Don't Take It Personally

A sermon by Dr. Jim Somerville
Pastor, Richmond’s First Baptist Church
Richmond, Virginia
The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, June 29, 2008

Matthew 10:40-42         

             About five minutes into my meeting on Monday afternoon I was sure I had made a mistake.  I was in my study with Phil Mitchell, our minister of music, and David Powers, our media minister, and we were planning the Sunday morning worship service, this service, the one we’re in right now.  We were looking at the lectionary readings for today and wondering what to do with them.  Here was this little snippet from the Gospel of Matthew—just three verses long—about welcoming disciples.  How was I supposed to get a whole sermon out of that?  But the Old Testament lesson was worse: it was that terrifying passage from Genesis 22, the one where Abraham takes his son Isaac up on the mountain to offer him as a sacrifice.  Phil hadn’t even included it in the rough draft of the service and I couldn’t blame him; I didn’t want to deal with it either.  But the Epistle reading wasn’t much better.  Here was Paul talking about sin and death and death and sin until I thought I was going to suffocate.  And then there was the psalm: “How long, O Lord?  How long must I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long?”  I was sure I had made a mistake, and the mistake I had made was in suggesting that we plan our weekly worship services around the readings from the Revised Common Lectionary. 

            As I’ve told you before, this is a plan that is used by nearly a billion Christians worldwide.  It’s a way of reading through most of the Bible in public worship over a three-year period.  I stood in this pulpit a month ago and told you that it seems like a good way to get a healthy dose of Scripture into the Sunday service and that for Baptists especially, who sometimes refer to themselves as “people of the Book,” it seems like an excellent way to take the Bible seriously.  But there we were on Monday afternoon looking at the four passages selected for this Sunday and thinking that if we had to plan a worship service around those it wasn’t going to be much of a service, or at least not a very uplifting one.  We all stared at the floor for a while and then I looked up. “Doesn’t our mission statement say something about making disciples through ‘joyful worship’?”  Yes, they said, nodding and sighing.  Joyful worship.  And here’s what we were supposed to make it out of: three lightweight verses from Matthew; Abraham sacrificing his only son; Paul going on and on about sin and death; the psalmist wallowing in sorrow and self-pity.  “Joyful worship” my eye!  We would be lucky to get through the meeting without bursting into tears.

            But then David said, “You know, it looks like all these passages are about redemption.”  David Powers!  The guy who is up there in the control room somewhere making sure the television cameras are on!  He said these are passages about redemption—about bringing people back from the brink of death or saving them from sin—and we all took a closer look.  The very word brought to mind the stained glass window I used to see when I stood in the pulpit at First Baptist, Washington.  It was in the rear of the church, just above the balcony, a two-story masterpiece of color and light we called the “Redemption Window.”  Down at the bottom was this story from Genesis 22.  On the left side was Abraham, heading up the mountain carrying a clay pot full of hot coals in one hand and a long, sharp knife in the other.  And on the right was Isaac, heading up that same mountain with a big bundle of wood on his shoulder.  In the middle of that panel, right above the altar, was the angel of God with its hands covering its eyes, as if it couldn’t bear to watch what was about to happen.  But it didn’t happen, and I think that’s what David was talking about.

This story begins with God telling Abraham to take Isaac, his only son, whom he loves, and offer him as a sacrifice.  From that moment on the story moves toward that terrible conclusion.  We don’t know how Abraham felt, but we know what he did.  The Bible says he “rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him” (vs. 3).  They walk for three days, and finally Abraham sees the mountain in the distance.  He tells his young men to stay there with the donkey and he and Isaac walk on alone.  It’s while they are walking that Isaac asks that awful question: “Father, the fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” (vs. 7).   Don’t you think the tears must have welled up in Abraham’s eyes?  And don’t you think he had to swallow the lump in his throat before he could say,   “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son”   (vs. 8).

By this point in the story we want to cover our eyes like the angel in the window because we know who Abraham is talking about.  He’s talking about Isaac!  His son, his only son whom he loves, the one God provided as the fulfillment of that long-ago promise.  If Abraham won’t ask the question we will:  Why, God?  Why would you ask him to do such a thing?  And how, God?  How could you?  But Abraham doesn’t say a word.  He just climbs the mountain and builds an altar, arranges the wood carefully, and then binds Isaac’s hands and feet and heaves him up on top.  And then, as the Bible says without emotion, Abraham “reached out his hand, and took his knife to kill his son” (vs. 10).  That’s when the angel covered its eyes, and that’s when we cover our own, but that’s also when a voice interrupts from heaven to say, “Don’t do it!”  On the far right side of that stained glass window in Washington there is a ram caught by its horns in a thicket, the same ram the Bible says Abraham offered as a sacrifice “instead of” his son.  And under the window, just so you won’t miss the symbolism, are these words:  “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

