Heavenly Contract - Matthew 10:32-33; 37-38; 19:27-30
We all need and use contracts. In the workforce, we use business contracts to make sure that parties are legally bound to perform their end of the bargain. When we purchase a home we take out a contract whereby the seller agrees to sell a home for a given price. Often the contract will contain certain provisions that detail some specifics of the sale. For example, the contract can contain a warranty provision whereby the seller pays for necessary repairs up to a certain amount, let say one thousand dollars. Repairs over that limit are the buyer’s responsibility. Sports contracts are extremely complex and often contain language that includes a base salary, a signing bonus, and incentive bonuses based on the athlete’s performance. Although sports contracts are legally enforceable, it seems that professional athletes often go to arbitration and argue the terms so they can get more money. Generally speaking, franchise athletes usually get their way. Oral contracts are harder to enforce in a court of law because it’s difficult to determine what promises were actually made. For example, parents make oral contracts all the time when they offer to pay their children to perform household chores. Oral contracts with your kids are like sports contracts because they almost always go to arbitration because children don’t understand what constitutes a clean house, a clean car, or a clean house. Nevertheless, this brings us to another point; contracts are often broken leaving parties to seek remedies that protect their interests.
Secular contracts are not perfect. Parties incur damages when contracts are broken. It’s part of human nature: people lie, cheat, and do not live up to their end of the bargain. We see this also with the “marriage contract” when marriages break down and spouses must settle disagreements in Divorce Court. Certainly there are prenuptial agreements, to ease the dissolution of assets, but in my opinion, a marriage is doomed if couples need a contract to plan their lives together, or should I say apart from each other. Broken contracts, broken promises, and broken relationships affect us all. They undermine our trust in others, force us to seek remedy, and simply waste valuable time. We are all affected by broken promises including empty words from elected officials. Our lack of faith in elected leaders is due to their broken promises and political pandering to gather votes rather than govern effectively. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that some promises can always be kept?
Today’s gospel reading taken from the Book of Matthew (verses 10:32-33; 37-38; 19:27-30) is about a heavenly contract with God. These chosen verses spell out our Lord’s expectations from His people in certain, specific terms. Basically, our Lord requires three basic things from us: (1) that we acknowledge Him, (2) that we love Him above anything else, and (3) we are willing to take up our Cross and follow Him. Just like any other agreement or contract our Lord also promises to reward His people for their faithfulness. Most important about God’s contract is that He can be trusted to fulfill His promises.
The first requirement of our contract with God requires that we acknowledge Him before all men. It’s interesting to point out that St. Matthew uses legal terminology to describe this requirement. The Greek word “emprosthen” (before men) emphasizes that the believer proclaim or make their confession regarding Christ in a public forum. Acknowledging Christ means publicly confessing that He is our Lord and Savior. Our acknowledgement of Christ is a deep-seated, heartfelt confession of what He has done and will continue to do on our behalf. Christian confessions of faith include elements found in the Nicene Creed such as that we believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and He was raised from the dead so that we can have eternal life with Him in the Kingdom. Acknowledging Christ is not only something that we do at present, but we are also called to repeatedly do in the future. Our lifestyle also should reflect our faith in God. This lifestyle should be rooted in an active, virtuous, and trusting faith in the Almighty God where we agree to answer His call for our lives at a moment’s notice.
Today’s passage also contains a warning to those who deny Christ. Denying Christ is renouncing Him and deliberately disowning Him. This happens when people make a conscious, deliberate decision to reject God out of fear for other men. For example, early Christians found themselves under attack by Roman authorities and were threatened by their lives to deny Christ. These faithful refused to deny Christ because their fear of God was greater than their fear of other men. Persecuted Christians understood that by proclaiming their faith they would only forfeit their earthly lives, however, their sacrifice would almost guarantee their inheritance in God’s Kingdom. Is our faith this strong or does peer pressure force us to compromise our faith?
The second requirement of God’s contract is for us to love Him more than anything else and devote ourselves entirely to Him. Anything less than meeting this requirement counts us “not worthy” of the Father. Truly loving God means placing our relationship with Him above all other relationships. We cannot be a true follower of Christ if we value and place others before Him. There are a couple of important things to point out with these statements. First, God is not saying that we are to hate our families or friends. Instead, He is measuring the degree of our earthly relationships and is pointing out that we are to love others deeply, but are to love Him more. Our Lord’s death on the Cross demonstrated the amount of His love and we are called reciprocate this deep affection. Second, I understand that it is difficult for many of us to quantify our love for God in relation to our love for family and friends. Most Christians would have a difficulty choosing between loving God or loving their families because we love them both almost equally. Let me make a suggestion. First, look around at the world. How many broken homes, marriages, and families do we see? Although people to claim to love their families, we see high rates of infidelity, abuse, and miscommunication. This is because our so-called love for each other is imperfect and it is at times dysfunctional. That is why we must experience Christ’s love first so we can truly learn what true love is all about and apply this heavenly love to our personal relationships. As we come to know our Lord, our love and appreciation for family and friends will also increase. You see, our love for our Master enables us to experience a pure, unselfish, deep, and perfect type of agape love that overflows to our human relationships. Loving God increases our love and appreciation for others.
