Pentecost 6

Matthew 10:34-42 - Pentecost 6 - July 24, 2011
The Divisiveness of the Gospel 

It is fitting for me as your pastor to speak such words to you.  Grace, mercy and peace.  With these and similar words the apostles frequently addressed the letters they wrote to various people and congregations.  And God has sent me to this congregation through your call to be your pastor.  My job as your pastor is to preach to you the exact same grace, mercy and peace that Jesus once sent His disciples to preach.  Jesus said to them, and so also to me and to everyone who speaks the word of God to another, “He who receives you, receives Me.”   

We need to hear what Jesus has to say; that’s how we receive Him; that’s how we receive what He has to give.  And so that is what Christians do.  We gather together regularly, as often as we can, to hear Jesus – to receive from Him the peace that He has established between God and sinners.  This peace consists of the knowledge that all our sins have been taken away and paid for by His atoning death on the cross.  This peace is grounded in the certainty that God our Father no longer sees or considers any of our sins – but for Jesus’ sake, He sees only the righteous obedience of His Son our Savior.  We are reconciled to God.  God is reconciled to man.  This, and this alone, is true peace – because this peace was purchased by the blood of Christ, and it means that God our Maker will never again be angry with us, but has in store for us only the most indescribable kindness and mercy.  Just as God once sent angels to fill the night sky in order to preach to just a few lowly shepherds in a field, so for the same reason has God sent me to echo for you that angelic sermon that forever binds God’s greatest glory with the peace on earth that Jesus was sent to bring: “Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”  The Father sent the Son to bring peace on earth.  Have no doubt about that.  And GOD’S PEACE GIVES US LIFE.  

I find it kind of funny, though, that the first text scheduled for me to preach on as your pastor begins with Jesus saying the following words that seem to contradict everything I just said: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”  Now Scripture of course does not contradict itself.  Certainly Jesus is not being inconsistent.  What He is doing is distinguishing between two different kinds of peace and two different kinds of life: that which we find in the world, and that which we receive only from God’s word.  That is what the Gospel does.  It distinguishes between what we can, to some degree, accomplish and what only God can accomplish.  

Our knowledge and acceptance of this peace which comes from God does not come naturally.  St. Paul tells us, “Natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).  Natural man is sinful man.  Natural man seeks to find his life in his own righteous deeds and thoughts apart from the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  But apart from the righteous obedience of Christ, to which the Holy Spirit guides the hearts of all who hear and believe the Gospel, there is no life.  Again, St. Paul tells us in Romans 8, “to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded* is life and peace.” Only GOD’S PEACE GIVES US LIFE.  

Now this doesn’t mean that natural man isn’t capable of understanding to some extent what worldly peace ought to look like.  In fact, although he fails to give any credit to God from whom it all comes, he is good at recognizing it.  It’s reasonable to value such things as good rapport with the world around us, solidarity with those in our communities, loyalty with friends, the warmth and serenity of a home full of familial affection and trust.  Now you don’t have to be a Christian to know that these are all very good things.  These are the very things that we pray God would bless our lives with, and that He so often does.  These are the things that make life, as they say, worth living.  It is peace.  When people get along despite their differences, we call this peace.  And it is good.   And since we as Christians recognize that such blessings flow from God’s fatherly goodness, we know better than anyone how good it is for us to live in peace and harmony with each other – especially in our own families! 

Even natural man can appreciate this.  And this is what makes the Gospel so offensive to him.  Because the Gospel tells us to value peace with God in heaven more highly than the peace we cherish so much in the world.  And because we are called to confess Christ before all men, sometimes it means one or the other.  Worldly peace might seem to be the most precious thing in life, but only GOD’S PEACE GIVES US LIFE.  

Sometimes our differences are important.  Sometimes distinctions need to be made.  And these are the distinctions that the Gospel makes – between worldly peace and heavenly peace – between the life we find in ourselves, and the life we find in Christ.  This is the sword that Jesus was talking about, that He was sent to throw upon the earth.  Of course, the purpose of the Gospel is not to set a man against his father, or a daughter against her mother.  You know that.  The purpose of the Gospel is to bring reconciliation and eternal salvation to the world.  

But such heart-breaking division even within the family most certainly is a result that frequently follows the pure preaching and confession of Christ.  Perhaps you know that too – because the Gospel offends.  And it doesn’t just offend sinners out there that we hope might be converted to the Gospel someday.  No, it offends the very flesh that we have; it is by nature offensive not only to your wife or husband, it is offensive to your children and grandchildren, it is offensive to your friends who don’t come to church like they ought to.  It is by nature offensive to you who are here right now.  And Jesus knew this.  And out of love He had mercy on us who took offense. 

