Identified with Christ

2^nd Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 8

Matthew 10:34-42

Rev. Jeff Springer

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

Holy Trinity Sunday kicks off the season of Pentecost or what we now refer to as the time of the church. The lectionary readings return us to the Gospel of Matthew after spending much of our time in Easter with the Gospel of John. 

St. Matthew, the disciple,  the apostle, the evangelist is an eye witness to the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. He is a witness to Jesus teachings and His words.  He is inspired by the Holy Spirit to write these words that have been heard in the church over two millennia. 

The lectionary readings chosen from Matthew’s gospel, during this “time of the church”, center on Jesus’ teachings about the church. They begin with the institution of Holy Baptism and the Holy Ministry that we heard from Matthew 28 last week.   To think that Jesus is not talking about His bride the church but about individual stand alone believers is to misinterpret Jesus sayings.

Jesus’ ecclesiology or His understanding of the church is that it is divided between teachers and hearers with Jesus being the primary teacher.  Unlike St. John who in his gospel distinguishes between disciples and apostles.  St. Matthew calls the eleven apostles the eleven disciples.  They are the ones who are ordered or ordained and given the authority to go make disciples, to baptize and teach, and are given the assurance that Jesus is with them.

I heard one of our high level district officials say mockingly at an Ablaze meeting that “some of our Pastor’s believe that the great commission was only for the apostles.”  Well who was Jesus speaking too?  Who did he invite to meet with him on the mountain? If you read the text it says the eleven disciples. 

It was those men who Jesus chose to spend His ministry with. It was those men He was preparing to send out.  They had been educated. They lived with Jesus for three years perhaps more. They were soon to receive the Holy Spirit.  They were authorized to baptize and teach.  And today it continues with the successors to the Apostles the holders of the office of the ministry or Pastor.

Why are some in leadership positions in the Synod opposed to this interpretation? Well some of it comes from the false idea that everyone is a minister. There was a book that came out with this title in the 70’s. Instead of being based on solid exegesis of the scriptures and deriving its meaning from it. It rather imposed a cultural and social agenda on the scriptures, namely egalitarianism. The idea is that anyone can do any job. It’s the American way! The Office of the Ministry instead of being a divinely ordained office is considered merely a functional  job that anyone who can walk and talk and has the desire may do.

This sort of thinking runs counter to St. Paul’s analogy of the church being composed of many body parts. All necessary but not all doing the same function. The ear does not say to the mouth, “I want your job.” 

I also believe there is an agenda by district officials to replace Pastors with lay ministers. A lay minister is typically trained in the District without Seminary education or supervision and they are not ordained but they preach and administer the sacraments.  A deacon also falls into the category of lay minister. This runs afoul of our confessions that plainly state that “Our churches teach that nobody should preach publicly in the church or administer the sacraments unless he is regularly called.”

This unfaithful practice enables the District President to provide for a congregation at a much lower cost to that congregation which on the surface seems like a win for both the district and the congregation. But in reality the congregation is short shrifted as they get someone who is under qualified and who is unauthorized because they have not been regularly called to teach and lead public worship.  They do not have the Lord’s blessing to operate no matter what the District President says or how the synod votes in convention.

This is a divisive subject within our Synod not unlike the divisiveness that Jesus speaks of in our text this morning that divides family members.   The bottom line is that there are teachers and there are hearers. And it is Jesus who authorizes the teachers who follow Him and that speak in His stead.

To properly understand Jesus teachings in this time of the church we must recognize that the message is for both the teacher and the hearer.  The other thing that we must recognize is that what goes for the teacher also goes for the hearer.

Jesus did not exclude himself from the problems associated with discipleship.  We see that later in Chapter 12 where Jesus mother’ and his brothers come looking for Him to bring Him home to Nazareth.  Jesus practically disowns them and appropriates His listeners as His family. 

The hearer of Jesus is identified with Jesus as family and will experience the same level of heart ache when it comes to family relationships. We have all experienced this at times in our own families. For many confessionally divided families the discussion of religion is made taboo in order to keep the so-called peace.  But I must say that for our sakes, I am glad that Jesus did not cave into mother and brothers and continued His ministry.

The teacher of Jesus is also identified with Christ in that he will encounter the same pressures from unbelieving family members but he will also see families divided over his message. He may become rather unpopular among his hearers and lose support from families that he is called to serve.  This happens practically when a member of the congregation is offended when the Pastor refuses to commune a family member of a different confession and church body and then proceeds to run down the pastor in front of other members in the congregation.

This is the deeper meaning behind Jesus statement, “And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.”  Jesus is not just speaking of family households but the household of believers in His church. However, this is not a license for the pastor to be paranoid but to be aware.

Why is there so much hostility when the Word of God in all its completeness is preached?  It is because we are engaged in a battle with the world, our flesh and the devil. In fact it is in this service of the Word and Sacrament that Christ mortifies the flesh and defeats the devil.  But the devil does not go down without a fight. If we in our listening try to stay neutral then we have already deserted. We are engaged in spiritual warfare right now in your hearing!

Jesus tells both His called teachers and His listeners to expect hostility, to expect division. Jesus was rejected by His family, by the religious establishment, and though our sin, everyone He came to save. You crucified Christ. You sent Him to the cross.  You were His enemy. This truth is as relevant now as it was 2000 years ago when St. Peter preached it to the Jews. But the remedy is still the same, baptism. 

In baptism you are saved, you are identified with Christ and so you will experience hostility as he did.  You will carry a cross.  Christ loved His Father above all things and did His will perfectly. We too are called upon to put love for our Heavenly Father above all things otherwise we are not worthy of Him and the truth is we are not. But we benefit from the worthiness of Christ through baptism.      

 

It is Christ who lost His life for you on the cross so that you may find real life. You, like Jesus, will lose your worldly life. As teachers and hearers, do not be surprised if you suffer and die for the faith.  This was definitely true for His audience of the Apostles. Some were killed by other means but many literally followed Him to the cross.

What comfort do we have? Jesus willed to them in His testament and willed to you, in His death, His eternal body and blood given at the Altar. You can be assured by it that your sins have been atoned for.  And that like Jesus you will be raised from the dead to eternal life!