Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Sarah: What's that you've got there?
Ann: Some of Matthew's notes for his new book. You know he's going to write a book about Jesus, like Mark's?
Sarah: What's it about?
Ann: It looks like little bits and pieces - he's put lots of things Jesus said on the same subject together.
Sarah: So it's easier to remember - I know. So what's this lot about?
Ann: Well, if I read it out, bit by bit, maybe we can work it out together. "No pupil is greater than his teacher; no slave is greater than his master. So a pupil should be satisfied to become like his teacher, and a slave like his master. If the head of the family is called Beelzebul, the members of the family will be called even worse names!"
Sarah: Well, that's easy enough to understand. You know how people go round pointing us out as Matthew's friends and sneering?
Ann: Especially if they're about to be nasty about Christians. I hate the way my family behaves now I'm finding out about Jesus - it's as if anyone who even mentions his name is mud. But what's wrong with Beelzebul as a name?
Sarah: You lead a sheltered life, don't you? The name Beelzebul means ‘Lord of the flies' - it's the devil he's talking about. And some people in my family's synagogue do think Jesus came to tempt us away from following God.
Ann: If only they knew what Matthew tells us about him! Anyway, here's the next bit. "So do not be afraid of people. Whatever is now covered up will be uncovered, and every secret will be made known. What I am telling you in the dark you must repeat in broad daylight, and what you have heard in private you must announce from the housetops."
Sarah: What's that all about? Voice coaching?
Ann: Remember when you first heard Matthew talk? And you came to tell me about it, but you spent an hour avoiding the subject?
Sarah: I was afraid you'd laugh at me, like everyone else!
Ann: And I'd wanted to ask you about Jesus for weeks - but I was afraid it'd get me in trouble with my family. It took me weeks to pluck up the courage to go to a Christian meeting - but then I wondered why I'd wasted all that time being afraid. After all, listen to what it says here: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather be afraid of the one who has the power to destroy both body and soul in Gehenna."
Sarah: That's really scary. The idea that at the end of my life, God might think I was worthless, fit only to be tossed onto the rubbish dump for burning.
Ann: But everything I've heard about Jesus makes me sure he wouldn't treat anyone like that! Listen to this bit: "For only a penny you can buy two sparrows, yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's consent. As for you, even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth much more than many sparrows!"
Sarah: That's all right if you're a sparrow. What about if you're someone like me, someone who likes what they hear about Jesus, but is scared to do anything about it because of how angry people will be when they hear?
Ann: Well, according to this, Jesus does want people to stand up for him in front of others. What does it say? "For those who declare publicly that they belong to me, I will do the same before my Father in heaven. But if anyone rejects me publicly, I will reject him before my Father in heaven." That's tough talking. And listen to this: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the world. No, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. I came to set sons against their fathers, daughters against their mothers, daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law; your worst enemies will be the members of your own family."
Sarah: Well, at least he's honest about it. Some of my family are really not going to like it if I do decide to call myself a Christian. My uncle's a priest in the temple, and his colleagues all hated Jesus because he said God can forgive sins without people going through all the normal sacrifices, or paying lots of money to the temple. And my mother says a good Jewish girl shouldn't have religious ideas anyway - I ought to stop thinking about matters that are beyond me and just do what my husband says. As if! Why can't they just let me alone?
Ann: This bit's getting so tough I'm not even sure Jesus can have said it. Listen: "Those who love their father or mother more than me are not fit to be my disciples; those who love their son or daughter more than me are not fit to be my disciples."
Sarah: What? I thought loving other people was part of God's big commandment. But I can't see Matthew making up something really hard like that, so I suppose Jesus must have said it. He wants us to make him our priority, not our family.
Ann: And there's even more: "Those who do not take up their cross and follow in my steps are not fit to be my disciples." He's wanting us to be prepared to get in trouble with the powers that be - to mix up politics and religion. That's what gets you crucified. It's bound to lead to trouble for us, like it did for Jesus.
Sarah: I suppose that's the point. If we really want to follow Jesus, we can't kid ourselves it'll be a picnic. Look how he ended up - dead and in disgrace!
Ann: But according to Mark's book - have you read the last chapter? - he didn't end up that way. And there's a promise here at the end of Matthew's notes.
Sarah: About time, too. What is it?
Ann: "Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for my sake will gain it."
Sarah: To be honest, that's not a choice I want to have to make. If I have to decide between loving Jesus and not loving him, I know which way I want to go. But it'll cost me.
