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The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – June 19, 2005 Matthew 10:24-39
Would you think it odd if I asked you who your master is? The words alone would seem strange and archaic, not fitting with our time and situation. Yet, this is precisely the question Jesus would have us look at today: Who is it that totally directs your life?
Martin Luther recognized the question of who we see as our master, our lord, as very important. So, when writing on the freedom of a Christian, Luther said this: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”
This quote from Luther seems to be a paradox. At the same moment, says Luther, we are both perfectly free of all obligation and perfectly a dutiful servant of all, obligated to all. What Luther tells us is that our only master is Jesus Christ, and because he is our master, we serve others; we are dutiful servants of our neighbor because as we serve that neighbor we serve Christ. When our Lord Jesus tells us to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves, we make that love concrete by serving others.
Think of it this way: You are a farmer who raises tomatoes for sale. Your crop is bountiful. You have labored hard to grow it, now it is time to sell this delicious produce. But, you sit at home, saying, “I am master of my own life, and I don’t feel like going to the market today.” The result is that no one has the opportunity to buy your tomatoes. You have to actually go and sell in order for others to enjoy the fruit of your labor.
So it is with our Christian life: we have no master other than Jesus, but that is only true as we serve others, as we reach out to our neighbor in love.
The key becomes the question, is Jesus really our Master, our Lord?
It is a first commandment issue. Do we commit the sin of putting another ahead of God? Is there another master in our life other than God in Jesus Christ? I would submit to you that we often put ourselves in the ‘master’ position and put Jesus off to the side.
We aren’t the first folks to break the first commandment. Thus, Jesus spends a lot of time in our gospel lesson this morning instructing the disciples on avoiding the temptation to let the world set our agenda. Rather, he says, first and foremost to trust God and God alone. You can see how it is a first commandment issue as that commandment says, “You shall have no other gods.”
So it is that the cross becomes the focus of our faith because through it God forgives us all our sin, even the tempting tendency to make God second or third or worse in our lives. It is in the cross of Jesus that forgiveness and mercy remake us new people, able to trust God for all that we need. And it is there we become transformed people who know to love the Master of the cross, we serve others.
Thus with Luther we can say we are perfectly free in Jesus Christ, subject to none. And we are perfectly dutiful servants of all, subject to all because in the cross Jesus Christ calls us to love him by serving others.
In the gospel lesson Jesus gives important words to follow when serving him as Master. He tells us three times not to be afraid. In verse 26 he says, “So, have no fear of them…” Then in 28, “Do not fear those who kill the body…” And finally in 31 he says, “So, be not afraid…”
Sometimes it appears that there are other things that keep us from serving, from following our Master, Jesus, by loving our neighbor. Perhaps it is our busy schedules. We are busy people. Someone even mentioned to me this week that they were never so busy until they retired, and then made an argument for continuing to work and never retiring. Yet, I wonder if our busyness is only a way of dealing with the fear that if we are not in continual commotion Jesus will place before us someone to serve? Is our busyness a result of our fear?
Or do we avoid serving because we are afraid of contact with people. When I was serving dinner one evening to the residents at the homeless shelter in Charlottesville a fellow serving with me said, “You know, pastor, we are only two paychecks away from joining these folks.” I wonder if we fear the homeless and the poor because we are afraid, afraid that we may end up like them? We are afraid we will somehow catch the disease they have called poverty.
Jesus tells us there are three specific fears we need not concern ourselves about: first, there need not be secrets. All will be revealed. Don’t worry. Second, realize some may threaten you, even to take your life, but be not afraid of them. Fear God who can destroy both body and soul. Then, finally, Jesus says, in serving you need not be afraid of damaging your self esteem, being a servant is priceless to God. You who serve are of great and precious value to God.
So, not being afraid, we are set free in the cross to serve others, to be dutiful servants of all. What a graceful gift of God to us. You see the true essence of faith is fruitfulness. The true essence of our freedom in Christ is to become servants of all. Faith is fruitful. Being a servant is a fruitful calling.
And what does a servant of Jesus do? They say to others, “come and see,” because they know the greatest gift a servant can give is a life in Jesus Christ. “Come and see.” Amen.
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