In Matthew 10, Jesus sends his twelve apostles out to do some preaching and healing of their own. Lives will be changed. The kingdom of heaven will advance into new places. And, oh yeah, a lot of it will go badly. “I haven’t come to bring peace, but a sword.” “They will drag you in front of governors and kings.” “Parents and children will betray each other.”
Not peace, but a sword. As much as Jesus proclaims and perfectly exemplifies peace, he also doesn’t hide the fact that even something as beautiful as a proclamation of God’s nearness will get people defensive, divisive, even violent, and not only toward some outsider from some other place. No, these conflicts will take place within homes, families and friendships. Make no mistake, when followers of Jesus start forgiving like Jesus, showing hospitality like Jesus, and occasionally kick some religious rules to the curb like Jesus does, there will be hostility, there will be division, there will be a breaking down of relationships. Maybe you have experienced such deterioration of relationships when you (or the other person) started acting like Jesus. “Whoever loves parents or children or friends more than me is not worthy of me,” he says. That seems harsh, but maybe his goal is to get us to ask ourselves some questions like, are there any relationships that I’m so loyal to that it’s damaging my loyalty to Jesus?
Plus, when followers of Jesus proclaim that God’s kingdom is here, political leaders are put on notice (including the ones we like and vote for), because it means their political realities are not as real as they thought. Do you think they will take kindly to this news?
Jesus is sending us out like sheep among wolves. Why would he do that? It kind of sounds like the opposite of the compassion that got this whole sermon started (9:36). It might seem different if this “sheep among wolves” thing came with a weapon or two to use against the wolves. But no such thing exists, not in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is not teaching us how to become good wolves. He’s making us sheep. There’s just no way to avoid it – the way of Jesus, the way of the kingdom of heaven, is the way of sheep. That’s why the New Testament loves to call him the Lamb of God. The way of sheep is the way of the cross, and the cross is simply at odds with everything in our world. Everything.
We don’t need a way to beat the wolves. But here’s what we do need. We need to hear Jesus in Matthew 10, really hear him, because he’s giving us words and promises that we can’t afford not to hear. Do not worry (10:19). Do not be afraid. (10:26, 28, 31). God is so close to us that every hair on our heads is counted (10:30). And the Spirit of the Father is ready to speak through us (10:20).
So, if we’re with Jesus, if we’re going to call ourselves his followers, his church, then we’re being thrown to the wolves. No way around it. The question is, what will we take with us into this bumpy adventure? Let us first take a posture of quiet listening, so that we can actually hear him when he says, “do not worry” and “do not be afraid,” and so that when the Spirit is ready to speak through us, his words can get through.