Often, we encounter Scripture with an erroneous mindset; believing that the biblical world was a clean slate, an idyllic environment, a golden age, into which warnings of things to come came from God. In other words, that God was preparing believers for a emotional tsunami that was to come. This week’s text from Matthew (10:24-39) is a case in point. Matthew’s readers were not living a halcyon existence into which words of warning dropped from the sky. Instead, the Christians who first read (or rather, heard) this Gospel text, knew what it was like to live in a precarious situation. On the one hand, the Jesus Movement produced uncomfortable – even painful – stresses within Judaism, between Jews who accepted Jesus as Messiah and those who did not. On the other hand, the Roman authorities saw the Movement as something odd, suspicious, and dangerous. Odd, because they worshiped a man whom the Romans had executed as a common criminal. Suspicious, because they met in house churches – and therefore behind closed doors – and shared a love meal which they described as eating flesh and drinking blood! And threatening, because these Christians described Jesus as “Lord” and “savior” – titles and roles that belonged to the emperor alone.
Bear in mind, that by the time Matthew compiled his Gospel (using Mark’s text as a template, along with a now-lost source he had in common with Luke, and his own unique source material) there were many itinerant missionaries throughout the Levant, who knew first-hand what it was like to be rejected by home and town (see last week’s text), and who naturally wondered if this was all worthwhile.
Into this milieu, comes Matthew’s account of Jesus’ Missionary Discourse. Here, Jesus speaks to his disciples (the Twelve), but his words reach the ears of his later disciples (the missionaries and believers described above), and his newest batch of disciples (that would be us!). Jesus’ words are loving, encouraging, challenging, and radical. They are loving, because Jesus assures his followers that God knows them and cares for them – the hairs on their heads are known by a God who mourns the loss of even a sparrow (of which they are of far greater value). His words are encouraging, because Jesus drives his people to share everything which they have learned from him – the message requires no unique skill to understand, and it is not intended for a few special folks (it is not esoteric) but is “public property” as one scholar puts it. It is challenging, because following Jesus would cause breaks within the very structures which the ancient Near East most valued – family, clan, and tribe. And it is radical, because discipleship may, as one scholar points out, “require the radical abdication of possessions and family for the sake of Jesus.”
However, notice that this costly discipleship is not a fee paid to a jealous and demanding God – if I might put it like that. After all, Matthew’s Gospel tells us that peacemakers are blessed (5:9) and that we are to love our enemies (6:44). And so, one may infer that it is the world that demands ‘payment.’ It is the world that takes from the disciple, that destroys relationships, that seeks to wound and to kill. In this respect, it is the world that fashions the cross that disciples are to bear. It is in this context that Jesus three times encourages his disciples not to fear (vs. 26, 28, 31). The world may kill the body (sōma) but it cannot kill the soul (psychē). These challenges and opportunities should not come as a surprise to any true disciple – they are expected: “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more
will they malign those of his household!” (vs. 25).
