PreacherRhetorica
  • Home and to sermons
    • Year B frontispiece >
      • Proper 5B
      • Seventh of Easter
      • Sixth of Easter
      • Fifth of Easter
      • Fourth of Easter homily
      • Third of Easter
      • Second of Easter
      • Easter Day
      • Maundy Thursday
      • Palm Sunday
      • Lent 5
      • Next Before Lent
      • Presentation (Epiphany 4)
      • Third of Epiphany
      • Second of Epiphany
      • Epiphany (2)
      • Epiphany
      • Holy Innocents
      • Christmas
      • The Reign of Christ (Proper 29B)
      • Christ the King (Proper 29B)
      • Proper 28B (2nd Bf Advent)
      • 3rd Bf Advent (CofE)
      • Proper 27B
      • All Saints Sunday
      • Proper 26B
      • Proper 25B
      • Simon and Jude
      • Proper 24B
      • Proper 23B
      • Proper 22B
      • Proper 22B homily
      • Proper 21B
      • Proper 20B
      • Proper 19B
      • Proper 18B sermon
      • Proper 18B performance poem
      • Proper 17B
      • Proper 16B
      • Proper 15B
      • Proper 14B
      • Proper 13B
      • Proper 12B
      • Mary Magdalene homily
      • Proper 11B
      • Proper 10B
      • Proper 9B homily
      • Proper 8B
      • Birth of John the Baptist
      • Proper 7B homily
      • Proper 6B
      • Trinity Sunday
      • Pentecost
      • Lent 4 Mothering Sunday
      • Lent 3
      • Lent 2
      • Lent 1
      • 2nd Before Lent
      • 3rd Before Lent
      • 2nd of Christmas B homily
      • Christmas Day
      • Advent 4B
      • Advent 3B
      • Advent 2B
      • Advent 1B homily
      • Year A frontispiece >
        • Proper 28A (2 Bf Advent)
        • Proper 27A (3 Bf Advent)
        • Proper 26A (4 Bf Advent)
        • Proper 25A Last after Trinity
        • Proper 24A
        • Proper 23A
        • Proper 22A
        • Proper 21A
        • St Matthew
        • Proper 20A
        • Proper 19A
        • Proper 18A
        • Proper 17A
        • Proper 16A
        • Proper 15A
        • Proper 14A
        • Proper 13A
        • Proper 12A
        • Proper 11A
        • Proper 10A
        • Proper 9A
        • Proper 8A
        • Proper 7A
        • Trinity Sunday (Homily)
        • Pentecost
        • Seventh of Easter (Sunday after Ascension)
        • Sixth of Easter
        • Fifth of Easter
        • Fourth of Easter
        • Third of Easter
        • Second of Easter
        • Easter (Poem)
        • Maundy Thursday
        • Palm Sunday
        • Lent 5
        • Lent 4
        • Lent 3
        • Lent 2
        • Lent 1
        • Next Bf Lent (Epiphany last)
        • 2 Bf Lent (Proper 3)
        • Epiphany 7 (RCL)
        • Epiphany 6 (3 Bf Lent)
        • Epiphany 5 (4 Bf Lent)
        • Presentation of Christ
        • Epiphany 3
        • Epiphany 2
        • Baptism of Christ (Epiphany 1)
        • The Epiphany
        • Second Sunday of Christmas
        • First Sunday of Christmas
        • Christmas Day
        • Advent 4A
        • Advent 3A
        • Advent 2A
        • Advent 1A
        • Christ the King Yr A (2)
        • Christ the King Yr A
        • Remembrance Sunday
        • All Saints' Sunday
        • Harvest Homily
        • Harvest
        • Admission of Pastoral Workers
        • Saint Thomas homily
        • Corpus Christi
        • Trinity Sunday
        • Pentecost
        • Pentecost: another example
        • Year C frontispiece >
          • Christ the King (Next bf Advent)
          • Proper 28C (2nd bf Advent)
          • Proper 27C (3rd bf Advent)
          • Proper 26C (4th bf Advent)
          • Proper 25C (Last after Trinity)
          • Proper 24C
          • Proper 23C
          • Proper 22C
          • St Michael & All Angels (homily)
          • Proper 21C
          • Proper 20C
          • Proper 19C (story sermon)
          • Proper 18C
          • Proper 17C
          • Proper 16C
          • Proper 15C
          • Proper 14C
          • Proper 13C
          • Proper 12C
          • Proper 11C
          • Proper 10C
          • Proper 9C
          • Proper 8C
          • Proper 7C
          • Proper 6C performance poem
          • Proper 5C
          • Proper 4C
          • Trinity
          • Pentecost homily
          • Seventh of Easter
          • Ascension Day
          • Sixth of Easter
          • Fifth of Easter
          • Fourth of Easter
          • Third of Easter
          • Second of Easter
          • Easter homily
          • Easter (story sermon)
          • Maundy Thursday
          • Palm Sunday
          • Lent 5C
          • Mothering Sunday
          • Lent 4C homily
          • Lent 3C (story sermon)
          • Lent 2C
          • Lent 1C
          • Ash Wednesday homily
          • Next Bf Lent/Last of Epiphany
          • Epiphany 4 (RCL)
          • Second Before Lent
          • Presentation of Christ
          • Fourth of Epiphany
          • Third of Epiphany
          • Baptism of Christ
          • The Epiphany
          • First of Christmas homily
          • Christmas Day homily
          • Christmas Day
          • Advent 4C
          • Advent 3C
          • Advent 2C
          • Advent 1C
        • Non-lectionary sermons >
          • Plough Sunday
          • Advent and Christmas ideas
          • Christmas Day homily
          • A Christmas Tale
          • Remembrance 2013
          • Remembrance Sunday
          • Harvest homily 2
          • Harvest
          • Harvest homily
          • Harvest Water
          • New Pastoral Ministry
        • Ascension
  • Homiletics
    • A Definition of Preaching
    • Speaking locally
    • Notes from a masterclass
    • Design analysis 1
    • Design analysis 2
    • Encouraging feedback
    • Preaching in an amnesic society
    • The Aldi bag syndrome
    • Blog
  • Disciplecraft
  • Recommended
    • Preaching Fools
  • Second of Epiphany

