“No Trouble-Free Faith”, (Matthew 10:24-39)

A Sermon Preached By

Rev. Peter W. Shidemantle

12^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 19, 2005

PEBBLE HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

5299 Jamesville Rd., Dewitt, NY  13214  Phone:  446-0960 FAX:  446-0672

phillchu@twcny.rr.com

          Jesus did speak, of course, to the burden being made lighter, through the way of discipleship itself.  It is by losing life that we find it, he said.  There is resurrection and there is life, but not without crucifixion, not without death.  And that’s as true for us as it was for him.  It is to be a conscious choice for us, as it was for him – to give up one’s life – not literally to deny life and die, but that one must die daily to oneself.  What does it mean to die to oneself?  I think it probably varies according to what it is within each one of us that needs to die in order that we might truly live – but it is based on the wisdom that it is all God’s world, and it’s only our human ego (that puts “me” at the center) that prevents us from seeing this, from trusting fully in God, from living life where God’s will and not our own willfulness is at the center.

That this is a daily struggle is no secret to those who are serious about the Christian life.  We know the sin in our own hearts, the resistance we feel within ourselves to the call to live for others and not for ourselves, to seek God’s will instead of our own – and so we should not be surprised that resistance and opposition will come from outside of ourselves.

          Matthew’s gospel, it is thought, was written sometime in the decade of the 80’s AD, to and for a Christian community that apparently was meeting great resistance, wrestling with the strife and the cost of discipleship.  They needed courage and support, and so the words of Jesus about how to meet resistance without fearing those who bring it would have been very important.  Our world is much different today.  Christian faith, from where we sit, is not a new movement struggling to gain a following, but an old and in many places, tired, institution, struggling, where it is struggling at all, to find relevance in a society where it has been the dominant religious institution for many centuries.  What kind of resistance do we meet today?  What are the fears that inhibit our witness to the realm of God?  I think that if we look at what Jesus says about why we should have no fear for those who would resist our witness, we can see what kind of forces we are up against today. 

          First, he says, don’t be afraid of them because “nothing is hidden that will not be revealed.”  Or, as Eugene Peterson renders it in the Message – “Don’t be intimidated.  Eventually everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are.  So don’t be afraid to go public now.”  Jesus witnessed publicly, clearly, to what God wills and intends for God’s world.  There is no secret about it.  There is no secret code to unlock in order to get in on it, no secret knowledge or hidden meanings.  It’s all right there.  Resistance comes not because the message of the kingdom, the call of the gospel to a life of love and service and joy in believing is somehow unclear and ambiguous, but precisely because it isn’t.  (As Mark Twain is alleged to have said:  “It isn’t the passages in the Bible I don’t understand that causes me problems; it’s the ones I do understand.”)  It is resisted because there are individuals, groups and systems that benefit from greed and manipulation, from exploiting others, from promoting and engaging in violence – who declare that this is how things are.  They are not simply going to collapse at the news that God wants to remake the world, heart by heart.  They’ll put up a fight.  But we don’t need to be afraid because we know that love is deeper than death, that giving away your life is the way to find it.  It’s going to all be clear some day – and as we give ourselves to it now, it is clear to us now.

          And so, Jesus continues, as Peterson has it, “Don’t be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies.  There’s nothing they can do to your soul, your core being.  Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life – body and soul – in his hands.”  But of course if the body is everything, if material existence – stuff – is what it’s all about, then those who witness to a deeper life, who challenge the superficiality of so much of our modern culture, with its emphasis on physical beauty and strength, to how the body is adorned and preserved and protected – at the expense of the soul – that’s going to meet resistance, too.  But we need not fear it because it is God’s care that matters.  There’s nothing anyone can do to us that will change that. God is infinitely attentive to us, as God is to his entire creation, down to the smallest bird.  We ourselves resist that kind of knowledge, for to know that God knows us like that, and loves us still – with all of our imperfections – that’s the kind of knowledge that can truly change your life, and not just enhance it, not just preserve it or enrich it.  So don’t be afraid of losing what you can’t lose, of protecting what only God can give.  We can live freer than that.  There will be those who don’t like it, who resist that kind of freedom – but ultimately it is God with whom we have to deal, and no human judgment.

          Now I am aware of how distorted this can become.  You may recall that a year or so ago the death sentence was administered against a former Presbyterian minister who had killed a doctor who performed abortions.  There was an interview with him shortly before the state took his life – where he testified with great peace and assurance that God would receive him in love because he had done God’s work in murdering that doctor.  One is also reminded in these days when the U.S. congress is passing a resolution apologizing for not having made lynching a crime – how there were days when the church in many places in this nation was at best silent, and at worst, condoning of such brutality.

          What may seem clear and unambiguous about how God would have us live, about what it means to follow Jesus in a violent world, gets all cluttered and murky when it comes up against resistance, as it inevitably does.  What is called for, I believe, is for us to live more prayerfully and perhaps a little less assured in our own convictions; to walk humbly with our Lord, as the prophet Micah says it, and perhaps a little less certain that God agrees with the direction we are headed.

          For it is not our own convictions to which we are to testify and give witness before others, but God whom we are to acknowledge before them.  It is not within our prerogative to remain silent about God’s work in our lives, God’s rule of our world, about Christ who is our way and truth and life.  There’s lots of ways to testify.  Some of them involve words – all of them involve love. 

          Christians aren’t those who go around looking for trouble, but we must stand and testify to and for the truth we know in Jesus Christ, who made God’s will apparent to us.  We deceive ourselves if we think we’ll meet with no resistance.  The gospel of Jesus Christ should never let us sit too comfortably in the pew.  True comfort comes only in knowing we’ve been in a struggle that matters – and there is nothing that matters more than knowing whose we are, and testifying with our lives to that truth, which makes us truly free.

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