Matthew 10:24-39 (NRSV)
24 “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; 25 it 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. 27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. 28 Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 And even the hairs of your head are all counted. 31 So 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; 33 but 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.
37 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; 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 10:24-39 are a portion of the missionary discourse of Jesus that begins in 9:35 and will extend to 10:42.
Matthew 10:24-25 continues the theme begun in verse 16 that involves sayings on the coming persecution.
Verse 24 has its source is the material Matthew shares with Luke (6:40), but it also finds a reflection in John 13:16 as well. 24 “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master. John adds that the one sent is not greater than the one who sends. Such a proverb reinforces the traditional superior and inferior relationship in society that Jesus sought to modify. It may point to a sometimes harsh reality of human cultures.
Today, many of us live in a world where we assume or pretend that everyone is (or should be) considered equal. Jesus’ followers were accustomed to social stratification. Slaves were openly subordinate to masters and disciples to teachers. In context, verse 25 means, “Why would disciples have any reason to think that it will go better for them than it has gone for their teacher? Or why would slaves think it will go better for them than it has gone for their master?
Verse 25a is unique to Matthew. 25 It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. It may be a conclusion of the proverb or aphorism.
Verse 25b is unique to Matthew. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, a term used for Satan/the devil. It may be a variant of Baal-zebub (II Kings 1:1-6), a Philistine god at Ekron whose name (in Hebrew) literally means “lord of flies.” Matthew 9:34 reports: “But the Pharisees said, ‘By the ruler of the demons he [Jesus] casts out the demons.’” Similarly, see 12:22-29, where, after Jesus had healed a demon-possessed man (v. 22), verses 23-24 suggest the crowds think Jesus must be the Son of David, while the Pharisees said he casts out demons by the Beelzebul, the ruler of demons. Thus, if they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household! The point of Jesus is that if “they” (the opponents of Jesus in 9:34, lacking in some manuscripts, and 12:22-29) have called the master of the house, in this case, Jesus, Beelzebul, how much more they will malign those of his household, in this case, the disciples. The exorcisms of Jesus made him an easy target of such accusations. The close connection between Jesus and his disciples as that of teacher and disciple finds recognition here. However, the result of this identification is that the students will receive the same abuse and misunderstanding that their teacher suffers. The determination of the existence of Jesus for death has a counterpart in the existence of the disciples. They stand under the sign and direction of the cross. The “must” of the passion of Jesus extends to the disciples as well. The fact that the cross was the outcome of the life of Jesus characterizes their lives as well. In this form, they accept and believe the gospel.[1] If Jesus is truly victor, due to the truth of the wisdom that the disciple is not above the master, the disciple knows that he or she will enter into the same conflict with the world that Jesus has.[2] Affliction accompanies Christian life, and we see here that the world will be a source of that affliction. The connection between Jesus and his followers will the world to bring affliction upon those who follow him.[3]
Matthew 10:26-33 are sayings concerning public confession, an encouragement for the disciples to remain fearless witnesses for Christ. The end-time revelation of the judgment of God will bring to light who we are. The point is the encouragement to public profession of Christian faith. One can acknowledge and recognize this faith, but one does not complete the discipleship process until one professes. One is not genuinely free until one is a witness. The believer has a love for the people of this world and therefore professes what God has done and said in Christ. Such a witness occurs in the mere fact that they are who they are. The community humbly professes its faith.[4]
Because Jesus’ followers were frightened, he told them three times within verses 26-31 not to be afraid of those who would want to persecute them. His followers are to fear God, recognizing that God can kill the soul and body, suggesting the soul is mortal. Their Father cares for the insignificant sparrow, so the Father will care for the follower of Jesus. They are to trust the Father fully. They have no reason to doubt the providential care of God. This means that every creature is a good in itself and not just a means to a larger end. God has in mind the good of individual creatures.[5] The world as it is leads to the affliction of the follower of Jesus. Jesus speaks for human beings, but human beings must also speak for Jesus. We are to publicly take our stand with Jesus. The confession of faith is a matter of taking sides with Jesus in the public dispute concerning his cause and person.[6]
Verse 26b has its source in material in common to Matthew and Luke 12:2. It also finds another application in Mark 4:22 and Luke 8:17. The differences among the sources call attention to the freedom and creativity with which the authors of the gospels have recycled this aphorism, applying it to new and varying contexts. Thomas 5:2 may be the simplest form of the saying: "There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed." 26b “For nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered (ἀποκαλυφθήσεται, revealed), and nothing secret that will not become known. The saying refers to the end-time revelation. The judgment of God will bring to light the righteous and the sinner.[7]
Ben Franklin constructed a popular piece of wisdom that describes the difficulty of keeping secrets, “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
Secrets can be a dangerous matter.
