June 22, 2008

Fairly early in his episcopacy, Bishop Curry began a diocese-wide Bible study called Gospel Based Discipleship. Every year before the first Sunday of Advent, he had books like this one prepared which lists the appointed Gospel reading for every day of the year. He asked that all Episcopalians in the diocese read and study these lessons and that every parish committee begin their meeting with a standardized study of the scripture lesson. The text is to be read 2 or 3 times and the following 3 questions are to be considered. What word, phrase or sentence stands out to you in this passage? What is Jesus saying in this passage? What is Jesus calling you to do in this passage? Many congregations amended the study so that when their committees met, they read the upcoming Sunday’s gospel. This way, they’d be more familiar with that text for the sermon. 

Tuesday, your vestry read and considered the words your deacon just read. Thursday, your diocesan council met in beautiful downtown Wilson and studied the same message. In a room with people you know well, people who fix the heat and air in your church buildings, people who plan Christian Formation and newcomer programs, people who watch parish finances and make worship schedules, these people heard disturbing news. 

In a modest, new building shared by an African American and a Hispanic congregation to our east, two bishops, two canons, six priests and nine lay readers listened to the identical lesson and had a similar reaction. When Jesus tells the 12 disciples, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth, I have NOT come to bring peace, but a sword,” we all swallow hard. The Gospel, the so-called “Good News,” suddenly takes a seemingly dangerous, violent and unsettling turn.

What are we to make of these statements? How do we square them with what we understand about the character and mission of their speaker? Jesus, the promised deliverer, the one foretold as the Prince of Peace, the Wonderful Counselor, the Wise One full of all knowledge seems to be preachingconfrontation. He seems to be advocating armed conflict and family dissention. He is pitting parents and children against each other. What about the fifth commandment, “Honor thy father and mother”? Where is the Lord of Love, the Author of Salvation, in this directive? 

This is indeed a passage that gives us pause and requires some careful study. When Biblical scholars write on Matthew, chapter 10, verses 24-39, they often refer to the text as “The Cost of Discipleship.” In his instructions to his first followers, Jesus is not encouraging war or familiar anarchy. He is presenting the realistic consequences of putting God first in their lives in this time of transformational change. Something new is afoot. Something original is being worked out. The old order is about to be turned over. When Jesus says I have not come to bring “peace” to the earth, he is not talking about detent. He is not speaking of the absence of war. He is talking about stillness, placidness, sameness. Jesus tells his disciples, I’m not about maintaining the status quo. I’m not interested in the current structures of respectability and polite society and good citizenship. I don’t care about conventional religious thought and practice. How the world has organized itself, how the world interacts with its creator, how the world treats its family is not working. This so called respectable order is unacceptable! The behavior and structures of the earth are offensive to the Father.  He has sent me to make deep, wide, drastic changes. The stillness, the sameness, the placidness, the stagnancy is about to be stirred up. And when Jesus mentions “the sword” he’s thinking of an instrument that creates change, that draws attention and puts people on notice. The sword is a powerful stirrer! The sword cuts through things. The sword slices through red tape and hot air. The sword can sever ties to the old dysfunctional, unhealthy, non-productive ways of living. The sword can cleanly break shackles of bad habits. The sword is an image we understand. We know its keen edge can set us free from the stabilizing moorings we may trust but may not be of God. 

Understanding “peace” as evenness and sameness and interpreting “the sword” as an instrument for change may be illuminating but the central question remains, “why?” Why would God send his son to instigate upheaval and disestablishment? Why would turmoil and dissension be preferable to established order and respectability? The answer Jesus gives is an echo from our earliest human history. The structures we put into place to order our societies are consistently self-serving and often oppressive to some of our brothers and sisters in our human family. The institutions, political and religious that we create, invariably turn hypocritical. We say we believe and strive for the good of all, but then we act in ways that ensure our comfort with some disregard to the consequences on others. The structures of the world are not built on true devotion to God. They are not erected and maintained with real charity to all people. 

