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 10:24-39 (Year A June 19-25) are a portion of the missionary discourse delivered by Jesus. I blend synoptic comparison, historical-cultural notes, and systematic theology reflection. I read this passage as a call to costly discipleship, where identifying with Jesus brings persecution, where disciples must practice fearless public confession, where discipleship creates conflict in families, where the cross is the defining metaphor, and the paradox of losing and finding life.
Verses 24-25 involve sayings on the coming persecution. Verse 24 (Luke 6:40 and John 13:16) is a secular proverb: A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It reinforces the traditional superior and inferior relationship between teacher and disciple, slave and master, pointing to a harsh reality of human cultures. The culture in which Jesus lived assumed social stratification. In this context, verse 25 (unique to Matthew) observes, showing signs of being the conclusion of a proverb, It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master (κύριον). 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. [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 bring affliction upon those who follow him.[3] In an addition to the saying,[4] If they, the opponents of Jesus, have called the master of the house (Jesus) Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household (the disciples). Similarly, see 12:22-29, where, after Jesus had healed a demon-possessed man. The exorcisms of Jesus made him an easy target of such accusations. Beelzebul is 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.’”
Verses 26-33 are sayings concerning public confession, an encouragement for the disciples to remain fearless witnesses for Christ. In verse 26b (Luke 12:22, but another application in Mark 4:22=Luke 8:17), a piece of secular wisdom dominical saying on the hidden brought to light, [5] a proverbial, memorable, and paradoxical saying, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. The end-time revelation of the judgment of God will bring to light who we are. Secrets can be a dangerous matter, so the judgment of God will bring to light the righteous and the sinner.[6] In verse 27 (Luke 12:3), a saying concerning open proclamation, What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. This refers to the message of Jesus, of what Jesus first caused the disciples to hear, but what would then be proclaimed by them. The ear of the disciples has to be opened first before they can proclaim.[7] They are to have no fear of their opposition, for Christian faith is confession. 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. 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. 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. 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 must do and makes open use of the freedom that is given them to do this. So have no fear of them. 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. In verse 28 (Luke 12:4-5), is an exhortation. The first imperative refers to its object in a double way[8]: 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. The saying assumes the destruction of the soul is possible, and thus, the soul is mortal. It opposes the idea of the immortality of the soul.[9] Fear of God is a tenet of Israelite religious tradition. It admits that we fear rejection and loss, but both are part of growing up in this world. There is life beyond rejection and the loss of those we once thought might have been close to us. There are other things much more important of which to be afraid. 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. The loss of the soul, the vital force of the individual, is the supreme loss. In verse 29-31 (Luke 12:6-7), may come from common lore, like sayings on anxiety in 6:25-34, using concrete and striking images as well as hyperbole, a deduction from minor to major. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? (In Luke 12:6, five are sold for two pennies, so they are cheaper by the dozen[10]). And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. A rabbinic proverb is frequent in the tradition: Not a bird falls to the ground without heaven (God), so how much less does a human being?[11] But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. In what may be an editorial ending,[12] Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. The certainty of salvation and the security it provides gives followers of Jesus courage to submit to the uncertainties of life, especially related to seeing death in a new light as a child of God.[13] While sparrows, worth so little to human beings, fall to the ground, facing their own dangers, they do not do so apart from the care of the Father. The Father counts every hair on our heads, a sign of divine lordship and ruling. [14]The lives of the those addressed might be considered by people just as paltry as that of sparrows, the Father cares for them.[15] Thus, disciples are to trust the Father fully, knowing they are of more value than sparrows. They have no reason to doubt the providential care of God. The Father has intimate and detailed care for humanity. The saying addresses one of the greatest needs of us all, which is to be known, noticed, remembered, and respected. It recognizes the deep longing within us for love, to love and receive love and to move closer to the source of love, which is the essence of the human spirit. [16] 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.[17] In verses 32-33 (Luke 12:8-9) is both a promise of salvation and a threat of damnation, with the emphasis upon the latter. So everyone who acknowledges me before humanity, I (Luke has “Son of Man”)[18] also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before human beings, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. The contrast of confession and denial is appropriate to the context of instruction to those whom Jesus is sending. The opposition Jesus experienced, those whom he sends can also expect to receive opposition.[19] This suggests that 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.[20] 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.[21] Such a saying 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.[22]
Verses 34-39 are sayings on the coming cross.