I share a story related to the unusual reticence of Nathaniel Hawthorne, which was remarked upon by almost everyone who knew him well, and it occurred to several of them that he might be concealing an important‑‑possibly an all‑important‑‑secret. Even his wife Sophia referred to his nature as "an unviolated sanctuary" she never "conceived or knew." In a curious letter to Hawthorne, his friend and lawyer, George Hillard, speculating about his (Hawthorne's) strange "taste for the morbid anatomy of the human heart," surmised that his client, who seemed to be "burdened with secret sorrow," was a man with a "blue chamber" in his soul which he "hardly dared to enter." It was Herman Melville, a close friend of Hawthorne's, who first suggested that the secret occupied a central place in the writer's work, especially in his classic, The Scarlet Letter. Melville was convinced that "all his life" Hawthorne had "concealed some great secret, which would, were it known, explain all the mysteries in his career." Sensitive readers, people who have known Hawthorne only through his work, have had similar suspicions. Indeed, no attentive reader can fail to wonder about the reasons for his obsessive preoccupation with sin, or with the strange theme of hereditary guilt‑‑as in the inner torment suffered by respectable people like Arthur Dimmesdale, the clergyman in The Scarlet Letter, who has secretly committed what he regards as an unspeakable crime.[8]
I share another story from an interesting, but tragic, footnote to the assassination of President Lincoln that few know about involving the two other people who were sitting in the box at Ford Theater with the Lincolns that awful night of April 14, 1865. The Lincoln's guests were a brilliant young army officer, Major Henry Rathbone, and his fiancée, Clara Harris. They were not the President's first choice or choices. The Speaker of the House had been invited, but he was going to the West Coast. A reporter was invited, but he begged off by explaining he was going to sleep early with a heavy cold. The Lincoln's oldest son, Robert, was home from General Grant's service and just wanted to be around in a good bed. The French Marquis de Chambrun did not want to attend a theatrical performance on Good Friday. So, Clara Harris and Major Henry Rathbone were invited to go with the Lincolns as a last minute thought. They were in the same box when suddenly there was blusish smoke from the weapon that sent a nickel sized ball into Lincoln's head. Rathbone stood up and John Wilkes Booth slashed him with a knife, opening his arm from elbow to shoulder. Booth leaped down onto the stage to flee. "Stop that man," Rathbone shouted. Lincoln was taken to a little house across the street, and then came the long wait for him to die. Miss Harris sat with Mrs. Lincoln in the front parlor while the President lay in the rear bedroom. Weak from loss of blood, Rathbone was crumpled up on the floor near his fiancée, who stuffed her handkerchief into his wound. Her dress was covered with blood, as were her hands and face. That summer, Clara Harris went to her family's little summer house just outside Albany, taking her dress along. She couldn't clean it up, or wear it again, but she couldn't bring herself to burn it or throw it away. She put it in a closet. In 1867, Clara Harris and Major Rathbone married, and in time they would have three children. But he was not well. He blamed himself for not saving Lincoln, a charge no one else leveled against him, and his mental balance alarmingly degenerated. The dress hung in its closet‑‑a reminder of the event that had taken away Lincoln's life, made Mary Todd Lincoln insane (she had to be institutionalized) and seemingly destroyed the chances for happiness of Henry and Clara Rathbone. She had the closet closed off and bricked it in, it is said, a silent, secret tomb‑like resting place for the garment. The Rathbone's traveled to Germany, where early one morning in 1883, Henry Rathbone came into his wife's bedroom and shot her as once Booth had shot Lincoln, and then with a knife stabbed himself six times, as once Booth had stabbed him. As with Lincoln, she died, and as with his earlier knifing, he lived. He was committed to an asylum, hopelessly insane, where he died in 1911, 28 years after he killed Clara. Their son, Henry Riggs Rathbone, who was 13 when his father killed his mother, grew up to be a Congressman. He was the one who proposed that the government turn Ford's Theater into a museum. In 1910, a year before his father's death, Representative Rathbone broke down the bricks walling in his mother's dress last worn 45 years earlier and burned it, saying it had cursed his family. That which was covered, was at last uncovered.[9]
Verses 26a, 27 have their source in the material in common to Matthew and Luke (12:3). 26aSo have no fear of them;… 27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim (κηρύξατε) from the housetops. Christian faith is confession. A Christian who simply acknowledges and recognizes, without confessing, is not a Christian. Even in the supposed acknowledgment and recognition of Jesus Christ, the individual is deceiving self and others. However, one cannot deceive Jesus Christ, who as Christ, who is the truth, knows that the individual neither acknowledges nor recognizes Christ. The goal of the freedom in which Christ makes an individual genuinely free, free to believe in Christ, is the freedom to be the witness of Christ. What does confessing mean? In general terms, confessing is the moment in the act of faith in which the believer stands to his or her faith, or, rather to the One in whom one believes, the One whom one acknowledges and recognizes, the living Jesus Christ; and does so outwardly, again in general terms, in face of humanity. Above all, the existence of others gives the necessary summons to confession. According to their confession in the world, the existence of the Christian community likewise catches them up in the act of faith. However, finally, the world around the believer is no less concrete. The world does not confess Jesus Christ because it does not acknowledge and recognize Christ. Christ is surrounded by people who seem to know nothing of what has taken place and been revealed for them in Christ. They know nothing of the judgment that God has executed on them and the verdict that God has proclaimed over them in Christ. They seem to remove themselves from anything that one could seriously call either repentance or confidence. They seem to know nothing of what faith is, because they do not know the One in whom to believe, let alone do what it is open for them to do. What is the significance of the existence of this world for the one to whom it is given to believe within this world? For in everything else, the individual belongs to it. Individuals find the fashion of the world within themselves. They have a full part in its sin and death. They can understand better than it can itself its opposition or indifference to faith. Such individuals know more radically than it does both the fact, and the reason for it, that individuals can of themselves come to faith or live by faith. They know who and what is needed for this to come about in the life of an individual. Above all, amid other people, they are the ones who know the decisive fact that Jesus Christ died and rose again not only for them, but also for the world, that God has reconciled the world to God in Christ. This being the case, can such individuals keep this knowledge to themselves, can they refrain from confessing their faith, when even the very stones would cry out to impart the knowledge that they have received. The task of such individuals is to make this known in human language for human ears, and with the act of their human lives before human eyes. This witness occurs, not in great deeds, but in the mere fact that they are who they are, and that as such they say what they have to say and do what they have to do, and makes open use of the freedom that is given them to do this. If it is not possible for individuals of the world who have come to faith and can live by faith to deny themselves, then in face of the world, they can only be, humbly but courageously, a confessing Christian in the confessing community.[10]
Verse 28 is from material in common between Matthew and Luke (12:4-5). 28 Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul (ψυχὴν); rather fear him who can destroy both soul (ψυχὴν) and body in hell. Jesus teaches fear of God, a tenet of Israelite religious tradition. Granted, the saying has a powerful application to the persecuted church of every generation. Given the end of the course of the life of Jesus in the cross, Jesus could easily have warned the disciples of the courage it will take to be a faithful witness in this world.[11] The saying assumes the destruction of the soul is possible, and thus, the soul is mortal. The loss of the soul, the vital force of the individual, is the supreme loss.
Verses 29-31 are from material in common to Matthew and Luke 12:6-7. It may come from common lore. The interest of God in sparrows and hair is an analogy for divine concern for human beings. See Civilla Martin’s “His eye is on the sparrow; I know he watches me.” The sayings have a similarity to the sayings on anxiety that Matthew records in 6:25-34. The images are concrete and striking. Jesus uses hyperbole. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. One should note that they still fall to the ground, and thus, the point is not that the creatures God has made will not experience danger. 30 And even the hairs of your head are all counted. We have a sign of divine lordship and ruling.[12] 31 So do not be afraid, trusting the Father fully, you are of more value than many sparrows. Such a saying stresses the security of the disciples. They have no reason to doubt the providential care of God. The Father has intimate and detailed care for humanity. This saying about the care of God for all the creatures God made rules out any creature having less significance for God as just a means to the higher ends of divine world government. Every creature is itself an end in the work of creation and therefore an end for the world government by God as well. Yet, the way in which God has the good of individual creatures in view, namely, with regard for the divine care of all other creatures, is different from what the creatures themselves seek as their good.[13]
Verses 32-33 are the material common to Matthew and Luke 12:8-9.[14] 32 “Everyone therefore who acknowledges (ὁμολογήσει) me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; 33 but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven. The saying seems to assume that denial of Jesus, occurring under duress, was taking place. Loyal acknowledgement of Jesus before humanity is a requirement of the disciples of Jesus. As we have noted, the world as it is leads to such affliction, the connection between Jesus and those who follow him will lead to affliction as well. In addition, Jesus Christ is the one who brings the Christian into affliction.[15] As Jesus will speak for human beings, human beings also have a responsibility to speak for Jesus. If they do not, they risk the loss of Jesus speaking for them.[16] This saying, especially in its original form in Luke, stands at the very beginning of Christian confession. It amounts to the sense of publicly taking sides in a conflict that arises relating to the message and person of Jesus. Confession of faith is taking sides for Jesus in a public dispute about his cause and person.[17]
One of the greatest needs of human beings is to be known. We want to be noticed, to be remembered, to know that we are important to someone. Maslow, Tournier and Nouwen have done some valuable work in this area. We have this yawning, insatiable need to feel we belong. Here Jesus reminds us that we are noticed. God knows us so intimately that the hairs on our heads are numbered. Since God cares for the little and insignificant sparrow, God will even more care for you. If we give faithful witness in our public recognition of Christ, Christ will acknowledge us before the Father.
Matthew 10:34-39 are sayings on the coming cross. The text reveals what a fearless witness may expect to encounter. Jesus is not the peacemaker, but the bringer of a war. The war is between this world and the new world Jesus seeks to bring. Followers of Jesus take this new world as worth striving for and seeking to make it as much a part of individual and corporate life today as possible. Here is a harsh reality of our reality. The Christian fellowship binds people to each other and will therefore introduce separation in other relationships, including family (Micah 7:5-6). Such separation is the cost of faithful confession in this world. Jesus warns his followers that they must make life-and-death choices in the matters of to whom to be loyal and whom to fear. There are soul-shaking consequences to their choices. If their primary focus is avoiding rejection, death or bodily harm at the hands of angry family members and other folks who oppose Jesus, then they essentially deny Jesus and risk losing their very souls. Alternatively, they can choose to focus primarily on Jesus and his mission, no matter what the cost (even a cross), deny themselves, and follow him
The unity of humanity toward which the rule of God points is always a broken one in history. Even the primary loyalty of the ancient world, the household, Jesus sought to relativize given the priority of the rule of God. Jesus challenged the basic social and religious practice to its core. The tie to the household is no excuse for not becoming a follower of Jesus. Honoring family and parents, as important as it may be, must not stand in the way of obedience to God. They will suffer, even to the point of taking up the cross of persecution. The reward is that those who give their lives away will discover life. We discover life in giving it away rather than desperately holding on to it.
These sayings remind us that there is life beyond this paralyzing fear of rejection and loss and that in the whole scheme of things, there are much more important things of which to be afraid. Jesus offers us the ultimate perspective of the rule of God, and from that eternal perspective, we will all realize that being a faithful witness and standing with Christ in this life is much more important than the fear of rejection and loss. Such fears
• drive us to cling to what we eventually must lose;
• keep us from saying what we must say;
• keep us from going where we must go;
• keep us from doing what we know we need to do;
• keep us from being who we need to be.
