Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves;
This is a jarring thing to realize. When we learn about Jesus and begin to believe in him we find his goodness and love so compelling that we want to tell others about him. We go out expecting others to be equally interested, or at least curious if such good news could really be true. But Jesus warns us that his message will often be rejected. There are those in the world that are so invested in the kingdom of the world that they will fight to protect it.
so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
We are not called to be both complicated and simple, but shrewd, "having or showing sharp powers of judgment; astute", or as other translations have it, "wise". We need both the right kind of wisdom and the right kind of simplicity in order to navigate the challenges of this world appropriately. True wisdom is concern for the things that matter most, being constrained only by God's commands and not by our own needs and desires. It is the freedom disciples have when they don't demand payment their service, when they can go forth without "gold or silver or copper for your belts" and with "no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick" (see yesterday's readings). Wisdom actually leads us to simplicity, because trusting in God rather than ourselves allows us to be free from the complexities of provisioning and planning we would otherwise need to attempt if the whole enterprise was to begin and end with ourselves.
When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Wisdom leads us to simplicity. It leads us to seek the words of the Father rather than formulating flowcharts of response to every possible question we might receive. Wisdom teaches us to believe that the Father is better able to answer the questions others may have than the most learned among us. Wisdom does not, however, eschew learning about God. Instead, it is precisely this sort of learning that it privileges above other forms, including psychological and scientific, in the worldview it engenders. Because wisdom trusts in God above all it is ready to yield to his living word in the moment.
Brother will hand over brother to death,
and the father his child;
children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.
We must be wise enough to put first things first, even when that means choosing God over and above our families. After all, what good could we really do for them by choosing our families over and against our God? We must be simple enough to trust God at times like this, for there will seem to be a million possible reasons to make other choices. It is precisely this sort of absolute trust in God that unsettles and upsets the world around us. Until it is received it appears to an unimaginably great threat to individual freedom and autonomy. Yet in living this trust we expose the world's supposed freedom as manipulation and control, showing that true freedom is found only when we walk by the Spirit (see Second Corinthians 3:17).
It may seem harsh that Jesus is willing to allow families to be divided for his name, but he does so only because he believes they can be brought together again in a new and deeper way. This is precisely what he allowed in the case of Joseph, his father, and his brothers.
As soon as Joseph saw him, he flung himself on his neck
and wept a long time in his arms.
And Israel said to Joseph, “At last I can die,
now that I have seen for myself that Joseph is still alive.”
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