Sermon text: Matthew 10
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Here’s an inspiring thought for a happy Father’s Day: “Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and put them to death. And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” Admittedly, not a very inspiring passage for an opening sermon on Father’s Day, but there it is. Jesus said it. Liberal Bible scholars don’t believe Jesus said things like that at all. They believe that was inserted much later in time by more zealous and radically minded Christian authors. But our lesson this morning — the appointed lesson takes us to verse 33. But Jesus didn’t stop there. He actually intensified what he was preaching and teaching to the disciples at the time. He went on to say in verse 34 and following, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”
See, believe it or not, Jesus is against bad peace. There’s such a thing. We might be negotiating that very thing right now, quite frankly, as a nation. A bad peace. In ages past, the visible church made the great mistake of thinking making war to Christianize the rest of the world was part of the church’s mission. But today, the pendulum is swung in the other direction. People invoke the name of Jesus for the cause of peace, but they do so sacrificing the very nature of gospel truth.
The Old Testament this morning is about conflict and competing visions for Israel’s future. Jerusalem was nearing destruction, and two prophets appeared on the scene with completely different futures in their head for the people of Israel. The unfaithful prophet called Hananiah speaks a message of peace, predicting that Babylon will fall before it has a chance to conquer Israel, and that Jerusalem will enjoy a long-lasting peace. He’s known as the prophet of peace. Jeremiah prophesied a Jerusalem that would become embroiled in one war after another and will fall unless people repent and go back to the true worship of Yahweh Elohim, the Lord God. Now the people: they loved Hananiah, and they came to hate Jeremiah. One promising peace, peace when there is no peace. The other telling God’s truth that unless they repent and return to the Lord Yahweh Elohim, they would be invaded and hauled off to captivity.
You see, when the word of God is spoken and rightly applied, the reaction is often one of hostility and violence, not peace. And thus to buy peace, we stop speaking the gospel, the law. We stop performing the fundamental function for which we were called into God’s family, the church. When the word of God is spoken and rightly applied, the reaction is almost always one of violence and hostility, not peace and unity. In Matthew chapter 10, when Jesus said he was going to divide even a man’s own house and family against one another, he was actually quoting the prophet Micah. It’s a long history. He was quoting the Old Testament Micah. And in the time of Micah, the nation had pretty much rejected God the Father and the faith of their forefathers. In Micah’s day, the rulers were corrupt, and judges didn’t administer justice. If you wanted a favorable ruling, you had to pay for it by virtue of bribes. Ordinary people were led, and in some cases compelled, to abandon the true worship of the Lord God Yahweh Elohim and to worship the gods of Baal. They were forced to pay burdensome taxes to keep the elite and the powerful and the lifestyles to which they were accustomed. Sin and declining theological and moral foundations had produced generations of selfish and greedy Israelites. Micah warned that friends could not be trusted any longer, and mourned that even the family was being destroyed by the religious culture of the day. He wrote in chapter 7, verse 6, “For son dishonors father, daughter rises up against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men in his own household.” End of quote.
Now, while it’s true that even Christian families must endure hardship, it is also true that a family that strives to abide by God’s word — those family troubles are mitigated by the word of God and the overall arching imperative to forgive one another our sins. But when one or more members in the family decides to cast the word of God aside and live for themselves, setting aside the forgiveness of sins and one’s duty to family members, the family is soon torn asunder, and the nation soon follows. When the gospel of Jesus Christ breaks into whatever corner of the world God sees fit to send it, the war begins. Take note: Jesus spoke these words as he was sending out disciples to preach that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. When they did that, the war began. When that happens, a false peace is broken and a good conflict begins. St. Paul points to this reality when he asked the rhetorical question in 1 Corinthians 6: What fellowship does light have with darkness? And again in Ephesians 6:12: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” The light of the gospel and the darkness of the world cannot coexist in peace with one another. The one will always make war with the other. Jesus himself cautioned us, saying, “Do not think that I came to bring peace. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. And a man’s enemies will be those in his own household.”
So the Prince of Peace, born in that little stable in Bethlehem, came to reconcile sinners to his heavenly Father through his own obedience, incarnation, death, and resurrection. The very same gospel that brought peace between God and man brings division between man and man. Jesus tells us here that the gospel of Jesus Christ is so divisive it will even divide households down to their very core, and carries with it a price for your obedience. Jesus again: for he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Now, most of the time when Jesus says such blunt, surprising, combative, and awkward things, he’s speaking to scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees and priests. But this time, Jesus is talking to his disciples, the Twelve, and want-to-be disciples.
