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The Gospel: Matthew 10:24-39
Jesus said to the twelve disciples, “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 apart from 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.” Prayer: Lord, you have promised that when two or three gather in your name you will be present with them. We depend on that promise today and pray that you will move among us. Lord, we pray that you have inspired Mike's preparation, that you will enliven his presentation, and that you will empower our application. Amen The Message: 1 Peter 3:15 "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." Last Sunday you will remember I talked about this scripture from 1 Peter. I talked briefly about how it encourages us to proclaim Christ. Today I would like to spend some more time looking at 1 Peter 3: 15 and how it relates to our Scriptures for this morning. First of all, let me read 1 Peter 3: 15 for us again. "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." I'd like to draw our focus in, a little closer, and look at the longer, second part, of this verse. It probably would be designated as 1 Peter 3: 15b It seems to me that Paul is making two rather large assumptions in the creation of these verses. I find it hard to believe that this master craftsman, when it comes to words, and his ability to create sentences, would be unaware of what he is saying here. I believe he does it on purpose. So, what is it that I am getting at? Well, let's break that long sentence into it's two parts. First of all, it says: "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you.." So, what is the first assumption? Well, Paul is assuming that his readers will have people asking them questions. He assumes that these people will be distinctive among their fellow citizens, and their neighbors, in their behavior, that people around them will want to know why. He is expecting that people will be asking questions, and trying to understand, who these followers of Jesus Christ are and what they believe. Then the second assumption? Well, that these people, these Christ followers, will know for themselves, what motivates their behavior. They will know what they believe. That they understand about their personal convictions and attitudes. They will have thought about their convictions and will be able to articulate to others what drives and motivates them. They will be able to formulate answers, not based on just what they have heard from Paul and others, but answers for themselves. This is not just some community assent project that everyone generally accepts. You know the kind of thing that can happen in groups. Where those in the group have a general understanding of what the group stands for. No, this is a matter of personal conviction, a reasoned and considered approach to personal values. This is something they are ready to talk about, and this is something that they are ready to share with others. This then, is something they are ready to talk about because it is important to them. They know what they are hoping for and they can put it into words for other people. They can explain themselves, and their behavior when they are asked about it. We are back to that definition we talked about last Sunday. The definition from the Episcopal Dictionary: "Ordinary time can be understood in terms of the living out of Christian faith and the meaning of Christ’s resurrection in ordinary life." So, we are Ordinary Christian people who are living our ordinary lives. But, Jesus did say he came to give us life and to give it to us abundantly. So, we are really ordinary people who are living our ordinary lives in relationship with, and under the influence of, an extraordinary God. This morning I want us to begin to look at the Scriptures for today in Romans. Paul is laying out the distinctive nature of our lives as Christians. This is a high bar, isn't it? Who of us here today would say that we are able to achieve what Paul is talking about in this reading? To "live without sin" just seems to be beyond us. Well, I'll be honest it is beyond me. But Paul lays out a schematic or a plan for understanding this process. He lays out what we are hoping for. "We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin." We find ourselves striving for the life that Christ offers us. We have the hope that we can depend on the death and resurrection of Jesus rather than our own personal striving. Our hope is in Jesus and the work that he offers to do in us and for us by the power of the Holy Spirit. "For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him." Then as we move to the Gospel we are again confronted with great challenges. Jesus is continuing to instruct his disciples and preparing them for the journey that is ahead of them. He wants the disciples to be aware of the kind of world that they are going into. They will face threats and potential bodily harm. He says to them that they are not fear the possibility of dying in the work he has assigned them. Then he talks about what might happen to some of them when their families hear what they are doing. Some of them will lose those who they have considered the closest to them. These are challenging words and challenging circumstances. The most obvious question they will be asked is: "Why are you doing this?" Now we may not find ourselves in the circumstances that these disciples were about to. But, we may find ourselves acting differently from our friends and neighbors as we live beside them in our world today. Once again we come back to the fact that those people Paul is addressing in Rome and the disciples that Jesus is sending out on assignment are all ordinary people. We have heard about them this morning and we have heard about the circumstances that they found themselves in. We have heard how they found their lives changed because of the Lord's call to them to follow him. So, we are once again faced with the question: "In this Ordinary Time that we find ourselves living in, are we willing for our Ordinary lives to be examples of "the living out of Christian faith and the meaning of Christ’s resurrection in ordinary life?" How ready are we to be noticed as being different from our friends and neighbors? How ready are we to answer the question: "What are you doing this?" "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." May the Lord bless our endeavors for him this coming week. The Gospel: Matthew 9:35-10:23
Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him. These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. [Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” Prayer: Lord, you have promised that when two or three gather in your name you will be present with them. We depend on that promise today and pray that you will move among us. Lord, we pray that you have inspired Mike's preparation, that you will enliven his presentation, and that you will empower our application. Amen The Message: Today is the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost and the second Sunday in Ordinary time. Our Old Testament Reading should have sounded very familiar to us all. I referred to the passage when I spoke about the Trinity on Trinity Sunday. You will see I am again using the image of the “Troitsa” which is the Russian name given to this icon by the famous Russian iconographer, St. Andrei Rublev. This Icon has the dual meaning of representing the visit to Abraham of the angelic figures but has also come to represent the Trinity. An interesting part of the story of the visit to Abraham is Sarah's reaction to the news that the angelic figures bring to her and Abraham. She laughs. I wonder how many of us read that story and wonder: "How could she possibly have laughed at God?" Well, we are back to talking, as we did last week, about ordinary people who are called to live out their ordinary lives, aren't we? As I said last Sunday I really appreciate the definition from the Episcopal Dictionary which defines Ordinary Time this way: "Ordinary time can be understood in terms of the living out of Christian faith and the meaning of Christ’s resurrection in ordinary life." You will remember that last week I suggested that we should stop for a moment and consider how we understand ourselves as Christians. I suggested that most us, as Christians, are tempted to say we are ordinary people who are living our ordinary lives. That may be true, but we are missing a great deal if we just leave it there. After all, Jesus did say he came to give us life and to give it to us abundantly. Can I remind you of what I said last week about how important is to say we are ordinary people who are living our ordinary lives in relationship with, and under the influence of, an extraordinary God. This morning I am going to start, in a similar way, to the way I started last Sunday. I am going, to begin with the Collect for this morning. Let me read it for us: "Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen." From the center of that Collect this morning comes this thought: "we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion " Like I did last week I would like to take some time this morning to unpack those two sentences and then to look and see how they may relate to the Scriptures that we have in the Lectionary for this morning. What can we learn about an Ordinary Christian Life from the Collect and the Scriptures today? So, the Collect says: "..we may proclaim your truth with boldness" What stops us from laughing when God asks something of us? How do we get to the point of being able to proclaim boldly the truth that we have heard from God? Well, first of I believe there are two aspects to the word proclaim. One is the actions of our lives and the other is the action of how we share the truth that we have heard and know about the Gospel. So when it comes to the first one. Sometimes it is how Sarah learned and proclaimed. It is through the hard moments and joyful moments of the experience of our lives. It was only after Sarah began pregnant and then gave birth to her son that she was truly convinced of the word that she heard the angelic figures share with Abraham. Don't we find that to be true in our own lives? We can give intellectual assent to the things of faith. But, in reality, it is only when we experience something of faith come into reality in our own lives that we can proclaim it is a truth for ourselves. I hope as we consider the Collect and our scriptures this morning we can be encouraged to be more willing and more open to seeing the things of faith become things that are truths for us as well. The other aspect of "proclaim," that we heard in the Collect, is what we find in the story of Jesus and his disciples in the Gospel of Matthew. Here Jesus calls his disciples together and he commissions them to a very specific task. For the first time, they are sent on his behalf to share the good news. So, we may read this account and think to ourselves: "Well, that is all very well, for the disciples. That was then, this is now." We may have good and well-intentioned reasons why it would not be possible for us to take part in that kind of activity. I wonder if I can draw your attention to what Prayer 8 - For the Mission of the Church - from the Prayers and Thanksgivings in the BCP says: "Everliving God, whose will it is that all should come to you through your Son Jesus Christ: Inspire our witness to him, that all may know the power of his forgiveness and the hope of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen." What is our part in proclaiming the Gospel in the world we live in? How do we share the power of forgiveness and the hope of the resurrection with our friends and neighbors? Then we get to the next section of the Collect: "and minister your justice with compassion" Perhaps we can look to the second Lesson for this morning for some guidance and instruction here. Romans 5 says: "..we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us" Suffering is not a sign of the hope of the Gospel that many of us are looking forward to or hoping will come our way. But it is how we deal with or manage that suffering that may be the way that we get to witness to the power of the hope we have. As it says in 1 Peter 3:15 "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." So, as we look at the Collect and the Scriptures for this morning what do we learn about living our ordinary lives as examples of "the living out of Christian faith and the meaning of Christ’s resurrection in ordinary life?" Once again all of the ordinary people we have heard about this morning have found themselves, found their lives, changed because of the Lord. Can I ask that question I asked last week again? How open are we, how ready are we, to hear the words of the Collect, and the Scriptures this morning, and to claim them for ourselves? In this period of Ordinary Time are we willing for our Ordinary lives to be examples of "the living out of Christian faith and the meaning of Christ’s resurrection in ordinary life?" May the Lord bless our endeavors for him this coming week. |
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