26 June 2005

Sermon: Matthew 10: 34-42 (Proper 8A)

The Rev. Robert C. Lamborn, Rector

^NRSV Matthew 10:34 "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵ 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; ³⁶ and one's foes will be members of one's own household. ³⁷ 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; ³⁸ and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹ Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ⁴⁰ "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹ Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴² and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple-- truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward."

            A year ago today I began serving as rector of Christ Church, and on my first Sunday, like today, there was glorious music, a parish picnic . . . and a gospel about following Jesus and how it is not easy.  “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests,” we heard last year, “but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  This year it’s not peace but a sword, families divided over the message of Jesus, 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.” This is not just the opposite of trying to lure someone into a commitment with low introductory rates, trying to fool people into thinking something is easy when it’s not.  In talking about taking up a cross, Jesus is saying his followers need in some sense to prepare themselves for their own execution.  Where’s the good news in that?

             We get closer to that good news in what Paul writes to the Romans: that baptism means we are buried with Christ.  These are strong terms, the strongest – death and life, and somehow new life in Christ comes out of dying with him.  Even if dying is paradoxically the way to new life I don’t believe such a death is any less painful or unpleasant or frightening.  Someone addicted to drugs or alcohol goes through a death for the sake of new life of sobriety.  A relationship built on dishonesty for decades has to die in order that an honest relationship can be built in its place.  A service organization whose members have moved away, whose budget is a fraction of its former self, has to die to its proud image of itself, so that it can serve in new and creative ways.

             A pastor and teacher asked a group of lay people at a church in Mississippi one time,[1]“Has anyone here had to die in order to be a Christian?”  Silence . . .  but not for too long.  “When segregation ended,” a white woman said, “I thought I would die.  But I didn’t.  I was reborn.”  And she went on to talk about the African American who is now her next-door neighbor and best friend.  “I used to be terribly frightened to be alone by myself,” another woman related.  “When my husband went out of town on business, I either went with him or took the children and stayed with a neighbor.  But the night my eight-year-old daughter died of leukemia, I stopped being afraid.”  The pastor had to ask her to explain.  “You see, once you’ve died, there is nothing left to fear, is there?  When she died, I died, too.”  Paradoxically, death is the way to fearless new life, courage to live as what God has made us dying daily to sin so that we may be “alive to God in Jesus . . .”

             I’ve experienced the death and life of God’s ongoing creation in lesser ways a number of times.  When I went to college and majored in music I had to die to the breadth of study and cultivation of general knowledge I had absolutely thrived on until then.  I was reminded Friday, the 11^th anniversary of my ordination, of how I had to die to the image of myself as a music professor and holding a PhD in Music History in order to be alive to what God was calling me into.  Amy and I had wanted to be parents for a long time when Caroline was born, and that event we yearned for and welcomed so much meant dying to the freedoms we had enjoyed as a couple without any kids.  When I left Indiana to come here a little more than a year ago, I had to die to a parish where I shared in the service of God with people I loved very much, in order to be alive to this parish, where I share in the service of God with people I love very much.  Fully saying “yes” to one thing means saying “no” to something else.  Taking up our cross and following Jesus Christ, dying daily to sin that we may be alive to God  is a life of pilgrimage, that transforms us along the way, in the very process of walking that way.

             A year ago I outlined about some of my hopes of how together we would respond to the call to follow Christ, in a process of prayer, listening and collaboration.  I spoke of our taking the time to coming to know one another learning more about the gifts God has bestowed on each of us, and how those gifts can be used together in the service of God.  I shared my goal of a collaboration where we learn from each other, listening together for the Holy Spirit in a life of faith where there are no shortcuts or gimmicks, a way together that will not be easy, but abundantly blessed by God.  This is life in Christ where how we live God’s love together is more important than the specific accomplishments the Holy Spirit may lead us into.  This is life in Christ where God’s creation is very much a continuing, ongoing process.  God is still doing the work of creating you and creating me and creating Christ Church, work that can still involve the chaos of creative ferment, up to and including the types of death and life I’ve been talking about.