Pentecost 4, 07/02/2017

Sermon on Matthew 10:40-42, by Hubert Beck

Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version,

MARCHING ORDERS

After all the excitement of my ordination and installation as the pastor of St. John Lutheran Church, Topeka, IL, and after all the family and friends attending those happenings had returned to their homes, I looked around me, saw the church just opposite the parsonage in which I stood, and I said to myself, “Well, I have spent many years getting to this time and place and I have been through all the edification offered me in the seminary from which I graduated only a couple months ago and have received the certification I need to be the pastor to this congregation – but what do I do now?”

It sounds like a strange question, but it was very real! I knew that I was to “shepherd” this flock called together by the Holy Spirit as a parish within which the marvelous work of salvation through Jesus Christ was to be proclaimed and celebrated, but what was I to do in order to accomplish that task? In a sense the question had been answered many times over both in my mind as I had “gone through all the hoops” required by the synod to assume this position and the question had, in turn, been answered in the “letter of call” in my hand issued by the church to ordinands assuming their first call to a parish.

Yes, I was to preach on the following Sunday. I knew that. And I had to prepare that sermon between the time I stood there asking that question and the Sunday to come. I knew that. But what else was to be done in order to fulfill the obligations of “being a pastor to these people”? Obvious though the answer to my question was on the one hand (I assume it is clearer in the mind of those reading these words than it was to me when I stood looking across the way at the church), on the other hand a sudden nervous apprehension rose in my heart when I asked myself what I now should do as a truly faithful shepherd of the flock. The answer came in the days and weeks following, of course, but I still remember the uncertainties of that first time when I stared those responsibilities full in the face once installed into a parish that had every right to expect something of me if only I could quite figure out just exactly what that meant for me to do. I felt as though I needed “marching orders.”

The “Marching Orders” Given to the Apostles When They Were First Sent Out

When one wonders what kind of “expectations” the twelve apostles, named for the first time earlier in the chapter, had, one questions just what went through their minds as they were initially gathered under the wing of him from whom they would receive understandings, insights, guidance and directions. What kind of future did they anticipate as they placed their lives under his leadership and supervision?

We know from questions they asked of him (e.g., why did he speak in parables as though there were some “hidden agenda” to which even they were not privy) and from the reservations they expressed when he told them his plans (e.g., Peter’s attempt to stop Jesus from following what Peter knew to be a suicidal path [Matthew 16:21-23]) that their eyes were set more on a renewal of Israel’s greatness as a nation than they were on the intentions Jesus had in mind. Still, the longer they followed him the more deeply they became committed to him, for he had something that quite apparently was magnetically drawing people to him for whatever it was that he was offering. It must have been both confusing and exhilarating, all at the same time, to have been one of those so intimately involved in moving toward the fulfillment of what he obviously had in mind, obscure as that was so far as they were concerned.

Into this mix of preparations and hopes and dreams Jesus presented a “plan of attack” for presentation to the towns and villages of Galilee – and the twelve, now clearly established as his closest associates, were to be the messengers carrying the marvelous good news that they, themselves, had already begun to digest. The entire chapter prior to these concluding verses is devoted to instructions concerning what to say (“The kingdom of heaven is at hand”); how to go about their assignment (“Acquire no gold nor silver nor copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics nor sandals nor a staff”); where to stay (“Whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart”); the necessity to proclaim Jesus’ words, not adding to or taking away from them (“A disciple is not above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his maser”), etc. In short, they were given “marching orders.”

The two verses serving as our text are the concluding verses of that long chapter of instructions. They were for the disciples (and are for us) heartening words, promises that inasmuch as anyone taking these words to the people would not only be the bearers of a blessed hope but would, in turn, themselves be blessed for faithfully taking those words to hearers wherever they went. Bear blessings in order to be blessed were Jesus’ “marching orders.” Simple enough – but also a bit daunting at the same time.

Resistance to those Words of Hope Will Undoubtedly Take Place

Although Jesus’ final words of instruction were encouraging words he did not speak them as though the bearers of his words would not meet resistance! He made that plain through words scattered throughout the verses just quoted – but omitted in the “summary” presented above – words like: “I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” “When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next.” “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 person’s enemies will be those of his own household.”

Disheartening though words like those may have been, mixed into them were other promises such as “When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” “Have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known.” “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.” “Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven.”

