Sermon Illustrations For Proper 7 | OT 12 | Pentecost 3 (2020)
Illustration
Genesis 21:8-21
Shifting Perspectives
The primary conceit of midrash is the truism: context matters. Textually, there are a number of ways rabbinic midrash understands this phrase, but conceptually, midrash can best be understood through an example. Let us say we have a text that says, “Jay pushed Shy into the street.” Now, from what the text says, we might be angry at Jay. How could they push Shy into the street? What a jerk!
But, what if I told you that there was important context missing from the text? This is what actually happened: “‘Watch out! A car!’ Jay flew out the café door and jumped. Just in the nick of time, Jay pushed Shy into the street, narrowly avoiding the runaway car as it barreled down the sidewalk.” This midrash on “Jay pushed Shy into the street” demonstrates how context matters. The circumstances of any phrase, sentence, or passage in a text is just as important as the words written down.
What if the person writing the text simply forgot to include the context, or what if they didn’t feel that they needed to record the context because they simply assumed everyone knew the context? For example, let’s say I wrote this in a news article, “That September was unseasonably hot. And I was walking down the street feeling pretty blue, because it was the 11th, and I saw a little shoot of grass growing through a crack in the concrete pavement and it reminded me that life finds a way, even during the hardest challenges.” I don’t feel the need to explain why I was feeling sad on September 11th. Everyone knows the significance of that date. But what about in 100 years? 1,000 years? 2,000 years?
What if, in 2,000 years’ time, someone gave a midrash on my article explaining that September 11th was the anniversary of my mother’s death, and that’s why I was feeling sad. Sometimes, the “obvious” significance of something gets lost over time. And after all, what if the midrash was accurate! What if I was sad because September 11th was the anniversary of my mother’s death and I wasn’t referring to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center? After all, in the little snippet of text I wrote, it is impossible to know which context I, the author, meant to imply.
The idea that the Bible is sometimes vague or missing context is a fundamental cornerstone of rabbinic hermeneutics and midrash is built on the gap and silences in the text. These mysterious absences in the text are the avenues through which the divine voice continues to speak. Thus, midrash enables readers to stay faithful to the text of the Bible, while nevertheless discerning––through tradition, theology, and the ethics––new ways for an old text to speak into our contemporary moment through a shift in context.
So, what does this have to do with Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham? This text is difficult, and often brings up a multitude of feelings––many of which are historically unrelated to the text at the time in which it was written. For example, Hagar’s son Ishmael is later declared forefather of Islam. Hagar’s plight often speaks to the struggles of African-Americans, many of whom are descended from similar master-slave relations as described in the Bible. Today, many read the text as an allegory for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The author of Genesis 21:8-21 lived over 1,000 years before Islam existed and 2,000 years before the Maafa. It is also unlikely that he could have ever imagined the nation-state of Israel––or, even the idea of a nation-state at all.
Nevertheless, what midrash shows us is that although the text may be rooted in a particular time and place, its context is always open to new interpretations and broadening imagination. While it is true that the historical text of Genesis may not have intended to address later events, imagining that God’s promise to Hagar to make her son a great nation (Genesis 21:18) foreshadowed the creation of Islam––or that God’s mercy upon Hagar in the wilderness underscores his unending care for the oppressed––allows the story to live across time and space. In the end, it connects us to the Bible and the Bible to us in a living relationship.
M T.
* * *
Genesis 21:8-21
Americans like to think that they have certain rights to the goods they receive. This Lesson takes away all claims to entitlement.
Therefore this account serves to teach us that we have nothing by reason of a right, but that everything comes as a result of the grace of God. (Luther’s Works, Vol.4, p.43)
Martin Luther King, Jr. offered a significant insight about the importance of depending on God in this way, as he wrote, “Without dependence on God our efforts turn to ashes and our sunrises into darkest nights.” It is also worthwhile, in light of Donald Trump’s rhetoric about Islam, to note God’s continuing care of Ishmael, the forebear of Arab peoples. As John Wesley noted in connection with God’s care of Ishmael, “God’s readiness to help us when we are in trouble must not slacken but quicken our endeavors to help ourselves.” (Commentary On the Bible, p.43)
Mark E.
