Gospel: Matthew 10:24-39
Thirty years ago I was a junior at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, more than halfway toward finishing my undergraduate degree and just a few months away from getting married. At that point I still lived on campus and so trips to the dining hall for lunch were a daily occurrence. Often, when the weather was nice, a few friends and I would go outside after we’d finished eating to grab a seat in the little mini amphitheater next to the dining hall and pass the time talking.
Just as our schedule for these times together was predictable, so too were the appearances – at the same times and at the same amphitheater – of our local street preacher. I never knew who he was or where he came from, and frankly I don’t remember much other than his loud voice and the dark-covered paperback Bible he waved in the air. I certainly don’t remember anything he said. Very few people listened to him, but he wasn’t deterred; many more people chuckled about him, and still he wasn’t deterred.
This street prophet had something to say, and he was going to say it. What he’d heard whispered, he was proclaiming from the housetops (or at least the top step of the amphitheater). More about that in a minute.
Today’s passage comes from what’s known as the Missionary Discourse, one of five such talks Jesus shared with his disciples in Matthew. Here, at a key point in his ministry, Jesus gives instructions to his followers before sending them out to extend even further the reach of that ministry. Rather than remaining among the group receiving the message of Jesus, they’re now tasked with sharing it. As Warren Carter writes, “Disciples participate now in a process of disclosing God’s purposes and empire, which God has already initiated and will complete at the judgment.”[1]
However there’s a caveat, a warning about how they might be received: with hostility and perhaps even with bodily harm and loss of life. If they’d given in, “Fear of hostile responses must derail the revelation of God’s reign.”[2] But Jesus tells them not to be afraid; indeed, knowing the fear they must have been feeling, he reassures them. The preacher Tom Long says the disciples would go forth more confidently with the knowledge of four things: the presence of the Holy Spirit; the understanding that their suffering would be a testimony to those they were trying to reach; the certainty that nothing could destroy the gospel message; and the awareness that disruptions (especially to families, as we see later in this passage) are to be expected “as a result of the crisis of the kingdom.”[3]
And of course there’s one other thing Jesus offers, the point on which I’m focused today: he encourages his disciples to be fearless and bold. They weren’t being sent out for casual conversation. They were going out to proclaim, and to proclaim loudly. What you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.
Why housetops? The practical – and obvious – answer is of course because it’s easier to be heard from there rather than trying to shout from the middle of crowded streets. But it’s also the bold solution, moving to an unexpected place to be seen and heard. You wouldn’t give a second thought to someone in the street, but you’d stop if you saw someone on a roof. In January 1969 you wouldn’t have necessarily stopped to listen to a London street musician, but you’d certainly stop to watch the Beatles play an illegal – a bold – concert on the rooftop of Apple Corps. The words of a street preacher would carry a greater distance when standing at the top of an amphitheater (even if 30 years later you don’t remember what those words were).
Jesus was preparing his disciples for a crucial mission, one requiring them to share an eternal, table-flipping, norm-challenging message in a region where the messengers faced strong threats, and to do it boldly. To do all of that in a dangerous world of Roman occupiers, powerful temple authorities, and a corrupt puppet king was challenging, intimidating, and fear inducing. And all of it, every bit of what we read here in these verses, is a continuing challenge to each one of us today. The message of Jesus wasn’t spread by those disciples and wrapped up in the first century; no, the message – the bold message – and the need to share it continues today. The question for us is how we’ll go about doing it, and how bold we’ll be in sharing it.
The message shared, first by Jesus, then his disciples, then the many generations who have followed, is one intended to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Jesus never intended his disciples to go and – to paraphrase my friend Katie Hays – find comfortable people in comfortable pews wanting only a message of comfort. The circumstances afflicting many in our world are harsh and unforgiving; there are many in the world who are harsh and unforgiving. The message of Jesus – the message we’re now challenged to proclaim from the rooftops – is one we’re to give to both groups.
If we had a choice between the two halves of Jesus’ message, I’d wager many if not all would pick the comfortable half. If we do that, though, are we being authentic to our call? If we don’t go up on the rooftops and proclaim a message that accomplishes both parts, are we doing what’s being asked of us – not once, but every day? I can only answer those questions for myself; you’ll have your own answers to which you arrive.
For those not used to being bold, your journey of a thousand miles begins with the very first step. For those used to providing comfort to the afflicted but not experienced in challenging the very circumstances and institutions causing the affliction, it will most assuredly take time to grow into the role. What none of us have the luxury to do, however, is wait for someone else to pick up the challenge. Jesus didn’t ask a select few of his disciples; he tasked all of them. The same is true today; he’s not asking a few of us to do the work of proclamation; he’s tasking all of us.
All of us are asked to go forth with the message. All of us are challenged to boldly proclaim that message. And when fear sets in – the fear of rejection, the fear of ridicule, perhaps even the fear of bodily harm – remember a handful of other words from this passage: Have no fear of them. Like that street preacher at my college, you may not always be popular with others, but you’ll always feel authentic in your answer to the call.
So go into the world today to love and serve the Lord – through your actions and through your words, be they offered in the streets or, most especially, on the housetops.
Amen.
[1] Warren Carter. Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading, p. 240.
[2] Carter, p. 240.
[3] Thomas G. Long. Matthew (PDF copy; page numbers not shown)