Family Tied
Mark 10:24-39

June 29, 2008


The Biblical texts for today are among `the hard sayings of Jesus’. Sometimes you read a text and feel confused about its meaning. Sometimes you read a text and think, `I don’t accept that’. Sometimes you read a text and just feel plain uncomfortable with it. As a preacher you want to ignore it and just move on to another text. It was very tempting to choose another text this week.

But we know that Jesus was a complex human being. We know that his faith and his call demanded much of him. Preaching the “Good News” wasn’t easy and was often met with opposition. Neither are our lives, ` a bowl of cherries’ – to cite the old song. Further, we are here because we have chosen to try and follow Jesus’ Way.

Robert Capon, a Biblical scholar refers to Jesus ’parables as either parables of grace or parables of judgment.* Clearly today’s text falls into the category of judgement. I doubt that many of us would choose to hear words of judgement rather than words of grace. And certainly I didn’t want to have my last sermon here be those kinds of words. So, bear with me, there are also words of grace in today’s text.

Matthew has assembled, from Mark’s Gospel, a collection of the sayings of Jesus. It’s an odd assortment. Addressing his disciples Jesus warns them about what to expect out there in the world after he has left them. Eugene Petersen uses a more modern metaphor in addressing this text:

A student doesn’t get a better desk than her teacher. A Labourer doesn’t make more money than his boss. Be content - pleased, even – when you, my students, my harvest hands, get the same treatment I get. If they call me, the Master, `Dungface,’ what can the workers expect? Don’t be intimidated. Eventually everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are. So don’t hesitate to go public now. Don’t be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies.

The worst insult anyone could throw at Jesus was “Beelzebub”! The worst that the Roman soldiers could call Jesus at his crucifixion was “King of the Jews”; we know they didn’t intend the title as a compliment. Peterson chooses “Dungface!” Hardly complimentary. Shocking even. What would you feel if someone called you either of these names? I would likely want to lash out at the name-caller. Peterson refers to bullying. It’s been a hot issue in recent years, for very good reason. There’s been a lot of it around – on school and neighbourhood playgrounds, in homes, even in workplaces. As a result policies addressing bullying have been put into place in schools. Unions have added bullying to their personnel policies as a form of abuse in the workplace.



Jesus refers to secrets, to things told in the dark, saying that it will eventually all come out.

Eventually everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are. What are being referred to here are apocalyptic sayings: references to `end times’. One preaching resource says:

These verses are full of intimations that followers of Jesus can expect to encounter dangerous circumstances (not unlike Jeremiah). Indeed, the references to words told in secret, bodies killed, and oaths of loyalty sound like they belong in an espionage film. In the ancient world they belong to the language of apocalypticism, used by groups that experience themselves as oppressed and whose vindication resides in the hand of God.

In those situations people who were oppressed and fearful spoke in code. The author goes on to say that:

Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence that Christians experienced anything other than local persecutions during the first century C.E. The Romans, on the whole exercised tolerance toward religion: as polytheists they considered monotheists, such as Jews, to be peculiar, but not a threat.



Only a few outspoken leaders such as Paul, Peter and James, the son of Zebedee, attracted attention from government authorities - probably because they aroused widespread anger in Jewish communities. Generally at that time imprisonment was the result of disrupting the peace or damaging property.

We have to remember that Paul and Matthew had been devout Jews. It was not just that they had rejected the synagogue teachings but that they were `disturbing the peace’ of the congregations by their public disclaimers of synagogue teachings. For Matthew, the synagogue had become an alien institution in which he no longer belonged.

The early Christians did, however, meet social opposition, such as name calling or shunning. Such opposition would have had to do with the degree to which they lived out their vision of a society driven by values consistent with the reign of God. If they chose to abstain from accepted public rituals or challenged social structures they would have been marked as anti-social. They may have been charged with trying to undermine the stability of the family. This seems to be a timeless concern. It was a concern in the early 1900’s when women sought the vote. More recently the charge has been made that feminists and gays and lesbians threaten family values.



Tensions then must have been high within families in which some of its members had left the fold.

One interpreter says that: “Flogging, verbal abuse and shunning are far easier to bear than alienation from one’s nearest kin.” I have often heard abused women say,”The emotional abuse was much more painful than the beatings.” The feeling of betrayal by a loved one hurts at the very core of one’s being.

The NRSV version of Matthew says that I have not come to bring peace but a sword. The Message says: I’ve come to cut – make a sharp knife-cut.

One commentator says:

Matthew’s use of the word “sword” is a powerful metaphor for the way a community can be split by the preaching of the gospel. The community here is the family. Acceptance of the gospel pits children against parents in the bitterest quarrels....disciples of Jesus must be willing to be crucified’ by their families.

He gives an example: The trauma of being disowned by parents has been experienced by innumerable young Christians in Africa and Asia, who have found the courage to follow Christ despite enormous family pressure. Even in North America and Europe young people in nominally Christian homes must sometimes face such pressure when their faith in Jesus calls them to full-time Christian service, the Peace Corps, or some other form of poorly paid service to others.

As a pastor who served as a college chaplain William Willimon shares several stories from his university days:

I was a college chaplain for 20 years and rarely received a call from a worried parent with, “Help! My child who is a sophomore is sexually promiscuous” or “Help! My child is addicted to alcohol.”

