Written by: Brother Desmond Alban
Matthew 10 v 32-36
" All those who stand before others and say they believe in me, I will say
before my Father in heaven that they belong to me. But all who stand before others
and say they do not believe in me, I will say before my Father in heaven that
they do not belong to me.
" Don't think that I came to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to
bring peace, but a sword. I have come so that
'a son will be against his father, a daughter will be against her mother, a daughter-in-law
will be against her mother-in-law.
A person's enemies will be members of his own family."
Notes
Do you remember the story of the awful school shootings in Columbine High School
in America? One of the victims of those two terribly disturbed teenage boys
was a schoolmate known for her strong Christian faith. "Do you believe
in God?" they asked as they pointed a gun at her. "Yes," she
answered firmly ... and then she died.
The word "martyr" means "witness" and it has been said that around the world more people died as witnesses to Jesus over the last hundred years than in all the years before. Many of these died not only because they believed in Jesus, but because they made that faith the basis for every part of their lives. The Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany and Archbishop Oscar Romero years later in El Salvador were two such people, killed for speaking out against governments doing terrible things, whilst other Christians kept themselves safe by keeping quiet.
It’s true of course that most of us will probably never risk death for our faith - but some people have lost their jobs or their friends because of the stand they’ve taken for what is right. We can deny Jesus by what we don’t do or say, and sometimes it’s tough just to admit that we take being a Christian seriously. Jesus is called the Prince of Peace, who told us to love our enemies, but he is also a realist, and he knows that often it will be the people closest to us, even our families, who will give us the most grief for what we believe in. But if we stay loyal to Jesus he promises to back us in return, all the way to the throne of God the Father in heaven!
Prayer
God, our Father,
by your grace and power many holy people
have witnessed to you in the face of suffering, even to the point of death.
Strengthen me to be like them,
faithful in the face of any opposition
to the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Matthew 10 v 37-39
" Those who love their father or mother more than they love me are not worthy
to be my followers. Those who love their son or daughter more than they love
me are not worthy to be my followers. Whoever is not willing to carry the cross
and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who try to hold on to their lives will
give up true life. Those who give up their lives for me will hold on to true
life.”
Notes
What are you passionate about? I was once around when that question was put
to a large gathering of students in a tongue-in-cheek survey, and the answers
ranged from Manchester United or Brad Pitt through to chocolate chip ice
cream! Some said they were passionate about the environment – or God.
In our reading today, Jesus challenges us to ask ourselves if there is anything or anyone at all in our lives more important to us than he is. It’s a hard challenge – and a warning – but there is also that promise at the end of “true life”. Sometimes people accuse Christianity of being all about “pie in the sky when you die”, but I believe Jesus is actually talking about something wonderful here and now.
Many people put themselves first in life and use all their energy trying to grab all they can of money, power, success, fulfilling relationships ... and it can happen that they actually manage to get all those things and yet find that they’re no more happy than they were to begin with. Look at the lives of the celebrities we’re so obsessed with.
Often Jesus’ words can seem like nonsense compared with the advertisers’ messages we see every day on TV or the internet. But many, many people have found his words to be true, here and now, in this world. If you give up “holding on” to your own life and live instead each day for others and for God, you may find for the first time that you really begin to live!
Prayer
Lord, help me to get my priorities right. Help me to see the things that get
in the way of making you number one in my life. And so lead me to discover
the kind of life that is true life. Amen
Matthew 10 v 40-42
“Whoever accepts you also accepts me, and whoever accepts me also accepts
the One who sent me. Whoever meets a prophet and accepts him will receive
the
reward of a prophet. And whoever accepts a good person because that person
is good will receive the reward of a good person. Those who give one of these
little ones a cup of cold water because they are my followers will truly
get their reward."
Notes
Earlier in this chapter, Matthew gave us the names of Jesus’ twelve closest
disciples and described how he sent them out on a mission to share his good
news. Before they went, he gave them a training course, and our verses today
come at the very end of his instructions. They are simple words of encouragement,
both for those twelve and for all the people who will accept their message,
but they also contain a vital truth about who Jesus is.
He tells the disciples that if anyone accepts them, his messengers, then that counts just as if they’d met Jesus himself and accepted him. But he also says that when we accept him it actually means we’re accepting God himself, “the One who sent [him]”. Elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel (25 v 31-46) Jesus tells us that any help we give (or refuse to give…) to the poor, the hungry, the ill or people in prison counts as help given to Jesus himself.
