Preaching texts: Exodus 19:2-8, Romans 5:1-8, Matthew 9:35-10:23
I had to chuckle at several points when I was reading the Scripture texts for today. The first moment of mirth comes in the First Lesson. Moses stands up before the people and gives this stirring speech about all that God has done for the sake of his Chosen. About how God took them from bondage in Egypt to freedom. How he guided them into the wilderness. About how he’s been with them every step of their journey. Now God says OBEY, trust in my commandments, and the people will be holy and blessing upon the Earth. And the people, stirred in their hearts by this speech, say with one voice, “Yes, we will do all that God has commanded us.”
And then nearly the whole rest of the Old Testament is about all the ways they did exactly the opposite of that.
In fairness to the ancient Hebrews, I think they meant well. Certainly in the moment, they meant every word of that pledge. But then came the fear of the wilderness, the snakes, the starvation, the lack of water, and they wavered. And then they arrived in the Promised Land and what came next was the temptation of other gods whose worship seemed a lot more fun and sexy. Worship that promised them power and they wavered. And they saw the way the world worked everywhere else, with the rich and powerful oppressing the poor and the meek and they thought, hey, I’d like to get on with some of that, and they wavered.
It’s easy to pick on them, laugh at them even, until you remember that we’re just like them.
In the first missionary journey of the Twelve Apostles in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus spends them out specifically only to the descendants of those ancient Hebrews, the Jews. Given the expansive nature of Jesus’ mission and how his salvation is meant for all people everywhere, this might seem an odd start, but there is a logic to it. They are the descendents of those who made that pledge. They are the ones who were taught that ancient story and were told that they, like their forebears, had made a promise to God to obey all his covenant and commandments.
Jesus’ hope is that his disciples will find some among those villages who remember that pledge and are willing once again to obey where their ancestors failed. Sadly, as Jesus himself points out, his expectation is that his disciples will encounter resistance. He gives them contingency plans and warnings about what will happen if the disciples are not welcomed, if they rejected or even persecuted for what they have to say.
It is easy to stand in judgment over those villages in regards to their rejection of Christ until you remember we can be just like them.
Yeah, imagine for a moment a little thought exercise. Let’s transport through time and space this whole Gospel story to Southeastern PA in 2017. Jesus says to his disciples, “Go, go forth into all the towns and villages of York County. Go to York and Red Lion and East Prospect and Yorkana and Manchester. But don’t go to the mosques or temples, but to the churches and there proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near. Go to the ones who have already heard my voice before and remind them of what I have taught and commanded.” What sort of reception would they get?
We’d like to think we’d welcome them with open arms, but would we? When they started reminding us that Jesus was far more about aiding people in need than in policing the sins of others? Stop worrying about gay marriage and start worrying about the starving masses on your streets. Stop worrying about evolution in schools and start worrying about the sick, the poor, the needy, the voiceless. Who cares who’s sleeping with whom when there is violence and hatred in your hearts towards those who are different. Stop the gossip. Stop the self-righteous sanctimony in regards to others. Stop the bigotry and hatred. Do good. Help those in need.
That was pretty much the disciples’ message. Stop what you’re doing now and remember what you’re supposed to be about. Remember what your ancestors in the faith were supposed to do. Stop fussing over all this other garbage that’s been added on in the name of religion and get back to what really matters.
Some churches would buy into that, but far too many I suspect in these times would throw those disciples out on their hindquarters. And we would dare to stand in judgment over the ancient Jews for doing the same thing? We’re often no better at listening to Jesus than they were.
None of us walked into the church, whenever we first did so, with the intention of rejecting Christ. We entered in good faith, meaning to do all that Jesus asked of us. But, like those Hebrews in the wilderness, we have wavered. The fears and temptations of the world have overwhelmed us. We’ve mistaken false gods for Christ. We caved to our vices and baser natures more than once. We have wavered. We have failed. Just like they did.
And that brings us to Paul and his letter to Rome. This wonderfully succinct summary of the real Gospel in Christ reminds us that Christ came not to save perfect people because there are none. None of us, Jew or Greek, have obeyed God in perfection. We’ve all failed and we’ve all faltered. But God gave himself for the sake of the ungodly, for the sake of sinners, for the sake of all of us.
I think that’s part of the reason Paul cracks the joke he does in this passage (this is the second place I had a chuckle in these lessons). No one would die for the “righteous,” because people are often only righteous in the sense of religion and its cumbersome rules and unnecessary things that we humans have heaped upon it through our personal agendas. A good person? Well, maybe, and that’s different from being righteous. But Jesus doesn’t care about either. He dies for all. All of us failures and rejects. We’ve turned our back on God and God forgives us for the sake of Jesus.
Are we the righteous? Sometimes far too often, pumped up on things that don’t matter and believing ourselves superior as a result. Are we the good? Well, sometimes, but not always. But what we really are is the forgiven. The ones for whom Christ lived, died, and rose again. In the end, that’s the only identity that really matters. Amen.
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