* * *
Genesis 21:8-21
Jealousy is rampant in this story. The very child born of Sarah’s wish for Abraham to have a son through her handmaiden Hagar, is now seen by Sarah as a threat to Isaac and his birthright. Sarah wants Abraham to cast her out. These are actions of fear and jealousy. Ishmael goes off with Hagar and becomes the father of Islam, the founder of a great religion within the world. Is it the same jealousy and fear which causes many Christians to speak out against the faithful followers of Islam? We know there are fanatics in every faith – extremists everywhere. Yet, the Muslim brothers and sisters with whom I work and offer mission to the community are faithful, respectful of my beliefs, and anchored in positive relationships across culture, faith tradition, and ethnicity. Love is the foundation of these interfaith relationships. How I pray we could love in the same way everywhere in every community and instance.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Romans 6:1b-11
There is a not so obvious connection between the letters of Paul and the prevalence of ongoing and intrusive cell phone conversations conducted in very public settings.
With regards to the latter, you know what I’m talking about. People carry on their end of the conversation in grocery stores, public transit, church lobbies, street corners, and even in public bathrooms, speaking loudly about what sometimes seems uncomfortably like private matters. We’re only getting their end of the conversations, but it’s hard not to hear, and in hearing, to guess what is being said at the other end.
Unlike phone conversations we think of letters as a private experience. They come to us sealed, we read them silently, and we decide if we’re going to share certain portions with selected individuals, or say nothing about the letter at all.
But in the ancient world, literacy was the property of a professional class. Moreover, reading was conducted out loud. Silent reading seems to have been unknown. So, the reading of a letter of Paul was a public event shared with one or more house churches that were part of a city’s congregation. Had we lived then we would have sat down together with others to hear Paul’s letter read by someone trained to read aloud, and we would have heard the various congratulations, or accusations, in the presence of others.
We get a taste of that in this passage, even if we read silently. Paul opens this passage by addressing a misconception that busybodies among the Roman house churches were spreading. Paul taught them that they were condemned by sin but saved by grace. Sin had called into being God’s extraordinary response of forgiveness through the cross of Jesus. Some people were saying that if our sin had resulted in such a wonderful response, shouldn’t we keep on sinning to give God a chance for even more amazing responses?
Paul’s answer, in brief, is no.
Frank R.
* * *
Romans 6:1-11
If you follow the comic strip Peanuts, written by Charles Schulz, you will know that supper is very important to Snoopy, and closely associated with that is his supper bowl. In this one episode we see Snoopy, with his supper bowl in his mouth, kicking the front door of Charlie Brown’s home. The home of the little boy who cares for his beloved pet. Charlie opens the door and asks, “Your hunger strike didn’t last very long, did it?” Snoopy, now a bit calmer, replies, “I learned something.” In the next frame, as Charlie takes the supper bowl to put food in it, Snoopy goes on to say, “The brain may be important…” and continues in the last frame, as Charlie is in the kitchen pouring food into Snoopy’s bowl, “…but the stomach is still in charge!”
Ron L.
* * *
Romans 6:1-11
Tim Harlow is a preacher and the author of the book What Made Jesus Mad. In that book he asks the question, “Have you ever had a backstage pass?” He then tells about the time when he did a wedding for a member of his favorite classic rock band. The wedding took place during a concert and he was given the chance to have dinner with the band; a great seat at the concert; and a backstage pass for after. He got to hang out with the band!
If you have a backstage pass, you get to hang out with someone special. You have access that others may not. Because of Jesus, all who identify with him now have an all-access pass to hang out with God any time. This is the essence of the gospel. You can go backstage. Paul writes in our text, “Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” (6:4) Identifying with Jesus, through faith and baptism, means that we get to say, “I’m with him” and hear him say, “He’s with me.” How awesome is that?
Bill T.
* * *
Matthew 10:24-39
Matthew 10:34-39 is one of my favorite passages in the entire New Testament for two reasons. The first reason is because I genuinely enjoy Angry Jesus, the literary character, more than Nice Jesus. Maybe it’s because I read the Bible a lot, and when you read any book a whole lot of times, the nice parts where nothing happens except for character building start getting kind of monotonous. I crave the unexpected. Give me Jesus flippin’ tables, not Jesus the chill healing guy who says nice stuff about birds of the air! Jesus cursing a fig tree, yeah!