A community of people unafraid of losing the praise and esteem of the world and even its possessions and building would truly be free.
We typically picture the one we should be afraid of with horns and a pitchfork. We may find a more accurate picture if we look in the mirror. We ultimately must fear only ourselves, for only we can choose to reject the life that following Jesus offers.
Matthew 10:34-36 are from material common to Matthew and Luke (12:51-53). It has its basis in Micah 7:5-6. For some scholars, the reference to Micah makes it unlikely to come from Jesus. For some scholars, “I have come” reflects the teaching of the early church rather than Jesus. Yet, would it not be unusual for someone like Jesus not to have a sense of mission and to express that mission.
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.
Jesus is not a peacemaker here, but the opposite, given the image of a sword. The war will divide families. Jesus gives notification of the ultimate dissolution and disintegration of the world order, of the cleavage between yesterday and tomorrow, old and new, this world and the world to come. Certain people in certain situations must bear witness not to peace, but to the kingdom that that limits and qualifies it.[18] Jesus is suggesting that the fellowship of Christians with each other or a form of binding oneself to others will not occur without all kinds of separations. One must disrupt and destroy all falsity that will corrupt human fellowship. In this sense, the sword of Jesus Christ will continuously prove to be necessary and powerful. Yet, one wields the sword with unity as the aim.[19] Such a statement is a reminder of the broken nature of the reality that salvation can achieve in historical form. Christian confession itself causes opposition that Christians cannot avoid if the cost is their confession. Thus, the unity of humanity in the reign of God is always a broken one as we see it in its historical form.[20]
Such language is the basis for suggesting that Jesus at least brought a notion of relativizing of the ancient notion of household. Such a household, comprised of husband, wife, children, grandchildren, and slaves, was a group to which birth irrevocably assigned one. Jesus seems to point us to the priority of a family open to all who wish to join it. This saying is suggesting that Jesus comes to tear apart the ancient notion of the household, with its hierarchal system of gender and generations, with a new notion of the family of God open to all. The family expresses the values of society in miniature form. We first experience love and hate, respect and abuse, help and neglect. We may be at the giving or receiving end of each. The household was not just a center of domestic tranquility. It invited the use of power, and Jesus seems to attack its power center in this saying. The coming rule of God, provisionally present in Jesus, invites us to consider a new family open to all.[21] Another way to think of this saying is that Jesus relativizes the most intimate relationships we have. In cases of conflict, the call of God may well cause us to renounce the most intimate of our relationships in favor of the rule of God. Institutional or blood relationships cannot ignore the demands of the call of Jesus, which is always a call for the sake of the mission of Jesus in this world.[22]
When we ponder the image of Jesus Christ that is at the core of our belief and understanding of who Jesus is, do we picture a Jesus who brings division or one who seeks unity? Do we think of Jesus in terms of one who is the Prince of Peace, or a fighter? Is Jesus someone who would encourage taking up the sword or taking up the cross?
Jesus came to bring division. Let us grant that most of us are on unfamiliar territory when we think of this self-demolition. Yet our psychic houses are beyond cleaning. We need a completely new life, a life of light. Part of our common confusion is that we have trivialized what Christianity is all about. We trivialize Christianity by keeping our lives intact.
Popular hymns and preaching have focused upon Jesus as “meek and mild.” Jesus may well have been meek, in the sense of humble, selfless, and devoted to what he believed was right. However, it would seem the word “mild” hardly applies to Jesus. A mild person lets sleeping dogs lie and avoids trouble wherever possible. A mild, placid temperament is almost a stranger to the passions of humanity. Such a person is almost a nonentity in a crowd, both uninspired and uninspiring. Yet, Jesus did not hesitate to challenge and expose the hypocrisies of the religious people of his day. He could walk through murderous crowds unscathed. Religious and political authorities regarded him a public danger. Shameless exploitation and complacent orthodoxy could rouse him to anger. He had the courage of one who could deliberately walk into a situation that would mean his death.[23]
Matthew 10:37 is from material in common between Matthew and Luke (14:26). They concern family ties, not emotions. 37 Whoever loves (φιλῶν) father or mother more than me is not worthy (fitting or comparable) of me; and whoever loves (φιλῶν) son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. The meaning is not that Jesus came with the purpose of bringing division between people, but his coming did have that result. In many households around the world then and now, for someone to give primary allegiance to Jesus rather than to family or prevailing culture results in expulsion from the family or community or even in physical harm. Jesus says that followers must choose their primary loyalty — whom will you love more? If you make the wrong choice, you are not worthy of me.
