Hard talk from Jesus!

Matthew 10:34-11:1

Jesus instructed the Twelve as follows: 

“Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy. I’ve come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over me, you don’t deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don’t deserve me.

“If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.

“We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me. Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God’s messenger. Accepting someone’s help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing.”

When Jesus finished placing this charge before his twelve disciples, he went on to teach and preach in their villages.

Food for thought!

These words are by all ways a shock. Jesus sometimes shocks and shakes us. In order to drive home an important point, Jesus sometimes uses hard talk. And this is hard talk by all standards.  Jesus is teaching us a lesson. What is the lesson?

First of all,  Jesus talks of FIRE.  In the Bible  fire is almost always the symbol of judgment, of purification. So when  Jesus says, I have come to start a fire on this earth, he means, I have come to judge all. When we stand before Jesus, we stand in judgement. When Jesus came into this world, time was divided into BEFORE CHRIST (B.C.) and AFTER CHRIST (A.D). Our years are counted as before or after Christ came. 

Before Christ comes to our life and living, before he comes to our family, we are living in BC, and after he has come, we live in AD. His coming inevitably means division, not only of time and history, but also sometimes of families and individuals. Over and over again we have to decide whether we love better our ways or Christ's ways; our traditions or Christ's teaching; our thoughts or Christ's thinking.

Following Christ's (hard) way is a choice we have to make. This choice many times implies that things will get worse before they get better.  Following Christ is not easy.  And he knows it: ''If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.''

Mothers do understand better what Jesus is teaching us today. They know that in order to give birth to new life, they have to risk loosing their life. Every child birth is a risk of life and death. If our mothers had not risked their life, if they had not embraced the possibility of death, we would not be born, we would not live.

If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for Jesus' sake, you will save it.