6-23-96	A Little Boldness, Please!	Genesis 21:8-21

Romans 6:1b-11

Matthew 10:24-39

I was reading my e-mail the other day and came upon this article by a fellow pastor by the name of Darrell McGowan. I'd like to share it with you, today.

"What price is love? If I am faced between doing the loving thing, caring for those God has given me, allowing God's love to direct all my actions, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, remaining loyal to a family member, friend, or cause, how easy would it be to make that choice?

"Remember the Uni-bomber, Ted Kazynski? His brother and mother faced such a choice, recently, when they turned him in to the FBI. A Los Angeles Times editor severely criticized the family for turning on their son and brother, in an article he wrote a few weeks ago. The writer claimed that the family had demonstrated that they were fundamentally untrustworthy with their decision to go the FBI with their suspicions about Ted.

"Then, some of us may remember how several Olympic athletes have refused, over the years, to participate in competitions on either Saturday or Sunday due to religious convictions. They have been called fools, have been isolated and ostracized by family and friends, and have been pressured to violate their convictions for the sake of honoring their country.

"When I was in high school, one of my classmates belonged to a religious body with a particularly strict interpretation of Sabbath rules. She was never allowed to participate in school dances or other functions that took place on Friday night or Saturday. She suffered tremendous ridicule at the hands of her classmates. But, through it all, she smiled and assured us that she was more concerned with pleasing God than conforming to our expectations.

"What price would you pay to remain faithful to God? Where do we draw the line as to faithfulness? Do Jesus' words as reported by Matthew (in today's lesson) shock us? Do we have a tendency to dismiss this passage by suggesting it is meant as an allegory?

"We may be moving into a time where faithful Christians find themselves increasingly outside the norms of our culture. As we choose to love as Jesus loved, we might be seen as naive, soft, or even foolish. As we stand against injustice we might be seen as disloyal to our community or to our country. As we choose to advocate for the voiceless, we may be seen as troublemakers. When we leave work early or even at the scheduled time to participate in a family event, we might be seen as lacking in dedication to the company. When we choose to stay home and play with our kids instead of attending a meeting for the third straight night, we may be seen as lazy or uncommitted."

Indeed, those whose feet are firmly planted in the world will have a terrible time understanding and seeing eye to eye with the person who is totally committed to discipleship to Jesus Christ. And this is tough in a world where winning is everything. Yet, the irony of it is that sometimes Christians have to fail in order to succeed. In order to be faithful to God one may have to bear the brunt of those who will misunderstand and ridicule and ostracize.

This brings me to the troubling, but unavoidable question raised in today's gospel lesson: Why, given the warnings issued by Jesus to his followers, would anybody want to become a Christian? The costs of discipleship were not glossed over by some fancy sales pitch. Instead of offering would-be followers a "special deal," Jesus spoke of exorbitant costs. He said:

"See, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues. . . . Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth: I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household."

You know, if Jesus was around today and running for office, these words of his in the Bible would probably make it difficult for him to establish a "family values" platform to run on. This isn't to say that Jesus was anti-family, for his last dying words in John's gospel have him saying to the disciple, "Here is your mother," thus making sure that Mary would be taken care of. But Jesus was intent upon putting the Kingdom of God first, and that meant that ultimate allegiance to family or country or self-interest were contrary to discipleship. In order to be a successful follower of Jesus Christ one must be willing to risk failure. Not only that, one must, it seems, even have the courage to be a failure in the eyes of one's surrounding culture.

I've always been interested in the work of Martin Luther, the great Christian reformer of the 1500's. One of the three writings of Luther that started the Protestant Reformation was one called, "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church." To put it in a few words, Luther was saying to Christians of the 16th century: just as the Jews were carried away from Jerusalem into captivity under the tyranny of the Babylonian Empire, so in Europe were Christians being carried away from the scriptures and made captive to a religious tyranny that was misusing the sacraments, especially the Lord's Supper, as a way of instilling fear and obedience. A literal economy of penance had even been established by the church wherein salvation was being offered for the payment of money. The church, being so enmeshed in its culture of greed, was bold enough to advertise this motto among the masses: "for every coin in the coffer that rings, another soul from purgatory springs."