The Israelites were a people who were pretty family oriented at their core. In addition to taking care of family members out of just simple love and devotion, they made sure to create laws so that as head of the household died, the rest of the family members would be taken care of. What Jesus is ultimately pointing us to is the first commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. When we allow our blood relations in this life to become more important concerns, more important than our devotion to God itself, we violate that first commandment. It’s often said, even by Christians, that the most important thing is one’s family in this world. A person is a good person, we think, if he takes care of his and her family members, and when the duty toward family is fulfilled — and becomes pride, usually done at the funeral, by the way — that pride soon grows into a self-righteousness. When a father or mother dies, the pastor is often pressured by the family not to preach the gospel, but to tell everybody what good parents they were, not how faithful they were. But here is the gospel lesson this morning: Jesus is teaching that there is something far greater, far more important than the mere family that we’ve been given by nature. The world says, “The one who is righteous is the one who does good works, is a good parent or child.” Jesus said, “He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. He who receives a prophet receives a prophet’s reward.” Once again, our weakness and failure to deal with sin is contrasted with Christ’s righteousness, who did not sin. In Christ, we have the perfect family: God, man, who puts first things first and second things second. For us, putting our blood relatives first and God second is a sin. For Christ, it’s the loving obedience to his heavenly Father, the perfect fulfillment of the first commandment. His Trinitarian family was and is always truly first and foremost. Salvation is found in the work and relationship of the Holy Spirit. There is no salvation in your loved one’s death. We are saved by Christ’s family, not by yours, not by mine. God the Father sent God the Son. God the Son obeyed the will of his heavenly Father, and he gave his life a ransom for many. The Son promised the Holy Spirit, who guides you into all truth and empowers you to live a godly life of faithfulness, of belief between you and the Trinity. Christ and your Christian family is first. When we consider all the things that compete for our attention in the world, loyalty being second is a pretty good trade.
The scripture teaches that Christians are to take care of their family. It is our duty and privilege to tend to our families. Being a mother or father, brother or sister, son or daughter is truly a high calling, and the commandments govern our conduct within it. But the first duty that we have toward our families is to teach and to speak the word of God, to bring them to church, and to make them knowledgeable in the means of grace. Teach them the Ten Commandments and the gospel. And when they are wrong, especially when their lifestyles depart from the church and the means of grace, you have the greatest privilege in all the world: to go to them and to speak the word of God, the forgiveness of their sins. Invite them to church with you to confess their sins and to receive holy absolution. Defend them — but don’t defend them when they’re engaged in wrongdoing, but don’t ignore it either. And for Christ’s sake, don’t support it, buy into it, or accept it.
The Christian faith is a family. The church is a family, but not made of sinful mortal flesh and blood. The Christian family is the household of God, the household of faith, the church of which Christ is the head. Jesus never broke the fourth commandment in regard to his earthly mother and father. As he hung on the cross, he entrusted his mother into the hands of St. John: Son, behold your mother. Mother, behold your son. On the other hand, whenever Jesus’ blood relatives got in the way of his earthly ministry, Jesus made it absolutely clear that God the Father and his brothers and sisters in the church took precedent over all other relationships. When he was still a boy, at the age of 12, Jesus went to the temple in Jerusalem to study scripture. His mother and father thought they’d lost him. They searched the city. They found him in the temple, and they chided him for what he had done. And his reply: “Why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s house?” In Matthew 12, Jesus was inside of a tent teaching his disciples theology. Verse 46: “And while he was still speaking to the multitude, behold, his mother and his brothers were standing outside seeking to speak to him.” And he answered the one who was telling him and said, ‘Who is my mother and who are my brothers?’ And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Behold my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother and my sister and my mother.'” The hand of Christ is still stretched out toward you, in your direction. And the words apply: Behold my mother, my brothers, and my sisters.
It’s a shocking saying to the modern mind: “Do not think that I came to bring peace but a sword.” Yet, it should be of no surprise to us. It’s exactly what happened every place Jesus went, and every place the church was planted in the subsequent centuries and Christ was preached, trouble soon followed. But the gospel was his sword, and the cross and resurrection his victory. And that cross caused division everywhere, between friend and foe alike. But of all the divisions that came with the person and the work of Jesus Christ, the greatest division came on Good Friday. In order to reconcile you to God your heavenly Father, God the Father separated himself from his Son, and his Son from him, so that you never need be separated from your church, or from your brother Christ, or your Father in heaven. For Christ knew no sin and became sin for us, and divided himself from the family, all for the sake of your salvation. But then on the third day he was raised on account of our justification.
So you, on this Father’s Day — be father or mother, brother or sister, son or daughter — you’ve been made brothers and sisters of the Son of God, Jesus Christ himself. Sons and daughters of the Almighty heavenly Father. Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.