Matthew 10:24-39

Matthew 10:24-39

‘A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; 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!

‘So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. 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. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

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;

and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

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; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.’

Our Gospel reading this coming Sunday is a hard one to understand, out of context. The whole of Matthew chapter 10 is concerned with Jesus preparing his disciples to be sent out, and their unspoken question, how will we be received? Indeed, Matthew’s Gospel frames the story of Jesus as the clash between the kingdom of heaven and the powers of this world; of light breaking into darkness; of Jesus’ very presence provoking a response: those who receive him and those who reject him. And as it was for Jesus, so it is for his disciples. To experience rejection, for his sake, is to share in Jesus’ experience.

As they proclaim that ‘the kingdom of heaven has come near’ (Matthew 10:7), they will face verbal and physical violence from those who want to maintain the status quo, and, understandably, this might cause them to be afraid. Yet Jesus invites them to experience the undoing of fear, through insight and reassurance, or as he puts it earlier in the chapter, being ‘as wise as serpents and innocent as doves’ (Matthew 10:16).

The insight has to do with what is going on behind the scenes, in this clash of kingdoms. Jesus and his disciples are accused of belonging to Beelzebul, or Baal, a foreign god, a deviation from true Israelite religion. The earlier prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah chapter 32) records Yahweh’s intention to hand Jerusalem over to the Babylonians, on account of his people’s apostasy, their worship of Baal in the valley of Hinnom (hell) and their offering up their sons and daughters to the god Molech by fire. So, Jerusalem itself will burn, and experience sword, famine, and pestilence. And after judgement, Yahweh will restore the fortunes of his people, through the return from exile of a faithful remnant.

Just as the people in Jeremiah’s time were not to fear the Babylonians, but rather the consequence of their own self-destruction, so, in Jesus’ context, the real issue was not the Roman occupiers and their puppet-king Herod, but rejecting the giver and sustainer of life in favour of destruction. In a moment of existential crisis for the nation and their identity, Jesus speaks insight, and with it, reassurance: the invitation to discover that our fears are calmed by God’s care for us. We become a community whose fear is being overcome because our true value is given by God.

And then there are those strange words about family, that if you love your family ahead of Jesus, you are not worthy of Jesus. These words must be taken alongside Jesus’ words in chapter 15, where he confronts those who void God’s word by dishonouring their father and mother on account of piety towards God. Jesus is not demanding that his disciples reject their families, but needing them to know that their families might reject them. This has always been part of the experience of those who would follow Jesus. It is the painful experience of some of the asylum-seekers I know in this city.

The experience of rejection is a painful one. Indeed, to believe that you have been rejected, that everything you believe and stand for has been judged and found wanting and turned away from, is deeply painful, even if objectively speaking you have not been rejected at all. We have seen this played out in the news over recent days. There has been a call to reassess Britain’s history, the officially sanctioned way in which we have told our story, what we have floodlit and what we have hidden in the deepest shadows. A call to repentance, and to different thoughts, words, and actions. And there has been a reaction to this. For some, this is nothing short of an attack on Britishness, or Englishness. Protests and counter-protests.

Underlying it all is a clash of kingdoms. Not Black against White, or Left against Right, but the clash of the kingdom of heaven against the powers of this world. The Church is neither White nor Black, nor of the Right or of the Left, but wholly other. By which I do not mean that we should not involve ourselves in the injustices and the incredible sense of grief for lost lives—the grief of those who have never had a fair stake in society, and the grief of those who no longer recognise the society they grew up in. Rather, I mean that there are powerful, unseen forces, hell-bent on destroying as many as possible by any means possible. And we are sent to proclaim the good news, ‘the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ The enemy is not the protestor pulling down a statue of a slave-trader, nor the bare-chested men making Nazi salutes while defending a statue. We are sent to proclaim the good news, ‘the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ This kingdom call on our lives, that calls us to repentance and action, sends us to proclaim: fear does not need provoke you to agitation and aggression; though you are considered two-a-penny by those who hold worldly power, your worth in God’s eyes is immeasurably more. Whatever you have, you will always lose it, sooner or later; but, with Jesus, there is always—always—new life to be found.

Sometimes what we lose—even an entire way of life—is God-ordained, and resistance is futile; but even such judgement is always in order to address systemic wrongs, and in the hope of restoration, not of what was but of the promise of good to come.

We are sent to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons (Matthew 10:8). Those infected and those affected by hatred. Those who have had the life crushed out of them by the world. Those who are feared, who hear voices calling for their exclusion ringing in their ears. Those who have been demonised by society, and those who are oppressed by demons. By healing words and actions. In the face of welcome and rejection—both of which may feel uncomfortable at times.

