Sermon 6 Penteocost - Proper 7A June 22, 2008

6 Pentecost - 22 June 2008 - Proper 7A
Genesis 21:8-21; Romans 6:1b-11; Matthew 10:24-39
James V. Stockton

How did your last week go for you? I hope it was blissfully calm, but maybe it wasn’t. I hope your relationships with the people and world around you were refreshingly honest; but maybe they weren’t. I hope you experienced wonderfully your faith in God and God’s faith in you; but maybe you didn’t. And if it wasn’t, if they weren’t, and if you didn’t, maybe it goes to demonstrate what Jesus told his disciples long ago: Peace isn’t natural. Truth isn’t cheap. Trust in God isn’t easy.

Is it surprising for people to hear this? In a world suffering from war, is this a hard word from Jesus to hear? Jesus did not come to make peace with the world. He does not come to affirm the way things are. Instead, he brings a sword. Jesus’ manner of life, his witness is here to cut away the immorality of injustice; his words are here to pierce the heart of falsehood and pretense. In a time of fears that conflict may spread more widely, is it surprising to learn that Jesus comes to call his followers to fight when need be, to struggle when need be, to suffer and die, when need be?

I have to wonder, is it hard for Jesus apostles to remember what Jesus says to them in the gospel for today? He has risen and ascended, and as they live into their own ministry, they recall Jesus’ words and example to guide them on their way. “My critics and enemies call me evil and crazy,” says Jesus. “And if this is what they tell people about me, you can imagine what they’ll say about you.” “So,” Jesus tells them, “don’t be surprised. Don’t be surprised that people oppose the truth that you bring, the values that you represent.” “So, know this: God has you. Ultimately, your clear conscience will calm your mind. Your integrity will settle your fearful heart. Ultimately, your love for God, your commitment to truth, your pursuit of justice and mercy, will keep you in the knowledge and love of God.”

The challenges of God’s call can be surprising. It can be hard sometimes to trust the promise of God. Yet if these struggles betray how woefully human are those who seek to follow Christ Jesus, how thoroughly human is our own the Episcopal Church, along with the wider fellowship of all who seek the knowledge and Love of God, it bears recognizing that it is precisely to these thoroughly human struggles that God gives custody of the divine treasures of Peace, and Truth, and Trust in God.

As we heard last week, Abraham and Sarah are impatient to experience God’s promise to them the unlikely promise of an heir born to them in their extreme old age. Having arranged with her maid and slave, Hagar, to serve as surrogate mother, Sarah now resents the son that Abraham has fathered with Hagar. She wants the child and his mother banished and Abraham agrees. Abraham sends the woman and child off into the wilderness to fend for themselves. These actions of Abraham and Sarah demonstrate the fact that God calls and moves through people not because they are perfect, but because they are willing to try; and when they get it wrong, are willing to try again.

There is, then, no need to soften the fact: what Abraham and Sarah do here is cruel. The closest we can come, I suppose, to defending their actions is to recall that that God somehow assures Abraham that God will tend to the child. It is a promise that God makes to Abraham, and later also to the boy’s own mother. And, of course, it is a promise that God keeps. God does rescue both Ishmael and his mother Hagar from the harshness of the desert. And the Ishmaelites do become a nation great in their own right.

On a side note, in some circles, it’s a popular notion, to equate Ishmael and his descendents with the followers of Mohammed and with Islam. I would suggest caution here, if only to note that the original animosity is between Sarah and Hagar, not between Isaac and Ishmael, who actually grow up for awhile playing nicely together. In addition, it’s important, I think, to note that the birth of Islam brought it into conflict not first with the Jewish descendents of Abraham, but with the Christian believers in the divinity of Jesus. And of course, more recent conflicts are rooted in 20th century politics, with any sense of ancient discord merely supplying secondary and specious justification for modern hostilities. In short, let’s not blame this stuff on God. Instead, let’s be willing to try to trust the promise of God. And when we get it wrong, let’s not force the promise in our own way. But let’s be willing to try again to trust the promise of God.

Trust in God is hard. Truth can be costly. Peace must be intentional. Jesus knows all this. And it’s important to him that his followers know it, too. Certainly, his disciples remember that Jesus was no conquering warrior. They remember also, though, that Jesus was no diplomat come to negotiate, compromise, and placate the self-interest of as many people as possible. As is said elsewhere in the gospel, Jesus is no ‘respecter of persons.’ He is no mincer-of-words. He does not alter his manner or his speech based upon the status of the person or the people to whom he speaks. And so he cannot, he will not, tell his closest followers anything less than the truth. And the truth is, the apostles are in for trouble. God has not sent Jesus to call them from their fishing nets and tax-collector’s booths, to a life of ease and effortless success. Just as Jesus does, so also will the apostles now confront all that keeps people from God’s Love for them and for all.

Trust in God can be difficult. Truth is costly. Peace must be on purpose. “One’s foes will be member of one’s own household,” says Jesus. Maybe Peter thinks back and recalls his father’s response to him dropping the fishing nets, leaving the boat, leaving behind the family business, and going off with this itinerant preacher, Jesus. Maybe Matthew remembers how his friends and relatives told him what a fool he was to leave his lucrative position as tax-collector and take off after this upstart, Jesus. Maybe someone you or I know has known similar skepticism among people close to him or to her when she or he decided to follow the course that was, for her, for him, the nobler, higher, more godly way. Maybe you or I have experienced it ourselves.

Peace is a prize to be pursued and earned. Truth is a challenge to be met and embraced. Trust in God is a spiritual gift to be exercised and strengthened. One wonders if it’s hard for the disciples to hear this. One wonders if it’s hard for people now to hear this. Is it hard for you and me to hear it again today? And one wonders if maybe the disciples follow Jesus anyway because they hear from him the same promise of God that gathers us here today: “You are of value to God,” says Jesus. “You matter to God. God cares for you. God is always with you.”

How was last week for you? I pray it was good and joyful, exciting and energizing, and all that you hoped it would be. And I pray that this week will be all that and more. I pray that this week will be, for you and me, for us together, and through each of us, also for those around us, a week that is unsettling, disturbing, challenging, tiring, and in this, a week that is rich with the promise of God.

I pray that this week we won’t be surprised when God gives us occasion to do battle with the impulse to do battle; to refuse to tolerate the instinct for intolerance; to surrender a natural contentment in pursuit of a true and supernatural peace from God. I pray that this week we won’t be surprised that God gives us occasion to pay the price for speaking the truth; to confront those comfortable falsehoods that separate people from God and from one another; and to proclaim loudly, in deed and in word, that truth alone will set us free in the knowledge and Love of God. I pray that this week we will not be surprised to find that God gives us occasion to welcome and receive again the gift of trust in God; and occasion to use it, to exercise it, to strengthen it, so that our witness in the world may be ever faithful, ever peaceful, and ever true to the Love of God for all.

And so may Almighty God, who draws our hearts to Jesus, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so direct our wills that, wholly belonging to God, we may be dedicated to the welfare of God’s people, and to the glory of God’s Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, One God, for ever and ever. Amen.

© 2008, James V. Stockton