God creates us as worthy: 3rd after pentecost

The holy gospel according to Matthew (10:24-39).

Jesus said:

“A disciple is not above the teacher,

      nor a slave above the master;

            ²⁵it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher,

            and the slave like the master.

      If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul,

            how much more will they malign those of the master’s household!

²⁶“So have no fear of them;

      for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered,

      and nothing secret that will not become known.

      ²⁷What I say to you in the dark,

            tell in the light;

      and what you hear whispered,

            proclaim from the housetops.

                  ²⁸Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;

                        rather fear the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

      ²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

            Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.

                  ³⁰And even the hairs of your head are all counted.

                        ³¹So do not be afraid;

                              you are of more value than many sparrows.

³²“Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others,

      I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven;

      ³³but whoever denies me before others,

            I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

³⁴“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth;

      I have not come to bring peace,

            but a sword.

      ³⁵For I have come to set a son against his father,

            and a daughter against her mother,

            and in-laws against one another;

            ³⁶and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

            ³⁷Whoever loves a parent more than me is not worthy of me;

                  and whoever loves a child more than me is not worthy of me;

                        ³⁸and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me

                              is not worthy of me.

                              ³⁹Those who find their life will lose it,

                                    and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

The gospel of the lord.

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Jesus’ words in today’s gospel may seem harsh, but they are also familiar to many of us.  As a community of faith, you all decided to become a Reconciling in Christ congregation, which means that we specifically welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning people as full participants in ministry.  We make this clear in our statement of welcome on our website as well as on our Reconciling in Christ Sunday each year. 

Part of welcoming people, especially if they belong to groups that have been and continue to be marginalized by the church is to continually learn about their experiences of the world—to seek to more fully understand their perspectives.

Today’s scripture gives us some insight into what many LGBTQ+ people experience in their lifetimes.

It’s hard to hear of children being set against their parents or in-laws being set against each other and not call to mind the 40% of homeless youth who are LGBTQ+, many of whom identify as transgender and most of whom have been kicked out of their homes by biological, foster, or adoptive parents.  What is even more striking is that this passage has been used harmfully by families to justify their own hatred towards their LGBTQ+ children.

Jesus’ presence does tend to stir things up.  Jesus’ life and gospel disrupts the systems—even our own families—that cause harm and create hierarchies that separate us from each other.  Jesus and his followers are a great example of a family of choice, created in place of the hierarchical structures dictated for them by their culture. 

Instead of reinforcing the hierarchy of the times, where women were property and children were nothing more than extra hands to work, Jesus creates a community where people of all genders have access to economic means and financially support the work so that whoever Jesus calls to follow him can become his disciple without constantly worrying about how they will make ends meet. 

Jesus chose disciples to be his family.  When his biological mother and siblings come to speak to him in Matthew 12, Jesus even goes so far as to say, “‘Who is my mother, and who are my siblings? … Here are my mother and mysiblings! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my sibling andmother.”  Like many of us in the LGBTQ+ community, Jesus and the disciples chose their family and lived in community together as equals. 

For many LGBTQ+ folks, we choose people to be family with us.  Sometimes it is because our own families have disowned or distanced themselves from us.  Sometimes it is because our understandings of what it means to love one another as family are broader and deeper than simply those connected to us by blood.  Countless gay men in the 1980s embodied what it means to be family by choice as they sat with friends, partners, and loved ones the country seemed to have disowned, caring for them while they died of AIDS.  Still today, we in the LGBTQ+ community create new and more expansive families all the time.

And we as the church also follow Jesus’ lead in creating new and more expansive families today.  We welcome the newly baptized into the “family of God.”  We share with each other our moments of great joy and of great sorrow.  We choose each other to lead and serve as there is both need and ability.  We live out our faith as LGBTQ+ people have been living out our lives, creating community and family through both necessity and love, finding people who love us exactly for who we are not in spite of or apart from our identities.

And yet, the culture around us, which still dictates worth in terms of earning potential, declares those who don’t fall in line with hierarchical norms as worth         less, and maybe even altogether worthless.  Declarations of worthlessness from the culture and the church keep some LGBTQ+ people in the closet for their whole lives and others for far too long, causing mental, emotional, and spiritual harm. 

Even those of us who do come out to ourselves and others and have family and communities that support us usually wrestle with our identity and especially our faith, because we have heard so many times that we are not worthy of God’s love, of rights and acceptance in our country, even, as many transgender women of color know all too well, of life itself. 

Jesus’ words are harsh, but maybe that’s the point.  None of us are worthy of Jesus on our own.  But we’re not alone.  We’ve never been alone.  God has always been our Creator, knitting us together in utero, counting every hair on our head.  There is no being worthy on our own and there is no alone.  God is always with us, even deep back in the closet by the lost socks, in the midst of anxiety, and in the fear of what others might think.  Jesus is with us.

Each thing we do matters to God.  Not because God is going to deduct points or dole out punishment for every screw up, however big or small, but because we each matter to God.  Because God cares about us and loves us.  God loves our queerness.  God loves our languages.  God loves our courage, our hair, our compassion, our knees that get stiff when it rains—God loves every single bit of us.  Even when family or friends might distance themselves or put up a wall against us, Jesus assures us that we “are of more value than many sparrows.”

In a world that marks worth in dollar signs, the dominion of heaven marks your worth as inherent.  You exist because you are worthy.  God creates each unique person out of love, claiming us again in baptism, whispering “I love you” in the sighs of new parents or friends late at night, in the chirp of birds, rustle of leaves, and drops of rain; and proclaiming it from the housetops in the cry of a newborn, the roar of a lion, the clap of thunder.

God’s family is a family of choice—even under dire circumstances, against the world’s values, God chooses you.  God will always choose you.  Every you that there ever is. 

Thanks be to God.