The disciples must have been astounded at such a strange jumble of instructions, blending hazards with promises of protection, mingling vulnerability with security! “They will deliver you over to courts and flog you” but “have no fear of them”! They must have wondered what could possibly raise such intimidating actions toward those who bore such great good news as the near approach of the kingdom of heaven.

But if we only step back a moment from these strange marching orders of Jesus we will join the apostles standing there before Jesus and hearing these words. Do we not, ourselves, echo them?

On the one hand we need only ask ourselves why we find it so difficult to speak the good news called the gospel to those around us. Is it not because we have a multitude of fears similar to those the disciples may have had inhibiting such witness? “What if the hearer thinks of me as a religious nut?” “Will they even give me the time of day to tell them about Jesus?” “What if they become aggravated to the point of infuriation if I speak up?” “Maybe it will be better if I speak at another time.” Do you not recognize the “fears” of which Jesus may have been speaking when he gave these instructions?

On the other hand, we are afraid that we just will not come up with the right words to say at the right time; that we are not well-spoken when it comes to witnessing to the gospel, so until we can learn to say it “right” or “in a winning way” we will just not say anything at all; we are sure that whatever answers we might give for the kind of questions we are sure will be addressed to us will just be inadequate; we permit our shyness to dominate every opportunity that presents itself for giving witness. We not only fear that our words will be poorly received by those who hear but we also fear our own incompetencies.

So Jesus’ promise that “the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” will simply not be enough to prevail over our anxieties and sense of inadequacies. As Jesus put it in another time and in another circumstance, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 8:26) The apostles took their marching orders with seriousness, setting out with the confidence that what Jesus said he meant. Can we in our own time and circumstances do less?

The Source of the Resistance That Frightens Us

In many ways we can understand the source of the resistance that causes us so much fear and anxiety. Two primary causes among a multitude of secondary causes for that resistance can be identified without too much difficulty.

The first is the immense stumbling block of recognizing and speaking of sin for what it truly is. Not only others, but we, ourselves, often have a very hard time fully identifying and accepting the power that sin holds over us. All people can readily acknowledge “weak spots” in their lives – places where sin surprises even us when we do something that we were sure we could / would never do; a sudden outburst of either thoughts or actions “so unlike us” that we are shocked to have them rise within us and / or bursting out of us, causing us to think or do things so uncharacteristic of our everyday composure and self-control that we are unprepared to deal with these things that simply rise out of the blue. Even our inability to conquer habits that we know to be harmful to the point of being toxic if we do not prevail over them often astonishes us. “I do not understand my own actions,” Paul wrote. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15) Non-Christians as well as Christians identify with words like these without any difficulty. They haunt our weaknesses!

But when we say that “sin” is the stumbling block, the place from which the greatest resistance to our witness rises, we are not saying that our everyday peccadilloes are what are at issue. Everyone can detect a ton of things that one does or says that fly in the face of any sense of decency and integrity that we are sure resides within us. But it takes an eye capable of penetrating into the depths that underlie those everyday peccadilloes to fully understand the nature of sin. When Jesus said,“Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person,” (Matthew 15:19, 20a) he took his hearers to the deepest heart of the problem we call sin.

It shows up in surface symptoms such as Jesus catalogued in the sentence just quoted, to be sure, but the formidable underside out of which all these surface symptoms show up is an influence buried so deeply within us that we can neither fully understand it nor stand against it. It is a “bondage” holding us so tightly in its grip that we are helpless to deal with it. It is both a “standing against” God and a determination to hold on to our own best self-interests at all costs.

That is why sin is so hard to fully comprehend, for it seems so “right,” so “logical, so “rational,” so “practical,” in fact! If we do not control our own destiny who will. Or, better put, to whom can I entrust my destiny who can better understand it than I, myself, can? Sin is a “turned-inwardness” that holds such a concentrated potency that we simply cannot break out of it – at least left to our own devices. St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, left to ourselves on our own we are “dead in trespasses and sins… following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air.” (Ephesians 2:1, 2)

We humans just do not like to hear that. We do not want to hear that. We resist it with all our might. We are sure – or at least we want desperately to think – that we control our own destiny, that we are in charge of our own lives even though every once in a while we do fall victim to a little breakdown, a once-in-a-while loss of ability to manage a few base instincts that pop up in our inner selves causing failures of our better impulses. Those we are willing to call sin. But they always seem to be controllable. We certainly find it hard to imagine that we are actually in bondage to sin and are helplessly constrained by it.

