Don’t be afraid
A sermon by Jamie Howison on Matthew 10:24-39
At so many levels, this is not an easy gospel text. There is talk of the one who can “destroy both soul and body”, and that teaching that says, “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.” Then comes that perplexing line from the “Prince of Peace,” when he says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” which can cause us all to stop in our tracks. What follows that is even more challenging:
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.
This is then followed by those tough words about worthiness:
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.
Couldn’t this be a Sunday on which we might read the parable of the Prodigal Son, with its imagery of a boundlessly merciful Father? But that, you see, is one of the reasons that we follow a lectionary. Yes, we will read the parable of the Prodigal when the time comes, but we can’t cut and paste a Gospel consisting only of the pieces that we like—the bits that don’t make us struggle—and call ourselves followers of Jesus.
Because beyond any shadow of a doubt Jesus was a challenging teacher, right alongside of being merciful, generous, loving and forgiving. When we read from the Gospels, we don’t mind at all when he rattles the cage of the Pharisee and extends abundant mercy to the tax collector. We feel great relief for the prodigal son, cheer for that merciful father, and then look rather askance at the older son sulking in the garden. But then again, maybe Jesus would have us place ourselves in the shoes of that older son or of that all-too-confident and pious Pharisee, and then let those lovely parables rather unsettle us.
It is clear that as Matthew tells the story, Jesus is quite intentionally pressing the twelve disciples to confront some things in their own lives with which they’ve not really contended. These teachings are part of his commissioning of the twelve to go out and spread the good news, offering healing and hope to what he calls the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” This is an urgent time in the arc of the Gospel according to Matthew, in other words, and Jesus does not want his disciples to be anything but committed. Acknowledge me before others, he says to them, and I will acknowledge you before my Father. And don’t waffle about this mission, because as soon as you start hedging your bets and failing to acknowledge that I am at the heart of this message… well, the cost of that is high, my friends. Are you with me or not?
Yet interestingly, there is embedded right in the midst of today’s reading what N.T. Wright calls the command repeated most often in the Bible. And as Bishop Wright notes, it isn’t something stern such as “Behave yourself! Smarten up! Say your prayers! Worship God more whole-heartedly! Give more money away!” Instead, “it’s the command we find in verses 26, 28, and 31: Don’t be afraid.”
Did you hear that as it was read aloud? In such a challenging passage, it might have been easy to miss. “Have no fear of them.” “Do not fear those who kill the body.” “So do not be afraid.” Three times in the course of just six verses comes this commandment to the disciples to take a deep breath, fix their eyes, and trust. Don’t be afraid.
Yet it must have felt fearsome, and when Jesus turned to say he had brought a sword that might have set their knees trembling. Or perhaps for some of the more zealous ones in the twelve, it might have felt invigorating. Finally, the Teacher is talking about mounting a revolution! That’s what we’ve been hoping would happen!
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
In 1937 the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer published a book called The Cost of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer was opposed to the rise of Naziism, and had founded an underground seminary to train clergy in the “Confessing Church”; a church founded as an alternative to the state church of Germany which had entirely capitulated to the Third Reich. While the Second World War had not yet begun, violence and conquest were in the air, and the persecution of the Jews was very much underway. Looking at this text in light of that reality, Bonhoeffer wrote,
The cross is God’s sword on this earth. It creates division. The son against the father, the daughter against the mother, the household against its head, and all that for the sake of God’s kingdom and its peace—that is the work of Christ on earth!
“The cross is God’s sword on this earth,” Bonhoeffer wrote. “And it creates division.” In the intensity of those years in Nazi Germany, this young theologian and pastor could see that with such utter clarity. To be true to Jesus in such a time meant division. Division from the officially sanctioned state church, division from a brother or father who had enrolled in the S.S., division from a sister or mother who attended the massive rallies in support of the madness of the Nazi movement. Jesus will not wield a sword made of iron, but that doesn’t mean that there is not intensity and conflict to his life, to the lives of those who follow him, and at times in the lives of all who dare to bear the name of Christian.
And so Bonhoeffer continued,
God’s love for the people brings the cross and discipleship, but these, in turn mean life and resurrection. ‘Anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.’ The affirmation is given by the one who has the power over death, the Son of God, who goes to the cross and to resurrection and takes those who are his with him.
In Bonhoeffer’s view, the cross and discipleship also mean life and resurrection, and in this I believe that he was completely on track with what Jesus was trying to bang into the thick heads of his disciples. This won’t be an easy road, he’s saying to them, but it is the only road worth following; the only road to life and resurrection. So follow me, and do not be afraid.
Most of us most of the time are not living in the midst of such intensity and urgency. For most of us coming to church on a Sunday is right and refreshing and good. Oh, with the liturgical seasons we are pressed into some more arid terrain, particularly in Lent, and certainly in Holy Week and on Good Friday there is deep challenge. But even then we know that Easter is coming. Even in times of loss or crisis or confusion—in the periods which are “dark nights”, so to speak, marked by deep aridity in our lives of prayer and belief—we are not pushed up against the wall in the way that Jesus’ disciples were or in the way that Bonhoeffer and his compatriots were in the Second World War or in the way that Christians in parts of Nigeria are today.
Even so, as we contemplate what all of those brothers and sisters in Christ have faced or are facing, what should ring in our hearts and minds is that message tucked so centrally in today’s Gospel. Follow me, and do not be afraid. Today, tomorrow, and always. Follow him, and do not be afraid.
