EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 3 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on June 16, 2020. This was the 13th digital service we performed after our church was shuttered because of the COVID pandemic.
So another tough week. ... More deaths, and more unrest. More political division. More tough news regarding a silent killer that remains among us, and we have no vaccine for.
If you were looking for comfort in the gospel this week this is a hard week to find it. Just on top of last week when we talked about that very tough message when Jesus starts his discourse with the disciples at the time, and he sends them out among the masses. And remember how he does that: He tells them to leave their sandals at home, and their purses at home, and all of their extra clothes. And to go out on their own, and to enter houses, and if the houses weren't worthy to just dust off their feet and share the message elsewhere. Last week, Jesus talks about the discord believing in him creates.
And then, wow, we come to the text this week ... This is a continuation of last week's text, of course. Last week Jesus is talking to the disciples and sending them out; it's often called his "Missionary Speech." And this is a continuation of that "Missionary Speech."... But this week, the gospel text culminates in even stronger language that after a really tough week of really tough headlines, it comes as a shock to us. This week's text culminates in even more disturbing news than last week's text.
I mean after Jesus threatens that he did not come to bring peace, and first blush, it makes a person stand back and say, "What??? ... The Prince of Peace does come to bring peace?" ... In fact, the exact words out of the text from Jesus' mouth are: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword."
To unpack this a little bit, you have to back up and remember that Jesus often talks in stories and allegories. And of course, this comes as one of those allegories. Jesus isn't telling his disciples that he comes with an actual sword in hand to start swinging. That would be contrary to all of the stories that we are told in the gospels. But just like Jesus does in so many places as he tries to get his disciples and those who are listening to understand, he's speaking in language that they would understand.
And, of course, in this instance, that sword that Jesus is talking about is that very cross that we come and look at each Sunday in our sanctuary. That very cross that we know on Friday Jesus sacrifices his life so that come Sunday he can rise again. It's that cross, in this particular text, that Jesus is talking about that is going to sew division.
Obviously, he is using some really strong visual language in the idea of our Messiah, our Savior, our Prince of Peace coming with a sword in hand. But just like that sword would very easily sow division, we know that as faithful people, and we know based on last week's text that the cross can do the very same.
Look at today's text, and just after Jesus reminds us that he does not come to bring peace but a sword he tells us that he's come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law versus her mother-in-law, and so on. And that should be very familiar to us from the language that we heard last week when he was talking to the disciples, and how their message may separate families right down the middle. That message that he is sending the disciples with out into the world is going to be divisive, just as a messiah with a sword would be divisive.
And of course we have to go back and remember that Jesus is talking these 12, and he's trying to prepare them for sending them out into the world. And, so, I think we have to put ourselves in the place of those disciples because he's not just talking to those 12 disciples in the first century. Jesus is pointing to each one of us again, here in our 21st century, and saying, "This is not going to be easy, my faithful." Jesus never makes any promises to us that any of this life of faith will be easy. He never makes any promises to us that we are going to come out of it unscathed, or that our loved ones might not be hurt, or that we might live in a very contentious society that is scary. In fact, Jesus tells the exact opposite in that he tells us that our confidence must rest solely in who God is, not in the fact that we might not be harmed as faithful followers of Jesus.
It's at times a very hard message for us to accept.
In the good times, if you think back even three to three and a half months ago as we would share our good message here on Sundays, we went through a period of relative luxury in a sense that in the couple of years that I came here to Faith Lutheran, we have been growing, and the faith and the Spirit has been growing here in the sanctuary. We had really tremendous Sundays. We couldn't see what was on the horizon, and what was coming for us.
And just a mere three months later we still live similar lives to all of those who are not faithful. We're still impacted by the deaths and the brutality. We're still impacted by the unrest; and we're still impacted by the political divisions; and we're still impacted by the very same diseases that those who are not followers of Christ are impacted by.
When we fear do we respond with that sword that Jesus talks about? This is what Jesus is talking about when he is preparing his disciples for because he knows that there is going to be this initial gut reaction because we are only human. We have a lot to fear. I don't minimize that in the least. But what Jesus is trying to prepare his disciples for is is that when we encounter that fear, that fear of disease, that fear of pandemic, that fear of a financial insecurity, that fear of civil unrest ... Jesus is asking how we will respond. Are we going to respond in violence just as the rest of the world does?
Jesus is talking to his disciples in the first century, and they had a period of time that was just as contentious and just as dangerous to be a faithful follower of Jesus. If not more so than the times in which we live. And so Jesus who is issuing this challenge to them not to respond as the world does ... with a sword. But to respond with that cross. To respond with the fact that we are strong in our vulnerability of placing our trust in the Lord. We know the answer to what our response needs to be. And yet that very reaction that we are called to will produce the similar results as a sword.
Our vulnerable response, and our trust in the Lord, allowing us to spread the Lord's love here, and to be Jesus' disciples to spread Jesus' message here without responding violently will sow just as much discord here in this world as any violence would. But the Lord, in this very short gospel, our savior, our Christ, the one who sacrifices himself on that very cross, reminds us that despite all of that we shall not fear. In fact, in this very short gospel, Jesus reminds us three times not to fear.
"So have no fear of them for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered. And nothing secret that will not become known." ... Do not fear, once.
"Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul but; rather fear him whom can kill both soul and body in hell." Do not fear, twice.
Do not fear a third time.
"So do not be afraid you are of more value than many sparrows."
And therein Faith Family that is where our hope lies. As we go back to the second time that Jesus tells us not to fear, he reminds us that no matter what happens to us in this early world, that no matter what violent response that our faithfulness might invoke, the only damage that can come to us here is that earthly destruction. We may fear the response of our faithfulness to others who may disagree with our faith and may disagree with us as Christians, but they can't kill both body and soul.
We may lose our earthly body. We may lose our earthly body to COVID. We may lose our earthly body to unrest. To whatever earthly day that we may encounter. But it is only God in which we lose our salvation.
It's a very message to hear on this Tuesday night/Sunday morning but I hope that you see the comfort in that cross. We often talk about the fact that Friday comes, and so many people get stuck there. And they stare at that cross and the sacrifice that Jesus meant, and they lament that loss. But Jesus is reminding us in the gospel today that we have to look beyond that, and look to Sunday again because our salvation comes in that cross as well.
So Faith Family, no matter what troubles you may be running into right now, whether it is a loved one who is facing an illness, or the fear an anxiety of a worldwide pandemic, or the fear and anxiety created by the financial uncertainties that face our world, or if you just fear and are anxious over being safe in your home. ... Faith Family, I would offer up to you, that in this text, Jesus reminds us that the one who can save both our body and our soul has our backs. It is because of our faith in God that we receive our salvation.
It doesn't make it any easier. If you go back tonight and look through our readings, and look through Jeremiah, and read the Psalm, there's a parallel in the both of them in the sense that both are prepared to praise God and to spread the message of the Good News. But in both cases, they are scorned for doing so. ... We will be too. And Jesus is preparing each of us as disciples that we may be mocked, and there may be people who don't understand us and who will fear us because of our belief in Christ.
But the Good News tonight, Faith Family, is that we rely upon the gospel in which Jesus tells us three times, "Do not fear." ... I know that we live in uncertain times, and the next few months don't seem to provide us any clearer paths forward. But tonight, Faith Family, we get to rely in the Good News that we are as worth as many sparrows and that the one who can save both body and soul is here to protect us.
And on this Tuesday night, and this Sunday morning, that is the Good News. ... Amen.
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