The Passage<\/p>\n
\u201cA disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.\u00a0 It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master.\u00a0 If they have called the master of the house Beel-zebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.\u00a0 What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.\u00a0 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.\u00a0 Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.\u00a0 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?\u00a0 And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.\u00a0 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.\u00a0 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.\u00a0 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.\u00a0 I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And a person\u2019s enemies will be those of his own household.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.\u00a0 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0[English Standard Version]<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0[Romans 6.4]<\/p>\n
\u00a0 In the Name of Christ + Jesus Our Lord<\/p>\n
Three Sundays ago, the Church observed the Festival of the Holy Trinity.\u00a0 On that day it was strengthening to once again be drawn into the powerful and mysterious workings of the Father, Son and Spirit!\u00a0 Such holy workings hover over and under the six month season of Pentecost which is underway this month.\u00a0 These workings enable the Lord\u2019s parish communities to be the places where, in sharp contrast to the corrupt and cutthroat life of this world, the Lord\u2019s people can find the assurance, the safety and the meaning that is unique to the Holy Trinity.<\/p>\n
When we come into the Church\u2019s liturgies from now into November, we come from a world that is stumbling around, confident in its arrogance, but tormented by deep anxiety, clinging to its created gods, but in a rage when they let us down.\u00a0 Thankfully, the Father, Son and Spirit are constantly working from the places of their Scriptures and their Sacraments of Baptism, Forgiveness and Eucharist to see to it that their parish communities are faithful carriers and reflectors of the Life that the Son brought to this world through his birthing, living, dying, rising and ascending. \u00a0The Holy Trinity enables its parishes to be the places where people who are fully wrapped up in themselves can recognize how severely flawed they are and how much they need the restoration that is provided only by the crucified and resurrected Son.<\/p>\n
Last Sunday the Father, Son and Spirit took us to the beginning and the center of the \u00a0ministry initiated by Jesus, the one passed on to the Twelve Apostles and the one that has extended to all those baptized and ordained into the Church\u2019s ministry for more than two thousand years.\u00a0 Today\u2019s Gospel continues from Matthew 9 and 10, filled with specific instructions from our Lord, instructions that are fresh, startling and reviving!\u00a0 This morning\u2019s passage comes after Jesus has detailed the persecutions that will come to his Apostles and followers as they carry out his ministry. \u00a0This is not surprising because the Life Jesus brings from eternity is totally different from the world\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s reading opens with the end of that section (verses 16-25) before encouraging Jesus\u2019 followers to have no fear and to be reminded he has not come to bring peace, but a sword.\u00a0 The chapter closes with Jesus detailing the rewards that follow from his baptized and ordained people carrying out the instructions he has given them.<\/p>\n
In all these sections there is a certain heaviness to them.\u00a0 Because they are a series of instructions from the center of our Lord\u2019s Life, we who preach tend to look for \u201chooks,\u201d thinking they will help us understand and absorb them.\u00a0 The \u201chooks\u201d come from familiar realities in the world\u2019s life and their apparent connections with phrases in these instructions.\u00a0 We think that bringing out such \u201chooks\u201d will help with the communication of such instructions, but it doesn\u2019t always work out that way.\u00a0 That\u2019s why it is better to confront them fully in spite of the difficulties absorbing them.\u00a0 It is true that the instructions are tough and that they may cross with our understandings of the ministry being exercised in the Church today.\u00a0 Still, we attempt to press through the heaviness of these sections.\u00a0 In order to hear and receive Jesus\u2019 instructions more fully this morning, we will concentrate on the three paragraphs printed above and dig into the key words surfacing from them.<\/p>\n
In the first paragraph Jesus comments about the relationships that exist between a disciple and a teacher, between a servant and a master.\u00a0 These relationships are healthy.\u00a0 But then he also mentions the relationship that exists between Beel-zebul and his household.\u00a0 Who is this Beel-zebul?<\/p>\n
