Jul 29 | “Lost in the Call,” (Sermon, June 25th 2017)

“Jesus said, ‘A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; ²⁵it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

26 ‘So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. ²⁷What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. ³⁰And even the hairs of your head are all counted. ³¹So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

32 ‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; ³³but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

34 ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
³⁵ 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;
³⁶ and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
³⁷Whoever 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; ³⁸and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

Matthew 10:24-39

 

Good morning, St. Anselm’s. I’m so glad to be with you today. For those who don’t know me, I’m Clare, and Father Alex and I are good buddies. We met doing Education for Ministry, and we like to joke that we absolutely failed the program, since it’s meant to empower laypeople and obviously we didn’t stay that way.

When he asked me to come in on this Sunday, I looked up the passages assigned for the day, and texted him: “Dude, these readings. Did you do this on purpose?” I imagine there’s a few parishes in our city that decided to observe St. Peter and St. Paul today so they could avoid them.

‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
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.’

Yikes.

This is a real challenge. For a thousand reasons we Christians have tried to denounce all in our faith that points to violence. We have tried to lay aside our swords after years of bloodshed and choose a path of peace. We have tried to disown the Crusader Jesus, the Dominionist Jesus, the Jesus that encouraged – nay, demanded – submission of those whom we saw fit to submit. We don’t always succeed in the denouncing, but we try, and we put our heart into the trying, and ask forgiveness for the times we fall short.

And then we hear a passage like this and it just unseats everything.

So what do we do? How do we hear it?

Do we remind ourselves of the context in which it was spoken: Matthew’s community, frightened and scattered, experiencing all of these things Jesus warned them about and yet trying to live in hope? Do we then safely relegate it to the dustbin believing that it no longer applies to us in the West, the privileged people of Christ? We could do that, but that might be a refuge from hard questions – and indeed, perhaps our privilege today means that this passage is more important than ever.

Do we put ourselves in the camp of the kind of people who interpret Christian persecution as hearing “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, the inclusion of LGBTQ people in all parts of society, the ceasing of prayer in public schools? We could do that, but I think most of us know we’re lying to ourselves if we believe that persecution looks more like apathy than state-sanctioned arrests and murder.

Let’s face it, both of these are the easy way out. It’s much more fun to wrestle with Scripture than to dismiss it or preserve it under glass, because no matter what we think or feel about it, it’s a living thing, it judges us as we’re judging it, and it is owed the respect of a good bout. God gave us intellect, and I think She takes delight in watching us use it.

So if we can’t tame it, warp it, or excise it, how do we hear it?

Let’s start by agreeing that it’s not likely that Jesus wanted us to go home and trash our families and friendships for the sake of the Kingdom. That would be the advice of a cultist, and cults don’t save the world; they condemn it and withdraw. Jesus came to save and sanctify, and the Anglican Church affirms that the world has been sanctified through the work of Christ. We are always walking on holy ground – that is why when we are baptized we commit to caring for others and safeguarding the integrity of creation.

Let’s consider instead that Jesus’ words are proverbial rather than prescriptive. A proverb can be used as advice, but is not itself advice: it is a statement of fact. Jesus saying, “I have come not to bring peace but a sword” doesn’t encourage us to bring swords; it lets us know that his message is not popular. Jesus didn’t get crucified for being a nice guy. He got crucified because he was undermining the edicts of the imperial culture and religious elitism around him. No one gets executed for telling people stuff they learned in kindergarten; they get executed for questioning a status quo.

Jesus was trying to give us a heads-up. If you’re doing this right, it’s going to get messy.

And we know that. We know that people get challenged, chastised, and crucified for doing the right thing every day.

It’s super depressing. But true friends don’t withhold the ugly stuff if they know it’s necessary.

And there’s good news.

As most of you will know, St. Anselm’s own Hyok Kim was ordained with seven others yesterday. It’s such a joy to see that for all the articles about low attendance and financial struggles, the church still has a voice loud enough to call eight people into a new life of priestly and diaconal service.

For all the talk of violence and fear, for all the apathy and doubt and struggle, the church still knows how to get under the ribcage, to pierce the heart, to inspire us to proclaim, “If I say ‘I will not mention God, or speak any more in God’s name,’ then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”

The Apostle Paul helps us here too. What are we to fear? Death? The living Christ has already taken the sting out of death through his work of healing and his resurrection. This truth was actually a revelation of something already stitched into the fabric of the cosmos: the life cycle of a star; the work of seeds in earth; the fallen nurse log that brings new life to the rainforest right outside our doors; the embracing cycle of water, rising and falling every day to give new life to the whole earth; the cells in our bodies. This is the story of all finite creatures: change is possible, and with change comes death, and with death comes new life. For those of us who are baptized, we have been baptized into Christ’s death, dying to an old life and rising to a new one, pushing through the chrysalis, rising up from dark waters, given new life by his breath at Easter, by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, continually in the bread and wine of this sacred feast we will celebrate together. We have been given the spirit of John the Baptizer, whom we celebrated yesterday, and we should rejoice because our message is even more joyful than his, because John testified to things yet unseen. We testify to things that we may not have seen with our eyes, but that our hearts know to be true: that in the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God,” that in the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins “the world is charged with the grandeur of God.”

So despite all fear, all uncertainty, all violence, the Church lives, and we ourselves are made seeds for the Kingdom of God, the upside-down Kingdom where the walls we put up between each other are cast down, the precious Kingdom where we all care for one another because we know how much we need each other, the wild Kingdom where all give of their gifts and talents to glorify the One who gives us life, the greatest gift.

We are the Church, we have died and we rise, we are called to proclaim and embody this truth, and we can do this.

We can do this because, like in the prayer of consecration for deacons used yesterday over Hyok, we are all rooted and grounded in love.

And Love is our master. Love is our teacher. Love is our healer. Love is our challenger. Love is our willing lamb, dying to give us life.

So take heart.

We can do this, because Jesus is alive.

I’ll close with these words from the Sufi mystic Rumi:

“Remember God so much that you are forgotten.
Let the caller and the called disappear;
be lost in the Call.”

 

– Preached at St. Anselm’s Church, Vancouver