In Mediterranean societies, a persons' primary loyalty was to blood relatives, especially parents. The failure to honor parents meant the loss of face, of honor, and led to ostracism. No provision was made in Jesus' society to set aside this basic filial obligation. A saying such as this challenge established social and religious practice at its very core. It surprises, shocks, and consists of images that are concrete and extremely vivid. It seems compatible with the advice to a would-be disciple to let others bury the parent. The saying probably originated as a retort to people who used family ties as an excuse not to become a follower. Jesus calls upon his disciples to love their families in 5:27ff and 19:1ff, and to honor father and mother in 15:3ff, but it is clear this must not stand in the way of obedience to God. The word for love here is a verb more suggestive of family ties. What the sword of dissension will sever most brutally is the delicate web of human familial relationships. Even today, we as readers are uncomfortable when Jesus asserts that to love father, mother, son or daughter more than we love the Christ is to make ourselves unworthy. The key to understanding the depth of Jesus' meaning here is to think beyond the current narrow meaning of the term "family." In Jesus' day, family meant a vast, extended network of relationships forming an economic and sometimes political entity known as a "clan." Loyalty to the clan was expected above all else. The point of Jesus is decisive. Jesus puts family, friends, self in subordination to discipleship. One can understand the severity of this saying in the context of the primacy of filial relationships. Individuals had no real existence apart from their ties to blood relatives, especially parents. If one did not belong to a family, one had no real social existence. Jesus is therefore confronting the social structures that governed his society at their core. For Jesus, family ties faded into insignificance in relation to God's imperial rule, which he regarded as the fundamental claim on human loyalty. When it is understood in this context, we begin to see the implications of Jesus' mandate. Jesus' words put each person in a position of responsibility for his or her own heart and soul.
We must not press these words beyond their proper sense. We should not give words that had a specific direction in this moment a universal significance. Yet, we must also be willing to see the distinctive and concrete ethical direction is present. we must not tone down the saying. The divine command can in fact acquire the character of a commitment that literally says Jesus says here. Some situations demand this sense and direction.[24]
Modern households have changed. Most of us think nothing of moving away from home territory. Most families have members spread throughout the country. Yet we still deal with the issue of that which claims our loyalty. We do seem loyal to ourselves. We want self-fulfillment and happiness. We are accustomed to consuming. As family and work are part of who we are, so is going out and engaging in commerce. Others serve us and entertain us. We think we deserve the best and the most exciting. Everything is to adjust to our needs and wants. Consequently, we are losing the significance of loyalty when it comes to others, for it might cause us to sacrifice something dear to us. We do not want to deny to ourselves something we truly want. I would like to consider the possibility that our loyalty to ourselves runs the risk of leading us to a lonely life. Even our loyalty to self-fulfillment reflects a deeper longing for love, meaning, and significance.
I am convinced that all human beings have an inborn desire for God. Whether we are consciously religious or not, this desire is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure...Regardless of how we describe it, it is a longing for love. It is a hunger to love, to be loved, and to move closer to the Source of love. This yearning is the essence of the human spirit.[25]
Though there may be good reason to fear rejection and loss, these sayings of Jesus tell us they are ultimately no more harmful to us than a 16-year-old's experience of romantic rejection. Yet, from an adult perspective, we know now it was part of growing up, part of learning to be more secure in ourselves than in what others thought of us. We know now that there is life beyond romantic rejection, and that in the whole scheme of things, there are much more important things of which to be afraid. These sayings remind us that from the perspective of Christ, there is life beyond this paralyzing fear of rejection and loss and that in the whole scheme of things, there are much more important things of which to be afraid.
One of the opening scenes of Moby Dick has the protagonist, Ishmael, listening to a sermon on the story of Jonah being delivered by Father Mapple, of the Whaleman’s Chapel. In vivid hyperbole, the chaplain offers a warning to those who succumb to the inducements of the worldly life:
This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway![26]
Jesus offers us the ultimate perspective of the rule of God, and from that eternal perspective, we will all realize that being faithful to Christ wherever we meet him in this life is much more important than the fear of rejection and loss; those fears that
• drive us to cling to what we eventually must lose;
• keep us from saying what we must say;
• keep us from going where we must go;
• keep us from doing what needs to be done;
• keep us from being who we need to be.
The point for us today is that Jesus does not play second fiddle to other commitments. Re-ordering commitments is a central moment in our discipleship. Here, Jesus is saying that discipleship means strengthening our faith ties to Jesus. A true disciple will value a relationship with Christ over other relationships. If we are not literally hating family, we are not to worship them either. A disciple knows his or her vocation or mission in life.
Motivational speaker Tony Robbins encountered Mother Teresa in Mexico, and asked her, "What gives you total ecstasy?" "It's to see people die with smiles on their faces," she answered. The lesson here: "You've got to know what drives you," Robbins says. "What your purpose is in life."[27] A disciple has faith-ties that give purpose in life and follow the call of Christ regardless of what family members think.
The saying in verse 38 is one Matthew shares with Luke (14:27, but also parallel to Mark 8:34-5, Matthew 16:24-25, Luke 9:23-24). There are six versions of this saying. 38 And whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Some scholars suggest that such a statement could arise only after the death of Jesus. The saying is a paradox. The final challenge to a disciple's worth - the willingness to "take up the cross" - moves back from the discussion on family to the theme of persecution. By mentioning the cross, the Roman government's most heinous means of inflicting criminal punishment, Jesus suggests that there will be a shared solidarity of suffering between himself and his disciples. As we have noted, Jesus is suggesting that while the world as it is leads to such affliction, the connection between Jesus and those who follow him will lead to affliction as well.[28]
Does the saying assume the Christian view of the cross? One of the considerations that historians bring to a saying like this is that the image of the cross appears here as a Christian symbol. Can language of this sort mean anything other than a reference to Jesus' crucifixion? There is, however, nothing else in the material common to Luke and Matthew that would lead us irresistibly in this direction, were it not that we still tend to read the document with everything else in mind that we already know about early Christianity from other texts. In other words, a Jewish teacher could have used the image of the cross to express the cost of faithfulness, given the Roman use of the cross to punish rebels.
