Matthew is getting pretty brutal in his portrayal of Jesus and what it means to follow him, to live in his rhythm. This life to which Jesus calls us is not for the faint of heart. It requires serious discipline, commitment, and fortitude. I like that, actually. I think deep down we all want to belong to something that matters, something that is more than a club. We want to belong to something that has purpose, mission, and direction. I think that’s what Jesus is getting at here.

He’s not here to find the lowest common denominator so that everyone can get along. He’s here for a purpose. I believe that purpose is the restoration of all of creation back to wholeness. However we nuance that purpose, Jesus is saying that there is something he is here to do. Which is to say there are many things he’s not here to do.

Just as a sword splits and divides, so too is Jesus splitting and dividing. This image of splitting and divding is thick throughout Matthew. We saw in Matthew 3, then in Matthew 7, we see it here, we will see it in Matthew 13, and it will come to its most full in Matthew 25. This division is not about excluding people or gaining power through “us and them” ideologies, however. It’s more of a “if you say yes to me, it follows that you are saying no to something or someone else”. It echoes his words in Matthew 6, when he says, “you cannot serve two masters…” (MT 6:24).

This is what I think Jesus means by, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword”. I think he’s warning us that following him will change how we live to the extent that it impacts our relationships. following Jesus could end up meaning that your relationship with a family member is affected, because they may choose to live a different way. If I am working for tearing down walls that exclude the marginalized, but my brother wants to build and firm up those walls, then my following Jesus puts me at odds with my brother.

The great paradox and I think power in Jesus’ words in Matthew 10, is that the “sword” that Jesus brings is a life of nonviolence through loving and forgiving enemies. He said he came to bring a sword, but when the literal sword was brought out later in Matthew by one of Jesus’ disciples, Jesus said, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who take the sword perish by the sword” (MT 26:52). It is only in these passages (Matthew 10:34 and in the arrest narrative in Matthew 26) that Matthew uses this word translated as sword (μάχαιρα, machaira), and in so doing it connects these two passages in a brutal paradox.

Sometimes I wish Jesus had not used such metaphors. I think it’s clear that when one looks at the body of the Gospels, you see a nonviolent Jesus who loved his enemies and gave “cups of cold water”. But our need to be right drives us to read such passages and feel justified in wielding swords, whether in the form of literal weaponry or metaphorical ones. We saw it literally in the crusades; we see it metaphorically today in the divisive mudslinging, condemnation, and polarizing rhetoric from both sides of the aisle.

The sword that Jesus brings (the “machaira”) is not a broad sword meant to cut heads off. It is a small dagger meant to make precise cuts. This “sword” is one that Eugene Peterson translates as a “surgeon’s scalpel” in Hebrews 4:12. In this sense, it heals rather than kills. It is not meant to be wielded in broad violent ways like a Samurai warrior. Putting this sword into the context of the rest of Jesus’ ministry, it’s a sword of paradox; Jesus ministry is about tearing down the walls of division and hostility, but the paradox is that this work will exclude those who want no part of it. Therefore he plainly warns us that his work will not be bring a peace, but a sword. And furthermore it is he that brings that sword. As we see in his arrest later (Matthew 26:52), he tells his disciples to put the sword away.

“So have no fear of them…”, Jesus says. Jesus seems to be telling us not to fear the pain and even death that can come with real persecution. This is something utterly foreign to Christians in America. Within these borders, we are not persecuted. We simply are not. In fact, our religious affiliation wields great power.

So what is this sort of stand that Jesus is talking about here? What does it mean to “acknowledge” Jesus before others? I don’t know anymore, but I do that I’m not sure I would have the strength to stand if faced with real and certain death. I’d like to think I would, but would I? I don’t know. If “acknowledging” Jesus means essentially dying for a creed, I’m not sure I would. On the other hand if “acknowledging” Jesus means risking my life to protect a naked, hungry, child, dying from starvation… well then I may just do that.

May we live such that his faith becomes about more than just ascribing to creeds and ideologies. May we live with a kind of fearless love that breaks open the borders of the Kingdom of God such that the forgotten, overlooked, and disenfranchised find liberation, peace, and life. That’s something I think I would risk my life for. But a creed? I’m not so sure.