Here in today’s reading there’s a similar message, but applied to the work of God’s messengers in the world. We can’t all be one of Jesus’ twelve disciples. Most of us won’t become famous church leaders or teachers, or even “just” a local minister or youth worker. But when we accept the message from Jesus’ messengers, and support them in practical ways, like making the tea, or passing on a leaflet about a church event or word-on-the-web, that counts just the same as welcoming and supporting Jesus himself.
Jesus calls me and you to give 100% in the particular tasks which are ours to do. But when it comes to handing out rewards, God counts the unseen, “little” contributions as just as important as the ones that make the headlines or the history books.
Prayer point
Pray today for all the people that God has called to serve him “full time”
in Christian ministry, especially any you know. But pray too that you may
discover and carry out whatever tasks are yours to do, and give thanks that
your contribution matters to God.
Matthew 11 v 1-6
After Jesus finished telling these things to his twelve followers, he left
there and went to the towns in Galilee to teach and preach.
John the Baptist was in prison, but he heard about what Christ was doing.
So John sent some of his followers to Jesus. They asked him, "Are you
the One who is to come, or should we wait for someone else?"
Jesus answered them, "Go tell John what you hear and see: the blind can
see, the crippled can walk and people with skin diseases are healed. The deaf
can hear, the dead are raised to life and the Good News is preached to the
poor. Those who do not stumble in their faith because of me are blessed."
Notes
Spare a thought for John the Baptist! He was completely obedient to his call
from God and he ended up in prison – and eventually being put to death –
because of the fearless way he proclaimed what he knew of God’s message,
in the period directly before Jesus’ own work began. But the part of the
message that John knew could hardly be called “good news”. (Good news is
what the word “gospel” means in the Bible.)
John used pretty blunt language to his listeners, comparing them with snakes, and his message was all about the awful judgement he believed the Christ, God’s special “One who [was] to come”, was about to bring. It was a message full of terrible images like axe blows and raging fire. Maybe after such a build-up he was disappointed with what he actually heard in prison about Jesus. Perhaps he began to doubt whether Jesus really was “the One” after all. Well, that may be unfair to John – there are other ways of looking at this passage. But the passage isn’t really here to tell us about John, but about Jesus.
When Jesus told John’s disciples to report what they could see and hear, he pointed out things that fitted with the words of prophets in the past who foretold the things that God’s Chosen One would do. Above all, though, the things Jesus did really do added up to good news – for the most ignored and rejected people of his day. Jesus came to offer life to everyone, especially to those that the comfortable, successful people tend to ignore. That doesn’t fit very well with everyone’s ideas. But how very happy, “blessed”, are you, says Jesus, if you can accept what I’m doing without it tripping you up.
Prayer point
Pray today for the people you know who are unpopular or difficult to like.
Pray too that God will help you, through the way you live more than your
words, to be a bringer of his good news to all who you meet today.
Matthew 11 v 7-15
As John's followers were leaving, Jesus began talking to the people about John.
Jesus said, "What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed blown
by the wind? What did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No,
those who wear fine clothes live in kings' palaces. So why did you go out?
To see a prophet? Yes, and I tell you, John is more than a prophet. This
was written about him:
'I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare the way for you.'
I tell you the truth, John the Baptist is greater than any other person ever
born, but even the least important person in the kingdom of heaven is greater
than John. Since the time John the Baptist came until now, the kingdom of heaven
has been going forwards in strength, and people have been trying to take it
by force. All the prophets and the law of Moses told about what would happen
until the time John came. And if you will believe what they said, you will
believe that John is Elijah, whom they said would come. You people who can
hear me, listen!”
Notes
When we hear the word “prophet” we perhaps think of someone with some kind
of weird power to predict the future, but it isn’t really what the word means
in the Bible. First and foremost, a prophet is someone called by God as his
messenger to the people. And Jesus says that John – who had lived in the
desert and preached to the people there – was the greatest prophet there
had ever been. But even a great prophet like that didn’t necessarily have
the full picture.
John was the last of all the prophets sent by God before Jesus came, but when Jesus arrived with his message about “the kingdom of heaven” he was bringing something really new. When Jesus died on the cross – and then overcame death, rising to new life – he showed us in a new way just how incredible is God’s love for us, a love that knows no limits at all. John didn’t live long enough in this world to see the cross and so his glimpse of what God’s new kingdom would be like was limited. He reminds me of the faithful old lay-preacher in my home church who was chosen to lay the foundation stone of a wonderful new parish centre but who never lived to see the building completed.