He Himself was rejected by His own beloved people whom He was sent to rescue from misery.  He, for our sake and in our place, because we are sinners too weak to even recognize our mortal plight, was all too acquainted with sorrow.  He knew better than we how people react when you tell them that everything that they hold so dear – their relationships with parents, and children, with girlfriends, buddies, and grandkids – that these relationships are nothing compared to their need to be reconciled to their God and Maker.  That’s what Jesus said.  

It is almost offensive for us to hear.  What a hard thing to accept when we build our whole lives around these wonderful relationships that God Himself has so graciously given us.  But what is more important for you, dear Christians, for your family, for all your friends and neighbors than the life that the world cannot give – the life that God gives freely when He forgives you all your sins for Jesus’ sake?  

Jesus said, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”  We do not find our life in the peace that this world praises and promotes, because this world praises and promotes her own righteousness.  No, we find our life in the peace that this world despises and rejects.  We find our life in the righteous obedience of Jesus Christ, and in His vicarious suffering and death – because GOD’S PEACE GIVES US LIFE.  

The reason the Gospel offends is because sinners, even the friends and relatives whom we love, do not by nature want to admit their sin and their need for Jesus to give His life.  And that is why confessing the Gospel often seems to put a strain on some relationships – whether because we must confront a brother with his sin, or when we must unabashedly confess our unpopular faith in Christ.  “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”  But God wants us to regard our relationship with Him more highly not because these other relationships are not precious.  No. It is precisely because the relationships we have with our loved ones are so precious, that God wants us to find our life and their life only in the peace that Christ has won for all sinners.   Only GOD’S PEACE GIVES US LIFE. 

The Gospel divides.  That’s what it does.  It divides between worldly peace and heavenly peace.  It divides between this fleeting life of false comforts and eternal life where all tears shall be wiped away. The Gospel divides.  It divides between those who find their life here, and those who for Jesus’s sake must lose it.  It divides people from each other – even loved-ones who do not like to hear the Gospel; and this hurts.  It is the cross that we are called upon to bear as we in repentance continue to call on the name of God.  

The Gospel divides.  But it divides you and me from all the times that we have compromised in social situations, when we should have confessed Christ more clearly.  It divides us from our desire to maintain a shallow status quo rather than to build relationships grounded in the word of God.  It divides your children, and children’s children from their worldly efforts of finding their life in their own success rather than in the victory of Christ.  The Gospel divides sinners from their sin even as it continually calls us back to find our life in Christ.  It divides us from our guilt and from any reason to be afraid, and provides instead the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ who took the sin-stained life we needed to lose upon Himself as He suffered for the sins of the whole world.  The Gospel divides by uniting us to the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – by whose name we have been baptized into Christ our Lord.  

St. Paul says in Colossians 3, “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  Dear Christians, you have been baptized into the death of Christ Jesus which has atoned for all your sins, so that just as Christ was raised by the glory of the Father, you also shall walk in newness of life.  And where do you find this new life?  You find it in the promise of the Gospel which you hear.  And even when a troubled conscience, and all the guilt and sorrow of a life plagued by division, seem to be an indication to the contrary, you can be certain that if your sin is divided from you, than NOTHING can divide you from the love of God in Christ.  For our life is hidden with God in Christ, and there it is secure.   

When by faith we hold onto His righteousness which is ours by right of our Baptism, then it is that we know true peace.  And GOD’S PEACE GIVES US LIFE. 

Jesus said, “He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”  Jesus spoke these words of promise to men whom He had sent out to preach the word of God.  This promise goes where the Gospel goes.  And it is this Gospel itself that creates and preserves faith in the hearts of sinful men and women who need peace with God.  That is why it is so important to hear the Gospel as often as we can. 

Although the world sees how divisive all of our assertions and convictions and confessions tend to be, and even we might grow weary of it ourselves, we who know and have the peace of God, also know that the power of the Gospel not only unites us to Christ, but is able to mend the sharpest divisions in the most broken family.  That love by which God and sinners have been reconciled to each other is more than able to bring peace between father and son, mother and daughter, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and to turn a man’s enemies into his friends.  

With this peace, we are bold to place what God has given to us through faith in Christ above everything that this world lives for, and with this peace we teach others to do the same.  For in love we confess it to our loved-ones who need it, so that by God’s grace they may lose their life as we have and find it again in Him who conquered death forever.  

In Jesus’ name, Amen.