Well, these are some rough words. In my past, I’ve read them and likened them to when Christian evangelism is met with social and even political pushback. And that’s a thing. Sometimes Christians are unfairly silenced in our culture, but rarely to the degree we often claim. No one is stopping us from practicing our religion. You can argue that “evangelism” is part of my religion and therefore I’m entitled to say and do certain things in schools or government offices, but it’s a flawed argument. Some would argue that bombing an abortion clinic is practicing their religion, and though in some twisted maniacal way it may be, it still needs to be illegal. Freedoms necessarily have limits.

Today, however, I read this story very differently. I ask the question, “Why? Why will Jesus’ followers see such persecution?” And furthermore, as this also serves as Jesus predicting his own fate, I ask, “Why does Jesus end up being flogged and ultimately crucified?” The quick easy theological answer to that is that he had to in order to atone for sin. Sure, there’s a way in which that’s true, but the authorities that put him on the cross weren’t thinking, “Hey guys, in order for God to atone for the sin of the world we need to arrest Jesus, beat him, and then crucify him.” So why did they arrest, beat, and crucify him? And why is it that they will do similar things to his followers?

If you carefully track the life of Jesus, and if you look at those through history who have endured similar fates, they don’t arrive at these fates because of a mere belief or claim of some kind. They arrive there because of fruitful work in dismantling systems of oppressive power. The authorities didn’t really care that Jesus claimed to any degree to be divine or the Messiah or a king. People claimed that stuff all the time in those days. What they cared about is that his work began to empower the oppressed, and to the degree that he was a real threat to those established authorities. That’s what got him killed. And it’s what got MLK killed, and Joan of Arc killed, and Gandhi killed, and Nelson Mandela arrested and nearly killed.

When we do the work that Jesus does, that is, the work of breaking down walls and empowering the oppressed, we will meet serious opposition. But it’s the good work. It’s scary, it’s uncertain, and it’s quite complicated in a political system like ours where sometimes the oppression is less obvious. To follow Jesus, to be his disciple, necessarily means doing the work of tearing down walls that exclude and oppress people. That work may be as bold as marching in the streets for some cause or as simple as speaking up on social media when we see it. But regardless of the degree, the call to follow Jesus is a call to be active for justice, mercy, and liberation. Or to put it in the movement of Matthew, it necessarily means stepping into the work of breaking God’s kingdom wide open.

And, yes, when do that, we will meet great opposition. Likely not to the degree Jesus describes here, but you may lose friends, social power, vocational power… or in the case of people like Heather Heyer, who came to Charlottesville in 2017 to stand against neo-Nazism and racism, we may even lose our lives. The work of Christ- that is standing up against oppressive systems and breaking this thing called the Kingdom of God wide open to all- is threatening work. It’s hard work. But, as I said, it’s the good work. Let us not grow weary in doing good.

Jesus sends out the 12 here in a very different way than he does at the end of the Gospel. In Matthew 28 he tells them to “go therefore to make disciples of ALL nations…”. Here he tells them not to go to the Gentiles, nor the Samaritans, but to “go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. This verse tells me two things clearly but poses one question for me.

First of all, it is clear that Jesus wants his disciples to begin with the “house of Israel”, that is the Jews. It is as though Jesus is now putting to action his earlier words, “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it”. The law matters. The Jewish way matters. This thing that has been is important and is not to be recklessly cast out. As churches like my own move forward in a world where God appears to be doing a new thing, we must be careful not to recklessly cast out what has been. Change needs to happen, but it is not a destroying of what was, but, perhaps a fulfillment of what has been intended.

The second thing that’s clear here is that some of the “house of Israel” are lost sheep. Jesus doesn’t say go “the house of Israel” in general. He says go to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel”. It’s clear that within this “house” some get it and some don’t. There is some sect, group, or stream of Judaism that is missing the point, but even in missing it, Jesus’ words here state that they still belong in the house.

The big question is, “who are the lost sheep of Israel”? Jesus doesn’t tell us who they are. It’s easy to jump to the “scribes and pharisees”, but are we sure? He’s isn’t clear. We are left to wonder. I wonder if the disciples were like me in this scene. They are all fired up and ready to go. Jesus gives them this great charge, and like football players running out to the field, they head off. Then something inside of them stops them in their tracks: “Wait… Who are the lost sheep? Is it the legalist pharisees? Is it the tax collectors and sinners? And are these lost ones lost because of their own doing or have they simply been locked out? Is it me?” This question would have stopped me in my shoes, feeling paralyzed to act. I wonder if it did so for the 12 as well.

“The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few”. This was the anthem of many Christian circles to which I used to belong. It’s a good anthem, but all too often this “harvest” was narrow. Because of the way it was used in my past, it had been ingrained into me that this verse is a call to go and make converts. To some degree it is. But that’s not the whole story. Verses 35 and 36 need to be brought into the picture: “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness.  When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (NRSV). This is the context out of which this great call to go and bring in the harvest comes. The harvest comes out of the “harassed and helpless”. The word translated as “helpless” speaks to being thrown out, cast aside, deliberately and precisely removed or excluded. The harvest, that is the fruit of the kingdom of God, is within the disenfranchised and abandoned. It is within the ones who systematically have no one to care for them. They are sheep without a shepherd. That is they have no one to protect them, guide them, and nurture them.

This was the focus of Jesus’ work. Jesus looked out onto the world and he saw the crowds of the helpless and harassed. He looked out on to them and, with his eyes fixed on the ones the system of the world had dismissed, he said, “the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few”. The harvest is not the “unsaved”. The harvest is the ones who live in a system that keeps them in need. If we want to be laborers for the “Lord of the Harvest” the primary place we must go is to the ones society has decided don’t count. The first question we as the body of Christ should ask is, “who are the helpless and harassed among us?” That’s where we go. And when we go there, the work of reaping the harvest is not to get them to make some kind of theological assent. When Jesus went to the helpless and harassed, the text says, “he saw the crowds and had compassion for them.”  The key to being a laborer sent by the “Lord of the Harvest” is not just taking action. It’s taking action after seeing what it is there. Really seeing. This harvest is a delicate one. It cannot be brought in with broad, sweeping machines. In order to be a laborer in the field of the Spirit, we need to see well. We need to really see the people and their need and move appropriately. All too often I think we assume we know what the needs are before seeing. Jesus had a constant gaze fixed on the people. He looked and saw first, then moved. I think there is a lot of reckless harvesting going on in both evangelical and social justice movements. We make broad sweeping moves, grandiose statements and proclamations about what is before us without really seeing the crowd.

May we have the eyes to see what God sees. May we have the strength to do what God calls. May we have the compassion to move as God moves.

Jesus came not to fix or repair a faith or a religion. He came to restore humanity back to wholeness. Jesus work is one of restoring shalom to the world, not as an external force manipulating matter, but as the Spirit of God reaching deep inside of us to birth something new out of us. To put it simply, a world that seemed to be hopelessly dying is, through Jesus, coming to life.

This passage today is a perfect example. These three healings were hopeless causes. It begins with a girl for whom the mourning process has already begun. It moves along with a woman who would have been completely outcast because of her hemorrhaging of 12 years. And it concludes with giving sight to two blind men who call Jesus what? “Son of David”. Jesus touches and heals them all, giving each of them new life. He is bringing dead and dying things to life. More than anything this is God’s mission in the world and therefore ours. In Matthew we see God coming to this earth as Jesus to heal the world spiritually, physically and emotionally. We’ve seen all three already and will continue to.

I think we need to reignite a passion for the miraculous in the Church today. Quite honestly, I wonder if we’ve gone soft. It’s time to dream big again. I think we need to step more fully into God’s wild, nutty, impossible dream of bringing dead and dying things to life. What if we pastors and worship leaders approached every worship experience with an authentic energy that truly believed that through this experience dead and dying things might come to life? I wonder, how might we do “church” differently if every program, ministry or event we did had to adequately answer the question, “how might this ministry, program or event bring dead and dying things to life?” What if we walked through each day with our spirits acutely tuned to opportunities for dead and dying things to come to life? That’s how Jesus lived. Friends, we are 19 chapters away from the resurrection narrative, but resurrection has already begun. Do we believe it?

This is the 4th time I’ve blogged like on this passage. It shows up in the Synoptic Gospels, so in 2013 I wrote about it in a previous Matthew series, in 2015 I wrote about it in a series on Mark, and in 2016 the same with Luke. Here I am again. It perhaps could not be more timely for things that are stirring in me and my community.

First of all, context: This verse gets thrown around in church-world as a catch-all for whenever a church leader- particularly pastors like me- want to do something new. But let’s be careful. Jesus says these words in the context of a question about fasting. Fasting was a common practice among 1st Century Jews so it’s a fair and honest question. It reminds me of today when people who belong to more traditional Christian expressions ask those who belong to more contemporary expressions, “why don’t you [fill in the blank with any number of Christian practices]?”