In order for Martin Luther to be true to the gospel, he had to distance himself from the culture that had captivated the church and risk becoming a heretic. Today we look back on this man of courage and deep conviction with great respect and admiration. But, like Christ himself, Luther lived and died as a prophet without honor, as a person who went against the grain and refused to accommodate himself to the status quo. And as we look at his life, today, we know that it was by his willingness to be a failure, that he was a success.

I am reminded of the story of Jeremiah. What distinguished Jeremiah as a true prophet among a nation of false prophets was not his success, but his obedience, an obedience that risked personal failure in both his private and public life. In fact, Jeremiah didn't want to be a prophet. Whenever he tried to be silent the word of the Lord would overpower him again and again. Jeremiah tried to keep his visions private, but God compelled him at every turn to go public with truths that were hard to tell and ever harder for the people to hear.

Our Gospel lesson from Matthew reveals the risks inherent in "going public" with our faith. Jesus said in no uncertain terms, "a disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master . . . If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they malign those of his household!"

In one sense it is difficult for us modern Christians to resonate fully with Jesus' warnings. Instead of being a religious minority who are actively sought out and persecuted by the majority, we are the majority – a majority who have the freedom to not only assemble, organize and convert others without reprisal, but a majority who often use our beliefs to silence and intimidate others who do not agree with us. Groups like the Christian Coalition go so far as to say that if other Christians don't buy into their agenda, then they aren't true believers. Fundamentalist Christians in one state legislature went so far this year as to propose a law that would give local school boards grounds to fire teachers who taught evolution as "fact." Certainly, these Christians "went public," but not because they fear persecution, but because they fear failure.

Listen closely to the rhetoric that is used to summon popular support these days: One famous televangelist charged recently that the feminist agenda aims at separating wives from husbands and mothers from fetuses. It is all too popular for Christians to criticize and berate secular humanism and atheistic Communism, but the impulse to do so is the fear that all these competing "isms" might actually thrive and reduce us to a minority! But, if we take Jesus' words in their original context, he was telling all aspiring followers that they were a minority people who would never have popular appeal or political advantage. Jesus was telling his followers – then and now – that if we don't have the courage to fail, then obedience to his example – and the prophets that came before him – will be impossible.

Brothers and sisters, I hear the words of our Old Testament lesson and the words of Jesus in Matthew reminding us that God's people are and always have been a righteous remnant, a prophetic minority rather than a moral majority, and that the church's addiction to success is no substitute for its original commission to obedience. Success, in and of itself, is neither good or bad, but as a priority in our common life it is indeed secondary. It is the icing on the cake. But, if we are obedient, speak truth to those who have power, remember to comfort the afflicted and never persecute them (even if they are not following our way), and risk failure, rejection and, yes, even death, then truth, God's truth, when "crushed to the ground" (as Martin Luther King once said), "will rise!" Others will have ears to hear and tongues to speak, and our momentary failures, if suffered for the sake of faithfulness and not popularity, will yield sweet victories. All in good time.

Finally, we must always remember that to follow the word of God means that we must be open to hear it in new ways. It means that we will use the Bible to open many discussions, but never to close them. The word of God is no oracle to be consulted for specific advice on specific problems; rather, it is a wellspring of wisdom about the ambiguity and insolubility of the human situation. The word of God that we have inherited from Jesus and the prophets insists that each of us is a hell-deserving sinner with a sleeping hero in his or her soul. It sings praises to a God who bruises our egos but mends our hearts, who provides minimum protection but maximum support. The word of God shows us both the green pastures of peace and the dry paths of righteousness. When falsehoods weave their glittering nets around us, it asks us to take upon ourselves the pain of truthfulness. And above all else, as a pilgrim people, as sojourners of faith, the word of the Lord allows us to be comfortable with struggle but uneasy with success. And the courage to risk being wrong is the only thing that makes us right.

We all want to be liked, to excel and make a place for ourselves and our loved ones in this temporary place called home. Tomorrow we will, most likely, take many paths of least resistance in our efforts to be decent and courteous people. But you and I will know – through a funny feeling in the head or a pain in the stomach – when the risky path beckons us to follow. Oh, it will not be easy, and it will not be safe, but it will be the way.

Amen.