This brings us to the second stumbling block to any open acceptance of – or, better stated, resistance to the message that was entrusted to the apostles – and is entrusted to us. Some power – someone, in fact – is necessary to free us from this intense hold that sin has on us. Without an outside source of help, we are powerless, held in the repression of sin. This is why Christians call Jesus a “Savior,” one who is stronger than the sin that holds us in bondage. Proof? Sin’s ultimate claim on us is our death. Sin puts its absolutely conclusive stamp on us in our grave. Jesus “gave himself into death,” as the gospel writers put it – not as though he who alone was “without sin” HAD to die, but because he placed himself squarely into the path of death and voluntarily took upon himself not simply death as such, but a shameful death within which was amassed the sin of the world. He who died crying out for the Father’s guardianship over his death was meeting sin on its own terms on the disgraceful wood of the cross. And he did it with what could almost be understood as a challenge to the Father. “Where are you as I bear this heavy load?” Yet he died with confidence. “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Everything about sin and pardon, iniquity and righteousness, evil and blessedness, life and death was met together in that dying body. It was his resurrection that announced where the victorious powers lay! Sin had lost its sting through the willingness of this man of God to die as one filling our shoes. Iniquity no longer ripped the human heart apart. Evil had met its match in the Holy One of God. Death itself died when Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead and was seen as The Living One among those who had entrusted their welfare to him. Every shred of the bondage that sin held over the human race was torn away and a new and living Hope sprang / springs up wherever this Risen One was / is received. He had saved his people!

That is a huge stumbling block for people whose eyes are focused on the powers of this earth, however. If sin has not been recognized for its mastery over a person, a word of salvation is meaningless! Who needs to be “saved” if one doesn’t even know that one has been “lost”? Speaking the word of salvation, therefore, will sound foolish to those of this world and they will accuse the messenger of being anything from foolish to deceitful. That messenger will be as a “sheep among wolves,” quite obviously one to be hounded and harassed, maltreated and singled out as a trouble maker trying to upset and overturn the constancy and steadiness that the children of this world are sure it has and is.

Here, then, we humans resist this need for a Savior with all our might and mane, for we are absolutely sure that we are able to fight this inclination to sin (for that is all we are willing to accept, namely, that we are “inclined to sin” rather than bound to it) under our own will power. A Savior may be helpful, but we will beat down this stuff we call sin under our own power. Although, of course, a Savior may be at least a bit helpful so long as he permits our own strength and will power to do most of the “heavy lifting.”

So we humans resist hearing that sin is as powerful as it is. Therefore we resist any real need for a Savior! Between those two stumbling blocks of disclosing the depth of sin’s bondage and the need for a Savior from that bondage, then, those who go in the name of Jesus can be certain of resistance – strong resistance, in fact! “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake,” Jesus made that clear!

Faithfulness to the Marching Orders of Jesus Will Bring Its Own Reward

It is into the face of all this resistance that Jesus bids us go, carrying the message that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” They – and we – were to announce an inbreaking of a new command control that not only shows the inadequacies of “the kingdom of this world” but is also so powerful that it will break the authority that this world claims to have. When the realm of sin and death declares itself to be the last word, let it speak that word to the resurrected Lord of life and death. Let the demonic powers claiming a mandate on us submit their claim to him who ascended to the right hand of the Father. For it is he, after all, who holds the key to hope, life, forgiveness, and eternal salvation – and the powers that oppose that hope, life, forgiveness, and eternal salvation will have to surrender to him who fought our battle for us and overcame, who took on the power of death and triumphed over it!

When we, with the disciples who first carried that message into the known world of their time, bring that jubilantly glorious message to the world, resistant though it may be, we can be sure that “what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” (vv. 19, 20)

When we have thus spoken, we can be equally sure that “whoever receives you receives me and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.” We dare to speak this marvelous message since “the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.”

Now we know what to do. The marching orders have been given! The only question is whether we will be willing to follow those marching orders!

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Ordained Lutheran Minister of the gospel, Retired Hubert Beck

E-Mail: hbeck@austin.rr.com

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