Not Tame, But Good

Text: Matt. 10:34-42

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            In the beloved book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the Pevensie children find themselves in the world of Narnia, which is ruled over by the divine lion Aslan. As they prepare to meet him for the first time, the youngest of the children, Lucy, is a little apprehensive about meeting a lion and asks Mr. Beaver if Aslan is safe. “Safe?” Mr. Beaver answers, “Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” The point being that Aslan—who we come to find out is known by another name in our world—isn’t a tame lion, but he is good. He will in fact be so good that he dies in the place of the human children and in that wild reckless graciousness breaks the power of evil that had gripped that land.

            We venture into dangerous territory when we try to tame God or domesticate His Word. This has often been the human instinct whenever we run across difficult passages, like the one before us today in the Gospel reading. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth,” Jesus says, in a way that runs against the grain for most of the ways we would want to think about Him. “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 a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.” As if that wasn’t hard enough to hear, Jesus presses on. “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 his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” After hearing all of this, we land on an unbending and uncomfortable truth: the cross of Jesus divides.

            But then again, the truth—about God, suffering, bearing crosses—has always put people on one side or another. In our Old Testament reading today, we heard something of a showdown between the true prophet Jeremiah and the false prophet Hananiah. Right there in the courtyard of the temple, Hananiah had just given a prophecy, of his own wishes and imagination, that the Lord would break the yoke of the king of Babylon and bring back all the treasure that had been carried away from Jerusalem, that all the exiles would return home, and the rightful king would be back on the throne in Judah, all within two years. Jeremiah knew that this was not to be—the Lord had not spoken these promises to be fulfilled, especially not within such a short time. Jeremiah had to point this out. “Amen! May the Lord do so; may the Lord make the words you have prophesied come true. I hope that it really does turn out this way!” Of course Jeremiah wanted a clean, painless, glorious path for his people—that’s what any human would want. But as a true prophet, he had to continue, to put things back on track in the minds and hearts of everyone who was hearing these dueling prophets. “Yet hear now this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. As for the prophet who prophesies peace,” (that would be Hananiah), “when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet.” It all comes down to this: the false prophet will say things that people will want to hear right now, but ultimately will prove untrue in the long run.

            This attempt at domesticating God’s Word into something more palatable or easier to take happens in all sorts of ways. Rarely will you hear someone just openly contradict what’s plain in Scriptures, although that does happen. But the most common way is by negotiation. We try to keep God in His corner, His Word on a leash so that it doesn’t get into those areas of life that we would like to keep for ourselves. These can be areas like politics, as Hananiah demonstrated. Or if we turn back to our Gospel reading, it includes areas like family, friends, personal choices, and so on—all of those places that Jesus says His sword will divide.

            So we return to Jesus. He’s sending out His disciples with a word that won’t only divide in an abstract sense; it’s going to hit close to home, even in people’s homes. And that dividing word will revolve around the cross. “Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” To take up a cross meant that you were on the way to suffering. It meant carrying your own instrument of execution, just as Jesus did on Good Friday. Further, Jesus says, “Whoever does not take up his cross”—each and every individual person’s cross—means that believers are carrying their own means of dying.

And yet, blessedly, Jesus continues with what that cross actually means. “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” The prophet—or apostle or preacher or any follower in that prophetic speaking role—who only preaches cheap, comfortable, and ultimately passing and false peace, isn’t doing anyone any favors. It might sound nice at first, but it is cruel to not give the real diagnosis or the actual medicine. But the peace Jesus is showing here, the peace that comes to those who lose their earthly lives—their status, their power, their glory, their respect in the world—that peace that comes from the cross is the only peace that lasts for eternity. It’s the only peace that can save. And even though His Word is not a tame Word, it is a good Word. It’s actually the best Word, for it is the only Word that can restore all that is lost.

It’s the untamability of God and His Word that makes it powerful enough to save. Jesus’ cross and all of its reckless love and power can’t be domesticated by our negotiations or attempts to round off the rough-hewn edges. It can’t be tamed by us or relegated to a little corner of life. It takes over everything, covering our entire lives. And because it can’t be tamed by us, it means that His cross, His passion, His love, His forgiveness, His eternal life can’t be tamed by sin either, or the devil, or even death. The cross, the Word that delivers it, will confound everything and leave us breathless at its raw power to save and its inability to be contained by our efforts.

Receiving Christ with all His edges means receiving everything that He is about, and that includes salvation, life, and the Father Himself. “Whoever receives you receive me,” Jesus says at the end of our reading, “and whoever receives me receives Him who sent me.” And now for receiving those who speak that untamed Word, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.” And then from the wild fullness of that reward, the extravagant generosity that reflects Jesus’ own generosity becomes possible. “Whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will be no means lose his reward.” Jesus’ grace, His forgiveness, life, and salvation, will be so untamed that it overflows from you to those around you, little ones in the faith (which we all should be, by Jesus’ own words), so that it extends to them also.

Our God is not a tame God and His Word is not a tame Word. But He is a good God and He gives us His good Word. And it is in that Word that He gives us life and everything else we need, even if we die to this world. In the name of Jesus, who is Good. Amen.