In the sayings about the discipleship of the cross, Jesus required his disciples to bear his cross, but only insofar as they were to bear their own. That is, their cross meant the consequences of the special calling and sending they received from God. Sharing the cross and death of Jesus thus means subjecting all else to the specific divine calling that each of us receives just as Jesus himself subjected all else to his own sending by the Father and for the sake of it was willing to go even to death.[29] Jesus offers the condition of discipleship as that of self-denial and of walking behind Jesus. Evoking the image of the prisoner condemned to death on a Roman cross and compelled to carry the patibulum, or crossbar, of his own personal cross to the site of his execution, he drives his point even closer to home. What might an alternate reading be? Epictetus said, "If you want to be crucified, just wait. The cross will come. If it seems reasonable to comply, and the circumstances are right, then it's to be done, and your integrity maintained." He is rather rehearsing one of several possible consequences of adopting and living in accordance with a certain philosophy. He would likewise graphically depict the cost of assuming a similar way of life. One can conceive of such a fate as imagined here because of the social challenge and outrageous behavior in which Jesus seems to have participated. Bearing one’s own cross is no easy burden. Luke’s gospel portrays Jesus’ foretelling of his imminent death in 9:21-27 and then resolutely setting forth to go to the cross. In 9:22-24, after he tells the disciples that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected and killed (v. 22), he says to all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (vv. 23-24). Bearing one’s own cross echoes the demand to hate one’s life in 14:26. The kingdom of God must come before personal security, health and life. Discipleship is a march to the cross with a deep and abiding hope in God’s sovereignty even over death (9:22, 24-27).
To follow Christ involves denial of self in the sense of yielding freely to this total service and therefore refusal to save their lives for themselves. For those who had not heard the private prediction of Jesus concerning his suffering, death and resurrection, these words must have shocked them to their shoes. Jesus lays out requirements for discipleship that go far beyond any usual conversion practices. Jewish proselytes had to decide to accept Jewish faith and law freely, willingly rejecting old pagan relationships and acquaintances. The insistence of Jesus that a potential disciple must not only deny all old familiar ties but must be prepared to suffer horribly because of their identity as a disciple is unprecedented. After two millennia of "cross" imagery, our senses are not as shocked by this reference, as listeners to Jesus must have been. The pain, brutality and degradation of a death by crucifixion ‑‑ including the spirit‑stripping practice of making the condemned "take up his cross" on this final death march to the execution site ‑‑ was a torture reserved for only the most despised of state criminals. Yet this is the very image Jesus chooses to represent as the fate of his most devoted disciples. This means that each disciple has a cross to take up, rather than to fear, hate, avoid, evade, or escape the affliction that falls on the disciple. Discipleship becomes a matter of each Christian carrying one’s own cross, suffering one’s own affliction, bearing the definite limitation of death that in one form or another falls on one’s own existence.[30] The challenge here is that to follow Jesus, one simply has to renounce, withdraw, and annul, and existing relationship of obedience and loyalty, namely, to oneself. As he sees it, self-denial in the context of following Jesus involves a step into the open, into the freedom of a definite decision and act, in which it is with a real commitment that people take leave themselves, the person of yesterday, of the people they were. They give up their previous form of existence. What matters now is not the self, but to follow Jesus, regardless of the cost.[31] Following Jesus in this service means co-crucifixion with Jesus. Paul, in fact, suggests this in Galatians 2:19-20, where he says that he has been crucified with Christ so that now, his life is a matter of Christ living in and through him. The focus on discipleship is identification with the destiny of Jesus. This view is in keeping with the sayings of Jesus about the discipleship of the cross, in which Jesus required his disciples to bear his cross, but only insofar as they were to bear their own. The bearing of their cross is the consequence of the special calling and sending they received from God. Mark makes clear that Christology and discipleship are inseparable, and that the way of Jesus to the cross is also the way the disciple must follow.[32]
A disciple today must practice self-discipline, accepting the consequences and sacrifices that may come our way. Philip Yancey tells of a monk who once bragged about his dietary discipline. His spiritual director replied, "Don't tell me, my child, that you've spent 30 years without eating meat. However, tell me the truth: How many days have you spent without speaking ill of your brother? Without judging your neighbor? Without letting useless words pass your lips?"[33] Bearing the cross of Christ involves walking in the way of Christ. Many might bear a little discomfort, but a disciple knows the sacrifices and sufferings of a truly disciplined life.
Just as following Jesus means denial, so also it means death. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said in his Cost of Discipleship, that when Christ calls us, he bids us to come to him and die. Thomas à Kempis wrote,
In the Cross is salvation;
in the Cross is life;
in the Cross is protection against our enemies;
in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness;
in the Cross is strength of mind;
in the Cross is joy of spirit;
in the Cross is excellence of virtue;
in the Cross is perfection of holiness.
There is no salvation of soul,
nor hope of eternal life,
save in the Cross. (The Inner Life)
"If you bear the cross gladly, it will bear you"
(The Imitation of Christ, 2.12.5).
