Christ the King Epiphany Church, Wilbraham

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

June 21, 2026 / Pentecost 4 (Lect. 12A)

Matthew 10:24-39

I suspect that most of you know this, but it bears repeating, that in this church, we don’t choose the lessons we read each week.  Like most Roman Catholic and Mainline Protestant churches, we follow the Revised Common Lectionary, which appoints the readings for each Sunday and festival.  Sometimes the lectionary calendar and the world’s calendar fit together really nicely.  For example, Earth Day always falls during the Easter season.  That works!  In a time when the earth is revealing new life after the cold days of winter, it feels natural and good to talk about caring for our beautiful planet.  Or consider the timing of Christmas.  Just when the nights are the longest in the Northern Hemisphere, it feels natural and good to talk about the coming of the light into the world.  That’ll preach.  But then there are other times – like today – when the lectionary and the culture collide.  Can you imagine a Father’s Day card with Matthew 10:35 on the front?  Jesus says, “I have come to set a man against his father.”  Happy Father’s Day . . . not!  The only less favorable Sunday for this lesson might be Mother’s Day, since Jesus also says daughters are going to be set against mothers and daughters-in-law against mothers-in-law. 

Even if it weren’t Father’s Day, this would be a difficult lesson to hear.  Let me just say:  I honestly don’t believe that Jesus is belittling the importance of familial relationships.  After all, he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, including the part about honoring one’s parents.  Even those of no faith just naturally prioritize protection and provision for their families.  But that’s where we find friction with Jesus’ way.  it isn’t, probably, what our parents, who just want their children to do better than they did – it’s probably not what our parents would want for us – to love in a way that considers others’ needs over our own and our families’.  It isn’t probably what we want for our families – the call to sacrifice our families’ comfort to make non-blood related siblings more secure in this world.  It just isn’t advantageous to our families to stand where Jesus stands:  with the poor, the vulnerable, the outcast.  I suspect this is where Jesus sees family friction arising.

And it's not just family priority that Jesus is challenging when he says, “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”  He is also challenging the priority we place on ourselves.  Discipleship is costly – to the wallet, yes, and also to our time and energy, to our emotional bandwidth and our self-understanding.  We must never forget that taking up the cross doesn’t just mean dying.  As the old hymn says, the cross is an emblem of suffering and shame.  In Jesus’ day, crucifixion was for those whom the Roman government wanted to shame.  Taking up the cross means identifying with those whom the people in power want to shame, to crush, or even to erase.  Who is it that those in power today are trying to shame?  Of whom do we see evidence of the government trying to crush?  Whose history and existence are being erased?  To take up the cross is to stand with all those whom we have just mentally named.

Following Jesus goes against the grain.  The one thing that every human being is hardwired to do is to protect ourselves.  It’s why our reflexes make us pull our hand off a hot stove.  It’s why, when encountering danger, we fight, flee, or freeze.  It’s why the most advantageous thing to do when faced with conflict and controversy, the most beneficial thing to do when we see injustice and oppression, is to stay silent.  All these responses are intended to protect us.  Which is why Jesus’ words are, honestly, terrifying.  They are dangerous.  Family discord, taking up the cross, and sacrificing self are unsafe.

Except.

Except that in this same passage, Jesus three times counsels courage.  Three times, he reassures his disciples that they need not fear.  “Have no fear of them,” he says, and the “them” is those who will hand you over for judgment for being a follower of Jesus.  “Have no fear of them, for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered and nothing secret that will not become known.”  God who sees all and knows all is watching over us.  He says, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”  Even if we sacrifice our bodies, our own self-interests for Jesus, God holds fast to our souls.  “Do not be afraid,” Jesus says.  Even practically disposable sparrows, worth half a penny, are precious in God’s sight.  Every hair on our heads is counted.  We can answer Jesus’ call to live for others because he has led the way, through the cross to everlasting life, showing us that we need not fear, that everything is known to God, and that we are beloved.

We’re going to sing a hymn that, for me, perfectly expresses this wrestling that we do with the impractical, the counter-cultural, the dangerous call of Christ on our lives.  It’s number 798 in your ELW, and I ask you to turn to it now.  Notice that it has a second title:  The Summons.  This is the life that Jesus summons us to live.  And notice how the first four stanzas are all questions.  Imagine Jesus asking you these questions today.

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?  

Will you go where you don’t know 

(into an unknown and insecure future) 

and never be the same?  

(Notice that this idea of never being the same repeats over and over again in the hymn, because following Jesus changes us.)

Will you let my love be shown?  Will you let my name be known? 

Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?  

(leaving behind your self-interests and those of people close to you)

Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?  

(because it’s not just about caring for the people we love)

Will you risk the hostile stare, should your life attract or scare?  

(because following Jesus will make some people hostile toward you, and it just might attract the “wrong sort” of person)

Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?

Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?  

Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?  

Will you kiss the leper clean, and do such as this unseen, 

and admit to what I mean in you and you in me?

Will you love the you you hide if I but call your name?  

(because all this talk of love for others does not mean that we 

should hate ourselves.  Remember God loves every hair on our heads.)

Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?  

Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around, 

through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?

Here end the questions that the hymn raises in the mind of the disciple.  And then the last stanza gives the faithful disciple’s answer to all of these questions.  I invite you now to stand as you are able, and to read this last stanza aloud with me.  Let it be an affirmation of your faith.  And know that God goes with us as we seek to answer the summons to live beyond ourselves.

Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name.  

Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.  

In your company I’ll go where your love and footsteps show.  

Thus I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me.