The Threat of Love [Proper 7A]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Matthew 10:24-39

The Threat of Love

A man against his father,

A daughter against her mother,

A daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;

One's foes will be members of one's own household.

Jesus and his disturbing vision of a dystopian future – a future in which division would bore its way even into the foundations of the family unit, a future in which generations would clash over allegiances and values. It is a grim fantasy indeed. Fortunately, two-thousand years of steady progress finds us in a 21^st century utopia in which such talk of division can scarcely be found in the news or on social media or around a family's dinner table. We, so many years removed from Jesus' words, are, I'm sure, relieved to find our selves in the comfortable role of voyeur, unaffected outsiders curiously glimpsing the struggles of the 1^st century faithful. It must have been hard.

It is almost impossible for us to imagine, in modern America, such division – especially within one's own family. I mean, if you take politics out of it, and sports, and religion, and opinions more generally, a world with such familial conflict is practically inconceivable.

Or perhaps not. It is amazing, isn't it, how timely these two-thousand year old texts can be. Jesus is talking to that 1^st century Palestinian audience and it feels like he is talking directly to us, to our nation and our world, to a people who know division all too well. Families are still not perfect, neither are the individual members, and division does happen – sometimes despite our best efforts and deepest desires. But this reality makes this no easier to hear coming from Jesus' mouth. Not just because of our lingering scars and fractured relationships, but because not only does Jesus name the thing, in this Gospel passage Jesus takes ownership. Before listing the divisions, Jesus says, “I have come to set a man against his father.”

This is a difficult Gospel passage because when read in isolation it confronts us with a picture of Jesus that feels utterly foreign, even disconcerting. How do we make sense of a Jesus who comes to set family members in opposition, with a Jesus who brings a sword instead of peace, with a Jesus who warns his followers to temper their love for their own parents and children. Lutheran pastor and biblical scholar David Lose reflects on his own childhood encounters with this passage. He writes, “When I was a kid, I always found these words rather upsetting. Not only did they not square with my picture of Jesus, but no matter how much I went to church and Sunday school, and no matter how hard I tried, I knew deep down that I loved my parents more than I loved Jesus. (And, frankly, still do, and don’t even get me started on how much I love my kids.)” The 10-year-old Lose finally concludes that he is in serious trouble with Jesus and confides his indiscretion to his mom, who in turn tells her child that she made the same confession to her dad as a girl.¹

This passage has been haunting Christians for centuries. It is an image of Jesus that tends to clash with those images that most often dominate our Christian piety – the image of Jesus carrying a lamb over his shoulders, the image of a compassionate Jesus feeding the hungry crowds, or touching the lepers clean, or raising a little girl from her deathbed with his gentle hand, or blessing a lap-full of children. It is difficult to see that Jesus in this Gospel.

Here Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” But also this is the same Jesus who says, “Blessed are the peacemakers” and commands Peter to put away his sword in the garden of Gethsemane; this is the same Jesus the prophets named the Prince of Peace.

Here Jesus says, “I have come to set a man against his father.” But also this is the same Jesus who takes care of his mother while dying on the cross, who restores dead and dying children to their grieving parents, who gives to his followers a ministry of reconciliation.

Here Jesus says, “Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son and daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” But this is also the same Jesus who twice in this very Gospel, Matthew's Gospel, quotes the commandment to honor one's father and mother – once in a confrontation with the Pharisees, who he believes do not take the commandment seriously enough, and once to the rich young man who asks Jesus which commandments he must keep to enter into eternal life. This is the same Jesus who said, “Let the little children come to me...; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” There is more to Jesus than we find in today's Gospel passage; but still this too is Jesus.

Earlier in this chapter, in the Gospel reading we heard just last week, Jesus sends out his disciples; he gives them their mission. And he promises them a fruitful ministry: they will cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. In short, they will be like Jesus; they will preach his message; they will proclaim the good news of his love; they will do his amazing works.

But also, and he makes this quite clear, maybe a little too clear, they will experience his suffering. They will go into the world to do good, to proclaim the Good News of Good in Christ, by word and by deed. They will do justice and offer mercy and share God's love. And for their reward, they will be persecuted; they will be disowned; they will be opposed. Those who follow in the footsteps of Jesus find that those footsteps end at the foot of the cross.

