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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The hymn that we just sang has a call act right after. And the main prayer of that call act goes like this: Grant us courage to take up our cross daily and follow Him wherever He leads. This morning’s Gospel reading is one of those readings that can be very difficult to understand because Jesus talks in terms where he doesn’t always speak in clear terms. He speaks of not coming to bring peace, but a sword, which seems kind of antithetical to the very thing that he’s supposed to be, the Prince of Peace. Interesting.
C.S. Lewis talked about this very attribute of God in his Chronicles of Narnia, and he describes God in this way: Our God is not a tame God. In other words, our God is not to be understood and explained and put in a box. Where we pull him out at will when we need him and push him back gently in a very safe place and secure so that he doesn’t get dirty or anything. And we go on about our life until another chaotic or difficult time comes upon us. He’s not a tame God, and he does not wish to be understood. He wishes to be God, and he wishes you and me to be creatures. Meaning we have to let God be God.
When he comes and proclaims that he does not bring peace but a sword, he is speaking in terms of two understandings of the word peace and sword. In this world, we connect the word peace to be the cessation of conflict. Well, you and I know as believers in Jesus that our faith brings conflict. It brings conflict right here within our own bosom as we wrestle and deal with ourselves. Then it also brings conflict as we interact with others. Even if they’re believers, it still brings conflict because we’re of the flesh as well as the spirit.
The sword that he brings does not mean he’s going to make life difficult. Well, my cross that I must bear is that I have cancer. That is not a cross that he brings or a sword that he bears. That’s common to mankind, whether they are a believer or an unbeliever, because we are sinners who live in a sinful world. The sword that he brings is that there is this conflict within you and me as we wrestle with our flesh, our person, and as we wrestle with it with the other people in our lives.
The writer to the Hebrews talks about this sword that our Lord brings in the fourth chapter: For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.
And yet that same Word of God that reveals our nakedness and barrenness is the same Word of God that provides succor and balm and healing. That same Word of God that pierces us and reveals to us what we really are and all those locked closets and dark corners of our lives also brings balm and forgiveness for those same locked closets and dark corners. But not without conflict within us.
It’s not as if that Word of God comes upon us and can pass right through us. It does divide us, and it does bring division within us. But it also brings peace of forgiveness, but not without first coming to terms with who we are and who God is. Very interesting indeed.
This conflict is talked about by Jesus when he says whoever finds his life loses it, and whoever loses his life for my sake finds it. This paradoxical way of saying things is very profound. From our understanding, when we think we have found life in this world, we have found sensation of conflict. Yet to find life in this world—true life, eternal life—it’s a Lutheran Christian sermon.
The part of us that likes to keep those doors locked for fear of revealing too much of who we are and loves to keep those corners dark and unexposed to God’s light because it scares us to be known in such a naked and barren way.
Well, if there is this conflict within us, you know the next place that it’s going to come to bear is with people with whom we are very close: our spouse, our children, our son and daughter-in-laws, and father and mother-in-laws, especially when there is a difference of faith. It comes to bear, and that rooster comes home to roost. Why else would Jesus mention this as a warning? And why else would He describe it in such a way as if we’re supposed to not love these people in our lives?
It’s not what it is saying. It is saying, “…not love them more than He who is our God.” Because family members can become our God if we fear them more than we fear God. People with whom we don’t want to have a conflict over the things of the faith can also be the same ones who pull us away from these things of the faith.
It can be a lonely life being a godly person in this world. It can be a lonely life being a godly person in a family where the faith isn’t shared. Many of you do not know what that’s like, who grew up in Christian families, who grew up among other Christians. Many of you do know what it’s like, even though you may have grown up in that family, when all of a sudden that which you thought was going to continue to go on, you see in your own children a walking away from that which you hold dear.
And the scratching of the head and the thinking that there must be something that I’m doing wrong, or why else would they walk away from this faith? Then we get into second-guessing God and really second-guessing man. We think this package seems to attract these people to the faith, so there’s something right about that package that they’re a part of. And yet, this package over here seems to not attract people to the same volume as this package. Therefore, there must be something inherently right in this package and inherently wrong in this package.