The other reason I love this passage so much is because it drives a stake into the old vampire of a heresy that keeps coming back: Marcionism. The Marcionite heresy holds that the God of the Old Testament is fundamentally different from the God of the New Testament, and is best summed in Season 3, Episode 4 of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, where one character says, "Oh, thank angry Old Testament God, the one who's always threatening to kill children to prove a point!" and later another character prays, "Forgive me friendly New Testament God after you settled down and had a family."
Now, don’t get me wrong. I laughed at the joke, but the myth of the angry Old Testament God and the friendly New Testament God is not only biblically inaccurate, it forms the foundation of Christian Antisemitism. There are many articles on the history of Marcionism in the development of Christian anti-Semitism, but I want to point to one in particular, Chuck McKnight’s “The Actual Danger of Marcionism in Progressive Christianity.” Although anti-Semitism among the Christian political right has been apparent (and increasing) for a long time, progressive Christians too often celebrate their supposed “tolerance” and “acceptance” of Judaism without ever actually examining their Scriptural practices. As McKnight explains,
I don’t believe it is intentional on the part of any progressive Christian I know. And it’s not so much a matter of antagonism against Judaism as it is a careless way of speaking about it. But this subtle anti-Semitism, perpetuated in ignorance, has the potential to grow into something much more insidious if left unchecked.
The problem is that we—like Marcion—far too often pit the Christian New Testament against the Hebrew Scriptures as if they were fundamentally opposed to each other. Or we pit Jesus against the Mosaic Law, as if he rejected it entirely. Or at the very least, we leave open such implications, even if we may not spell them out as such.
I myself have been guilty of this. So I’m not attacking anyone. I’m publicly repenting of my error, I’m attempting to do better, and I’m urging those of my own camp to join me in exercising more caution in this area.
Here’s the thing. The scriptures—Christian and Jewish alike—do contain mistakes. This really shouldn’t be considered a progressive position to hold in our day and age. It’s just a matter of intellectual honesty about the texts we have. Whether we’re talking about internal contradictions, historical inaccuracies, or theological missteps, the scriptures are not free from incorrect statements, and one way or another, we simply have to come to terms with this. But it’s incredibly problematic when we—mainly progressive Christians—act as if the New Testament exists to correct the Old.
I have some points of contention with McKnight, but there is one area in which we are in full agreement. Not only is the heresy of Marcionism problematic because of its near inevitable slide in anti-Semitism, it is also simply a bad way of reading the gospels. This brings me back to the first reason I love this passage so much. I do not think of textual inconsistencies in the Bible so much as “mistakes,” but rather as the preservation of the divine multiplicity.
For me, Jesus is not just one thing. He is not just a Savior or a healer or a bringer of justice. To search the Scriptures for Jesus the unified is to forget that the Trinity is three persons for a reason; just as there are four gospels, and yes, two testaments for a reason. Jesus isn’t just friendly; he’s angry, too. He does “not come to bring peace, but a sword” because he is not just one thing. Neither are you; and neither is God.
M T.
* * *
Matthew 10:24-39
Seventeenth-century French scholar Blaise Pascal offered comments which help explain Jesus’ words about rejecting family for His sake, as we learn what dynamics we must undergo when set free to total commitment to God:
The true and only virtue is therefore to hate ourselves for our concupiscence makes us hateful, and to seek for a being really worthy of love in order to love him. (Pensees. p.222)
Whatever is not in line with Christ, even if it is our families, needs to be rejected. Getting free from this bondage to self is anxiety producing. Augustine offers a reassuring word: “Why art thou afraid of man, O man, whose place is in the bosom of God?” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol.6, p.303) These insights and a life lived focused only on Christ leads to joy, Martin Luther claimed:
God wants us to be cheerful and He hates sadness. For had He wanted us to be sad, He would not have given us the sun, the moon, and various fruits of the earth. All these He gave for our good cheer. (What Luther Says, p.689)
Mark E.
* * *
Matthew 10:24-39
This scripture reading has always been problematic for me. Jesus did not come to bring peace, but the sword, division among people’s and families? I get the need to carry my cross and follow. I have a harder time with the sword and divisiveness. Does Jesus really want to break up families, to create divisions in communities? Maybe that’s not the point at all. Maybe Jesus acknowledges that following him will cause those divisions to happen, will cause us to fight among ourselves. Maybe the sword truly is exemplifying the word of God which can bring people together or separate us into sects of personal interpretation or belief.