No, the calls that I received were “Help! I sent my child to the university to be a success and she has become a religious fanatic.” “Religious fanatic” defined as -she is going with the Catholics to teach reading in Haiti. These parents knew well: Jesus is still capable of disrupting families and family plans and hope for their children.

He adds: I taught in a seminary and I heard this testimonial a number of times: God called me to leave my job and come here to seminary to study to become a pastor. And then my husband left me...we are known by our loves, and loving Jesus brings disruption, conflict with other loves.

Personally, I have probably heard the opposite concern expressed by parents who are church- goers more often, “I took my children to Sunday school and brought them up to attend church but now, as adults, they have no interest in church. I feel sad about that. I don’t know what to do.” These parents too know well that proclaiming Jesus’ Way brings disruption.

I often feel frustrated with the fact that today in secular North America the word “Christian” seems to mean those persons who are right-wing evangelicals. The term has come to be a generic term that is applied to all of us who follow the prophet and teacher from Nazareth, Jesus the Christ. For uninformed non-Christians we are all `tarred with the same brush’. It is not that those who have left the church have no good reasons for doing so. But, observing what they see as the “hypocrisy” in the church many people are more than willing to `throw out the baby with the bathwater ‘as the saying goes. They have rejected religion period. A few of them continue a spiritual search; some of them find a healing path in other religions or spiritual practices but many of these disenchanted ones would name themselves agnostic if not outright atheist.

Doug Hare, a New Testament scholar says: It has often been remarked that persecution is good for the church. When not beleaguered by outside pressure, the church tends to slip into a comfortable religiosity that takes all too lightly its commitment to God and God’s purposes for this planet. With the continuing increase of secularism in “Christendom”, the day may come when Western Christians will experience the hostility that is now the common lot of Christians in many parts of Africa and Asia. As we prepare for such an eventuality we must remind ourselves that it is our risen Lord who sends us into the encounter with hostility. He himself suffered and left us an example that we should follow in his steps.

Jesus brings disruption into our lives. He challenges us to stand up for him. Petersen suggests that if we don’t go all the way with Jesus through thick and thin we don’t deserve him. Still, we remember that even though Peter denied Jesus three times during his trial and execution Jesus continued to embrace him with compassion and never rejected him.

Willimon describes a visit to an inner city mission, a storefront church in the worst part of Birmingham that feeds over a hundred of the city’s homeless,

The pastor said to me as he checked the worshippers for weapons. `Our guiding theology is that there is nothing you can bring in here – no addiction, no craziness, screw-up, hate or sin – that Jesus can’t handle. He is Lord.’

He argues: Now, that’s a pastor who has a high Christology, an exalted appreciation for Jesus’ ability to disrupt and to make new.

Yes, Jesus disrupts our lives. We are not called to a `comfy life’ as Peterson says. At times we may be cut-off from our parents, our children, our close friends or other church members. Such separation feels like a knife-cut. We discover on the Christian path that there is no easy way to follow Jesus without getting hurt. But we are called to stick with the path to which Jesus calls us. What makes this possible is the absolute acceptance and love and compassion that God holds for us and that Jesus demonstrated with his disciples and friends.

Being a Christian is roughly synonymous with being a sensitive, compassionate and caring person. Being a Buddhist or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Sikh share similar core values. All religions have their radical, rebellious side. Not all evangelical Christians are narrow minded people whose vision of the kingdom is small and well-defended. Not all Muslims are terrorists. For us, Jesus is the one confirms our highest and best values and institutions.



The final few verses of Matthew’s text offered the disciples words of encouragement:

What’s the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. God pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail – even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries.

We know that all of God’s creation is precious in God’s sight – even tiny sparrows or canaries. In other passages we are told that God knew us while we were still in our mother’s womb. This is how intimately God knows us. And, for those of you are missing a few hairs on your head – don’t worry –it’s only a metaphor!

The disciples are asked to `proclaim the gospel boldly’. Jesus calls them to speak out to the `bullies’ of the world, whether they are operating in the private or corporate sphere.

Jesus encourages the disciples not to fear those who can kill the body, but rather those who can kill the soul (Peterson uses the term “core being”). Be more concerned about what cute to your deepest being.

These words have proved true words of encouragement to many Christians under fire. We hear them in the hymn “A Might Fortress is our God” to “His Eye is on the Sparrow”. They are echoed in the poetry of Julia Esquivel:

I am no longer afraid of death; I know well its dark and cold corridors leading to life..I am afraid of my fear and even more the fear of others...who continue clinging to what they consider to be life which we know to be death!

Throughout history many Christians have found encouragement in this reassurance of Jesus. I think of Martin Luther who, in the midst of his struggles against and rejection by the Catholic Church, assured himself by repeating, “I am baptised!” I think of Nelson Mandela who never gave up hope during his many years in prison. I think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a modern Christian martyr who died in a Nazi concentration camp but whose faith only deepened. These devoted people of faith raise for us the questions: What are we clinging to? What is it we fear? What stands in the way of our proclaiming the gospel boldly?

Let us remind ourselves of the words of our own United Church Creed –
God is with us.
We are not alone.
Thanks be to God!

Preached by Erin Shoemaker
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan