SERMON FOR JUNE 14, 2020
     Each one of the gospels has a distinct character. The authors craft their telling of the story of Jesus to emphasize certain themes. Since this year of the lectionary focuses on Matthew, I have been reading commentaries on this gospel. I have recognized a number of the major themes discussed by scholars:  Matthew’s emphasis on the abiding presence of God, his identification of Jesus as the Son of God, his concern with Jewish law and practice, and his portrayal of the disciples as people of little faith. But I was not so clear about this last one. In the words of the New Testament scholar Mark Allan Powell, “Matthew’s Gospel offers a starker critique of worldly power than any other book in the New Testament (save, perhaps, the book of Revelation). By ‘worldly power,’ we mean power that coerces or dominates, as opposed to power that serves. Jesus, of course, is the most powerful figure in the story, but his power is always employed in service to others . . . . Human characters almost always use power coercively (if they possess it).” So characters are deemed “good” to the extent that they lack power or use it to serve, and characters are evil to the extent that they possess power, because they pretty much always misuse it. 
     As Professor Powell points out, when Satan tempts Jesus by offering him dominion over all the kingdoms of the world (4:8-10), one must assume that their rulers are subject to Satan and their kingdoms his to give. Certainly every political ruler appearing in the story Matthew tells — King Herod, his son Archelaus, his successor Herod the tetrarch, and Pontius Pilate — are power-hungry, self-serving, and gratuitously cruel. In Matthew’s Gospel the battle line is drawn between the powerful and the powerless, and Jesus requires of his disciples that they identify with the latter. Matthew depicts a world in which the reign of God and the tyranny of Satan coexist, and God’s reign is consistently associated with those who lack power — servants, the meek, children, the little ones and the least among us, all who are currently last but who are destined ultimately to be first.
     Jesus  deliberately holds himself apart from the social structures that fix one’s place in the world. “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests,” he tells a would-be disciple, “but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (8:21). This is not a matter of deprivation for him; it is the condition of freedom. So when he sends his disciples out as laborers in the Lord’s harvest, he instructs them to live in the same unencumbered, unattached way. The shorter version of today’s Gospel ends with Jesus saying, “You received without payment; give without payment.” He goes on to tell the disciples, “Take no gold, or silver or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town” (10:9- 14). 
     Jesus offers the disciples full disclosure. He acknowledges that he is sending them out like sheep into the midst of wolves and cautions them to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. They will encounter brutal opposition; they will be denounced and despised. So be it. “When they persecute you in one town,” says Jesus, “flee to the next . . . .” (10:23). If you are going to heal the ills afflicting the people I send you to and free them from suffering, then you will have to engage with worldly power without being corrupted by it. The story of the fall in Genesis 3 begins with the statement: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made” (v.1). How striking that Jesus suggests we co-opt the beast’s strong suit for our own purposes. The peaceful innocence of the dove is not the same as unschooled naivete; it is integrity refined by experience.
     A dear friend of mine recently shared a post on line that stirred things up in his family. Reflecting on the murder of George Floyd, he observed that “I can’t breathe” could have been a last word of Jesus as well. He pointed out that crucifixion was essentially death by asphyxiation. Affixed to a cross, the victim’s body slumped, constricting the lungs. He needed to push himself up in order to breath; eventually he became too exhausted to do so and suffocated. My friend pointed out the further similarity of their deaths as inflicted by authorized government force indifferent to questions of justice and human decency. His father exploded, lacing into his son for his offensive comparisons. My friend tried to move the conversation from interpretations of the passion story to the larger issues facing us about the structures of our society, the deceptions framing the history we tell, the renewed opportunity we now have — we always have — to listen to our better angels. The conversation then took another nose dive. “I worked hard for everything I have,” his father yelled. “And he did,” my friend told me, “I know that. But that’s not the point. All he could hear was what he thinks this says about him.” We know the feelings on both sides of this exchange. We have exposed in ourselves the same kind of raw defensiveness and confronted it in others.      
     Let us return once more to the critique of power in Matthew’s Gospel. Professor Powell concludes, “The point of view of Matthew’s narrative is that power (when understood as the capacity to manipulate, dominate, or control others) is antithetical to God’s purposes; those who neither seek nor possess such power are favored and preferred by God.” Jesus sends us out to listen and to speak, to learn what one of my seminary professors called the art of Gospel serpenthood. Sometimes you walk away from a fruitless encounter. Sometimes despite your self-righteous assumptions, you discover an unexpected partner in hope. You always honor your place as one in a community of equals. During his lifetime Jesus gave his disciples “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness” (10:1). After his resurrection he sent them out to make disciples of all nations, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (28:19-20). They were powerful; so are we, because in every part of our lives, public and private, we answer to Jesus, the One to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given (28:18). The challenge before us is how we will use that power. Amen.