C.S. Lewis wrote (The Four Loves) that if you would love you would suffer. We cannot even love a dog without at one point or another feeling the pain of loss, assuming we outlive the dog. The greatest of all things-love-is itself most intimately bound with suffering. It is a poignant irony, I think. In our attempt to avoid suffering, we cut ourselves off from the one thing that can mitigate it: each other. Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering, because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice, because, given temperamental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain. When we know that the way of love, this exodus, this going out of oneself, is the true way by which man becomes human, then we also understand that suffering is the process through which we mature. Anyone who has inwardly accepted suffering becomes more mature and more understanding of others and becomes more human. People who have consistently avoided suffering do not understand other people. They become hard and selfish. We have no literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy. We have only moral answers. Yes, in the face of suffering at the hands of other human beings we may despair. Yet, hope also comes from other human beings.[34]
Matthew 10:39 focuses on what one must do find one’s life, which we also find in Luke 17:33 and John 12:25. 39 Those who find their life (ψυχὴν) will lose it, and those who lose their life (ψυχὴν) for my sake will find it. “ Even if death is the result, the disciple has preserved the true self. The saying expresses the supreme value of the true self. There is no greater gain and no price to one can put upon it. This saying is true first of Jesus. Had Jesus saved his life at the cost of his proclaiming the divine lordship, he would have made himself independent of God and put himself in equality with God. He could not be the Son of God by an unlimited enduring of his finite existence. No finite being can be one with God in infinite reality. Only as he let his earthly existence consume itself in service to his mission could Jesus as a creature be one with God. He did not cling to his life. He chose to accept the ambivalence that his mission meant for his person, with all its consequences. He showed himself to be obedient to his mission.[35] Such renunciation is in favor of the living Lord, Jesus Christ.[36]This claim is the form of the Gospel, of the promise of the free grace of God by which alone human beings can live, but by which one may live in the full sense of the term.[37] In a sense, by choosing oneself, one loses what one seeks, becoming supremely non-human. To do so is to give oneself to the pride that is the heart of human behavior.[38] A paraphrase might suggest that those concerned about themselves in discipleship will miss the very thing that Christ assigns to them in discipleship. However, they receive what Christ assigns to them in discipleship if they lose all concern for themselves in discipleship.[39]
We might ponder the matter of personal identity that animates every individual life. We have a natural desire for self-preservation. We recognize the hint of truth in the saying that to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.[40] To thine own self be true,” we often hear and say. Granted some wisdom in this, Jesus is also suggesting a contrasting wisdom that sacrifice of self will lead to finding self. How can one lose life by saving it? Such seemingly contradictory remarks appear to be typical of many things Jesus said.
This statement is quite remarkable in that people find their lives by giving them way, rather than desperately holding on to them. Jesus confronts the disciples with the necessity of discipleship even unto death. Death is not the end, but the perfection of life. Jesus refers to his death, and now he refers to the death disciples of Jesus must experience. The call to discipleship is a call to suffer, sacrifice, even die for others to live as God lives, to live as Jesus did. This unexpected nature of messiahship is a messiahship that embraces servanthood and dying is not an easy pill to swallow, not even for Jesus himself.
A little boy had a sister who needed a blood transfusion. The boy had recovered from the same disease two years before. Her only chance for recovery was to have a transfusion from someone who had recovered from the disease. The boy had the same rare blood type and recovered from the disease. He would be the ideal donor. The doctor asked if he would be willing to do this. At first, the boy hesitated. His lower lip started to tremble. Eventually, he said, "Sure, for my sister." Attendants wheeled brother and sister into a hospital room. They were side by side. They did not speak, but when their eyes met, the boy smiled at his sister. He was so healthy, while she was very pale and sickly. The nurse put the needle into the arm of the boy, and his smile faded. He watched his blood flow into the tube. When the ordeal was almost over, his voice slightly shaky, he said, "Doctor, when do I die?" Only then did the doctor realize why the boy hesitated, and why his lip trembled. In that brief moment, he made a great decision.[41]
John Wesley, on his 85th birthday, said that for the rest of his days he wanted to spend to the praise of Jesus Christ, who died to redeem the world. Many or few, he owed and devoted the rest of his days to Christ.
On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. On the night before his death, he gave a speech in which he said, "Like anybody, I would like to live a long life -- longevity has its place. However, I am not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. Moreover, he has allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land."
Garrison Keillor tells of some wayward Catholics who return to their hometown, Lake Woebegon, on Christmas Eve. They are spiritual exiles who, in having left home and church in order to find themselves, return to discover their loss.
Dozens of exiles returned for Christmas. At Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, Father Emil roused himself from bed, where he’s been down with cancer since Columbus Day, and said Christmas Eve Mass. He was inspired by the sight of all the lapsed Catholics parading into church with their unbaptized children, and he gave them a hard homily, strolling right down into the congregation.
“Shame. Shame on us for leaving what we were given that was true and good,” he said. “To receive a great treasure in our younger days and to abandon it so that we can lie down in the mud with swine.” He stood, one hand on the back of a pew, and everyone in that pew – children of this church who grew up and moved away and did well and now tell humorous stories at parties about Father Emil and what it was like to grow up Catholic – all of them shuddered a little, afraid he might grab them by their Harris-tweed collars and stand them up and ask them questions. “What a shame. What a shame.”
They came for Christmas, to hear music, and see the candles, and smell incense, and feel hopeful, and here was their old priest with hair in his ears whacking them around – was it a brain cancer he had? Shame, shame on us. He looked around at all the little children he’d given first communion to, now grown heavy and prosperous, sad and indolent, but clever enough to explain their indolence and sadness as a rebellion against orthodoxy, a protest, adventurous, intellectual, which really was only dullness of spirit.
[1] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.3] 263-4.
[2] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3 [69.3] 179-80.