Proper 7A
Finding Yourself
Romans 6.1b-11; Matthew 10.24-39

Picture
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
A long way from home.
(It is probably most effective if the preacher sings the spiritual. For a version by Paul Robeson go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiJx1Hbn_KM&feature=kp)

Orphaned and alone.  Scared and desperate.  The old spiritual in its striking simplicity hits hard.  This is the experience of loss and lostness.  When the conventions of belonging, security, trust, no longer work.  Far from home – emotionally and spiritually, as well as perhaps physically.

That the words of the song come from a people who knew for themselves the reality of being torn from home – the degradation, violence and torment of slavery – makes them all the more powerful.  Here’s a people whose mothers were rendered childless, whose children were orphaned, whose belonging was destroyed.  The anguished weeping of human experience at its bitterest.  It hardly bears thinking about.

We dare not speak too easily of the consolations of God in the face of such things.  To say that the love of God is all that really matters compounds the hurt, piles on the agony, fuels the terrifying isolation of cruelty and despair.  So we've got to handle these hard words of Jesus with care and circumspection (Matt 10.37). '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,' does not come as the good news of Jesus to the doting parents awed with the responsibilities and the delights of their new baby.

They are not words of consolation to the wrecked soul struggling to come to terms with the death of a parent.

They only add burdens to the failed one who has mucked up this or that vital relationship, and feels guilty and care worn and lost.

In these, and a multitude of other human circumstances, to be told to make sure I love Jesus more than my baby, my lover, my mum, doesn't come as good news.  All of us define ourselves by such relationships.  We know how crucial the love in them is.  The baby learns to be a person by being loved.  In loving we create each other and in the creating find ourselves anew.  What’s life without others on whom we may rely?  When these relationships fail us, or we fail them, every one of us knows what a struggle life becomes.  It is hard to see the good news in these words of Jesus, but the good news is there.



Listen to these familiar words of scripture (Deuteronomy 5.1):

Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing to you today, you shall learn them and observe them diligently.  And the fifth commandment, which is the first one that deals with actions between people, reads,
Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you (Deut 5.16).

And Jesus said,
'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' (Matthew 10.35+36).

Do you notice it?  Honour your parents; child against parent.  These are all generational relationships.  In Jesus’ saying married couples, friends, and siblings aren't mentioned.  What Jesus is presenting is a corrective to that fifth commandment.

