Richard Davenport

July 2, 2023 – Proper 8

Matthew 10:34-42

            The Gospel reading we have for this morning comes at the end of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples.  This began two weeks ago where the text tells us that the disciples have become apostles, at least for a short time.  They go from following Jesus to being sent out by Jesus.  They will go to some of the neighboring towns and spread the Gospel message, telling those they meet that they messiah has come.

            Jesus instructs them on where they should go and how they should act.  He tells them what they will need and what they won’t need.  He tells them about some of the kinds of things they may encounter along the way.  We aren’t told here exactly how long they were off on their assignment.  Drawing on the other Gospels, it sounds like a couple of months or so.  Jesus gives them their instructions and off they go, spreading the good news.

            Listening to the instructions, I’m strongly reminded of the preparation we’re given during our second year at seminary as we get ready to go off on vicarage.  The professors during your second year know this is coming up for you and they know it will be a big change, an exciting change, for better or for worse.  Many are eager to go and dive head first into the work of ministry and vicarage is a way of at least getting their toes in the water.  Others approach it with more trepidation.  Seminary life is at least a known quantity.  As a vicar, you not only have greater responsibilities, but you are living in a strange place, among strange people, and it feels a lot more like being on your own.

            The professors during your classes will often drop little nuggets helping give you some idea of how the stuff your learning will apply to ministry and you start thinking about all of those things as vicarage grows closer.  There are also a number of seminars you have to attend, all talking about different aspects of vicarage life.  You learn how you’re a vicar, which means you aren’t a pastor, but you also aren’t just a layman.  Your words carry some authority, which is good and proper, but it can also be dangerous. You may end up saying something you didn’t intend to say that leads to major consequences.  Perhaps you offered counsel to someone when you shouldn’t have, when you didn’t know the full extent of what was going on and it led to some bad decisions.  Perhaps you said something that wasn’t theologically correct and sparked a problematic debate.  Perhaps, sadly, someone wants to get you to say things that undermine the pastor. Whatever the case may be, you have to guard your words to prevent causing unnecessary problems.

            You also have seminars on some of the basics of life. You’re still in training.  Your pastor is there as a mentor and you are to learn from him, but you also have responsibilities.  This is a job and you’ll have work to do.  Many guys get to seminary right out of college and have never had significant jobs.  They’ve been working hard to keep up with their studies through the first two years of seminary, but seminary life is somewhat like college life.  It’s kind of self-paced.  Your classes are set, but you can do your homework more or less whenever you want as long as you meet your deadlines.  That isn’t always the case for church life.  Office hours will be expected and there will be regular duties that need attention.  It also means conducting yourself in a professional manner.  Dressing the part and maintaining good hygiene. Apparently there are enough guys who make it to this point that haven’t learned to regularly shower and brush their teeth that part of a seminar has to be devoted to that.

            Still, for all of that, the expectation every student has when going off to vicarage is never quite the same as reality.  Even seminarians run into the problem that most Christians face, the pastor is up here week after week doing his thing and little thought is given as to the particulars of why he does what he does. Moving here and there, turning this way and that.  Saying these things at this time and in this order.  Even though I explain the how’s and whys of things here and there, you probably don’t spend much time thinking about it.  As long as I’ve got a handle on it, that’s usually good enough for most people, seminarians included.  But, now they’re the ones up there who have to know what they’re doing.  Along with that goes preaching, teaching, and many of the other aspects of pastoral ministry.  You see all of these things happening, but even seminarians have only a vague understanding of how they all come to be.  Now they’ll have to get to work.  They’ll fumble a lot at first.  They’ll make mistakes, but they’ll get better.

            That’s all the basic stuff though.  Seminarians may not have a good handle on what goes into all of this, but they at least know this all part of ministry.  It’s all of the other stuff that inevitably comes up that really tests your mettle as a vicar and gives you a taste of the kinds of things that you can confront in ministry. 

            Generally speaking, my vicarage went pretty well. I got along really well with my vicarage pastor and the people in the congregation were very kind and supportive. I was off in farm country and there wasn’t a whole lot to do.  If I had been called there as a pastor, especially as a single guy, it might have been a bigger problem.  Still, for just a year I didn’t have much to complain about.

