Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 7 (June 21, 2026)
Transcript
This transcript was generated by YouTube AI and further edited for readability.
Today's Gospel reading is an excellent illustration for why Father's Day and Mother's Day are not in the Episcopal liturgical calendar.
We have a lot to reckon with today.
Jesus says:
"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
Sometime in the past year, there was quite a theological kerfuffle. A high-ranking member of the administration suggested that Christian teaching says our love ought to move in concentric circles: first our immediate family, then the people in our neighborhood or town, then our nation, and whatever love may be left over can be extended to the broader world.
That does not take into account the way the Gospel is constantly pushing the boundaries of kinship and family. It does not take into account the way Jesus answered the question, "Who is my neighbor?" by telling a story of someone from another nation caring for someone from his own. It does not take into account the Jesus who said, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?... Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."
I think that's how we should read today's Gospel.
Jesus uses hyperbole to push us into thinking about who matters, who belongs to us, and who is our family. The answer he is pushing us toward is that all people, everybody everywhere, have been given to us to care for and to love in his name.
It is a hard teaching.
The administration official was appealing to something that feels quite natural to us. It's easy to think that love is a limited quantity and that loving care must be carefully dispensed. But the teachings of Jesus push us beyond what comes naturally.
There's more than that going on here, too.
This is the third part of Matthew chapter 10, where Jesus sends the disciples out into the world to speak and act in his name. Wherever they go, they are to proclaim the good news, cast out the influence of evil, and bring healing. Throughout this teaching, Jesus warns them how dangerous that work can be, until he concludes by saying that they must take up their cross and follow him.
The Church has always understood that the words with which Jesus commissioned those twelve apostles are also the words with which he commissions us. Their responsibility has become ours, passed from one generation to the next through the laying on of hands and through the waters of baptism.
When we hear these words, we understand them to be a charge to love more broadly, more deeply, to push the boundaries of kinship, and to come awake to the breadth and depth of our true family.
Jesus knows how difficult this is.
You do not have to think very long to remember times when it has been dangerous to love one another across national boundaries, across boundaries of religion, across boundaries of gender and sexuality. You do not have to think very hard to recognize how demanding these teachings of Jesus really are.
And what does Jesus say?
As every messenger of God says to every human being who receives a message: Do not be afraid.
"Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul."
Those words always remind me of the great Lutheran hymn:
The body they may kill;
God's truth abideth still.
Do not fear those who can kill the body. Rather, fear betraying the truth God has placed within you through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Love one another as I have loved you.
Fear betraying that love. Fear betraying the trust God has given us: to love God with our whole heart and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
That, I think, is what Jesus means.
This week I was learning about how the people of Denmark resisted the Nazis during the Second World War.
When Denmark was under occupation, there was a plan to deport the country's 8,000 Jews to concentration camps. What I had never known before was the significant role the Church played. In 1943, a pastoral letter from the bishops of Denmark was read in every pulpit, denouncing the Nazi regime and calling people to action.
The people responded.
They bribed Nazi soldiers to leave boats in the docks. Fishermen ferried Jewish families to safety in Sweden. Churches became safe houses, as did countless private homes, all at great risk to the people sheltering them.
The people of Denmark saved all but about 580 members of the country's Jewish population.
Do not fear those who can kill the body, because they cannot destroy the truth that God has placed within us.
We know who we are. We recognize our family. And we will not betray the trust that has been given to us.
Love one another as I have loved you.
Amen.