Every one of us who has seen and accepted the love of God offered to us through the cross of Christ has seen something quite beyond what John could imagine. To accept that love is to become a citizen of the new kingdom of heaven. And that, though it’s nothing that we’ve earned, gives even the least of us who respond to him a dignity even greater than that of the greatest of God’s prophets of the past!
Prayer
Almighty God,
whose servants John the Baptist and all the prophets
prepared the way for the coming of your Son,
give me a boldness and a faithfulness like theirs
as I rejoice in the fullness of your love shown to me
in him, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Matthew 11 v 16-19
" What can I say about the people of this time? What are they like? They
are like children sitting in the market place, who call out to each other,
'We played music for you, but you did not dance; we sang a sad song, but you
did not cry.'
John came and did not eat or drink like other people. So people say, 'He has
a demon.' The Son of Man came, eating and drinking, and people say, 'Look at
him! He eats too much and drinks too much wine, and he is a friend of tax collectors
and sinners.' But wisdom is proved to be right by what it does.”
Notes
I work with young children in a primary school and an after school club, and
I know just how good they can be at complaining and whinging about each other.
But adults too are good at finding fault when they want to. Our political
system in the UK is pretty much based on the principle of one lot of politicians
telling the other lot of politicians why they’re wrong about everything!
If we want to “write people off” it’s usually fairly easy to find an excuse for doing so, and that’s exactly how some people reacted to both John and Jesus. They dismissed John as a religious extremist who must have been “unhinged” at the least, but then dismissed Jesus for doing the very things that they criticised John for not doing! What John and Jesus had in common, though, was that they both spoke the truth, shining an uncomfortable spotlight on the reality of people’s lives. We don’t like it when people do that to us, even though it’s for our own good. There’s a bit inside most of us that will do anything it can to keep us comfortably numb, closed to any challenges from those who might speak God’s uncomfortable truths to us.
Of course, not everything that people say to us is true. It’s important to “weigh up” the messages that people sometimes try to impose. But it’s still worth asking, what are the weapons of self-defence that I use to prevent God’s truth getting through to me? Will I be wise enough to risk laying aside those weapons and opening myself to him?
Prayer
Spirit of God,
make me open to others in listening
and generous to others in my thinking about them
that I may be sensitive to the challenge of the message of your Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Matthew 11 v 20-24
Then Jesus criticised the cities where he did most of his miracles, because
the people did not change their lives and stop sinning. He said, "How
terrible for you, Korazin! How terrible for you, Bethsaida! If the same miracles
I did in you had happened in Tyre and Sidon, those people would have changed
their lives a long time ago. They would have worn rough cloth and put ashes
on themselves to show they had changed. But I tell you, on the Judgement
Day it will be better for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum,
will you be lifted up to heaven? No, you will be thrown down to the depths.
If the miracles I did in you had happened in Sodom, its people would have
stopped sinning, and it would still be a city today. But I tell you, on the
Judgement Day it will be better for Sodom than for you.”
Notes
It’s so easy to be smug and to look down on other people who we think don’t
come up to our standards – and often religious people can be the worst at
that. The people of Jesus’ day were very religious and they also thought
they were very upright. They knew the stories from their Bible (our “Old
Testament”) about God’s terrible judgement on places like Sodom, and perhaps
they enjoyed “tut-tutting” as they thought about the sins committed there
and congratulated themselves for being so much better – a bit like people
reading about scandal and wrongdoing in the newspapers today.
We tend to think the things we do wrong, our sins, are small compared to other people’s. But Jesus’ challenge is to think about the opportunities we’ve had, which might be so much better than those of other people. The much-admired Saint Francis of Assisi, just like Saint Paul in the New Testament, called himself “the biggest sinner in the world”. “That’s nonsense,” said his friend Pacifico. “What about all the thieves and murderers in the world?” But Francis insisted: “Listen. There is no man or woman in the world who would not be more pleasing to God than I am, had God given them all the wonderful gifts he’s given me. That’s why I consider myself the worst of sinners.”
The Bible is meant to be used as a mirror and not as a spy or security camera. The Christian attitude is not to spy on other people and pick on all their faults, but rather to let God show us up close what we’re really like, and to allow him to change us for the better.
Prayer point
Spend a few minutes thanking God for everyone and everything that has helped
you to believe and to make right choices in life. During the day ahead, look
out for the times when you feel like criticising someone else – and turn
your thoughts into silent prayers for those people.
word-on-the-web uses the Scripture text taken from the Youth Bible, New Century Version (Anglicised Edition) copyright 1993 by Word Publishing Milton Keynes