We become judges, or really, we glorify one over the other rather than realizing God is God. We’re pragmatists at heart. If it seems to work, then it must be right. Jesus is very clear here that even if it’s right, it doesn’t work the way we think it ought to be. God has given us all the mission to go out and proclaim the good news of Jesus, to proclaim the joy of our own sins forgiven, and the joy we’ve seen and experienced in our own lives of our sins forgiven, and those of our loved ones whose sins have been forgiven.
But these lost sheep that we are sent out to proclaim to—some of them listen to us and receive it with joy, and we rejoice with them. And we say, wow! But why did they receive it? Because of the package that we gave it to them in? Or because of the Holy Spirit working through that word that we proclaimed, Jesus?
To give glory to the package or the proclaimer is to give more glory to the pipe that brought you water this morning than to the water that you drank this morning. Backwards, isn’t it?
Some of these lost sheep that we are sent out to proclaim to listen to us, smile, and nod, and then walk away. Apathy, almost. We scratch our heads, thinking, well, what are we doing? These people received it; those people did not. I don’t get it. And then the ones that really bite us, in those places that hurt deeply, are the people to whom we proclaim, and they don’t just reject it. They reject it with animosity, anger, and hurtful words. Yes, judgmental words.
Now we scratch our head and think, what nest of hornets did I open up by my proclaiming this? The very lost sheep unto whom we have been sent can become the very wolves that seek to destroy us. So do we become all encased and enclosed and not want to share the faith for fear of being hurt? Or for fear of hurting someone? No.
Do we think that we have to get it right every single time to think that it’s going to be effective? Packaging it in a pleasing way to humanity? Forgetting that our God is not a tame God? Forgetting that our God comes with a sword to bring conflict within our own life that we may then bear and realize where true peace is found.
As you’ve grown up in the faith, you have seen how God takes time to bring things about. And we are a very impatient people. A very impatient people. We want it solved now, and we have the capabilities to solve many things now. The long-term struggle and the long-term pilgrimage to heaven can become very depressing along the way. Yet Jesus gives us in this text great hope.
He said, if they receive you, meaning your message, meaning Christ whom you proclaim, they receive me, Christ. That means it’s not you whom they receive; it’s Christ whom you bear. The reverse of that is very true: if they reject you, they’re not rejecting you; they’re rejecting him who sent you and him whom you bear, Christ.
Unless we think too highly of ourselves to think that we have the ability and the right package to bring about an effective result. This is the difficult part of living out our faith in this world. But it’s not without joy. The joy is you’ve tasted and seen that the Lord is good. And you see people around you who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.
You know their lives to be like yours—full of sin and in need of Christ’s forgiveness. Yes, and you know that that which you proclaim will bring results. It’s just not always we who get to see the results of the seeds that we’ve sown. And in fact, as Jesus said so clearly, we actually reap where others have sown, not we ourselves.
Whoever receives you receives the one who sent you. That’s Christ. That’s comforting. We will always know rejections. And we will always know that we live in a world that looks upon what we are about and what we believe to be true as not. There is enough guilt in this world to cover you and me tenfold.
We don’t need to give Satan a leg up to beat us or really to help us beat ourselves. Confess it. That’s why Christ reveals it, and be forgiven while Christ proclaims it. And then that is what we bring: forgiveness, mercy, and hope in a world that says if you don’t dot your I’s and cross your T’s, you’re not good enough.
Well, but Jesus said if we do not take up our cross and follow Him, we’re not worthy of Him. That is very true. But our worth is not found within us, is it? Our worth is found here, and in that Word, and in that supper. That forgiveness which makes us brand new and worthy.
God makes us worthy—those who have no worthiness. God makes us lovable—those who are unlovable. And God makes us holy—we who are unholy. That is what we proclaim. And it is crazy that some listen and walk away. But it’s even more amazing that you keep coming back to be fed this forgiveness.
Amen. Come again and be fed. Come again and be forgiven. Come again and be re-given hope. And that is what you proclaim. That is what you live to the world. In the name of He who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, even Jesus Christ, amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
