The True Prophet of Peace: 28 June, 2020
Matthew 10:40-42
The Mission Discourse concludes with stark warnings and powerful comfort. The emphasis on persecution faced by Jesus’ representatives may reveal what Matthew’s Jewish Christian community experienced in its mission to the gentiles. Jesus declares that conflict and division are unavoidable for those who belong to him. Representing him carries significant cost. Warnings about half-hearted or conditional commitment are severe (such a person is “not worthy” of Jesus). All other attachments and relationships must be subordinate to one’s loyalty to Jesus.
Taking up one’s cross is the ultimate sign of relinquishing any life other than the one Jesus gives.
If the warnings are harsh, the words of promise carry equal power. Belonging to Jesus is finally a matter of finding one’s very life—the only thing of real consequence. To welcome one of Jesus’ representatives is to welcome Jesus himself, in truth to welcome the Creator God into one’s home and life. To receive any person who represents Christ is to receive great reward. The reward may be thought of as eschatological, received in the life to come. Alternately, the phrase may imply that interaction with the prophet or righteous person is a reward in itself.
Matthew’s focus remains on mission. Receiving the prophet, the righteous, or the little ones (all may refer to the same itinerant missionaries) furthers the mission of Jesus, and thus merits reward. Blessing is also for those who do not go out on mission, but support and assist in any way. Jesus’ promise potentially applies to every believer. –– Aaron J. Couch
Jeremiah 28:5-9
Jeremiah anticipates Jesus’ declaration that he has not come to bring peace. It also pictures a profound crisis within the religion of Israel. How is one to recognize a true prophet (and the true word of the LORD)? In one of the great stories of prophetic literature, God instructs Jeremiah to wear a wooden yoke as a sign that God has given dominion to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
However, Jeremiah’s message was unwelcome amid Judah’s nationalistic fervor. Hananiah, perhaps an official court prophet, declares that God will break the power of Babylon and restore the fortunes of Judah. Jeremiah wishes that such a hopeful message were from God, but recalls how true prophets never announced peace. The story continues with Hananiah breaking Jeremiah’s wooden yoke as a sign of the future he believes will come. Later, God instructs Jeremiah to declare that God will place an iron yoke on Judah’s neck and that Hananiah will be dead within a year. –– Aaron J. Couch
Romans 6:12-23
Instead of describing the “objective status” of the believer’s life, Paul now calls upon his readers to embrace this new life and commit themselves wholeheartedly to the new future that God is giving. Whereas his readers were once dominated by powers that distort human existence (sin and death), they are now set free to belong entirely to the power of God for life. Living in this freedom requires their active participation, yet such a life depends entirely on God as its source. –– Aaron J. Couch
Aaron Couch is a co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon.
Homily Service 38, no. 7 (2005): 27-37.