            Others weren’t so lucky.  One of the other vicars in my class had his pastor die a month into his vicarage.  He was just starting to get a sense of what vicarage life was like and now he finds himself running the whole show.  Obviously, the congregation cut him a lot of slack and was just glad to have him there at all.  He also got some support from his local circuit, but still, the sense of being in over you head I’m sure was overwhelming.  I don’t think a seminary graduate is fully prepared to take on the work of ministry, much less a vicar.  Whatever he might have expected from his vicarage experience, I’m sure that wasn’t it. I’m sure he learned a lot, but what he learned came at the expense of having a full time mentor. 

            Another vicar found out his pastor had decided to become Eastern Orthodox and was actively trying to bring the congregation with him.  As a vicar, he was pretty much powerless to do anything about it one way or the other, but that didn’t stop people from directing death threats to he and his family. 

            Was any of this what either of them expected?  No, I’m sure not.  Should they have been surprised?  No.  No, the fact that these kinds of things can and do happen should be no surprise at all. This is Christian life in a sinful world, where strife and discord can and do strike even in places that should be about peace and joy.  Churches splinter from within or tragedy strikes and now everything is strange and different.  Friends and even families find themselves at odds.  Love and support should have been the order of the day, but instead anger and hostility abound.  It hurts all the more when the places where we should be the most loved end up full of hatred and disgust.  But, should it surprise us?  No.

            We settle into our comfortable lives and surround ourselves with comfortable things.  We create as much of a buffer as we can between the things that help and support us and the rest of the world that we feel ourselves invulnerable, immune to all of the struggles those around us face because we aren’t those kinds of people and don’t get ourselves into those kinds of problems. 

            Jesus confronts us with the hard truth.  Even if you don’t go seeking those troubles, those troubles will come seeking you.  Jesus didn’t go picking fights, but the Pharisees and priests wanted him dead anyway, and they succeeded in carrying out their plan. 

            Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and yet this world does not know peace.  In fact, it cannot know peace as long as sin exists.  Satan still prowls and Christians are the ones he seeks most earnestly.  We, in our arrogance, think we are above such things, that if those kinds of troubles come our way, that someone is doing something wrong, usually God.  If I’m living a good and righteous life, then these kinds of tragedies shouldn’t be coming my way.  I shouldn’t have to have my own family insulting me.  I shouldn’t be hated by people in my own church.  It shouldn’t be like this.

            No, it shouldn’t.  Sin shouldn’t be here, but it is.  Christ comes to defeat death, but he doesn’t do that by avoiding it and trying to shove it away.  He wades right into the dark heart of sin, where the power of death is strongest, and he fights it from within.  He faces it head on because that’s the only way to get rid of it, to pave the way to a world where sin no longer has any power.

            Whoever thinks they shouldn’t be subject to these kinds of problems is overlooking their own contributions to them.  It also makes light of what Jesus did to save you, choosing to enter this world that his people have turned into a place of misery and death and taking all of that upon himself.

            Jesus comes into this world, Jesus comes to you, to root out the cause of death, to wipe clean the stain of sin, to put an end to all of the afflictions of this world.  But it is not a peaceful process.  Like an infection, the disease continues to fight against the body’s immune system even when the battle is ultimately lost.  There is no avoiding sin.  There is only confronting it and seeking forgiveness for it.  There is no avoiding death.  There is only confronting it and seeking eternal life in the one who has conquered it.

            Peace and strife are found here in equal measure. Both should drive us in the work of Gospel, sharing the peace we do have with others and telling them how these fleeting moments of peace point to the eternal peace to come.  We also share the burdens of those weighed down by the strife of this world, showing how our Lord shares in our suffering and how his triumph tells us it is all temporary, and that peace will come.

            We welcome whatever comes our way as a gift from God, knowing that in all things, Christ is with us and shares with us in the good and the bad and everything in between.  Peace and strife, joy and pain, are all occasions for prayer and for trusting further in God’s promise to lead us out of this world of darkness and into his marvelous light.