Finally, our Lord requires that we be willing to take up our cross and follow Him as a condition of His contract. Taking up one’s cross is something more than just undergoing a minor hardship or inconvenience. In New Testament times, crucifixion was a common form of punishment for convicted criminals. The condemned people forcibly carried their own cross to the place of crucifixion. Unlike modern times where capital punishment sentences rarely get carried out, or are subject to decades of appeal, people who were sentenced to crucifixion were destined to die. There was no escape from their punishment. Early Christians understood that by taking up their cross to follow Christ, they were affirming their willingness to die for their faith. Taking up one’s cross means paying whatever the price to have the privilege of following close to our Lord. Those who are unable to carry their cross to follow Christ cannot be His disciples and they forfeit their inheritance by adhering to this world rather than welcoming the world to come. Non-cross bearers accept the fraud and deceit of this world rather than the truth and life in the Kingdom because they do not take God at His word.
My friends, the Christian faith is more than just attending Church on Sunday, going to pot-luck dinners, golf outings, and having festivals. Christianity calls us to a life of total service where each decision we make should give glory to God. Unlike the world that lives for itself and for its own pleasure, the Christian faith anticipates a greater tomorrow, sometimes at the expense of living for the moment. Our contract with God involves a reward best understood through the Bible’s prophetic writings and our lesson in the Gospel of Matthew (19:27-30). These passages describe a new world similar to the perfect world God created in Genesis. The Garden of Eden was free from disease, pestilence, famine, and sin. It was perfect until sin entered the world through mankind’s sin. Unfortunately, our earthly paradise was obliterated by our sinfulness and our lives became difficult. Fortunately, from the moment of the first sin, our loving Lord sought to bring us all back into paradise and restore the world to it is original beauty. Throughout the scriptures we hear God speaking about the regeneration of the world. Things of this world need to be destroyed and disappear to make way for the better things of the Kingdom of God. Old Testament prophets (Isaiah 11:1-9; 65:17-25; 66:22; Daniel 2:34-35,44,45) and the Apostle Peter (2 Peter 3:12-13) write about God restoring the world to it is original beauty by creating a new world with a new world order. This new world is part of our reward as God wants to again place us in paradise. From Isaiah 65:19 we read, “I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and crying will be heard in it no more.” The coming Kingdom, the New Jerusalem spoken about by the prophet Isaiah completes God’s Divine Plan for His people.
More specific, Jesus in Matthew 19:27-30 promises to reward the disciples and place them near His throne to help judge the Twelve Tribes of Israel. All believers that acknowledge Christ, that love Him above anyone else, and are willing to sacrifice their lives for Him will receive a reward because Jesus is true to His word and will not be a debtor to anyone for their devotion. Jesus promises that He will reward everyone’s sacrifice a hundredfold and give them future eternal life in His Kingdom. As such, we live for a better place, a better day, and a better life to come.
Unfortunately, our world mocks our Lord’s promises along with the Christian faith because our hope is placed in the future. The world does not trust God; instead, people cling to this world, trust their own abilities, and seek their own instant pleasure. Ironically, the foolishness of the world is that people lose things the moment they get their hands on them. Their rewards don’t last. Money gets spent, new acquisitions depreciate, friends and personal alliances fade away, and political power is constantly challenged. Unlike the unbeliever, Christians always have hope in the Kingdom and their eternal life with God is waiting for them. Our treasure in God’s Kingdom is incorruptible, unchangeable, and cannot be taken away by anyone but ourselves.
The ending quote from today’s passage is most interesting. Here the Lord states, “Many that are first will be last, and the last first.” The phrase recognizes that people often are caught up with their own self-importance. Jesus points out that people who regard themselves first in rank above others will find out that they will be last, below classes of people that they despise. In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees, the experts in the law, and religious leaders were excluded from God’s Kingdom because of their rejection of the Gospel. On the other hand, the vilest, most despised sinners could inherit the Kingdom of God because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Our Lord came to save the humble, the weak, and the destitute. He accepts a converted soul and a changed mind. He is the physician to those who recognize their spiritual depravity and sickness. He hears those calling out. He recognizes a humble heart reaching for His acceptance.
As I close I want to point out that today we celebrate the Sunday of All Saints. Many of our saints have familiar names and are well known to everyone. Much more numerous are those saints that are unknown to us, but are well known to God because He has their names written in the Book of Life. Like the saints who have come before us, we have an important decision to make regarding the course of our life. We must choose between two contracts. One is a pact with the world, and the other is a contract with God. The world contract places no obligations on us and we are free to do as we want. Unfortunately, the world’s contract makes no promises, and there are no guaranteed rewards. People are free to seek their own pleasure. Unfortunately, people who subscribe to this lifestyle often live entirely for themselves find that they are unhappy, alone, and unfulfilled. Even though people making a pact with the world may find instant pleasure in some things, finding lasting pleasure without God in their lives is like chasing the wind. On the other hand, if we accept our Lord’s contract by acknowledging Him, placing Him above all other relationships, and by taking up our Cross-, we are restored to Paradise in His Kingdom and receive the fruits of God’s Holy Spirit. Our Lord wants to enter into a binding fellowship with us where He is the Lord of our lives. Ironically, when we place God first in our lives and we live entirely for His glory, we will be constantly filled with everlasting joy, we will be fulfilled people, and live with purpose and meaning. While the rest of the world chases cheap trinkets and carnival handouts, we can enter into fellowship with the Almighty God. As we decide what contract to bind ourselves, ultimately we must judge whether we want to fend for ourselves in a world that offers us and promises us nothing, or do we want the assistance of a loving Lord who will provide for our needs, heal our faults, and love us as His own? Certainly we know that the saints we honor today chose to glorify God and took Him at His word. Don’t we want to do the same and accept our Lord’s generous offer? Amen.