Bonnie B.
Shifting Perspectives
The primary conceit of midrash is the truism: context matters. Textually, there are a number of ways rabbinic midrash understands this phrase, but conceptually, midrash can best be understood through an example. Let us say we have a text that says, “Jay pushed Shy into the street.” Now, from what the text says, we might be angry at Jay. How could they push Shy into the street? What a jerk!
But, what if I told you that there was important context missing from the text? This is what actually happened: “‘Watch out! A car!’ Jay flew out the café door and jumped. Just in the nick of time, Jay pushed Shy into the street, narrowly avoiding the runaway car as it barreled down the sidewalk.” This midrash on “Jay pushed Shy into the street” demonstrates how context matters. The circumstances of any phrase, sentence, or passage in a text is just as important as the words written down.
What if the person writing the text simply forgot to include the context, or what if they didn’t feel that they needed to record the context because they simply assumed everyone knew the context? For example, let’s say I wrote this in a news article, “That September was unseasonably hot. And I was walking down the street feeling pretty blue, because it was the 11th, and I saw a little shoot of grass growing through a crack in the concrete pavement and it reminded me that life finds a way, even during the hardest challenges.” I don’t feel the need to explain why I was feeling sad on September 11th. Everyone knows the significance of that date. But what about in 100 years? 1,000 years? 2,000 years?
What if, in 2,000 years’ time, someone gave a midrash on my article explaining that September 11th was the anniversary of my mother’s death, and that’s why I was feeling sad. Sometimes, the “obvious” significance of something gets lost over time. And after all, what if the midrash was accurate! What if I was sad because September 11th was the anniversary of my mother’s death and I wasn’t referring to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center? After all, in the little snippet of text I wrote, it is impossible to know which context I, the author, meant to imply.
The idea that the Bible is sometimes vague or missing context is a fundamental cornerstone of rabbinic hermeneutics and midrash is built on the gap and silences in the text. These mysterious absences in the text are the avenues through which the divine voice continues to speak. Thus, midrash enables readers to stay faithful to the text of the Bible, while nevertheless discerning––through tradition, theology, and the ethics––new ways for an old text to speak into our contemporary moment through a shift in context.
So, what does this have to do with Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham? This text is difficult, and often brings up a multitude of feelings––many of which are historically unrelated to the text at the time in which it was written. For example, Hagar’s son Ishmael is later declared forefather of Islam. Hagar’s plight often speaks to the struggles of African-Americans, many of whom are descended from similar master-slave relations as described in the Bible. Today, many read the text as an allegory for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The author of Genesis 21:8-21 lived over 1,000 years before Islam existed and 2,000 years before the Maafa. It is also unlikely that he could have ever imagined the nation-state of Israel––or, even the idea of a nation-state at all.
Nevertheless, what midrash shows us is that although the text may be rooted in a particular time and place, its context is always open to new interpretations and broadening imagination. While it is true that the historical text of Genesis may not have intended to address later events, imagining that God’s promise to Hagar to make her son a great nation (Genesis 21:18) foreshadowed the creation of Islam––or that God’s mercy upon Hagar in the wilderness underscores his unending care for the oppressed––allows the story to live across time and space. In the end, it connects us to the Bible and the Bible to us in a living relationship.
M T.
* * *
Genesis 21:8-21
Americans like to think that they have certain rights to the goods they receive. This Lesson takes away all claims to entitlement.
Therefore this account serves to teach us that we have nothing by reason of a right, but that everything comes as a result of the grace of God. (Luther’s Works, Vol.4, p.43)
Martin Luther King, Jr. offered a significant insight about the importance of depending on God in this way, as he wrote, “Without dependence on God our efforts turn to ashes and our sunrises into darkest nights.” It is also worthwhile, in light of Donald Trump’s rhetoric about Islam, to note God’s continuing care of Ishmael, the forebear of Arab peoples. As John Wesley noted in connection with God’s care of Ishmael, “God’s readiness to help us when we are in trouble must not slacken but quicken our endeavors to help ourselves.” (Commentary On the Bible, p.43)
Mark E.