The Interpreter\u2019s Dictionary of the Bible (Volume One)<\/strong> has intriguing background on him.\u00a0 The English word comes from the Hebrew name for the \u201cgod of Ekron,\u201d (Baal-zebub).\u00a0 Ekron is one of five principal cities in the region of Philistia, an area west of Jerusalem, but closer to the Mediterranean Sea.\u00a0 It is an old Canaanite town to which the Philistines had brought the captured Ark of the Covenant.\u00a0 They returned it quickly though because of all the illnesses that were surfacing among their people!<\/p>\n \u201cBaal\u201d means \u201clord\u201d and \u201czebub\u201d means \u201cflies,\u201d (\u201clord of the flies\u201d).\u00a0 The name was used<\/p>\n derisively by the Hebrew people because this god was an adversary (antagonist) of<\/p>\n the real God.\u00a0 As its usage expanded into the Septuagint and the New Testament, it referenced demon possession and the evil one (Satan).\u00a0 The mention of this god\u2019s household in the first paragraph will surface again in the third paragraph though in a different context.<\/p>\n The second paragraph is dominated by Jesus\u2019 comments about having no fear of the serious persecutions being thrown on his baptized and ordained people.\u00a0 Our Lord points out that everything which is covered will be thrown off, that what is hidden will become known, and that which is whispered will be proclaimed openly.\u00a0 He again urges his followers to have no fear, reminding them (quite stunningly) that those who kill the body are not able to kill the soul. \u00a0Instead, today\u2019s baptized and ordained are urged to fear the One who destroys both soul and body in hell (hell being the reality of complete separation from the Father, Son and Spirit!).<\/p>\n Jesus reminds his followers of their high value to his Father, pointing out that the Father is aware of a cheap sparrow\u2019s death and that he has numbered all the hairs of our heads!\u00a0 Because of such high value we are not to fear anything!\u00a0 He then reminds us that, in recognizing Jesus in the presence of others, we receive his recognition in the presence of his Father.\u00a0 He also points out that, if we deny him in in the presence of others, this leads to him denying us before the Father!<\/p>\n Jesus\u2019 instructions bring us to the third paragraph. \u00a0When he states flatly that he has not come to this world to bring it peace, but a sword, he is revealing the sharp distinction between his Life from eternity and the world\u2019s life.\u00a0 The sword will cut through all the relationships that exist in families and households.\u00a0 The sword will sever the connections people have with the world\u2019s gods, positioning them for a much better and healthier connection with the LORD God!<\/p>\n Jesus points out how the world\u2019s gods operate when they clamor for children and parents to make their relationships more worthy than their relationships with Jesus.\u00a0 Again, he notes that such clamor (even though well intended) breaks down the relationship which is intended to exist with him.\u00a0 The worthy relationship with him results from us taking up his Cross and following him, carrying out the instructions from these two chapters.\u00a0 Those who drive for their own lives will lose them, but those who let go of their lives for Jesus\u2019 sake will find them.<\/p>\n This matter of taking up Jesus\u2019 Cross needs to be thought through.\u00a0 Obviously we see it most clearly on Good Friday when, surrounded by air, our Lord suffocated to death.\u00a0 His death, though, slid into the mysteries of Holy Saturday and then, through the powerful workings of his Father, re-emerged in the stunning Life of Easter Day.<\/p>\n To take up his Cross means to be continually imbedded in those three Holy Days.\u00a0 The world births us to care only for ourselves, a birth generating all the chaos occurring in this world.\u00a0 Baptism into the Father, Son and Spirit gives us a new birth, one that breaks and loosens the world\u2019s grip on our lives, one that enables us to carry and reflect the Trinity\u2019s Life to the hurting and distressed people in our self-absorbed world.\u00a0 Taking up Jesus\u2019 Cross means that every time the Lord\u2019s people step into the Scriptures and the Sacraments of Baptism, Forgiveness and the Eucharist, his three Holy Days are wrapping into and around our lives. \u00a0Such wrapping loosens the world\u2019s grip on us and firms us up in the Life of the Holy Trinity.<\/p>\n Taking up Jesus\u2019 Cross, then, pulls all his instructions together in these two chapters.\u00a0 Taking up Jesus\u2019 Cross keeps us centered in the assurance, the safety and the meaning that is unique to the Holy Trinity!\u00a0 Taking up Jesus\u2019 Cross enables parish communities to be faithful carriers and reflectors of the Trinity\u2019s Life to the exhausted and dispirited people of an arrogant and lost world!<\/p>\n Now may the peace of the Lord God, which is beyond all understanding, keep our<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 hearts and minds through Christ + Jesus Our Lord<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Pr. Carl A. Voges, Columbia, SC; carl.voges4@icloud.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pentecost Four (Revised Common Lectionary) | 06.25.23 | Matthew 10.24-39 | Pr. Carl A. Voges | The Passage \u201cA disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.\u00a0 It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master.\u00a0 If they have called the master of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,853,173,108,110,3,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-18344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-carl-a-voges","category-current","category-engl","category-nt","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18345,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344\/revisions\/18345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=18344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}