Jesus’ answer here is important. He launches into some overtly messianic language using the metaphor of the bride and bridegroom. But we also get the first inklings of his death as he says “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” In a very real way, this is where our practice of Ash Wednesday comes in. It’s partly why we fast in that season (more on that another day).

But then Jesus gives us this powerful image of the idea that new wine cannot be put into new wineskins. Wineskins were what wine was put into when it was fermenting. If you put unfermented wine into an old skin, the fermenting process will burst it. The “new wine” is symbolic of that which God is doing through Jesus at the time. The “old wineskins” are the practices and structures for an old wine, or what God had done in the past. The point here is that God is up to something new in Jesus and if the religious structures don’t adapt, the new thing will rupture the old structure and both will be lost.

But it’s important to note that this is not the first time God has done in new thing in Israel. What is currently old wine was once new wine. A “new thing” is something the people have adapted to before. Read through the Hebrew Bible. God is constantly doing new things. And God has been doing new things ever since. The Church has changed and adapted through time and space. And in every turn, there have been people in the Church, often with the best of intentions, resisting the change. There have also been people in the Church, often with the best of intentions, who get so wrapped up in that which is “new”, that they not only get a new wineskin, but they also start making their own new wine, losing some key ingredients.

My point is this: I think God is- and has been- doing a new thing in Western Christianity. To go with the wine metaphor, I think the soil and climate have changed (both metaphorically and literally!), and because of that, we’re getting a different grape. That doesn’t mean the old grape was bad. But we have a new grape today. And because of that, a new kind of wine is necessarily being produced. There is a lot I could say about what that “new wine” is, but suffice it to say this today:

The work that needs to be done in churches like mine and across the globe is the hard work of discerning what of what we do is “the wine” and what is “wineskin”? What is God doing among us, and what kind of structures do we need to make in order to hold and carry what God is doing. This is what keeps me up at night. And it is also what gets me going in the morning (that and copious amounts of coffee).

This “new thing” that God is about is indeed new. But that doesn’t mean that the wine has none of the old ingredients in it. But it also means that if we don’t get a new wineskin- that is, new structures and strategies to hold and carry the new wine- we’re going to lose everything.

Jesus makes a bold statement here: “I have come to call not the righteous, but the sinners.” If ever there was a statement of opening up the floodgates of the Kingdom of God, this is it. Jesus, the one whom Matthew establishes from the very beginning of his account as the Messiah, calls not the righteous but the sinners. That’s who Jesus is here for. It appears that he is blatantly excluding the Pharisees, but is he?

Here’s the dilemma for the Pharisees that I think Jesus has masterfully set up: Jesus is either the Messiah or he’s not. If he’s not the Messiah, there is no reason to be bothered with him. But if he is the Messiah, then a Pharisee would desperately want to be with him and in his inner circle. The problem is that Jesus’ entire ministry is proving to be a threat to the Pharisees. His following is growing and it is made up of sinners. We have learned that he has taught and acted with “authority”, which means he has that special something- the “it factor”- that would indicate that he is from God. His followers are growing, also indicating that he’s for real. And in all of it, the Pharisees can’t seem to find their place. They are losing power, and worse yet, they are finding themselves on the outside looking in.

The question is, “is Jesus’ excluding them?” This episode seems to indicate that he is, but if you look closely he’s not excluding anybody. He never says, “I’m here for them, not for you” or “you don’t belong here”. He says, “those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice.’ For I have come not to call the righteous but the sinners”. He quotes Hosea 6:6 which is a beautiful passage from the Hebrew Bible talking about the healing and restorative power of God. There is a lot going on in Jesus’ quoting of this passage, but among them is simply revealing that God is about healing and restoration, not fixing what isn’t broken. God is about bringing dead and dying things to life and humanity, since “the fall” has been a dead and dying thing.

Jesus isn’t excluding the Pharisees in this passage. He is forcing them to admit that they too are sinners. While they can’t say it aloud, their obsession with Jesus shows that they believe deep down that he is likely the Messiah. And that is the one person they want to be with. But Jesus, the Messiah, calls the sinners. It’s as though Jesus is looking straight at them saying, “I, the Messiah, am here for the sinners. Come join us.” Remember in Matthew 5 Jesus said, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”. He did not say, “blessed are those who are righteous”. To follow Jesus, to be with Jesus, to sit with the Messiah, is to admit that you are no different than anyone else in this world. So come, let’s pull up a chair, let’s sit with Jesus together.