This Gospel, this Gospel passage is difficult. It is difficult because we want to believe that good things happen to good people; we want to believe that we get what we deserve. We want to believe that folks understand that the Good News is good news. But then Jesus comes along and his Good News causes family strife; and his Good News breeds conflict; and his Good News nails him to the cross. Jesus is preaching the Good News but that Good News is shaking things up – redefining family, overturning tables, clashing with powerful people, ruffling feathers. Walter Brueggemann says, “The Gospel is a very dangerous idea. We have to see how much of that dangerous idea we can perform in our own lives. There is nothing innocuous or safe about the Gospel. Jesus did not get crucified because he was a nice man.”²

The problem with the Gospel and why it raises our human defenses is that it is so bothersome, so confrontational, so disruptive. It brings life to dead places and shines light in dark corners. It heals sicknesses and breaks the bonds of addiction. Love could really put some folks out of business. The Good News of God's love means to shake things up and knock things down. God is making all things new and that is Good News – unless you are invested in the old stuff.

Jesus is launching a revolution and that revolution is built on love. Now we all love to love on love. We memorialize it in a million Hallmark cards. It sounds good on paper. But love is not just a fuzzy feeling or a nice thought. Love is demanding. Love loves us enough to demand we change, to challenge us, to expose us, to open us to the cost of true love which is always suffering. Richard Rohr writes, “[It is] no surprise that the Christian icon of redemption is a man offering love from a crucified position.”³ Cupid is not our icon of love; the Crucified Christ is. Our great hope as Christians is to share in Christ's resurrection; of course, one does not share in Christ's resurrection without first dying with him. Love was the reason he suffered and died.

The goal of the Gospel is not to make nice people; it is not to make polite citizens. The goal of the Gospel is, as C.S. Lewis says, “to draw [people] into Christ, to make them little Christs.”⁴ To live out the love of God until it hurts and sometimes it will.

This is a difficult Gospel passage. And, I think, we've been reading it wrong. It is not a prophecy or a threat. It is not just Jesus being realistic. It is obviously not Jesus' hope for the world. This Gospel is lament. This Gospel is the heart-breaking reminder that since the Garden of Eden, since the very beginning, our human brokenness has time and again caused us to rebel against love. Every time God reaches out in love, we lash out in our violence and anger. The thing we need most in the world, the thing that God offers freely and abundantly and unconditionally, love, is the thing we have the hardest time accepting.

Jesus revolution was opposed then and it is now. It is hard to live with love because love is just so pushy. Love is never as polite as we would like it to be. Love is threatening. Love threatens to heal us but we have made friends with our pain. Love threatens to cast out our demons, but better the devil you know. Love threatens to lift up the lowly and fill the hungry with good things, but if we are being honest ourselves we like knowing there are folks below us. Love threatens to heal our divisions but our identities are so built on these sandy foundations of prejudice and partisanship. Love threatens to usher in the Kingdom of God, but we are already invested in this Kingdom.

But nevertheless love is on the move; God is not discouraged. And so what happens is God loves us while we kick and scream – fighting against the very thing we most need. It is funny how peace is what brings out our swords.

And still God continues to reach out to this world in love, and now through us – sending us out into the world as little Christs. Where there is hatred, we sow love. It is Good News; God is making all things new; Jesus' is leading a movement that promises to overwhelm the planet with love. But change is hard and so not everyone is going to get on board. Love always faces push-back. It wasn't easy for Jesus; it won't always be easy for us.

This is a difficult Gospel passage because it is true. Love is somehow both threat and salvation. And this is the work to which Jesus calls us; this is what we are sent to do: to love like Jesus, to be little Christs. It is not an easy job; Jesus knows that better than anyone. Those who follow in the footsteps of Jesus find that those footsteps end at the foot of the cross. Those who find themselves at the foot of the cross, they find true love.

1http://www.davidlose.net/2014/07/matthew-10-34-39/

2https://medium.com/theology-of-ferguson/models-and-authorizations-an-interview-with-walter-brueggemann-3ab5ecd96c20

3The Naked Now, 122.

4Mere Christianity, 171.