* * *
Genesis 21:8-21
Jealousy is rampant in this story. The very child born of Sarah’s wish for Abraham to have a son through her handmaiden Hagar, is now seen by Sarah as a threat to Isaac and his birthright. Sarah wants Abraham to cast her out. These are actions of fear and jealousy. Ishmael goes off with Hagar and becomes the father of Islam, the founder of a great religion within the world. Is it the same jealousy and fear which causes many Christians to speak out against the faithful followers of Islam? We know there are fanatics in every faith – extremists everywhere. Yet, the Muslim brothers and sisters with whom I work and offer mission to the community are faithful, respectful of my beliefs, and anchored in positive relationships across culture, faith tradition, and ethnicity. Love is the foundation of these interfaith relationships. How I pray we could love in the same way everywhere in every community and instance.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Romans 6:1b-11
There is a not so obvious connection between the letters of Paul and the prevalence of ongoing and intrusive cell phone conversations conducted in very public settings.
With regards to the latter, you know what I’m talking about. People carry on their end of the conversation in grocery stores, public transit, church lobbies, street corners, and even in public bathrooms, speaking loudly about what sometimes seems uncomfortably like private matters. We’re only getting their end of the conversations, but it’s hard not to hear, and in hearing, to guess what is being said at the other end.
Unlike phone conversations we think of letters as a private experience. They come to us sealed, we read them silently, and we decide if we’re going to share certain portions with selected individuals, or say nothing about the letter at all.
But in the ancient world, literacy was the property of a professional class. Moreover, reading was conducted out loud. Silent reading seems to have been unknown. So, the reading of a letter of Paul was a public event shared with one or more house churches that were part of a city’s congregation. Had we lived then we would have sat down together with others to hear Paul’s letter read by someone trained to read aloud, and we would have heard the various congratulations, or accusations, in the presence of others.
We get a taste of that in this passage, even if we read silently. Paul opens this passage by addressing a misconception that busybodies among the Roman house churches were spreading. Paul taught them that they were condemned by sin but saved by grace. Sin had called into being God’s extraordinary response of forgiveness through the cross of Jesus. Some people were saying that if our sin had resulted in such a wonderful response, shouldn’t we keep on sinning to give God a chance for even more amazing responses?
Paul’s answer, in brief, is no.
Frank R.
* * *
Romans 6:1-11
If you follow the comic strip Peanuts, written by Charles Schulz, you will know that supper is very important to Snoopy, and closely associated with that is his supper bowl. In this one episode we see Snoopy, with his supper bowl in his mouth, kicking the front door of Charlie Brown’s home. The home of the little boy who cares for his beloved pet. Charlie opens the door and asks, “Your hunger strike didn’t last very long, did it?” Snoopy, now a bit calmer, replies, “I learned something.” In the next frame, as Charlie takes the supper bowl to put food in it, Snoopy goes on to say, “The brain may be important…” and continues in the last frame, as Charlie is in the kitchen pouring food into Snoopy’s bowl, “…but the stomach is still in charge!”
Ron L.
* * *
Romans 6:1-11
Tim Harlow is a preacher and the author of the book What Made Jesus Mad. In that book he asks the question, “Have you ever had a backstage pass?” He then tells about the time when he did a wedding for a member of his favorite classic rock band. The wedding took place during a concert and he was given the chance to have dinner with the band; a great seat at the concert; and a backstage pass for after. He got to hang out with the band!
If you have a backstage pass, you get to hang out with someone special. You have access that others may not. Because of Jesus, all who identify with him now have an all-access pass to hang out with God any time. This is the essence of the gospel. You can go backstage. Paul writes in our text, “Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” (6:4) Identifying with Jesus, through faith and baptism, means that we get to say, “I’m with him” and hear him say, “He’s with me.” How awesome is that?
Bill T.
* * *
Matthew 10:24-39
Matthew 10:34-39 is one of my favorite passages in the entire New Testament for two reasons. The first reason is because I genuinely enjoy Angry Jesus, the literary character, more than Nice Jesus. Maybe it’s because I read the Bible a lot, and when you read any book a whole lot of times, the nice parts where nothing happens except for character building start getting kind of monotonous. I crave the unexpected. Give me Jesus flippin’ tables, not Jesus the chill healing guy who says nice stuff about birds of the air! Jesus cursing a fig tree, yeah!
