SPEAKER_00: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be holy and pleasing in your sight, O Lord, O Rock and Redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Our gospel lesson today could use a little bit of context.
SPEAKER_00: In a short three verses, we receive a command to welcome those who come in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's an invitation to be hospitable toward those who bring a prophetic word, those who do justice, and even the little ones, the most vulnerable and least protected among us.
SPEAKER_00: Reasonable enough, you might think.
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like something Jesus might say.
SPEAKER_00: It's a call to action on behalf of those who stand for what is right and those who are in need.
SPEAKER_00: The verses that precede it, however, the part that's conveniently left out of our reading today, well, they pack quite a punch.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.
SPEAKER_00: I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
SPEAKER_00: For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and one's foes will be members of one's own household.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.
SPEAKER_00: And whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
SPEAKER_00: Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
SPEAKER_00: Today's command is not a call to tepid hospitality, it's a challenge.
SPEAKER_00: It's a statement about the way of the cross and a call to a higher allegiance than people, place, or kin.
SPEAKER_00: As he draws the lost sheep of Israel together, Jesus reminds us that belonging to the kingdom of heaven may put us in direct conflict with the kingdoms of this world.
SPEAKER_00: His rhetoric reaches a fever pitch.
SPEAKER_00: He draws a line in the sand.
SPEAKER_00: A disciple of the Most High cannot serve two masters.
SPEAKER_00: Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we encounter texts like these, or texts like our Old Testament passage, the sacrifice of Isaac, it is tempting to sand off the edges, to make scripture a bit less abrasive, more tame and palatable.
SPEAKER_00: I find such efforts disingenuous sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: I find it more helpful to dig a little deeper, to try to take Jesus at his word, to see what we might learn in the process.
SPEAKER_00: After all, at the end of the day, you don't have to agree with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Or my interpretation of his words, for that matter.
SPEAKER_00: Discipleship involves wrestling with scripture, engaging with your faith deeply enough that you come away from the encounter with a clearer understanding of a God who is simultaneously shrouded in mystery and full of compassion and mercy.
SPEAKER_00: So if we are going to follow Jesus, we might as well take a look at what is going on in this text.
SPEAKER_00: We might as well discover what it might have to teach us about being a disciple.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in Matthew's gospel, Jesus comes across as the consummate rabbi and teacher, a prophet like Moses, the one who has come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.
SPEAKER_00: The writer makes this clear through a variety of allusions to the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew, Jesus' teachings are broken up into five major discourses, much like the law is broken up into the five books of Moses.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew, Jesus proclaims the Beatitudes from the mountaintop, like Moses proclaimed the law from atop Mount Sinai.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew, the arguments between Jesus and the Pharisees carry special vitriol, for their competing interpretations of the law carry consequences for how they deal with Jewish identity in the midst of Roman occupation.
SPEAKER_00: The teachers of Jesus' time were dealing with a very particular kind of question.
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to our religious, social, and cultural identity under Roman rule, when we deal with the forces of assimilation that pull us further and further away from our cultural heritage, what do we keep and what do we leave behind?
SPEAKER_00: When Rome demands worship of the emperor, what does that mean for our commitment to worship the Most High God alone, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 10, where today's passage shows up, marks the beginning of the second major discourse.
SPEAKER_00: And in comparison to the first, where Jesus addresses the crowds from the mountaintop, saying, all the blessed beasts that we're used to in the Beatitudes, this one addresses only the 12, Jesus' closest disciples.
SPEAKER_00: It's a set of instructions for the work at hand, work that will by necessity bring them into conflict with Rome's social, cultural, and military might.
SPEAKER_00: As you go, he says earlier in this chapter, proclaim the good news.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of heaven has come near.
SPEAKER_00: Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with a skin disease, cast out demons.
SPEAKER_00: You receive without payment, give without payment.
SPEAKER_00: See, I am sending you out like a sheep into the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
SPEAKER_00: Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knew that proclaiming the good news would challenge the current world order.
SPEAKER_00: And this wasn't a crass religious nationalism based on racial resentment or fictional grievances, something with which we are all too familiar these days.
SPEAKER_00: This was based on a real concern for the least of these, the little ones.
SPEAKER_00: Those with their backs against the wall, in the words of Howard Thurman, those who lived under the thumb of an empire indifferent to the cries of the poor and destitute.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus called his disciples to stand up and make common cause with them, to see their well-being bound up in theirs, to prioritize the needs of the many over the preferences of the privileged few.
SPEAKER_00: We now live in an age removed from the disciples' reality.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a country where Christianity remains a majority religion, but Jesus' words are no less relevant to us now.
SPEAKER_00: If we wish to cure the sick, if we wish to cast out the demonic forces of avarice, greed, and hate among us, we must be willing to stand with and for one another.
SPEAKER_00: We must imagine a belonging larger than life as we know it.
SPEAKER_00: We must pledge allegiance to that kingdom that has no name yet, a place beyond country and flag, beyond our own people, place and kin.
SPEAKER_00: We must lose ourselves, in other words, displace ourselves, learn to speak in foreign tongues, let go of the trappings of comfort and safety that are so familiar, so that we might weave a new social fabric, a kingdom unlike any other.
SPEAKER_00: Only in doing so can we gain the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: This past week, the church observed the feast of Saint Alban.
SPEAKER_00: I had not heard Saint Alban's story before.
SPEAKER_00: I only looked into it as I prepared for our Wednesday Eucharist.
SPEAKER_00: Alban is considered to be the earliest of the British martyrs who is known by name, living sometime in the third or fourth century.
SPEAKER_00: The information we have about his life is scant.
SPEAKER_00: He was a soldier in the Roman army stationed at the ancient city of Verulamion, which lies about 20 miles northeast of modern-day London.
SPEAKER_00: Alban's crime consisted of sheltering a Christian priest fleeing religious persecution.
SPEAKER_00: He was not Christian at the time.
SPEAKER_00: He simply chose to do the right thing.
SPEAKER_00: And as he witnessed the priest's piety and devotion in hiding, he was moved to conversion.
SPEAKER_00: When the soldiers finally came knocking, looking for a fugitive priest, Alban decided to put on the priest's clothes and give himself up in his place.
SPEAKER_00: When Alban came before the judge that would decide his fate, the judge was livid.
SPEAKER_00: What is your family and race?
SPEAKER_00: demanded the judge.
SPEAKER_00: To which Alban replied, How does my family concern you?
SPEAKER_00: If you wish to know the truth about my religion, know that I am a Christian and I am ready to do a Christian's duty.
SPEAKER_00: I demand to know your name, the judge insisted.
SPEAKER_00: My parents named me Alban, he answered.
SPEAKER_00: And I worship and adore the living and true God who created all things.
SPEAKER_00: Alban died a martyr's death.
SPEAKER_00: He put his allegiance to the Most High above all things.
SPEAKER_00: In doing so, Alban discovered his true name, his true allegiance, his true kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel appointed for St.
SPEAKER_00: Alban's feast day is the same that we read today.
SPEAKER_00: A happy coincidence, at least for this preacher.
SPEAKER_00: May we welcome the prophets, the righteous, and the little ones among us.
SPEAKER_00: And may we welcome the invitation to lose ourselves so that we might find life everlasting.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.