Understanding vs. Denial

Matthew 10:34-40 was one of "those" passages of scripture. The kind that basically slaps you in the face, it shakes your values. Your beliefs. Your understanding of Christianity.

Reading the passage I was perplexed, having read it before, having heard it taught before, I had this reaction of wanting to really get down to the bottom of what the Big J was getting at here. After reading a brief commentary, I realized, a lack of understanding was not the problem here, but acceptance of the teaching. The commentary offered a simple to the point statment:

...the vast majority of people still cling desperately to life (compare Eph 5:29; Epict. Disc. 2.22.15-16). But the moment we become Christ's followers, our own lives and wills become forfeit; we die with Christ to sin (that is, to the right to make selfish choices; Rom 6:3-4) and choose a path that could lead any day to our execution for Christ's name (Mt 16:24). Although we may speak glibly today of "our cross" as the need to put up with Aunt Molly or a leaky roof, "taking up the cross" in Jesus' day meant being forced to bear the instrument of one's execution past a jeering mob to the site of one's imminent death as a condemned criminal (see Hengel 1977)


The words are writing difficult now. Syntax and sentence structure, and cohesive thought are being over ruled by this thought:

Christian community is made of men and women living selflessly for others. It's giving up your sunday afternoon to fix a car for someone you've never met with a church you don't go to. Its giving water to people you don't know in a part of the world you don't understand and that may not even like you. It's going to baseball, soccer, and basketball games when you'd rather be taking a nap. Its not allowing inconvenience to blockade you from a divine moment of not being selfish.