Scripture: Matthew 10:26-42 (NRSV)
Context
The Gospel of Matthew receives sustained attention in the “Season after Pentecost,” the longest season in the liturgical year. It begins with Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost, and continues through Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent.
The Gospel of Matthew represents a fusion or synthesis of different elements. It follows the geographical outline in the Gospel of Mark in which Jesus’ ministry moves from Galilee to Jerusalem.
The Gospel of Matthew has birth stories at the beginning and resurrection appearances at the end. It begins with the genealogy of Jesus, traced back to Abraham through David (1:1-17). It ends with the “Great Commission,” delivered on an unspecified mountain in Galilee (28:16-20).
The Gospel of Matthew contains five major “discourses,” each concluded in much the same way. [See 5:1-7,10:5-42, 13:1-52, 18:1-35, 24:3-25:46.] This may be a way of recalling the five books of the Torah, with Jesus understood “as a new Moses offering a new Torah that fulfills, yet supersedes, the old (13.52)”(The HarperCollins Study Bible, p. 1858).
In this passage, Jesus is addressing the disciples, named individually in 10:2. He gives them “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness”(10:1).
Jesus specifies their mission (10:5-15), and he speaks of coming persecutions. He sends them out “like sheep into the midst of wolves,” so they are to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves”(10:16).
Despite the ordeal facing them, the disciples are to “have no fear” of those who so vigorously and violently oppose them”(10:26a). After dealing with the “cost of discipleship,” Jesus then turns to the issue of “the reward for hospitality.”
The reward is not given to the disciples–or to Jesus for that matter. The reward is for those who respond in welcome and hospitality for those coming among them in the name of Jesus.
The reward is not anything monetary or magical. It is being acknowledged by Jesus before God in heaven (10:32-33). It is seeing and hearing what “many prophets and righteous people longed to see . . . but did not see it, and to hear . . . but did not hear it”(13:17). It is shining “like the sun in the kingdom of their Father”(13:43). It may even mean suffering–and dying–for the sake of being faithful(23:29-39).
Reflection Questions
- Do we expect to be exempt from suffering when we follow Jesus?
- What instructions or guidance does Jesus give us today?
- What is the reward that we expect for following Jesus? What’s in it for us? What’s in it for others?
- Is there any cost to the discipleship that we are called to practice?
Prayer
Lord, help us to follow the path that you set before us. Encourage us, guide us, bless us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
July 10, 2011 at 12:26 pm |
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