Is it others, or is it us?

“Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

By this and Jesus' subsequent statements, he says he is God. Who else could say this than God himself? Who else would have the temerity to place themselves above our loved ones? That is the crux of what makes us Christians and what sends the non-Christian back into the arms of the world.

The problem for the Christian is also the harsh language of Jesus. We too often struggle with Jesus’ divinity. 

Our struggle is similar to the non-Christian. We rankle at Christian confidence, especially when we have been confronted with attempted rescue by someone in our family. That is when we best recognize true Christian foundation -- in the face of our loved ones. We see that they grasp love’s source. We see them loving Jesus more than us; putting Jesus first. It hurts on a level not felt in any other way. 

Pained words; yet logical and blunt


http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071618.cfm
Isaiah 1:10-17
Matthew 10:34-11-1


The difficulty with Jesus’ harsh words in Matthew 10:34, for non-Christians, are not so much that Jesus did not come to bring peace, or that the consequence of his teaching and preaching would mean that some of us will be hated by our family. The difficulty is that Jesus puts himself in the position of being our beloved before all others. 

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.
I have come to bring not peace but the sword.
For I have come to set
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother …
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me …”

Christians, after a few minutes of contemplation and mental gymnastics, recognize Jesus’ point as logical. He is talking about himself as God, and his statement does make sense. Even to most Christians, though, Jesus appears too blunt, unkind even; and most certainly he portrays a stark lack of politically measured charism.

Christians, though, disgruntled and with a burnt toast taste on their tongue, will eventually grasp the sense of Jesus’ words. Jesus didn’t come two millennia ago to “bring” peace. He came to bring love. Love involves sacrifice. There is little that is peaceful about sacrifice. Peace will come, but love must first prevail. Love begins with God, because God is the source of all love.

Blunt, uncomfortable, and startling are the results of necessary priorities when faced with time-sensitive choices. When we are forcibly grabbed from behind on a sidewalk, physically yanked backwards, our first reaction is aplomb and fear. Those are followed by an immediate defense as we assess who and how many have interfered in our space on that sidewalk. What could be going on to grab me from behind so rudely? Then, when a train or bus or motorcycle flies by in a windy woosh where we used to be standing we quickly grasp the point. Someone sacrificed themselves to save our lives. It took their strength and speed and forfeiture of safety to pull us out of the path of destruction.

God knows full well the meaning of sacrifice, as we heard in Isaiah — burnt offerings, most radically with slaughtered animals, are the acts of giving up something of value for the sake of someone or something else. In scripture, the point is to account for failings in recompense and repentance to God. Isaiah appears to say that God doesn’t like the very sacrifices that he instituted. Not so. The set up of Jesus’ sacrifice on a tree were pre-imaged all over the books of Moses and the prophets. God disliked, indeed decried, the increasing fakery and empty ritual of the Jews in Isaiah’s time. False repentance ruled the day. Sacrifice for show, God tells Isaiah, is insulting. It is prayer and supplication without love. The bloodied hands of the supplicant, which offends God, refers to unrepentant misdeeds brought to the altar. God saw their wickedness. Their hands are bloodied not from heart felt guilt, but from sin-ridden lives with no desire to repent. 

How should they exhibit repentance? “Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.” 

That makes almost perfect sense to a Christian. We still struggle with strangling animals. But we live post-crucifixion lives. Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice, replacing for all time the ritualistic burnt offerings of the Old Testament. Pure repentance has been fulfilled. The exhibition of a repentant person, however, remains the same. We still sin. Even our new sins and those yet to come have been dealt with by Jesus death and resurrection. So, we must be just in our dealings and give a cup of cold water to these little ones to drink. This means to attend to those we’ve wronged, respond to the plea of the orphaned and lost, and defend the holdings, station, and honor of the widow and widower.

All well and good, but it is still the confusion of the non-Christian, or more likely their denial, that Jesus deserves such a position of worship and love before all others. Jesus says he has been sent by God. 

“Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

By this and Jesus' subsequent statements, he says he is God. Who else could say this than God himself? Who else would have the temerity to place themselves above our loved ones? That is the crux of what makes us Christians and what sends the non-Christian back into the arms of the world.

The problem for the Christian is also the harsh language of Jesus. We too often struggle with Jesus’ divinity. 

The question is not Jesus’ poor choice of words. We too question the intent of the savior on the sidewalk. “Did he have to yank me so hard? He bruised by arm! I am emotionally damaged! Who does he think he is?” Meanwhile we live because of the savior.

Our struggle is similar to the non-Christian. We rankle at Christian confidence, especially when we have been confronted with attempted rescue by someone in our family. That is when we best recognize true Christian foundation -- in the face of our loved ones. We see that they grasp love’s source. We see them loving Jesus more than us; putting Jesus first. It hurts on a level not felt in any other way. 

Love for God includes a heart intent on doing good. Peace cannot prevail where evil lives. Peace is the consequence of love without evil. Evil abounds. Love, then, in the face of evil will exhibit anything but peace, because it harshly, bluntly, and coarsely requires sacrifice.

The distinction between Christians and non-Christians bothers some greatly. This distinction, in fact, is at the root of Jesus’ teaching and preaching. His words only make sense if we submit to who he is. Even then his words rankle and hurt. We are more often than not offended by those who save us in the name of the Lord.

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