three questions: 1) What is the text saying in its own context when it was written? 2) What is it saying to you personally as an individual? and 3) What is it saying to the wider Church and the world? We’ve had some really great conversations, and it’s especially edifying for this preacher because the Holy Spirit is clearly moving in the insights and questions of the group.
It's all well and good until we get a Gospel like this one, and boy howdy, we had a tough time with this section from Matthew, chapter 10. I recall hearing, among other things on Tuesday: “I just don’t understand!” and “That makes no sense!” and “What do you mean he didn’t come to bring peace?!” To be sure, this is not an easy passage to makes sense out of, especially for a modern audience. But, as one of our Bible Study regulars noted, there’s something meaningful about seeing a text that is so hard at face value but still being able to find some measure of Good News. So, as I did in my sermon this past Sunday, I've structured this blog post in the fashion of our Bible Study.
Question 1: What is the text saying to the people of its own time? In the story? In the community?
The first thing we ask anytime we come across a text that seems difficult to grasp at first is: what is the context? What’s going on in this passage and in the community that produced it? Jesus isn’t giving a sermon to a large group of people here, rather he is continuing his instructions to the 12 apostles as he sends them out, picking up where last week’s reading left off. He is, effectively, laying it all out there for them, giving them, as one member of the Bible Study group said, a waiver to sign that says they understand what they’re getting into. If they’re going to commit to this work – the work of casting out demons, healing sick, raising the dead, and proclaiming the Good News that the Kingdom of Heaven has come near – then they need to be prepared for in-fighting amongst family members, and for some pretty powerful people threatening them, silencing them, even physically harming them. What’s more, they will need to be ready to take up their cross – that shameful form of public execution reserved for those who spoke out against the Roman government. It will not be for the faint of heart.
Now that we know what’s happening with the passage we can ask: what’s going on with the community that produced it? Matthew’s Gospel was composed around the year 85 AD, 15 years after the destruction of the Jewish Temple. There is a theme that undercuts all of Matthew and it is the eschaton, the end of the world as we know it – and we feel fine! Matthew is often called the most Jewish Gospel because Jesus not only emulates Moses in the Sermon on the Mount, but he also echoes the prophets of old. He warns the people, as the prophets did, of God’s coming day of judgment, and in this text even warns his disciples that while they needn’t fear human authorities, the only one they need fear – to show awe, reverence, and respect for – is God, who alone is capable of casting one’s soul into the hellfire of Gehenna, the dung heap outside of Jerusalem where the bodies of the crucified were dumped – Gehenna is the Greek word that our English Bibles translates to hell. For the community that produced this Gospel, Jesus is carrying on that same voice of the prophets, calling the people to repentance because, as far as they were concerned, that time of judgement was close at hand, and the destruction of the Temple had been the first sign.
Question 2: What is the text saying to me personally (using "I" statements)?
OK, preacher, you might be saying, all that context stuff is fine, but let’s get down to brass tacks. If I am not part of the community of Matthew’s Gospel or living in first century Palestine, then how can I find myself in this text? As was brought up in our Bible Study last week, it’s important to realize that, unless we have actually faced real persecution and still dared to live our authentic lives – the lives to which Jesus calls everyone – we can’t really begin to understand what the apostles were facing. Lots of modern Christians try – projecting some of their experiences of course correction or others calling out their harmful rhetoric as somehow being the same thing as the persecutions faced by the apostles, but that’s a false equivalency. Modern Christianity is not under attack!
Still, as I see it, there are those among us – faithful and loving folks – who do face real threats of violence and emotional harm on a daily basis. We are in the final days of Pride Month, and though I speak from the place of privilege as a white, cisgender man who identifies as heterosexual, I am compelled to raise up the witness of our queer siblings, who dare each day to live as God made them, to be who Jesus calls them to be and lives the lives Jesus calls them to live, just as the apostles were so called. People I love dearly – whom Jesus loves dearly - have been spit upon, beaten, and told they are an abomination in the eyes of God, and yet they still stand. They’ve had to forsake father and mother when father and mother have forsaken them, and still they love, and dance, and march. This is the closest thing, I believe, that modern American Christianity has to a witness of faith and courage that rivals that of the apostles.
Question 3: What is the text saying to the Church and to the modern world?
Which brings me to the overall theme that was conveyed in our Bible Study and the answer to the third and final question of what Good News is there for the wider Church and world. It lies in Jesus’ own words in verse 26 ("have no fear"), and in verse 31 ("do not be afraid"). Even when it looks like the world is ending, have no fear. Even when those in power try to cut you down, do not be afraid. Jesus may not have brought the sword himself, but his coming into the world did. His very presence invited conflict – they did kill him, remember?! – so why wouldn’t the message of those whom he has sent into the world not invite that conflict, as well?
And, like any good prophet, Jesus was right. The blood of Abel cries out again and again whenever those whom Jesus loves and calls his own are cut down, or when they do the cutting down. Families may be splintered, churches may break away from each other, but God is still good…all the time. Finding one’s life has to do with security – in Jesus’ time it was the security that came with a stable family life, and in our times it often has to do with jobs, money, or housing. Yet when we are willing to let go of that need for security, which is precisely what the apostles did, then we find our real lives, our real purpose, and we understand that no matter what portents and problems and perils may come, we are called beloved by Christ Jesus, and that is all that matters. It is in him, and him alone, that we find our true security, our true lives.
Final Thoughts
Our Bible Study last week went nearly 30 minutes overtime because, as I said to the group, we could unpack this reading all day long, and I’m sure this blog post could've been a lot longer. I mean it when I say that if any of you struggle with this passage, or even anything I have had to say about it, come at me with your questions and insights. I love it!
And for now, may you receive the wisdom of our Tuesday Bible Study group and know for yourselves that while your context may not be the same as the apostles or the community of Matthew’s Gospel, you too are called to go out into a frightening world and proclaim the Good News of God’s love and mercy known to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. How you do that is up to each of you, but if you trust in Jesus, then you will have nothing to fear.
If you would like to join the Tuesday Bible Study at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, stop by at 9:00 or join us via Zoom by clicking here.
