A lot of things going on this weekend – Father’s Day, the first day of summer – and prayers for our family, the household of humanity, on this Juneteenth weekend!
And yesterday, our new bishop, the Right Reverend Karin MacPhail, preached from this pulpit, and she, a self-described lover of metaphors, used the metaphor of a prism when talking about, basically, theological or scriptural reflection – taking a word or phrase and turning it around to catch light and color in different ways. And I find that image helpful in exploring today’s rather challenging Gospel reading – for many of us, it’s one of the most difficult of the lectionary readings, one of the hardest and most confusing lessons to hear from Jesus – especially on Father’s Day.
I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother – one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
Jesus’ words to his disciples this morning seem to contradict everything we know about Jesus, from Christmas carols to the Beatitudes. Peace on earth, good will towards all? Not exactly, Jesus seems to be saying. Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
This passage is sometimes called the “Missionary Discourse,” one of several discourses in the Gospel of Matthew – though in fact, it’s likely not a single, self-contained speech that Jesus gave to his apostles, but rather a collection of things Jesus said or might have said at different points in his ministry, drawn from different sources and traditions. Whatever its origins, this contradictory passage holds messages that are both comforting and challenging for the followers of Jesus, then and now.
As I read and re-read today’s Gospel this week, three words stayed with me, words I find myself turning like prisms to catch and refract light in their different ways.
And the words are:
Disciple, Sparrow, and Sword. Disciple, Sparrow, Sword.
Three very different images, metaphors, that hold some facets of what this life of faith is, and what our relationship is with Christ. If we turn them in our minds like prisms, opening our minds to what Bishop Karin called “Holy Imagination,” they reveal different ways into this passage that can inspire, comfort, and push us to think.
Disciple, Sparrow, Sword.
So, holding them up to the light for a moment, starting with that third one and then working backwards.
I come not to bring peace, but a sword.
Whatever the angels sang in Bethlehem, Jesus’ life was not particularly peaceful. Those who had waited for a Messiah to usher in peace, an end to violence and suffering, the downfall of an empire that ruled through fear and oppression, were blindsided by the life of a Savior who made questionable friends, ticked off the empire and was then arrested and executed. Jesus died on a cross, the victim of violence, after throwing the world order into disorder.
Writer Diana Butler Bass says that Jesus’ words about bringing a sword were description, rather than prediction. Jesus did not come with the intention of dividing humanity, but he knew that his radical ideas would inevitably create division and persecution and conflict.
Jesus’ radical teachings led to his own arrest and death, and the martyrdom of saints in the centuries following. His ideas that the poor and downtrodden are just as important as the generals and the emperors, his choosing women to preach the good news of the resurrection to the rest of the world – these are the same sort of radical ideas that divide us today.
It is why we commemorate holidays such as Juneteenth, marking the day when the U.S. government finally said it was wrong for one human being to own another human being. Even today, those in vulnerable populations and their allies must continue to stand up for equal dignity and equal rights. While martyrdom, thankfully, is not very frequent, at least in 21st-century America, we are still divided by how we stand on civil and human rights, political partisanship and Christian nationalism. Following Jesus’ teachings, and our baptismal covenant, to seek justice, to love and respect every human being, to make sure that the stranger is welcomed and the poor are taken care of – these are ideas that still divide us.
Jesus knew that his teachings would spark violence – sometimes they do in our families of origin, and certainly in our wider family, our household of humanity. I suspect that was one of the things that Jesus grieved the most – not that he expected us, or demanded of us, that we estrange ourselves from one another, but that it would happen, and does happen; that love is sometimes buried under conflict and ideology, that grace and forgiveness do not always come easily.
And yet.
There’s always an “and yet” with God – the “and yet” of grace, of love, of forgiveness.
Sword, disciple, sparrow.
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.
You may have heard or sung the Gospel song inspired by this text, written back in the early 1900s:
“Let not your heart be troubled,”
His tender word I hear,
And resting on His goodness,
I lose my doubts and fears;
…His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me…
If Jesus’ teachings divide us as clearly and painfully as a sword, then we know also that that God does not leave us lost in that divide. God knows us while we are knit together in our mother’s womb, as the Psalmist says. God knows us to the very hairs of our head. God knows us as well as the birds of the air, the sparrows who live briefly and are sold in the market – God does not leave us alone in our suffering or in our conflict. The image of the sparrow holds hope that counteracts the sword.
Sparrow, sword, disciple.
It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher.
Yesterday, Bishop Karin also talked about discipleship – that following of Jesus’ radical teachings.
Living out Jesus’ life, loving our neighbor, honoring our parents, feeding those who hunger and those who thirst, speaking up against injustice, following our baptismal covenant, praying, being in relationship with God and with one another – all those many things that define discipleship.
Discipleship, Bishop Karin reminded us, is something that we do as individuals and as a community together. To be a disciple, to be like the teacher, means to live and work and navigate the world while placing Jesus at the center of everything.
And one more piece of that – Baptist pastor and theologian Emilie Townes writes, “Keep in mind that ‘disciple’ means ‘learner.’”
Discipleship requires not only doing, and loving, and praying, and caring for others – it also invites learning, exploring, seeking and understanding. To be a disciple is to be curious, to be open to God’s creation and our human family with the mind and heart of a student, to ask questions, to recognize that our individual perspectives are limited by what we do not know or experience. Discipleship pushes us to approach the world with awe, to be in prayerful conversation with God, to meet each other with open heart and open mind, with grace and with compassion.
To be a follower of Christ means to acknowledge the swords that divide us, to be reminded of God’s love that is with us, and to learn and live as disciples grounded in the life of Jesus. Discipleship invites us to be family, household, to one another – to know each other, and care deeply about each other, as God cares for the sparrows. Discipleship draws us, pushes us, from the violence of the sword that divides to the peace that reconciles and heals.
Amen.