In verses 34-36 (Luke 12:51-53, see Micah 7:5-6), reflect on the mission of Jesus by referring to peace or conflict.Jesus viewed his ministry as bringing the time of eschatological terror, and the early community of followers of Jesus experienced in its own life. In the experience of the church can be seen the fulfillment of the eschatological prophecy, and in it the church knows, to its comfort in suffering that Jesus has willed it.[23] The saying was meaningful as it reflected the bitter experiences of the Jewish-Christian communities.[24] The text reveals what a fearless witness may expect to encounter. Jesus is not the peacemaker, but the bringer of a war. Most of us today are uncomfortable with this image of Jesus. Most of us enter unfamiliar intellectual territory when we start reflecting on the mission of Jesus that suggest he came to bring a division. 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. The Christian fellowship binds people to each other and will therefore introduce separation in other relationships, including family in verses 34-36: Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For Jesus, family ties faded into insignificance in relation to God's imperial rule, which he regarded as the fundamental claim on human loyalty. Jesus identifies his mission as bringing a sword rather than peace.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 rule of God that that limits and qualifies it.[25] For I have come as stated in Micah 7:5-6, to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 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. Such a household, comprised of husband, wife, children, grandchildren, and slaves, was a group to which birth irrevocably assigned one. Jesus points 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 attacks 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.[26] 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 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.[27]
In verse 37 (Luke 14:26) [28] a saying radical enough that it is one of the strongest expressions of the self-understanding of Jesus,[29] Whoever loves (φιλῶν) 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. Jesus calls upon disciples to love their families (5:27-32, 19:1-14) and honor parents (15:1-9). We need to understand this saying in that context. However, as readers today, we need to reckon with the possibility that Jesus commended the renunciation of marriage to at least some of his followers. Following Jesus comes before all ties of family. Following Jesus could mean a hard surrender of family. If so, if it was the father of the house who decided to enter the community Jesus was forming, his wife and children would have no choice but to return to the home of her parents, although this act would be a social stigma attached to it.[30] Such love and honor within the family must not stand in the way of obedience to God. For Jesus, family ties faded into insignificance in relation to God's imperial rule, which he regarded as the fundamental claim on human loyalty.
Jesus confronts directly the household cultural institution of his day. In Mediterranean societies, a person’s primary loyalty was to blood relatives, especially parents. The failure to honor parents meant the loss of face, of honor, and led to ostracism. Coming to Jesus is not the same as discipleship. 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 existence in the eyes of society. 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. In terms of the context, aware of the throngs, Jesus turns to them and utters a hard and enigmatic saying that can have no other effect than to diminish the ranks of potential disciples in the crowd. It seems incredible that Jesus could counsel one to participate in hatred of any kind. This is not the only time where Luke presents family as a potential obstacle to participation in the kingdom. In the text immediately preceding this unit, the parable of the great banquet (vv. 15-24), one person uses the excuse that he has just married and cannot come to the banquet. Likewise, earlier in the chapter, Jesus advises those who host banquets not to invite friends and family who can repay them the honor, but to invite those who could never return such a favor (vv. 12-14). Furthermore, in Luke 8:19-21, Jesus redefines family, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (8:21). This redefinition of family places the will of God first and reconfigures all relationships based on this priority. We see this prioritization of the rule of God most clearly in the difficult sayings of 9:57-62 in which Jesus tells a would-be follower to place the proclamation of the kingdom before the burial of his father or even before saying farewell to those at home. He then proclaims to the one who hopes to follow, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (9:62). We must read the difficult saying of hating one’s father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters in 14:26 considering these other sayings on family. Jesus intends the sayings to be harsh. Jesus intends to cause any would-be follower to stop and consider the full costs of following Jesus.