In Jesus’ day a family was usually several generations living together.  This household was ruled by the oldest father.  And I do mean ruled, by tradition this oldest male was referred to as Lord of his wife and children.  He was the patriarch.  Much religious language starts from this household structure.  The patriarch’s authority in the family was supreme, for example, he could annul any vow his wife made.  The patriarch made sure that the life of everyone in the household worked towards the continuance of the family.  Marriages were, therefore, a matter of contract between patriarchates.

Such households made for strong bounds of responsibility and care.  They located every individual within a clear network of relationships.  They maintained family property, and gave everyone a place.  Aristotle taught that similar Greek households were central to the existence of the state, and no doubt Jews would have understood exactly what he meant.  This is how a person was defined.

Those household structures had two big drawbacks.  First, such a patriarchal ordering of relationships pushed women to the edges of social significance.  In the politics of the whole thing, they really didn't count for much.  And second, organising life in these authoritarian generational terms meant that troubles often lasted across the generations.  Disagreements, enmities, and blood feuding was passed on generation by generation. So in this way of understanding belonging, women are defined out of the social system, and old hostilities are maintained as fundamental to what an individual is.  'NO,' says Jesus, God’s priorities aren't that narrow.  So God’s people’s priorities mustn't be that narrow either.

It isn't that we must be careful not to love too much, heaven forbid!  Rather that the source of our love isn't social conventions or romantic ideals, but the perfect and eternal love that comes from God.

A poor Nicaraguan farmer called Laureano put it this way, 'To love God is to love your brother, but not your brother because he is the son of your mother, but because he is your brother who is everybody.'

That’s why these strange words of Jesus are good news.  We define ourselves by our significant relationships.  We count ourselves as successes or failures by those relationships.  We are easily guilt-ridden and neurotic, or maybe self-absorbed and complacent within them.  We worry and fret.  It’s so hard to give yourself away, to rest secure, to be at home with ourselves and ourselves. 

Well, says Jesus, it feels to you as if those things are all you are, but they are not.  There is a prior relationship that is absolutely gracious.  The love of a God who counts every hair on your head, as it were, and that God will never ever abandon you.  You are beloved of God. Let that be the definition of you from which all others flow.  Let that be the orderer of your priorities.  Let that be the bedrock on which you can love, and forgive, and hope, and strive, and belong.  Lose your life in this love and you will find it.

We are born into relationships.  The biology is unavoidable.  But that is not the sole source of our identity.  St Paul says we are also born into 'newness of life' (Romans 6.4).  Baptism is the sign that our identity as people is more than the sum of biology, psychology, economics and sociology.  We are being drawn into the life of God.

Martin Luther famously said, 'Remember your baptism.'  In one of his Cherry Log sermons (page 8), Fred Craddock points out that in Luther's church, like ours, most people were baptized as infants, so how could those who came to confirmation to claim their baptism remember their baptism?  Did Luther say, 'Do you remember your baptism?' to make people feel guilty.  What comes next is the implied or explicit condemnation, 'You've strayed from your baptism.' Surely everyone one of us at many points in our lives strays from our baptism, forgets our baptism, denies our baptism.  This is common experience.  Just like every one of us messes up relationships that are most dear to us, sometimes.  We all don’t live up to our own commitments.  As Craddock puts it, "Show me a bird who can say ‘I look like my song.’"  Not a single one of us lives up to that.  What Luther meant by 'remember your baptism' was this (as Craddock sums it up): 'Remember your baptism by claiming yourself to be a child of God and by going about God’s business – loving other people.'

Remember that you are of the household of God. 

The Theologian Paul Tillich once famously preached on this prior gracious acceptance by God.  He said, 'remember the miracle of grace when you are able to look frankly into the eyes of another.  Remember the miracle of grace when you understand another’s words, not just literally but also what lies behind them.  Remember the miracle of grace in being able to accept the life of another even when it is hostile to you, for you know it belongs to the same God who accepted you.  And experience the miracle of grace which is able to overcome the tragic separation between sexes, generations, races, nations, even humanity and nature itself.  Sometimes grace appears in all these separations to reunite us with those whom we belong. For life belongs to life.'

Don’t be fooled, we are not a long way from home; we are at the door of God’s welcome.  Let’s go in, together.

References:
Ernesto Cardenal (1977) Love in Practice: The Gospel in Solentiname. London: Search Press.
Fred Craddock (2001) The Cherry Log Sermons. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
Paul Tillich (1963) The Shaking of the Foundations. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.