Proper 7, Year A | Matthew 10:24-39
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
June 25, 2023
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch the full service, please visit this page.
Our Gospel passage this week is a challenging one, full of warnings and fear and swords and division. Technically a continuation of last week’s Missionary Discourse—the teachings Matthew records Jesus giving the twelve Apostles before sending them out on their own missions—it feels more like a collection of disconnected sayings than a cohesive set of instructions. I honestly wasn’t planning to talk about it this week, but at our noon Eucharist on Thursday, nearly everyone’s questions centered around this passage, which suggests it’s something we need to address. Since its choppy feeling makes it difficult to discuss as a whole, I’m going to do something unusual for me and go mostly verse-by-verse or section-by-section, attempting to explain or clarify things along the way.
Our reading picks up just after Jesus has been talking about sending out the disciples “like sheep into the midst of wolves,”[1] where “brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name,”[2] followed by instructions to keep fleeing from town to town as necessary.
Having that in mind, it makes sense to look at this as a continuation of that text and think about it in light of this threat, discord, and even persecution. That means when Jesus says, “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master,”[3] he isn’t talking about exuding some sense of humility, about knowing one’s place in the social hierarchy or refusing to challenge any sort of negative authority. He’s basically saying, “If you think they’ve been treating me poorly, you’re really not going to like what they do to you!”
I find his next phrase really interesting: “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!”[4] Beelzebul is regional Palestinian god mentioned in II Kings, where one of Israel’s kings is condemned for inquiring after him. His name has a couple subtle variations, each of which, while phonetically similar, holds a drastically different meaning. What Matthew records here, “Beelzebul”—ending with an “l”—means “Lord [or Master] of the Celestial[5] Dwelling.”
The character we’re most likely to think of, however, is Beelzebub—with a “b”—a name which means “Lord of the Flies.” Scholars suspect the second rendering is a pun the Israelites used to mock this entity, suggesting his charge wasn’t a heavenly palace but a pile of dung. The way Matthew has written this suggests Jesus is making a little bit of a joke here—“If they mistake the Lord of the Celestial Dwelling for the Lord of Flies, what do you think they’ll call you, who serve in that ‘dwelling?’”
Moving on, we read, “So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.”[6] Most modern English translations have this verse open a new paragraph that continues down through all the sparrow talk, but based on that Beelzebul reading, I’m wondering if they aren’t more tightly connected with what we just read.
Now I’ve never heard or read this anywhere else, so you can take it with a grain of salt if you want, but I’m starting to suspect that Jesus may still be playing around here, this time using the “zebub” association of the name to extend the irony he’s already pointed out. The Hebrew Bible’s prescribed method for disposing of human excrement was to dig a hole and bury it.[7] In the immediate context of a joke about a dung god, that suggests to me that what had been covered but is now becoming known is all the crap and other nastiness that we keep on trying to bury and hide.
We look at society and think about how divided it’s become, but if we’re honest with ourselves, our challenges today aren’t really anything new. Think about major family get togethers. No matter who, where, or when you are, there’s always been something that we can’t talk about: politics, religion, Uncle Ben’s drinking, that one secret Aunt May can never find out about. We keep pretending our estrangements and divisions are new, but in reality we’ve been ignoring what’s existed all along. What used to appear to be contained within individual households may have expanded to our culture as a whole, but it’s the same thing. Everyone walks around on tiptoes, carefully avoiding certain “squishy spots” and hoping that no one accidentally steps in them and stirs up a whole new stink.
Recognizing this interpretation is fully speculative on my part, I really am wondering if that isn’t what Jesus is pointing toward here. Those of us who follow him may not intend to unearth these “hidden treasures” we’ve been trained to keep buried, but that might just be part of the deal. When you’re interacting with reality, which is what Jesus calls us to do, you eventually come to the point where you’ll need to address problems that have been covered over by imagined ideals. The results are almost always messy. They’re going to be gross and uncomfortable. But ultimately, someone has to clean up the “landmines,” and the one leading the way toward change is probably it.
In light of that reading, Jesus’ next statement becomes a practical instruction to prevent the maintenance or rebuilding or any of those former systems of secrets and division: “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.”[8] Just be open about it. Say the same things in private that you do in public. You don’t need to play all these games that lead to suspicion and distrust and just keep separating us from one another.
“Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”[9]
Remember that whenever you see what looks like a command to not be afraid in the New Testament it’s more of a reality check than a demand: you might be afraid—and that’s okay—but you don’t need to be afraid. Other people might taunt or threaten or even kill you, but there’s an aspect of “you-ness” that they can’t touch.[10] Maintaining the Christian path is scary, and what comes of it might hurt. But Jesus asks us to leave it in the hands of the same God who takes care of the smallest birds—and then teases his listeners by seeing what they think of their value compared with a flock of sparrows or finches.
Next we have, “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.” I honestly don’t have a whole lot to say about this. I’m not sure that it’s anything other than a stark reminder to remain faithful under challenging circumstances. Remember that what the Bible calls “faith” only reveals itself through the course of time. So if you’re following Jesus, keep following. And be honest about it, even when things get hard.
Finally we reach what’s probably the most controversial and confusing portion of our passage: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
‘For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.’”[11]
A lot of people have twisted these verses throughout the centuries, and many still do, adopting them as theological validation for a self-serving desire to engage in violence and sedition. So hear me clearly: anyone or anything promoting harm against another person or group of people has nothing to do with Christ. Jesus taught us, as Christians, to show our love for God by loving our neighbor. If you ever come to a situation where you think you have to choose between either loving God or loving your neighbor, choose to love your neighbor, “and so fulfil the law of Christ.”[12]
As for the text itself, to me it harkens back to Jesus’ earlier statement about things that have been hidden or covered becoming known. The best known “peace” of Jesus’ day was the Pax Romana, an abusive sort of peace imposed through fear and domination—a sort of Jim Crow “peace” where everything’s nice and tidy and safe, provided you aren’t black and the local white populace isn’t up in arms about something. If that’s the peace we’re expecting—being able to rule over others, making our lives simpler by forcing someone else to obey our will and desires—then we really need to find someone new to worship—Caesar or the President or some other political figure—because Jesus never offers anything like that. Jesus’ peace comes only in light of truth, or addressing reality: seeing the world for what it is, evaluating it as it is, and calling it out for what it is. This peace isn’t necessarily the absence of conflict as much as a process of transformation, wherein we work to identify and dismantle familiar systems of oppression,[13] spreading the freedom of the Gospel by replacing them with new and kinder ways of being.
It’s ultimately within that context we read, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”[14]
Along with the previous batch, it’s easy to misread these verses as saying Jesus is telling us to hate or reject our families, but that’s not what’s going on. The word for “love” here is philos, a sort of friendship or closeness of relationship. Jesus never tells us not to agape our families—to stop seeking their best interests through loving action. One thing that helps me with these love/hate passages is remembering that this is a relatively private discussion, so Jesus may have been speaking Aramaic to his disciples at this point. We’ve talked about this before, but it’s been a while.[15] In Aramaic, there are few, if any, words distinguishing portions of the love/hate spectrum: no “like” or “dislike” or “tolerate” or “adore.” It’s easiest to imagine this concept of “love” and “hate” as physical expressions. If I “love” something, I’ve turned all my attention toward it. “Hate,” therefore, is the turning of one’s back on someone or something. You don’t necessarily hate it in the active dislike sort of way we think of when we hear the word. However, someone simply observing your actions might think that’s what you feel.
Along with stepping in or pointing out those “landmines” we talked about earlier, when you follow Jesus, people are likely to misunderstand your intentions. They’ll make up their own narratives about what you’re doing and what you think. They’ll expand upon their false realities and start spreading them around to others. It isn’t fun, but it’s going to happen—and it might happen a lot! But by recognizing its inevitability, perhaps we can prepare ourselves and seek out the encouragement and aid we need to remain faithful to our Lord—not the Lord of the Flies or some other pagan god, as people may accuse us of doing, but the genuine Lord of the Celestial Dwelling—the God of the Heavens and the Earth, the One we worship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
[1] Matthew 10:16a
[2] Matthew 10:21-22
[3] Matthew 10:24
[4] Matthew 10:25
[5] “Celestial” is implied.
[6] Matthew 10:26
[7] Deuteronomy 23:13
[8] Matthew 10:27
[9] Matthew 10:28-31
[10] Interestingly, this might be the only place in the New Testament indicating psuche (the individual self) continues to exist beyond death. All other references regarding “eternal life” refer to zoe, which appears to be akin to the energy behind all life—that which empowers a living being to move and breathe.
[11] Matthew 10:34-36 | quoting Micah 7:6-7
[12] Galatians 6:2b (KJV)
[13] Whether intended or accidental
[14] Matthew 10:37-39
[15] http://www.slouchingdog.com/sermons/year-c-september-04-2022-proper18