This is, truly, a gospel for our days. Those of us who hold to it need to be converted to it afresh. How will we be received? Not with indifference.

Evensong, Fifth Sunday of Lent 2018

Exodus 7:8-24 and Romans 5:12-21

This week saw the death of the world’s most eminent cosmologist, Professor Stephen Hawking. Hawking’s early work set out to prove, by the discipline of Physics, that the universe had a beginning. His later work set out to prove, by the same means, that it did not. My own study of cosmology lies within the discipline of Theology—the Queen of Sciences—and, theologically-speaking, we can also pursue both ends. If the universe is the outward expression of God’s creativity, creativity being an inherent quality of an eternal God, then the universe has source but may indeed have no beginning.

In the beginning was a story. A creation-story. But Genesis opens not with creation out of nothing, but, rather, with the creation of order and harmony out of chaos. A liberation-story. An exodus of creation, if you will. Later in the unfolding story, we get glimpses behind the beginning, to an angelic rebellion against the Creator God, with cosmic consequences [see the archangel Michael defeating the dragon, depicted in our East Window].

Exodus, the second book of the Bible, begins in much the same way as the first. God’s creation, the family of Israel, have been enslaved by chaos, personified by the Pharaoh, acting on behalf of the gods of Egypt, spiritual beings in rebellion against YHWH’s purposes for the universe. In the same way that YHWH had thrown-down the rebellious gods and set free the observable universe, so will YHWH overthrow the gods of Egypt and set free the Hebrew people.

Statement of intent is given when Aaron throws down his staff—the symbol of divinely-given authority—and it turns into a snake. Except it doesn’t. According to the Hebrew text, it turns into a sea-dragon, understood across the Ancient Near East as a symbol of chaos. The translators only put ‘snake’ because they don’t believe in dragons, which is foolish (and, in case you are wondering, no, it isn’t the same word as the serpent in the Garden). In modern Hebrew, the word means ‘crocodile’—but this was no Nile crocodile, either. It was a dragon. If you ask me whether I believe in creatures that are universally known to human culture, I will tell you, yes; and if you ask me for proof, I will reply, more proof than universal evidence?

Pharaoh summons the priests of his gods to respond. Instead of turning the sea-dragon into something harmless (which, by the way, wouldn’t be back into a powerful staff) they summon forth several more. But Aaron’s sea-dragon swallows all of theirs. This is incredibly important. What is being said is this: that Egypt (symbolised by the sorcerers’ dragons) has swallowed-up Israel, but that Egypt in turn is about to be swallowed-up. Chaos has engulfed YHWH’s people, but is about to be engulfed by something greater. This will come to pass when the Egyptian army is swallowed-up by the Red Sea (Sea of Reeds).

Notice has been given; but Pharaoh does not heed the warning. What follows is a series of hyper-natural events: nature escalating out of control. A series of ecological disasters, that point to something greater: these are the consequences of Pharaoh violating YHWH’s will for harmonious order, for inter-dependent freedom; violating this by persisting in holding people captive as slaves. Pharaoh’s actions express cosmic rebellion, and have cosmic consequence, in which the natural world and human lives within it are all caught-up.

We—people; not only Christian people—still talk about ecological disasters in a similar way today. We need to be careful how we do so; but we also need to recognise that such events do indeed call us to repentance, to stewardship of the earth, to concern for the wellbeing of the most vulnerable.

Aaron takes his staff and strikes the Nile, and the water turns to blood, or something like it. It is a clear sign that this will not end well for those who resist YHWH’s intention to oppose chaos and set creation free. But again, the magicians of Egypt escalate the problem they face, turning any water Aaron had missed to blood. Death spreads and spreads, touching every living thing. But God will bring about an exodus.

Writing to the church in Rome, Paul also speaks of slavery and exodus. It is, after all, the founding-story of his people—indeed, they’d since been swallowed-up by the Babylonians, and, most recently, by the Romans. But Paul expands its horizons: sin and death have swallowed-up everyone who has ever lived; yet, now, they face being swallowed-up by the grace of God, expressed through Jesus Christ. Those who hope in Christ, both Jew and Gentile, have been caught-up in a new exodus. Specifically, the gods of the Roman world were about to be judged, and the (remnant) people of God rescued through that judgement (though God would judge his own people first).

These exoduses have this-world historical consequences, as well as cosmic implications. God judged the gods of Egypt and of Rome, bringing a people out of captivity to proclaim his praise, and to establish a pattern of creation that reflected the divine will. First, the people of Israel; then, the Church. The question is, where do we find ourselves today?

Are we in need of a new exodus in our time?

Is the Church held captive to other gods?

Are the nations being judged?

Can we be faithful to our founding stories?

And might we declare that sea-dragons will be swallowed?