Jeremiah 20:7-13; Psalm 69:7-10 (11-15), 16-18; Romans 6:1b-11; Matthew 10:24-39
The Rev. Drew Brislin
Preachers sometimes refer to this reading in jest as Jesus’ sermon on family dynamics. I’m glad today is not Father’s Day because trying to explain ‘whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me’ might have been a challenging task to say the least. This portion from Matthew though is a continuation of what is called Jesus’ ‘Missional Discourse.’ That is to say that what Jesus is doing is preparing his disciples for the work they will have to do and the persecution they will have to endure so that they can continue the work that he has begun. As I thought about how we live into this calling today I could not help but reflect on our recent youth mission trip to the Navajoland.
In some of my recent work with the diocese around the Civil Rights and Reconciliation work that it has been engaging in, we often discussed the difference between making a trip and embarking on pilgrimage. A person or a group can take a trip to see any number of historic sites, monuments, or markers but pilgrimage involves a little more planning and intentional travel. Pilgrimage requires a journey that prepares one for the arrival at their destination. The diocese continues the work of helping those seeking spiritual growth find it as they visit important sites in and around our state. In this same way we wanted to help prepare our youth for the journey they would make this summer. We provided reading material and videos to watch prior to our departure. We planned our journey so that we could make stops that would expose them to different cultures and history so that the journey was not just a trip. We engaged in discussions about what they had seen, about what they had read and watched. What questions did they have? When we arrived in Bluff, UT at St. Christopher’s Mission, I talked with the elders and told them that while we were here to work, we wanted to work with them. We wanted to break bread with them. We wanted to get to know them. We wanted to hear their stories. In the end we wanted to engage in the work of building community, a community that grew in shared work and worship. We began our day by joining members of St. Christopher’s for Morning Prayer, followed by a quick bite for breakfast and then we got to work painting benches and fences and cleaning up around the grounds. After lunch and a little break, our afternoons were spent exploring different parks and monuments in the area. We explored museums and the surrounding communities, and we rested. We had a medicine man sing a blessing for us and we participated in a traditional Diné or Navajo service of blessing teepee poles and then blessed ourselves. We discovered that when we open our hearts and our minds and our ears, we are invited into an offering, into a blessing, into a community.
At first glance it might not seem as though Jesus is inviting anyone into anything, and the language seems harsh as though he is giving an ultimatum that you must either choose him or your family and to choose anything other than him is to make you unworthy of him. It is important when reading passages like our Gospel reading this morning to remember Jesus often uses parables or stories to get people to come around to his way of thinking. Allison often tells me that she thinks Jesus would have been a great trial lawyer. Like any good trial lawyer, He doesn’t try to convince you with an argument but rather tells you a story that draws you in, so as to make you think you made the decision on your own to come around to His way of approaching the situation. This portion of Matthew is no different and is a continuation of the ‘Missionary Discourse.’ Jesus knows his message is counter cultural and that people will resist. More importantly Jesus must prepare his disciples for the missionary work of spreading the Gospel and that there will be a price that they must pay. That taking up the cross is not so much about the work that they will do and the hardships that they will endure but about identifying with Christ by identifying with those communities that live on the margins. Jesus tells us that his yoke is easy, and his burden is light, but it is still a yoke to bear and a burden to carry. The good news though is that we don’t do this hard work alone. Jesus is not trying to pit father against son or daughter against mother. Jesus is not anti-family as our Gospel reading sometimes comes off sounding, but rather is seeking to create a new holy family that ties us beyond the earthly limits of the family of our blood. A holy family wrapped up in the love of our Lord that knows us as intimately as the sparrows of the sky. A God that knows us so intimately and values us so much that he even counts the hairs on our head. This love does not just stop with us though. We are called to share it and the sharing of that love is at the heart discipleship because it calls us to give of ourselves. That outpouring often calls us to let go of our preconceptions that what we have to offer is better than what those whom we see as on the margins have to offer us. Building relationships is more often than not about being vulnerable and being willing to accept the gifts of those we come to serve. Most often this will look like sharing a meal or listening to a story or any other number of ways that can grow a relationship. In our effort to build community in Navajoland this looked like working together while listening to stories and breaking bread in a community potluck. We must see the dignity in the other to see them as the beloved creatures of God that we all are. Our youth represented Ascension well. They did this work well and I know you all are proud of them. It was my hope that seeds, seeds of understanding, seeds of curiosity, seeds of community, seeds of compassion would be sowed in our work, and I believe they were. It is with an excited and hopeful heart that I wait to see how those seeds grow as our youth continue on their journey. Their willingness to open their hearts and their minds reflected a true disciple’s heart as they sought to grow God’s Kingdom. It is in doing this work I think that we can truly feel closest to Jesus because it is imitating the Jesus’ work here on earth and that imitation is reflecting the love of Jesus that resides in each of us out into the world. There is a hymn titled ‘His Eye is on the Sparrow.’ This hymn draws on Micah and this portion of Matthew’s Gospel. I am going to leave you with two verses. ‘When Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is He. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me. And I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I am free. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.’