(Text used: Matthew 10:24-39)
R&S 285: O for a thousand tongues
Follow me, follow me
R&S 529: Light of the minds that know him
R&S 268: Jesus is Lord
Recently I realised that it's been 25 years since first I started trying to follow Jesus. That's peanuts compared with some of you here, but it still feels like quite a long time to me. Sometimes the experience of following Jesus has been wonderful - I've learned and grown, I've met amazing people who've shown me what God is like, I've appreciated God's beautiful universe. But sometimes it's been less easy. People I have loved have suffered unfairly, or died. Work I expected to go well has failed. Fatigue or sorrow have inclined me to see the world as meaningless, and faith as a bad joke. And people's indifference or hostility to the very idea of God has sometimes made me feel like a stupid loser.
25 years - it feels like a wedding anniversary. And there may be some common ground between falling in love with someone and becoming a disciple of Jesus. For some people, growing up knowing their future partner or in a Christian family, it's a deepening realisation of how important this relationship has become. For others, it may be love at first sight, or an experience of something beyond understanding, which starts things off. But whether it's gradual or sudden, there's usually a point of commitment, a moment of transition when you act on your conviction that this is it, this is the one, and after that life is never the same again.
After the emotion of that moment - maybe a wedding, or being baptised - you start to notice that there are a few snags in this new situation. Maybe the in-laws aren't quite as friendly as you'd hoped they might be. Maybe service times at church mean you have to miss a favourite programme. That's OK, you can live with it. But then it can get tougher. If this relationship is going to work, if you're serious about it, you're going to have to do something you really don't want to do at all. Maybe you'll feel you have to stick up for a friend your neighbours look down on, because you believe God cares about justice. Maybe you'll give up smoking because your partner can't stand the smell of stale smoke around the house.
You expect to be praised for your stand. But if anything, matters seem to get worse! And a sneaky thought in your head starts to ask, Is it really worth it? For this?
That's the sort of state this morning's second reading finds Jeremiah in. He has been God's prophet from a child; an unenviable vocation, given that God mostly wants him to tell rulers - to their faces - why they've got it all wrong. And now people in high places have finally had enough of his preaching, and he's found himself stuck in the stocks for a day. What is this? What's God playing at? He's done everything God wants, but still things go spectacularly wrong - and it's just not fair!
Our psalmist this morning seems to have had somewhat similar experiences. His family aren't speaking to him any more. People who hate God are getting at him. The way he worships makes him a laughing-stock, people gossip about him behind his back, and some idiot with more alcohol than sense has written so-called comic songs about him.
I suspect that we may be more likely to get sent to Coventry, laughed at or gossiped about because of our faith, like the psalmist, than thrown in the stocks like Jeremiah - but either way it's no fun at all. So why stick your neck out? Why not just practise your faith quietly and privately so no one else can tell what you're up to and bother you about it? In fact, if we're being honest, is it really necessary for us to follow Jesus at all, seeing that, according to Matthew, he seems to be so set on his disciples stirring things up and getting into political trouble? Isn't a quiet life more sensible, especially if we're getting on in years? After all, God's the forgiving sort, or that's what we're told in church every week. If we just go on turning up at church on Sundays, and give discipleship a miss the rest of the week, can't we trust God to go on giving us a new start Sunday by Sunday for the rest of our lives?
Going by our reading from Romans this morning, people Paul knew evidently asked that question before us. And his response to them - and to us? No! Never! No way! By no means! and any other forceful negative you can think of. Paul does not reckon we can forget about following Jesus and still rely on God's forgiveness. That's not how it works. But why not?
Because of that initial moment of commitment between God and ourselves, symbolised by baptism. In the early Christian days, the norm was for adults new to the faith to ask for baptism, to show they wanted to be followers of Jesus. And once that's done, Paul argues, it can't be undone as if it had never happened. For once anyone is baptised, their status has changed forever from before to after: before = disabled by sin; after = new life with God. Paul links our moment of transition in baptism with the moment of Jesus' passing from death on the cross into his new life beyond death. He's taking us right back to the beginning, to whenever it was we first decided we were serious about following God. And he's saying, If that first decision for God was for real, there's no way you can forget about discipleship and go back to letting sin run your life - it just doesn't make sense.
What does he mean by sin? Anything that damages our relationship with God. Just as every human partnership has its own vulnerable points, that will mean different things for different people. And just as it's sometimes worth sitting down with your partner or a close friend and giving your relationship with them a health check, why not take a look - maybe with a trusted friend or even your minister, to keep you honest - at how you and God are getting on. Are you tempted internally to let your use of time, of money, of your other relationships, get in the way of your following Jesus? Are you tempted externally to give up on your commitment to him if others give you a hard time for it?
Some couples - a few - tell us that they've never had a cross word or a moment of difficulty in all their life together. More, I think, know like Jeremiah and the psalmist what it's like to go through tough times. But it's the love between them, that love that committed them to one another to start with, that sustains them through trouble. And it's the same with us. Why bother being Jesus' disciple, why follow him at all? You'll have to answer that for yourself. My answer? Because through 25 years he has been my example, my strength and my friend.