[3] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71.5] 639-40.
[4] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.1 [63.2] 776-9.
[5] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 53-4.
[6] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 114.
[7] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 209.
[8] (quotes taken from a review in the New York Review of Books, of the book Hawthorne's Secret, by Philip Young.)
[9] (facts taken from sermon, "The Victims of History," by Benjamin Scolnic, Hamden, CT)
[10] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.1 [63.2] 776-9.
[11] The Jesus Seminar would disagree by saying that Jesus and the disciples did not face death in the way the early Christian community would face it. Given that Jesus will experience the cross and the intense opposition he faced in the course of his life, I find this conclusion rather incredible.
[12] Barth Church Dogmatics III.3 [49.3] 174.
[13] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 53-4.
[14] Some scholars would say that the saying derives from a time after the death of Jesus, when the opponents of the early Christians forced them to acknowledge or deny Jesus.
[15] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71.5] 639-40, 642.
[16] Barth Church Dogmatics III.4 [53.2] 76.
[17] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 114.
[18] Barth Church Dogmatics III.4 [54.2] 263.
[19] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3 [72.4] 898-9.
[20] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 43.
[21] Inspired by John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 59-60 argues that there is an almost savage attack on family values, and it happens very, very often. The family is a group to which one is irrevocably assigned ... that given grouping is negated in favor of another one open to all who wish to join it. ... A woman declares Mary blessed because of Jesus, presuming, in splendid Mediterranean fashion, that a woman's greatness derives from mothering a famous son. But that patriarchal chauvinism is negated by Jesus in favor of a blessedness open to anyone who wants it, without distinction of sex, or gender, infertility or maternity. Imagine the standard Mediterranean family with five members: mother and father, married son with his wife, and unmarried daughter, a nuclear extended family all under one roof. Jesus says he will tear it apart ... notice where and how emphatically the axis of separation is located. It is precisely between the generations. But why should faith split along that axis? Why might faith not separate, say, the women from the men or even operate in ways far more random? The attack has nothing to do with faith but with power. The attack is on the Mediterranean family's axis of power, which sets father and mother over son, daughter, and daughter-in-law ... The family is society in miniature, the place where we first and most deeply learn how to love and be loved, hate and be hated, help and be helped, abuse and be abused. It is not just a center of domestic serenity; since it involves power, it invites the abuse of power, and it is at that precise point that Jesus attacks it. His ideal group is, contrary to Mediterranean and indeed most human familial reality, an open one equally accessible to all under God. It is the kingdom of God, and it negates that terrible abuse of power that is power's dark specter and lethal shadow.
[22] Inspired by Wolfgange Schrage, The Ethics of the New Testament, 1988 argues that Jesus did not understand celibacy as a universal requirement for entrance into the kingdom of God; however in cases of conflict, he demanded renunciation of the most intimate ties... Sexuality, marriage, and family must not have a priority or autonomy with respect to God. There cannot be any institutional or blood relationship that ignores the demands of God and the call of Jesus for the sake of his mission Jesus himself left his family, which obviously could not understand him, and led a life without home or family.
[23] Inspired by J. B. Philipps. "Why 'mild'? Of all the epithets that could be applied to Christ this seems one of the least appropriate. For what does 'mild,' as applied to a person, conjure up to our minds? Surely a picture of someone who wouldn't say 'boo' to the proverbial goose; someone who would let sleeping dogs lie and avoid trouble wherever possible; someone of a placid temperament who is almost a stranger to the passions of red-blooded humanity; someone who is a bit of a nonentity, both uninspired and uninspiring.
"This word 'mild' is apparently deliberately used to describe a man who did not hesitate to challenge and expose the hypocrisies of the religious people of his day: a man who had such 'personality' that he walked unscathed through a murderous crowd; a man so far from being a nonentity that he was regarded by the authorities as a public danger; a man who could be moved to violent anger by shameless exploitation or by smug complacent orthodoxy; a man of such courage that he deliberately walked to what he knew would mean death, despite the earnest pleas of well-meaning friends! Mild! What a word to use for a personality whose challenge and strange attractiveness nineteen centuries have by no means exhausted. Jesus Christ might well be called 'meek,' in the sense of being selfless and humble and utterly devoted to what he considered right, whatever the personal cost; but 'mild,' never!"
--J.B. Phillips, Your God Is Too Small (New York: Macmillan Paperbacks Edition, 1961), 27.
[24] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.4 [54.2] 262-3.
[25] (Gerald G. May, Addiction and Grace).
[26] (Herman Melville, Moby Dick [New York: Random House, 1926], pp.47–48.)
[27] (Constance Gustke, "Tony Gets In Your Face," Success, April 1998).
[28] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71.5] 639-40.
[29] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 282.
[30] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2 [64.3] 264.
[31] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.3] 539-40.
[32] (Pannenberg, 1998, 1991) Volume 3, 282.
[33] ("A Cure for Spiritual Deafness," Christianity Today, April 6, 1998).
[34] Elie Wiesel
[35] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 374-5.
[36] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.1 [63.1] 744.
[37] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.2 [64.3] 264.
[38] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2 [60.2] 421.
[39] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.3 [71.6] 652.
[40] Oscar Wilde
[41] Robert Coleman, Written in Blood.
[42] (Garrison Keillor, “Exiles” in Listening for God, Paula J. Carlson and Peter S. Hawkins, eds. [Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1994], pp. 199–120.
No comments:
Post a Comment