At first glance, this story seems like another typical story of Jesus doing the good work of recognizing some one’s faith and healing them. And in many ways, that’s exactly what it is. But there’s also a subplot going on that we have seen a lot of and will begin to see even more of: Moving the Scribes and Pharisees’ cheese. This story really isn’t a healing story as much as it is an authority story.

It begins with Jesus noticing some people carrying a paralyzed man and Jesus says to him, “take heart, son, your sins are forgiven”. Think about that for a second. Imagine being paralyzed, having your friends take you to a man known for the miraculous power to heal and having him say to you, “take heart, your sins are forgiven”. Really? In Jesus’ time, it was believed that any kind of ailment was a result of some sin, whether your own or generational, so this makes some sense from a cultural standpoint; but does it make sense from a Jesus standpoint? We don’t really know, but I think it’s far more likely that these people brought their friend to Jesus to be healed, not forgiven. So why does Jesus say this?

If it were me, I would have rather not come to him at all. But it’s important to note that Matthew doesn’t tell us how this paralytic or his advocates respond. He tells us how the Scribes respond.

Isn’t it possible that Jesus says this not for the paralytic’s ears but for the Scribes? He’s trolling the Scribes. He’s laying out some bait and then gently pulling it along hoping they’ll bite. And they do: “This man is blaspheming”, the Scribes say. At this point, Jesus yanks up on the reel, waits for them to pull, and he’s got ’em: “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘stand up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…”

He then looks to the paralytic and says, “Stand up, take your bed and go to your home”. And the man is healed. All of this is done as a way of putting the Scribes in their place. He not only wants to heal this man, but he also wants to say something to the Scribes through it.

Pay attention to this word “authority”. It’s not the last time it comes up. One of the key themes that Matthew is trying to communicate is the authority that Jesus has; it is an authority that the Scribes and the Pharisees know he has, and it is for that reason that they are constantly questioning it. If this man, this defender of the weak, the poor, the least of these, has the authority he says he has, and appears to indeed have, then the religious system from which the Scribes and Pharisees draw their authority is in trouble.

Matthew wants to establish that this man, this Jesus, is more than a good man. He is the Messiah. The anointed one. Before he literally asks it, his work and his ministry have already been asking us, “who do you say that he is?”

Here it is. What might be my least favorite story in the whole Bible. It’s written right there in ink in the margin of my Bible: “This is a horrible story”. I just don’t get it. I’ve read commentaries, I’ve wondered, I’ve wrestled, and everything I come up with feels like a stretch. When I was at Luther Seminary, one of the guiding questions often asked in difficult passages is, in good Lutheran fashion, “Where is the promise?” It’s a good question. For me, the best of I can come up with on this one is “Jesus is weird.” Jesus being weird makes me feel better.

There are some who say there is a move of social justice going on here, speculating that the owner of the swine was crooked; as though Jesus is offering affordable housing in the midst of a crooked developer. I don’t see it. We get nothing in the text to indicate that. Furthermore, it’s not as though Jesus set up shop with more affordable swine who are treated more humanely after this disaster. No, his exorcism simply led the pigs to their death. And if this was the destruction of some exploitive business, wouldn’t the town celebrate it? They don’t. The story ends with the town literally begging Jesus to leave.

There is another reading that says this is Matthew displaying Jesus’ power over demons and evil. Well sure, but why do innocent pigs have to die for him to exhibit this power? There certainly could be something about the fact that pigs are considered “unclean” and this is, therefore, Jesus showing his “cleansing” power, but I still hold that it’s an inhumane way to do it.  Furthermore, whether it’s some kind of social justice move or some kind of spiritual power and liberation move, usually when those things happen we see someone who is empowered or liberated by Jesus’ work. No one seems to be winning here.

If I were to go all Thomas Jefferson on my Bible, this would be the first story to go (there are others, to be sure, but that’s for another day). I’ve been wondering about it for eight years and have yet to discover anything wholly redemptive about it. The closest I can get is that I often wonder if Jesus condemns those pigs to their death, sees the way in which the town is ticked off, skips out of town, looks at his disciples, shrugs his shoulders, and says… “Oops.” I do like the idea of Jesus having an “oops”. A kind of “you can’t win ’em all” thing, and then you move on.

So let’s do just that. Move on. Matthew chapter 9 here we come…