sermons & Illuminations

Sometimes we turn to scripture for reassurance, looking for readings that bring us comfort and joy. Sunday’s readings are different: They challenge us, jolt our assumptions, and at the end, make us think about how our spirituality works. The Track One first reading offers a troubling story about Abraham, the patriarch of the chosen people. Abraham followed God’s commands with exemplary faithfulness, yet here we see him doing something disturbing as he sends his slave, Hagar, and their son, Ishmael, out into the desert to die. Happily, God intervenes, saving Ishmael and promising them a bountiful future parallel to that of Abraham and Sarah’s son, Isaac. Indeed, while Jews and Christians recognize Abraham as our patriarch through Isaac, the world’s Muslims trace their Abrahamic line through Ishmael.

Psalm: Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17
Like Hagar with Ishmael in the desert, the Psalmist in this portion of Psalm 86 suffers in misery. He suffers in distress despite his faith and trust in God. Recognizing that God is a God like no other, the God of all nations, who loves us even when we aren’t happy, he cries out his prayer in faith that a good and forgiving God will answer him and make his heart glad.

Second Reading: Romans 6:1b-11
Everything in our lives changes in baptism: This reassuring theme runs like a thread through Paul’s letter to the Romans. Baptism unites us with Christ so that we share in his death and resurrection, Paul writes. In baptism, we symbolically die to our old life that was enslaved by sin, and through God’s abounding grace, become alive to new life through Jesus.

Gospel: Matthew 10:24-39
We love to imagine Jesus as the Prince of Peace, but now Matthew tells us that Jesus did not come to bring peace but a sword, to set family members against each other, and to call us to leave our families behind when we follow him. These disturbing verses, following Jesus’s stern instructions to the apostles in last Sunday’s Gospel, may reflect the difficult times when the evangelist we know as Matthew was writing his Gospel. The Roman Empire had crushed a Jewish rebellion, leaving Jerusalem shattered and the Temple in ruins. Jewish Christians were breaking away from Rabbinic Judaism amid angry disputes over Jesus’s status as Messiah. Under those circumstances, it would have been not only hard but dangerous to follow Jesus’s Way.