Pastor Mark Nieting
Matthew 10: 38-42
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The four of us were in the San Diego Safari Park, my son Ben, his daughters Kaylee (6) and Karina (4) and me. There were tons of animals to be seen, laughed at, oohed and aahed over, fed, and photographed. But one animal got quite a bit of attention from the girls: the porcupine. There was only one of them in the cage, its entire body covered with sharp quills. “How do you pick it up?” Karina asked. “Can porcupines stick each other?” Kaylee asked. “Is it a boy….or a girl? How do you tell, grandpa?” they asked.
Wise old grandpa didn’t have any answers to their rather “sticky” questions, so we moved on to the lions and tigers and bears, Oh My! But later on, I did some research. Want to know what I found out? Porcupines, as solitary as they are, don’t always LIKE to be alone. In the fall, a young boy porcupine’s thoughts turn to love, or at least to making little porcupines. There’s only a very short time when young lady porcupines are open to, say, “dinner and a movie.” But that’s risky business if you’re a young male porcupine, because in the porcupine world, “NO” means “NO!” And if she is threatened or feels afraid, HE’S going to get hurt.
That’s the porcupine’s dilemma: How do you get close, without getting hurt?
That’s our dilemma too…..yours and mine. How do we get close to each other without get hurt? We’ve all been poked, stuck and barbed….all too often.
Just like Mr. and Mrs. Porcupine, every one of us left home this morning with our own little arsenal of barbs. Mine are safely hidden under this white robe and green stole, yours under your summer church wardrobe, a suntan and a smile. Our long, sharp, barbed quills are the burdens every one of us carries, burdens inflicted on us by the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh. Burdens we carry that have come from nature, from nuture, from parents, from bad habits. We’ve had some of them for a short while and others maybe for our entire lifetime. Each one has a name: rejection, hurt, anger, envy, lust, contempt, greed, arrogance, pride, selfishness, resentment. There’s also illness, poverty, prejudice…it can be a very long list. But then, every porcupine has a lot of quills. In the words of Jesus, we all have burdens to bear. I’ve got mine and you’ve got yours. They affect us, which is one thing…..but it’s worse when they affect people around us.
Some of us hide them pretty well, but get close enough and “push the right buttons” and you know what happens……you’re going to get stuck. We’ve got “defensive barbs” that we use to keep people at “quills length” from us, and we’ve can even get good at TOSSING them….like spears! The wounds we cause can fester, can infect relationships, destroy friendships, cost us jobs, break apart marriages and even threaten entire ministries and churches.
God DID create us to be social beings…..not hermits. We’re made in His image, and God’s image, that of a triune God is a “social image!” It’s almost impossible to live in a vacuum…..we NEED people. Our lives are one social experience after another. We work with people, play with people, get on each others’ Facebook pages, join churches teams and clubs. You know all the things YOU do not to remain alone in this world, and we try to do it without getting hurt. We spend lots of time and energy looking for someone we can get close to without getting “stuck,” a softer, gentler kind of creature, and in the porcupine world, that’s tough.
I bet that right now most of you in this room are mentally “listing” the porcupines in your lives. I thought of quite a few as I was writing this. But that’s not the entire problem. The truth is, I am somebody’s porcupine and…..so are you.
In today’s Gospel, from Matthew chapter 10, Jesus is getting His disciples ready to be “sent out” on their own, without Him. Our text is the end of a long section of teacher to student instructions: “Be careful, be on your guard, you will be handed over, you will be flogged, you will be betrayed. You may, in His first mention of crucifixion in the Gospels, even be crucified on a cross! The world, Jesus is saying in the language of my granddaughters, is FULL OF PORCUPINES, all of them ready to stick you deeply and stick you often……and yet…..still…..YOUR JOB, Jesus reminded them, was to “acknowledge Him” to everyone they met! They were, in the language of the “great commission,” to go out and try to make disciples of all nations, even the ones filled with porcupines.
“Why? Why does everything have to be so hard?” we have to ask. “Isn’t there a softer, gentler world out there? “Yup,” answers Jesus. “There is….it’s with me.”
Oh…. I forgot to share one more thing about porcupines. They can dance! When the time is “right” they ignore the risk of getting close together. They touch their front paws together and stand on their hind legs and, well, “do the foxtrot” long enough to ensure there will be another generation of porcupines. Imagine that! Porcupines dancing! It’s a reminder to me, and I hope, to you, that even the most “prickly” of us can learn to pull in our quills and learn to love, and be loved, by God, and by each other.
We can learn to do that with each other. Yes, it’s RISKY. I’m sure more than one porcupine has found THAT out….but it’s necessary. It takes a willingness to build relationships, to listen, to care, to forgive, and be forgiven. It takes “doing the dance,” whatever that is, to get past the someone’s defenses and let them past ours. But vulnerability is necessary to build community……and healing and strength come from being IN community, in our families and in the family of God.
It’s only a few chapters later in the same Gospel when Jesus clues us in on how He wants us to do this. “Is someone “sticking you? Is there a problem? Then go, one on one, person to person, porcupine to porcupine and carefully, with grace, mercy and forgiveness, do everything in your power to work it out, not just ONE time, but, as Jesus told Peter…..seventy times seven times! Persistence worked for Peter….and it works with porcupines and with people too! If finally…..if all that doesn’t work, take a friend…..after all, it might just be YOUR barbs too!”
In Matthew 18 Jesus’ instructions were given so that we could maintain our Christian relationships despite the sin in which we live and the burdens that we bear! It’s as clear as the quills on a porcupine, friends, that if we’re “pricking” each other, it’s not good for either of us, or for our relationships. Is it “risky” to come together for gentle but firm confrontation, in confession and, ultimately to offer and receive forgiveness? Absolutely! It’s HARD WORK. It makes us vulnerable. It cost Jesus His LIFE! But done properly…..does it “bear fruit?” Most certainly…. It restores relationships and rebuilds community. Theologians call it the “mutual consolation of the brethren.” We call it “life in the body of believers!” It’s what happens when we help someone bear their burdens and they help us.
Community is important us….. to Christ…..and to Him, there’s ONE community that comes first. It’s a “1st Commandment” issue, at its heart and core.
In the few verses before today’s text Jesus talks to His disciples….and to us… about community. “If you stand up for me, I’ll stand up for you. My father will stand up for you. In fact,” Jesus says, “We will make room for you in OUR family!” Can you imagine? The Creator of the Universe, the Redeemer of the Universe, and the Holy Spirit, the “witness” of it all………making room within their family for you and me? How amazing can that be?!
That’s what happens when we keep “first things first.” But to do that, we have to carry more than a burden…….we have to pick up our cross, and carry it.
As I said before, I can keep my ‘quills and barbs’ hidden under my robes and my stole…..or my shorts and t-shirt, for that matter. But the one thing that can never be hidden……the one thing that has to come first is my cross, my faith in Jesus.
On Good Friday Jesus literally had to carry His own cross up the “via dolorosa” to Golgotha. His beaten and exhausted body wouldn’t carry the load anymore. Simon of Cyrene came alongside and helped Jesus bear His burden……a wonderful reminder of sacrifice that we can all use to bless others with the burdens that THEY carry.
But Jesus carried far more than two huge pieces of lumber. He carried the sins of the entire world. That, dear friends, is the cross NO ONE carry, or needs to carry, because Jesus did it, willingly out of love.
All we need do is lift High the Cross of our Faith before all to see, the Faith given us as a gift by the Holy Spirit…..a faith that welcomes us into the community of Christ…….forever. Not a bad ending for a bunch of prickly porcupines, is it?