“Redemption,” David Powers said.  The story spirals down into the darkness until you have to cover your eyes but then, just before the end, God intervenes, Isaac is spared, and father and son walk down the mountain together praising the name of the God who provides.  It’s a lot like the passage from Romans that serves as our Epistle reading for today.  Paul talks about sin exercising dominion in our mortal bodies, making us obey their passions.  He talks about how we have presented our members to sin as instruments of wickedness.  He talks about how sin has held dominion over us and how we have been its slaves.  And those of us who have had some experience with sin begin to nod our heads.  “Yes,” we say.  “That’s exactly how it is.  It’s like sin is our master and we are its slaves.  We seem to do whatever sin wants us to do no matter how wrong we know it to be.  We are caught in this dark, downward spiral and there seems to be no way up, no way out.”  “Well, here’s the good news,” Paul says.  “Jesus is the ram in the thicket.  Because of him there is a way out.  You don’t have to be slaves to sin anymore.  Now you can choose to be the servants of a loving God, slaves of all that is right and good.”  Redemption is the song Paul is singing and he closes with that wonderful verse, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It occurred to me as we were talking on Monday that one of the things that makes worship joyful is having some experience of sorrow.  Think about the way Abraham came down that mountain as compared with the way he went up it.  Was his worship joyful on the way down?  You bet it was.  Was it more joyful because of his experience on the way up?  Absolutely.  And what about Paul?  Is he saying that those who have been the slaves of sin will be more joyful when they are set free than those who have not?  I think he is.  And I think that if you’ve had any experience with that kind of liberation you will agree.  So the Psalmist who talks about having carried this “ton of trouble” and this “stomach full of pain” can now talk about singing at the top of his lungs he is “so full of answered prayers.”  We take our darkness and despair to God, our death and grief, our sin and slavery, and when God hears our prayers and answers we erupt in spontaneous praise.  That’s been the experience of many of you in this room: joyful worship, yes, but the kind of joy that comes only after redemption, joy with tears on its cheeks.

Which brings me to our Gospel lesson for today.

These three little verses I mentioned earlier come at the end of a long chapter in which Jesus is giving his disciples instructions before sending them out on mission.  You may remember from my last two sermons that he gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and sickness.  He told them not to go to some far off place, but to the lost, confused people right there in the neighborhood.  He told them to proclaim the good news that the Kingdom of heaven had come near, and as they went to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, and cast out demons.  But he also told them that it wouldn’t be easy, that they would be despised and persecuted because they came in his name.  “If they’ll do it to the teacher,” he said, “they’ll do it to the student, too.  So don’t be halfhearted about this.  Do it with your whole heart.  Love me more than your own family.  Love me enough to take up your cross, so that not even death will keep you from fulfilling your mission.” 

All that talk about death and rejection reminds me of our other passages for today, and if you read Matthew 10 from the beginning it seems to head down that same dark path.  But at the end of those other passages there was a sudden upturn: death gave way to life in Genesis, sin gave way to salvation in Romans, sorrow gave way to joy in the Psalm.  In this passage, too, there is a sudden upturn.  Jesus has been telling his disciples to expect nothing more than rejection but now he says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,” as if it might actually happen, as if those disciples who go out to spread the good news of a coming kingdom might actually be welcomed by some.  It happened to me not long ago.  I walked over to “my” block here in the Fan, the one I’ve been trying to get to know and love.  I walked around the corner and saw a woman reclining on a wicker sofa on her front porch, reading a novel.  I started to walk by but then I stopped and said “Hey!” in a friendly way and scared her half to death.  She sat bolt upright, dropped her book, fumbled with her glasses.  When she recovered we began to talk and eventually she invited me to come up and sit on the porch for a while.  We talked for half an hour and by the time I stood up to leave we were old friends.

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,” Jesus says, and I thought about this woman.  I was walking around her block only because I thought it was the kind of thing he would want me to do, and I said hello to her because I thought he probably would, if he were walking by.  So although it was just me and not Jesus, when she invited me up on her porch it was as if she were inviting Jesus to come up and sit for a while.  She didn’t have to do it.  She could have told me to go away.  In fact, I was fully prepared for that.  In Luke chapter 10 Jesus tells his disciples, “Whoever rejects you rejects me.”  In other words, “Don’t take it personally.”  So I was ready.  If she had told me to go away I would have moved on down the sidewalk muttering, “Fine, then!  Be that way!  But it’s not me you’re rejecting: it’s Jesus.”  Instead she welcomed me, and I had to resist the temptation to take it personally.  It would be easy to think she invited me up on the porch just because I’m so friendly and affable.

“Nope,” Jesus says.  “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”  If Jesus is right (and I have a feeling that he is), it wasn’t me this woman welcomed on her porch.  It wasn’t even Jesus.  It was God himself she welcomed.  And if I’m right about this (let’s hope that I am), she welcomed him because God knows how difficult every human life is, and how much sin and death and sorrow each one of us has to face.  That’s why the Bible deals with those difficult problems and shows us the solution.  That’s why God sent his only son into a world desperate for salvation.  And that’s why his only son sends us to startle people on their front porches and strike up conversations.  Because he loves those people, and he wants them to know it.  So, if this woman should show up in church someday because I stopped by her house, and if she should hear the Bible speak to the very situation in which she finds herself, and if she should end up worshiping God with tears of joy streaming down her cheeks, I won’t be able to take it personally.  Because it won’t be me she’s welcoming into her life:

It will be Him.

—Jim Somerville, © 2008