Jesus

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Abba, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Abba, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  Matthew 10:34–39 (NIV) “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father,     a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—     a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” CONSIDER THIS The opening verse of our text may come as a shock to some. That puzzlement can only increase as we call to mind some of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah. Isaiah, for example, describes a Prince of Peace (see Isaiah 9:6–7), and Zechariah, for his part, depicts a king who is “righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey” (see Zechariah 9:9–10), a depiction that will be enacted in the life of Jesus later on. The key to solving this present problem, and one that can reconcile the passages just cited with our current text, is found in one of the most beloved and joyous passages of Scripture in which the heavenly host celebrate the birth of Jesus: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14). This last phrase is very significant, though it is often ignored and passed over quickly, for much meaning is contained in these few words. To illustrate, the NASB translates this phrase as “peace among people with whom He is pleased,” and the ESV, in a similar fashion, renders it as “peace among those with whom he is pleased.” Since real peace is associated with those who enjoy the favor of God, now understood as those with whom God is pleased—with such people who do the very will of God in their lives—then the introduction of this moral dimension can now unmask the kind of phony peace that Jesus always rejected. Reflecting upon the ministry of Christ so far in our journey, we realize that he did not promote a peace of exhaustion or laziness, one that surrenders to or indulges evil, and is, therefore, silent when great harm is done to the neighbor. We note also that he spurned the counterfeit peace that refuses to take good and evil into account as those human beings who are under its deceptive power, and in the name of freedom, end up shackled and in deep bondage. Moreover, we observe that Jesus renounced that peace which is not troubled at all with thoughts of God or of the Messiah, is heedless in terms of a coming judgment, and has, therefore, made an individual human life, with its circus of desires, the center. In short, peace at all costs is ever complicit with evil in some fashion, on some level. That’s the kind of peace that Jesus always rejected. Of course, the sword that Jesus mentioned in our text is not a real sword, an instrument of physical violence, but a metaphorical one. In fact, when his enemies later came to arrest him, and one of his followers came to his defense by striking the servant of the high priest and cutting off his ear, Jesus rebuked his defender: “Put your sword back in its place . . . for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matt. 26:52). The meaning of the metaphorical sword of our text is displayed in the verb at the center of the action in verses 35 and 36: “For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household’” (emphasis added). Our English translation of “to turn . . . against” may not be the most helpful choice in displaying the action of the Greek verb διχάζω which is behind our text. The basic idea here is to “divide in two, separate”1 or even to split, an activity often associated with swords. If we were to consider our passage as a poem with a one-line introduction (v. 34) and two stanzas (vv. 35–36 and 37–39), then we could easily see that in the midst of the separations of the first stanza between men and fathers, daughters and mothers, and daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law, Jesus is actually the subject, the principal agent, of this dividing action, as if by a sword, for he has come to turn all of these people against one another. In short, Jesus creates division; yes, fosters division. Does this sound like the Jesus we know, the one we have been taught? Though Jesus is the foremost actor here as verse 35 indicates, nevertheless—and this has often been missed—his action is not direct, as we might initially suppose, but indirect, and it is that distinction that makes all the difference. Christ is an indirect actor here in the sense that he raises up disciples, those who in deep devotion and ongoing obedience put aside evil and do the good as they are enabled, empowered by the vivifying grace of God. In other words, they are real disciples and not hypocrites. These followers, however, are also situated in a network of family relationships where much of the action of our stanza takes place. And though we might think at the outset that those who have not taken on the yoke of discipleship in these families would be marked by freedom, openness, and a live-and-let-live attitude, nevertheless, an odd and unexpected dynamic often occurs. Repeatedly confronted with the innocence and sheer goodness of the lives of their transformed relatives, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, the remaining family members now feel judged, put upon, and anxiously uncomfortable. They, therefore, go on the offensive (see 1 Peter 4:3–5), and the separation, the division, that Jesus indirectly brings about is widening, ever widening. He is the Prince of Peace, to be sure; but again, not of peace at any cost. The action in our second stanza is somewhat different: it’s not about division and separation but about fellowship and communion; it’s concerned with loving one another. In this setting, Jesus is working with familial love and affection—the love between sons and daughters and their parents, for example—a great good to be both cherished and enjoyed. The challenge of the teaching of Jesus in this context then comes not with the recognition of the value of such love, for everyone can agree it's important. Rather, the challenge comes in the form of the ranking of many loves in a hierarchy of sorts in which one love is recognized as greater, of more value, than another. Put another way, it’s one thing to have values—and we all have them—it’s quite another thing to rank them, a process that would prove to be difficult, perhaps even painful, but in the end would be filled with rewards in the form of deeper self-understanding. By teaching that those who love father or mother, son or daughter, more than Jesus are not worthy of him, Jesus, in effect, is claiming an area of devotion and love that transcends all of these significant loves and is, therefore, of much more value. It’s a love that belongs to God alone. In short, Jesus is teaching far more in this setting than some have imagined. The last line of our second stanza, “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me,” almost seems out of place. Prior to this, we have two lines of the positive values of the love of fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, but now we have the negativity of embracing death, that is, of taking up a cross. However, this line can also be expressed in terms of a positive value. It would then read like this: “They who love their own lives more than me are not worthy of me.” Our own lives are clearly valuable and for some, however, this is as positive or as great as things will ever get. So why then didn’t Jesus continue the parallelism, with three positive values in a row, instead of ending up on what looks like a negative note? In fact, Jesus did continue the parallelism, but it’s in the very last line of our stanza: “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (emphasis added). By expressing this truth both negatively and positively, Jesus underscored that the focus of this teaching is not on ourselves—that is, the fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters we love—but on the much higher value of Christ. Indeed, the forces of self-love are so strong that even taking up a cross can be filled with a self-preoccupation (“See what a good disciple I am! Oh, how I have suffered!”) that can become morbid in its misdirection, in its turn toward self and negativity. This, too, must die. How then can this last vestige of self, bleeding through virtually everything, be laid aside? A first step, but an important one, entails looking in an entirely different direction and recognizing that all the action here in this second stanza is oriented, once again, toward Jesus. He is the goal; we are not. Accordingly, things are done well when they are done, as our text states, “for my [Jesus’s] sake.” THE PRAYER Jesus, I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice, welcoming any tension or turmoil this may bring in my life. Help me to accept division that originates in faithfulness to you, while honoring and dignifying those who turn against me for your sake.