Promise Born of Pain

Genesis 21:8-21

Matthew10:24-39      

I am often surprised by how clearly the scriptures speak to our contemporary troubles. The texts we read each Sunday are thousands of years old, and yet sometimes the relevance of the words leap off the page. I think the author of the book of Ecclesiastes captures it for all time when he says there is nothing new under the sun, and there is a season for everything.

Our hopes are the hopes of people always and everywhere. and the troubles we face are the same kinds of troubles people have always faced.

The trouble in the text from Matthew’s gospel is this: Jesus knows that his followers will have plenty of conflict ahead. They will be persecuted and oppressed and misunderstood.

The disciple is not above the teacher, he says. Could he be any clearer? Why should the disciples expect to have an easy stroll through life when their teacher is executed?  It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, he adds. In other words, seek to emulate him in all ways – even the hard ways.

If they malign me, how much more will they malign you, my disciples. You can count on this – it won’t be easy.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to this earth, but a sword. A sword that will cut right through communities, beloved institutions, even families. There will be division, and it will be painful.

Christians hate these passages where Jesus talks about creating divisions in families. These words hurt our feelings, because we are all about family.

But Jesus didn’t make this up. It was an old trouble even then. He was quoting the prophet Micah, who spoke of a deep disorder in Israel, where the bonds of trust were broken. Jesus found relevance in these words that were several hundred years old then. Division was, and is, nothing new.

It’s something that happens when societies are under the stress of change – such as the kind of change that Micah was witnessing in ancient Judah – a time when the kingdom was experiencing radical economic changes that were resulting in greater suffering for the poor, while the rich grew richer.

Or like the kind of change that Jesus was talking about, when he talks about bringing good news to the poor and release to the captives and that the oppressed shall be freed. Here, too, he was quoting the ancient prophets of Israel.

The trouble in our world is the same. Even though Jesus told us in 99 different ways that following him would not be the easy way, Christians still want to believe that it is – or should be, anyway. We want to believe that Jesus did all the hard work of fixing the world so we can coast. Even though he told us different.

The disciple is not above the teacher, he said, and we follow a teacher who walked straight into troubles and called them out. He walked straight into hard situations and told stories of dissent, a different way of being in the world. He walked straight into ugliness and showed it he was not afraid of hate.

And he said, It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher. He wanted his disciples to do the same. Knowing that if they did, there would be trouble.

So, 2000 years later there are still plenty of troubles, and we have seen our share of them in the nation recently. Born out of some of these troubles, we find ourselves in a national conversation about racism once again. But it doesn’t feel the same as it did before. It feels like God’s people have decided they are ready to wade into the trouble.

That old line from Mission Impossible comes to mind. Your mission, should you choose to accept it – and there has to be that option, because the mission is never easy or risk-free. Disciples, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to wade into the trouble. To be, as some would say, God’s Troublemakers.

Last Friday our city held a ceremony to unveil a new street sign on Broad Street: Black Lives Matter Blvd. It is a ceremonial renaming, so you won’t have to change the address when you mail things to the church – although you certainly can. But, like all ceremonial events, it is significant for what it proclaims. Black lives do matter.

And it is important to say. Because in all too many situations it is clear that we have operated as though Black lives did not matter. As though Black bodies could be treated differently from White bodies. As though, somehow, the many injustices that have been piled on these Black lives for centuries in our nation are justified. Or insignificant.

When we first began hearing that phrase, almost seven years ago, after Trayvon Martin was killed and his killer was acquitted, it had a highly charged and polarizing effect. At that time, even though I spoke from the pulpit about the unjust killings of Black men and women at the hands of law enforcement, I still did not feel I could use that phrase – Black Lives Matter. It seemed to me that it would be like throwing a grenade into the sanctuary. Back then, it seemed like the church wasn’t really ready to have a conversation about it. But I hope we are ready now.

Because to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord is to proclaim that every life matters. Every one. And this means that there is a season in which we have to say that, specifically, Black lives matter, in order to counter the longstanding, inherent, and obvious belief that they don’t.

Our nation has a long sinful history that we are trying to come to terms with, in which black lives have been undervalued. In which black bodies have been objects to be used, misused, or destroyed. Racism is, as the Reverend Jim Wallis put it, America’s original sin. It is an offense against God’s extraordinary creativity and the profound love in which God created the world.

We can see this truth in the Genesis story about Hagar and Ishmael. Sarah got so jealous of Hagar and fearful of the boy Ishmael, she told Abraham they should be banished from the household. Even though Sarah had been the one who forced Hagar to have Abraham’s child because Sarah herself couldn’t get pregnant. Even though they were family, they had to go.

So Abraham sent them out. He gave them a little water and some bread to start them on their journey, although this was hardly the measure of hospitality he had shown to the three strangers who entered their camp a few years earlier. He pointed Hagar in the direction of “away” and then turned his back on her and his son, and that was that.

But even though Sarah and Abraham no longer had any use for Hagar and Ishmael, the story shows how much God valued them. Hagar and her son would not die of thirst in the wilderness, for God treasured them. They would not be assaulted and killed by bandits out there, because God had a vision for them.

The point of this story is that even when we misuse and cast off other human beings, treating them as less than human, God doesn’t regard them that way. God loves Hagar and Ishmael as much as God loves Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac. And don’t you imagine it is true, then, that God wants us to love them too?

Things have to change if we really and truly love them. This is the message of the gospel and it is a message that is just as meaningful for us today. Things do have to change – and change is not painless. This, also, has always been true. But Jesus says to his disciples, Do not fear.

Do not fear those who will surely criticize you when you make a stand. But what I say to you in the dark, tell it in the light; proclaim it from the housetops. Speak the truth even if it makes people angry. Because things have to change. And things will change.

It will create some discomfort, but it must change. It may even be painful, but it must change. Because the hope that Jesus came to proclaim, is a hope that is born of pain.