The other reason I love this passage so much is because it drives a stake into the old vampire of a heresy that keeps coming back: Marcionism. The Marcionite heresy holds that the God of the Old Testament is fundamentally different from the God of the New Testament, and is best summed in Season 3, Episode 4 of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, where one character says, "Oh, thank angry Old Testament God, the one who's always threatening to kill children to prove a point!" and later another character prays, "Forgive me friendly New Testament God after you settled down and had a family."
Now, don’t get me wrong. I laughed at the joke, but the myth of the angry Old Testament God and the friendly New Testament God is not only biblically inaccurate, it forms the foundation of Christian Antisemitism. There are many articles on the history of Marcionism in the development of Christian anti-Semitism, but I want to point to one in particular, Chuck McKnight’s “The Actual Danger of Marcionism in Progressive Christianity.” Although anti-Semitism among the Christian political right has been apparent (and increasing) for a long time, progressive Christians too often celebrate their supposed “tolerance” and “acceptance” of Judaism without ever actually examining their Scriptural practices. As McKnight explains,
I don’t believe it is intentional on the part of any progressive Christian I know. And it’s not so much a matter of antagonism against Judaism as it is a careless way of speaking about it. But this subtle anti-Semitism, perpetuated in ignorance, has the potential to grow into something much more insidious if left unchecked.
The problem is that we—like Marcion—far too often pit the Christian New Testament against the Hebrew Scriptures as if they were fundamentally opposed to each other. Or we pit Jesus against the Mosaic Law, as if he rejected it entirely. Or at the very least, we leave open such implications, even if we may not spell them out as such.
I myself have been guilty of this. So I’m not attacking anyone. I’m publicly repenting of my error, I’m attempting to do better, and I’m urging those of my own camp to join me in exercising more caution in this area.
Here’s the thing. The scriptures—Christian and Jewish alike—do contain mistakes. This really shouldn’t be considered a progressive position to hold in our day and age. It’s just a matter of intellectual honesty about the texts we have. Whether we’re talking about internal contradictions, historical inaccuracies, or theological missteps, the scriptures are not free from incorrect statements, and one way or another, we simply have to come to terms with this. But it’s incredibly problematic when we—mainly progressive Christians—act as if the New Testament exists to correct the Old.
I have some points of contention with McKnight, but there is one area in which we are in full agreement. Not only is the heresy of Marcionism problematic because of its near inevitable slide in anti-Semitism, it is also simply a bad way of reading the gospels. This brings me back to the first reason I love this passage so much. I do not think of textual inconsistencies in the Bible so much as “mistakes,” but rather as the preservation of the divine multiplicity.
For me, Jesus is not just one thing. He is not just a Savior or a healer or a bringer of justice. To search the Scriptures for Jesus the unified is to forget that the Trinity is three persons for a reason; just as there are four gospels, and yes, two testaments for a reason. Jesus isn’t just friendly; he’s angry, too. He does “not come to bring peace, but a sword” because he is not just one thing. Neither are you; and neither is God.
M T.
* * *
Matthew 10:24-39
Seventeenth-century French scholar Blaise Pascal offered comments which help explain Jesus’ words about rejecting family for His sake, as we learn what dynamics we must undergo when set free to total commitment to God:
The true and only virtue is therefore to hate ourselves for our concupiscence makes us hateful, and to seek for a being really worthy of love in order to love him. (Pensees. p.222)
Whatever is not in line with Christ, even if it is our families, needs to be rejected. Getting free from this bondage to self is anxiety producing. Augustine offers a reassuring word: “Why art thou afraid of man, O man, whose place is in the bosom of God?” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol.6, p.303) These insights and a life lived focused only on Christ leads to joy, Martin Luther claimed:
God wants us to be cheerful and He hates sadness. For had He wanted us to be sad, He would not have given us the sun, the moon, and various fruits of the earth. All these He gave for our good cheer. (What Luther Says, p.689)
Mark E.
* * *
Matthew 10:24-39
This scripture reading has always been problematic for me. Jesus did not come to bring peace, but the sword, division among people’s and families? I get the need to carry my cross and follow. I have a harder time with the sword and divisiveness. Does Jesus really want to break up families, to create divisions in communities? Maybe that’s not the point at all. Maybe Jesus acknowledges that following him will cause those divisions to happen, will cause us to fight among ourselves. Maybe the sword truly is exemplifying the word of God which can bring people together or separate us into sects of personal interpretation or belief.
Bonnie B.
