Rev. Victoria Decker Millar

Covenant Presbyterian Church, Racine , WI

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Finding Your Life

Matthew 10:24-39

Listen to the word of the Lord for us.

24 [Jesus said:] ‘A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master;

25it 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 [Satan],

how much more will they malign those of his household!

26 ‘So have no fear of them;

for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered,

and nothing secret that will not become known.

27What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light;

and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.

28Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;

rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.*

29Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father.

30And even the hairs of your head are all counted.

31So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

32 ‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others,

I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven;

33but whoever denies me before others,

I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

34 ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth;

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

35For 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;

36and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

37Whoever 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;

38and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

39Those who find their life will lose it,

and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

The word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

I recently read a novel about a black woman in Botswana , Africa ,

            a marvelous book called The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.

                        Near the beginning is a vignette about the woman’s father

who has spent many years of labor in the diamond mines of South Africa .

            He mentions that the miners were recruited from many tribes

with various languages

                                    but of course, their work and safety

depended upon communication.

                                                                        And so the white mine owners invented a truncated language.

            This is what the father says:

                        “They taught us Funagalo, which is the language used

                                    for giving orders underground.

                                                It is a strange language.

                                                            The Zulus laugh when they hear it,

                                                                        because there are so many Zulu words in it

                                                                                    but it is not Zulu.

                                                                        It is a language which is good for telling people what to do.

                                                                        There are many words for push, take, shove, carry, load,

                                                                                    and no words for love or happiness

                                                                                    or the sounds which birds make in the morning.”[1]

In other words, this underground language

has no tenderness in it.  

In some strange way, this is the story of my education.

As an undergraduate I learned the language of chemical engineering.

Then I went into banking and learned the language of accounting.

Those are good languages, engineering and accounting, which I still appreciate.

Yet for me, those languages are necessary but not sufficient

because there is no tenderness in those languages.

When I felt a call from God to go to seminary

then I learned the language of theology

                        which I still hope will be my best language.

                                    The Bible speaks, whispers and sings theology.

                                                And if you listen to theology,

                                                you will hear tenderness

and irony and courage and challenge and paradox,

                                                                        in ways that are not spoken together anywhere else.

------

Today’s lesson from the gospel according to Matthew begins with irony.

Jesus is speaking to the disciples and is sending them out with the power to heal.

And he warns them saying:

“A disciple is not above the teacher…it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher,

If they have called the [teacher] [Satan]

                                                            how much more will they malign [his followers]!”

Jesus is saying this in response to religious leaders

who accused him of using Satanic power to cast out demons.[2]  

This is the language of irony, the ultimate irony to attribute the power of God to Satan.

                        And if the disciples are, at best, like their teacher,

                                    the warning is that they can expect to be mistreated and slandered

like Jesus whom they follow.[3]

And then the language of courage.

Three times Jesus says, “Do not fear.”

[Jesus says:] “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 [be in awe of God who holds body and soul in God’s hands]…

In other words, the message of the kingdom of God has been launched and is unstoppable,

even against brutal opposition.[4]

And then the language of tenderness.    

[Jesus says:]  “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.

31So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

And then the language of faithfulness and the example of the Teacher

who will not deny God even on the cross.

[Jesus says]:  ‘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.

-----                            

And then the hardest, the language of challenge:

[Jesus said:] ‘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.

I have to admit that at first the sword and the setting against language nearly unglued me.

            At first, I could see the faces of my family whom I love and I could not imagine

                        having them cut out of my life or any reason for it.

But I offer to you what I found as help in understanding this seemingly insurmountable challenge.

First, one commentator insisted that Jesus is speaking against the pax Romana.[5]

            The pax Romana was the idea that Roman empire ruled with order and thus, peace.                

But it was a violent peace (which may be an oxymoron).

            I think Jesus is saying, the kingdom of God is a different peace, a true peace not a brutal peace.

Second, in Matthew’s day, Christians were a suspicious and outlawed sect.

Matthew’s audience would have known people whose families were torn apart and were at risk

when one converted to Christianity.

But what appeals to me most is the idea that Jesus is saying

when you love me best,

                        when you follow my teaching of devotion and compassion

                                    then you will have the daily transfusion of divine love

you need for right relationships.

In other words, to love God first is to receive the gift of integrity, the foundation for all relationships.

In a recent book called Integrity,

            author Stephen L. Carter says this:

“Integrity is marked by three practices:

            First, one takes pains to try to discern right from wrong.

            Second, one is willing to shape one’s actions in accord with that discernment,

                                    even when it is difficult or painful to do so,

                                                even if it is inconvenient, unprofitable or dangerous to do so.

            And lastly, one is willing to acknowledge publicly what one is doing.

            In short a person of integrity is reflective, steadfast, trustworthy and whole.

                        A person of integrity is a whole person, a person somehow undivided.”[6]

Integrity is related to the word integer, like whole numbers, unfractured.

Integrity is related to the word integrated, as in systems where all the parts fit and work together.

Jesus is the model for integrity

and the most whole and integrated person the world has ever known.

And Jesus is the ultimate example of the third practice of integrity,

            the one whose actions are shaped by discernment

                        even when it is difficult or painful to do so,

                                    even if it is dangerous to do so.            

And lastly, the language of paradox.

[Jesus said:] 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.

The great paradox is this:  Humans are self-serving

but the soul only reaches its full amplitude in empathy, compassion and community.  

This is our irony, our conflict, our paradox.

We are not born integrated, we are dis-integrated, we need to move toward integrity.

And what Jesus says is our answer.

To lose is to find.

Every generation needs to learn to forget itself on purpose.[7]

In the language of theology,

            we need to follow the Great Teacher who shows us in word and deed what integrity looks like,

                        who shows us that in gratitude to God and commitment to compassion

we will find our lives,

will be truly alive all our days.

The late Loren Eiseley was an anthropologist lauded for his huge capacity for wonder and

            his compassionate interest in everyone and everything in the universe.

Eiseley once spent time in a seaside town called Costabel.

Plagued by his lifelong insomnia,

            Eiseley spent the early morning hours walking along the beach.

                        Every day at sunrise, he found townspeople combing the sand for starfish

                                    that had washed ashore during the night

                                                to kill them for commercial purposes.

                                                For Eisely, it was a sign, however small, of the ways the world says no to life. 

One morning, Eiseley went out unusually early and discovered a solitary figure on the beach.

This man, too, was gathering starfish, but each time he found one alive, he would pick it up

 and throw it as far as he could out beyond the breaking surf,

            back to the ocean from which it came.

                        Eiseley found this man on a mission of mercy every morning,

                                    day after day,

                                                no matter the weather.

Eiseley named this man “the star thrower”

            who contradicted everything Eiseley had been taught about evolution and survival of the fittest.

                        Here at the beach in Costabel,

                                    the strong reached down not to crush but to save the weak.

                                                And Eiseley wonders,

                                                            is there a star thrower at work in the universe,

                                                                        one who contradicts death,

                                                                                    whose nature is mercy?[8]

----

In the language of theology, God is that Star Thrower for us and all humanity.

And when we follow God’s Son, little by little, we also become star throwers,

            who reach down not to crush but to save the weak,

                        who contradict death,

                                    and whose nature is mercy.

This is why we reach out near at home to Habitat, HALO, Salvation Army, Goodman School and VBS.

            This is why we go as far as Zambia

                        to lift up the downtrodden

                                    and claim life amid the rubble of HIV/AIDS

                                                and show compassion, empathy and understanding

                                                            of a community without borders.

We were born to follow Jesus the Star Thrower.

            And in this we find our lives.

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity of integrity, salvation and mercy. 

Amen.