Several months ago our conference pastors had
our monthly meeting down at a Lutheran church just south of here—Lutheran
Church of Our Redeemer in Petersburg. After the meeting we wanted to see what
the sanctuary looked like and so the pastor was happy to turn on the lights and
take us in there. There above the altar was something I’d never seen before. A
large cross was suspended from the ceiling, and affixed to the cross was a
large sword. That was it. Nothing else. The sword, almost as large as the cross
itself, was sharp and it was shiny and it looked real and it was pointing
straight down, as if, like a sword of Damocles, it could let loose at any
minute and impale the pastor right as he or she consecrated Holy Communion. Immediately
it caught everyone’s attention. Joseph and I talked about how, if we had been
little boys in that church, we’d have wanted to get our hands on that sword
every Sunday and play with it.
Now, I’ve been around the church for a
long time and I’ve seen a lot of Christian symbolism and art but that one was a
new one to me. We could make several guesses about what it meant, but none of
us really knew for sure. Maybe it’s symbolic of the sword of the Spirit,
mentioned in Ephesians 6. Or perhaps it’s meant to call to mind Hebrews 4:12, which
says the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the division of soul and spirit. Suffice it to say, not many people
enter a church expected to see something like that, a weapon that is used to
kill or maim.
And, truth be told, I don’t think many
people encounter Jesus and expect him to speak like he does to us this morning.
His entire message sounds sharp—like a sword, in fact. So often we run the risk
of painting Jesus with one color paintbrush that favors some calm, mild-mannered
pushover who is kind of accepting of all people no matter the circumstances and
we miss these places where Jesus is hard-edged. And since a disciple is not
above the teacher we also then run the risk of painting discipleship in Jesus’
name with the same kind of bland, pastel tones that don’t really stand for
anything. Jesus does not really leave us that option this morning. It sounds
like there are some things and people that Jesus does not want to accept. He
says things like, “Whoever denies my
before others, I also will deny before his Father,” and, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me,” and “Do not
think I have come to bring peace to the earth…but a sword.”
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| 14th cent. icon, Kosovo |
A-ha!!
Maybe that’s why that church in Petersburg has a sword over the altar! It’s a constant reminder of the cost of
following Jesus. It’s a symbol of the
real division that can occur when we
respond to the call to be a disciple. If I had to stand under that sword
every week it might help me remember
that ministry in Jesus’ name is
really about losing my life.
A few weeks ago I was able to catch a
concert of one of my favorite music
groups, a rock band called U2. U2 have been around since the very
early ‘80s. They’re don’t enjoy quite
the widespread popularity they once did, and
their style has changed a bit through the years, but they’ve still won more Grammy’s than any other group ever. In the past twenty years or so they’ve become especially vocal about
certain social causes, most notably
the AIDS crisis in Africa, the war in
Bosnia, and women’s rights. They’ve raised millions of dollars for
various humanitarian organizations, and
they’re concerts have increasingly become a platform for their stances on these issues.
At the concert I attended a couple of
weeks ago, they came out for an
encore and it was clear they were
going to use the stage once again for a chance to bring these causes to our attention. Some people are really bothered by this, and I heard some heckling behind me. They just want rock stars to play music and stop moralizing. Even I was a bit concerned about how
far they were going to go to preach
to me about the plight of others in the world who could use my charity
(especially after I had spent money on a ticket). But the band has decided to follow Jesus’ call and take what they’ve heard Jesus whisper and proclaim it from the
mountaintops. If I had a stage out in
the public sphere, would I be so bold as to risk fans and followers for the sake of pronouncing my faith
and who it compels me to help?
In all honesty many of us will not find
ourselves in such stark situations or have big rock stages to preach from, but
we do have the opportunity to follow. And we need to understand that Jesus
leaves no middle ground. It’s either him or it’s not. It’s either you represent
him in your life, you worship him and follow whenever you have the chance, or
you try to keep things covered up. And I think we don’t like that division. We
want to go “halvesies” somehow.
The fact of the matter is that Jesus knows
the truth about us, and that it’s that we all worship something. As the great
American writer David Foster Wallace once said, there’s no such thing as atheism.
There is no such thing as not worshipping. People can choose not to come to
church, or synagogue, or to the temple of some other transcendent god, but
they’re still worshipping. They still are following something. They still have
a god. That’s what all this stuff about mother and father is about. In Jesus’
day those were allegiances that really pulled at people. They were idols. It’s
the truth: everybody worships, and we worship somethings without even realizing
we’re doing it. The only choice we get, as Wallace and Jesus point out, is what
to worship.[1]
Or, better put, who to worship.
Hard-edged, stern Jesus is just being very
explicit it about that here, and it’s actually good for us. Here’s your chance,
he says, to follow the Lord of life. Here’s your chance, he reminds us, again
and again, to worship the one God who has conquered death. Here’s your chance,
today, tomorrow, the day after that, to pick up the cross and follow me.
And there’s another thing he’s very clear
about, too, and it’s that he’s got our backs. Big time. He’s 100% explicit that
he loves us and that he has died for us and has therefore given us his very
life no matter how many times we fail. We can have no fear of the heckling and
the turning away and the losing of friends and status because we are of so much
value to him. All
of our hairs are counted. And I know that means more for some people than it
does for others 😊, but the point is that God loves us and cares more
than we can know about what is going to happen to us. This is the love that
anchors us in our discipleship. This is the love that calls us forward to
worship and to proclaim and to share message of Christ.
I saw an image of that love this week while
I was away with Melinda at a camp in the mountains of North Carolina. We were
Bible study leaders for a group of 3rd- 5th graders and
part of that responsibility involved patrolling the cabins late one evening so
the counselors and staff could go
worship together. Because the patrol was happening Thursday night and the kids
would be dead-tired after a full week, we were told there wouldn’t be much to
do…just make rounds every fifteen minutes and listen for activity. That’s what
we did and, sure enough, it was dead silent. Until we got to the last cabin, where
there was some noise. I’ll spare you the gory details, but the noise was from a
little 9 year old boy would had just thrown up all over his bed. And by “all
over his bed” I mean it we eventually had to remove everything from his corner
of the cabin, including the mattress and some other kid’s pair of shoes.
This was not the easy patrol I was
anticipating. The poor kid was miserable and just wanted his counselor, not
some patrol people. As we assessed the needs standing there in the dark, we radioed
the staff, and down the hill the area director came bounding. Without
hesitation she walked right into the cabin and knelt down in front of him to
see if he had a fever. Then, without any care for what she was wearing or her
own well-being this college-aged young woman scooped him up in her arms and
held him as they waited for the nurse to arrive. She comforted him and assured
him he’d be OK. I was thinking, How brave! He’s all pukey! Plus, he could blow again any
moment! But she wanted him to understand that even the hairs on his head were
counted. She wanted him to be assured of that truth even in his dark hour
because that’s the kind of God who had sent her there.
This is the kind of love that Jesus with
which loves us, the kind of love that compels us to get up and try again, the
kind of love that we are entrusted to then share with the world. It’s the kind
of immeasurable love that empowers us to stand underneath that heavy sword of
division, to not be afraid, and proclaim what has been whispered here. In some
form it is whispered and sung and prayed and lived here every week:“If we have been united with him in a death
like his, we will certainly be united
with him in a resurrection like his.”
He has died, but now he lives, and every
hair on our heads will too!
Thanks
be to God!
The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.
The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.
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