In the gospel passage we read this morning, Jesus calls us out. He says the unpleasant truth aloud. The words are hard on our ears and weigh on our hearts. “I have not come to make you feel okay about your less than satisfactory attitudes and behavior. I have not come to soothe your deep-seated unease. You know your failure to do better. I won’t pretend with you that it’s really not so bad. God did not send me to ease your minds and reinforce the rules and regulations of human cultures. Making everyone comfortable is not my business.” In this speech, Jesus tells the disciples, my mission is to bring earth closer to heaven! My charge from the Father is to make the world of man resemble the world of God. I’m here to create the structures and the foundations which will make God’s dream for us a reality! 

This world, the way that it is, the way it is run, this is not paradise. It’s not even close. We can do better. Jesus says, I can show you how.

But…any significant change to a world order is a mighty, scary, frightening challenge. Turning the world in a different direction requires radical energy. Powerful forces must be disrupted. To alter, to modify earth’s set course, unsettling, provocative goads and prods must be employed. Change requires choices and comes with consequences.

Jesus tells his first followers, as he is reminding us, to make God’s dream real, we will have to choose sides. We will have to choose behaviors and attitudes that our family and our friends and our businesses and communities may not understand. To bring earth closer to heaven, there will be fallout in the short term. Change upwards, change to a higher level comes with a cost.   People we love may not understand our new orientation and passion. People we respect may lose respect for us. Others may not share our vision or they may not approve our means for bringing God’s dream to reality. They may question our motives and our plans.

Jesus is not some ivory tower theorist. Jesus is utterly realistic. He says straight out, I come with good news, but it is also hard news. The prize is magnificent. Imagine true equality and true harmony for all the people all the time. Imagine constant peace of mind and absolute sense of belovedness for all people, all the time. Imagine heaven on earth. This is possible, but the road to that end is treacherous. Pain and discord will come first. There is pain and discord in the world now with no end in sight, but the pain and discord I speak of will be personal to you. Be prepared, Jesus said, to bring this dream to reality you must commit. You must believe and follow me with your whole heart. For the world to turn and change, you really must love me more. More means more than your father or mother, son or daughter, friends and possessions. When put to the test, you must choose between the world as it is, the relationships you love as they are today, and me. To claim the prize you must pick me.

To bring earth and heaven closer together, I must have claim to your first loyalty. That may be hard to hear and harder to live, but that is the truth. Love me, first and best, and the world gets better. No kidding. That’s what’s required! 

Jesus says, with laser clear precision, if you choose me first, if you love me best, then you will align yourself to my teachings. If you align yourself to my teachings, then you begin and end each day asking what would Jesus do here, and here, and here. You ask and pray and do the right, good and even hard thing. And, doing the right, good, even hard thing leads you to step out with courage. You will find yourself sacrificing the world’s good opinion of you for the sake of God’s righteousness. God’ s rigtheousness – what a frightening value-laden concept. It sounds so formidable, archaic and judgmental, but what it means is all the good stuff!

Making sacrifices and committing to what God holds as “right” is choosing peace for everyone, security for everyone, basic provisions for everyone, a sense of worthiness for everyone, welcome and love for everyone. God’s righteousness is what makes heaven.

Think about what heaven means to you. Then imagine that experience, that reality here on earth.

Jesus says this dream is possible. This is a mighty and exciting idea to consider. It’s realness is within our grasp.

For God’s dream to unfold and encompass us, the world’s nightmare must be rolled up and pushed aside. Jesus says those willing to take up the work despite the sacrifice will find themselves lifted up and enfolded in God’s magnificent vision. Ahhh.

Dear friends…we have before us a challenge and a promise. The choice is ours.

Amen.

Now, let us reaffirm our faith in that promise with the words of the Nicene Creed and then we’ll commission some disciples in a new and exciting ministry for our parish family and future.