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. “Hate” does not mean emotion aversion, hostility, contempt, or repugnance. We should not take it psychologically. Such a statement is not a universal rule for all human conduct. Yet, within these limits, 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.[31]
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.[32] 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 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. 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. A community of people unafraid of losing the praise and esteem of the world and even its possessions and building would truly be free.
The point for us today is that Jesus does not play a secondary role 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.
Verse 38 (Luke 14:27, but also parallel to Mark 8:34-5, Matthew 16:24-25, Luke 9:23-24) returns to the theme of persecution in its mention of the cross, the Roman government's most heinous means of inflicting criminal punishment: And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Mark 8:34 (Matt 16:24, Luke 9:23) is similar: Whoever would come after me, let him deny himself and take up the cross the person carries and follow me.[33] This refers to a sense of vocation. [34] That is, their cross meant the consequences of the special calling and sending they received from God. 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.[35] Jesus used this image to express the cost of faithfulness. 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 rehearsing one of several consequences of adopting and living in accordance with a certain philosophy. He would likewise graphically depict the cost of assuming a comparable 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. Jesus suggests that there will be a shared solidarity of suffering between himself and his disciples. 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.[36] 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.[37]
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.
Jesus required his disciples to bear his cross, but only as far as they were to bear their own. 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.[38] Following Jesus in this service means co-crucifixion with Jesus. Paul, in fact, suggests this in Gal 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.
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.[39]
In verse 39 (Luke 17:3; John 12:25) focuses on what we must do to find life: Whoever finds life (ψυχὴν) will lose it, and whoever loses life for my sake will find it. 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. 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.[40] Such renunciation is in favor of the living Lord, Jesus Christ.[41] 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.[42] 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.[43]
Application
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.[44]
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.[45]
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 must fear only ourselves, for only we can choose to reject the life that following Jesus offers.
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.[46]
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 genuinely 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.[47]
Though there may be good reason to fear rejection and loss, these sayings of Jesus tell us they are 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![48]
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 a secondary role 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."[49] A disciple has faith-ties that give purpose in life and follow the call of Christ regardless of what family members think.
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?"[50] 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.[51]
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.[52] 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.[53]
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.
He stopped. It was so quiet you could hear them not breathing. Then he said that this was why Our Lord had come, to rescue us from dullness of spirit, and so the shepherds had found and so shall we, and then it was Christmas again.[54]
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7] Horst, TDNT, V, 553.
[8]
[9] Schweizer, TDNT, IX, 645-6.
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15] Baurenfeind, TDNT, VII, 731-2.
[16] (Gerald G. May, Addiction and Grace).
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20]
[21]
[22]
[23]
[24]
[25]
[26] Inspired by John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 59-60.
[27]
[28]
[29] Stahlin, TDNT, IX, 129.
[30]
[31]
[32]
[33] 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? My assumption here is that Jesus could have said this. 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.
[34]
[35]
[36]
[37]
[38]
[39] Elie Wiesel
[40]
[41]
[42] (
[43]
[44] (quotes taken from a review in the New York Review of Books, of the book Hawthorne's Secret, by Philip Young.)
[45] (facts taken from sermon, "The Victims of History," by Benjamin Scolnic, Hamden, CT)
[46] 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.
[47] (Gerald G. May, Addiction and Grace).
[48] (Herman Melville, Moby Dick [New York: Random House, 1926], pp.47–48.)
[49] (Constance Gustke, "Tony Gets In Your Face," Success, April 1998).
[50] ("A Cure for Spiritual Deafness," Christianity Today, April 6, 1998).
[51] Elie Wiesel
[52] Oscar Wilde
[53] Robert Coleman, Written in Blood.
[54] (Garrison Keillor, “Exiles” in Listening for God, Paula J. Carlson and Peter S. Hawkins, eds. [Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1994], pp. 199–120.
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