“Missionary Instructions” (Matthew 10:40-42)

A Sermon Preached By

Rev. Dr. Peter W. Shidemantle

13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 26, 2005

PEBBLE HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

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

phillchu@twcny.rr.com

          Seems pretty radical from where we sit, doesn’t it, pretty alien to our experience of living a Christian life – this talk of witness, persecution, poverty and martyrdom – distant from our world, which of course is very different from Matthew’s world.  At every age and time Christianity is tempted to remake the faith into the likeness of that age and time.  Certain aspects of the faith get emphasized while others don’t – but the danger is that to the degree that Jesus’ instructions to his disciples, and his description of what is involved in following him and witnessing for him is alien to us – it should always cause us to re-examine our own version of Christianity to see if we’ve remade the faith to our own tastes.

          But there is a perspective from which this chapter does not need to be alien to us, or seem so distant from our experience today, because by the time you get to the end of this chapter, where we’ve come today, you’ve got a pretty good sense of what the Christian life essentially is.

          This whole discourse starts at the end of chapter 9, where Jesus looks out on the crowds and has compassion on them because they are like sheep without a shepherd.  The harvest is plentiful – what is needed are the hands to bring in the harvest – to share the compassion of God, to meet the physical and spiritual needs of a hungry humanity.  In the course of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples what do Matthew and Jesus tell us about what constitutes the Christian life?

          The first thing is to confess that God has acted uniquely in the world in and through Jesus – that God has put in motion a process, a way that leads to forgiveness, hope and fullness of life in relationship to God through him, that this movement, this process is what Jesus called the kingdom of God, and this is the best possible good news.

          But this world does not necessarily see it this way, and that’s why following Jesus always has an aspect of “witnessing” about it – giving witness to the kingdom that is coming, which in significant ways is already here for those who give themselves to it, in a world whose priorities are, for the most part, very different.

          And so the second thing we can see from Jesus’ instructions to his disciples about what constitutes the Christian life is that we are living toward an end (goal) and a time of fulfillment that God is bringing, and that as we live toward that end we are given purpose and meaning in life.  Like the TV commercial for the allergy medicine – where before you take the medicine, for allergy sufferers the whole world has a kind of film covering it.  You can see everything but it’s all sort of hazy and muted.  Once you take the medicine the haze is lifted, the colors are brighter – you can see the world and experience it for what it is.  The phrase that comes to mind is that the Christian life is a “clarified” life; the message of the kingdom, the gospel good news of new life in Christ is clarified in living toward the kingdom of God by being in mission to others – by healing the sick, confronting death in its many forms with words and actions that witness to life, by resisting evil in non-violent ways.  This is the mission of the Christian in any place and time, the flipside of the coin of the good news of God’s kingdom – a life lived for others.

          And there is to be about the Christian life, as it is lived, a “lightening” – a letting go of material possessions, rather than a continual accumulation of them.  When Jesus sends out his disciples, he tells them to travel light, not to take more than they need and to not be afraid to depend on the hospitality of others. 

          Every year when we go on vacation, or when we take a trip of a few days or more, we always end up taking a lot more than we need – and we vow that next time we won’t take nearly as much stuff.  I think part of that is the anticipation that a change of weather or circumstance might require different things – which, if you translate this tendency as an overall tendency to try to assure that all our bases are covered in life, that we need to take care of every conceivable contingency – that it demonstrates a lack of faith on our part, that the God whose “eye is on the sparrow” surely knows us and cares for us. 

          What is true of material possessions is also true of our treasured ways of holding on to control over life, of the illusion that we are in charge, that life is what “I” make of it only, and not what God makes of it.  God is continually creating in us, and it takes an open heart to know it, a heart unburdened by what others might think of us or what others might do to us.

          And the Christian life is a life of loyalty to God above all other loyalties, even home and family.  This puts a little different spin on the concern for “family values” that we hear so much about.  Whatever the nature of the human family, how it is constituted and by whom, Jesus tells us that it is not ultimate.  Even more in his day than in our own one’s identity was considered to be determined by who your parents were, what your father did, where you were from…  But he knew that the gospel has a cutting edge to it, cutting even against human loyalties.  He knew it when he entered his own hometown when he began his ministry and they didn’t like what he had to say and they drove him out, barely escaping with his life. 

          Just as we are to practice “letting go” of all that would make our walk with Christ heavier, so we are to hold tenderly the human loves and commitments that tell us who we are in human terms – and to do so precisely because they are so important and precious to us.  We are not given forever to love and care for those whom God gives us to love and care for.  We are given a time and opportunity to do so.  Love, too, is a process of letting go – and not of holding onto or possessing another.  The Christian life anticipates through this life what we believe about God’s everlasting love – that all love finds its home in God.

          To live in this way requires that we not get caught up in the “eye for an eye” and “tooth for a tooth” ways of dealing with conflicts and disagreements.  There is simply no time for it.  Responding in kind to the evils done to us, says Jesus, simply puts us on the same playing field in a game that can ultimately have no winner.  Resisting evil with evil is the world’s way.  We do not live in a perfect world, and not being perfect ourselves, there will be times and occasions when we must make determinations based not so much on what is good but what is the lesser of evils.  But we should never claim God’s sanction for adding to the mess that human sinfulness makes of this world.  Was it Gandhi who said that “an eye for an eye only makes us both blind.”

          Finally, we see through Jesus’ missionary instructions to his disciples that we are to think big.  Here we are in this seemingly infinite universe, on this speck of a planet – each of us barely a dot on this speck.  The psalmist knew the irony of it.  “When I look at the heavens, the work of your hands, the vastness of it – who are we that you are mindful of us?”  “Yet you have made us little less than gods.”  We are to resist the implication that we live in an impartial universe, that we are overwhelmed by the vastness that surrounds us.   For though we are next to nothing, God has made us in the very image of God, and entrusted us with the care and dominion of a world, partnering with us in the process of salvation.  We are to keep the “big picture” always in mind.

          This should inform all of our actions, however large or small, on behalf of the kingdom, on behalf of God’s love and justice and peace.  We are part, a critical part, each of us, in the joyful work of the harvest.  What we do here, how we welcome here, how we serve from here – this is all kingdom work, and there could be nothing more important. 

          It is only at the end where Jesus speaks of reward, after all that grief.  When we hear the word “reward” we probably think about various perks, frequent flyer miles, coupons and the like.  But when it comes to the Christian life, about the cost and reward of being a disciple, it’s different.  As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “What the Bible tells us over and over again – what our lives tell us – is that the only reward for doing God’s work is doing God’s work.  Period.”

          What’s the good news about that?  Well, we know that the question “What’s in it for me?” is not a biblical question.  We don’t come and join a community of faith just for programs and services.  We don’t “consume” relationships.  We don’t ask, “What’s in it for me if we become friends?” or “What’s in it for me if I fall in love with you?” or “What’s in it for me if I do the right thing?”

          The truth is we yearn for a spiritual connection to God and a communal relationship with our neighbor.  That’s why the Christian life is lived through Christian community – we are stuck together to want the right things, those things that God wants, those things that are a reflection of how God desires us to be.

          What begins with the scene of all the needs brought to Jesus by the human crowds is wrapped at the other end through the simple grace and basic hospitality of offering a cup of cold water to one who is thirsty.  The cosmic and the particular are joined in simple acts of compassion.  Present to the moment of need, we are

also present to the mighty movement of the kingdom of God.  If there is any reward greater than that, I don’t know what it could be. 

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