Proper 7, Year A, Track2
Psalm 69: 8-11, (12-17), 18-20; Jeremiah 20:7-13; Romans 6:1b-11; Matthew 10:24-39
I.
We are continuing our examination of the premise put before us by Jesus in last week’s Gospel reading from Matthew that grace offered and refused is worse than grace never offered.
In this morning’s reading from Jeremiah, we see the prophet struggling with this very realization in the course of his own preaching.
Jeremiah knows that this mocking is not entirely personal. It’s more than mere dislike directed at Jeremiah. It’s a rejection of the God who inspires Jeremiah’s preaching.
Last week, we heard Jesus issue a stern rebuke of those towns that mock the Lord’s preachers.
Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.”
This is because God never sent preachers to Sodom and Gomorrah to warn them of their impending destruction, to urge them to repent and turn from their sin.
Jeremiah, however, has been sent to warn the Jews of their impending destruction.
But the Jews make fun of his sermons. A typical Jeremiad goes like this. Jeremiah even describes one in this morning’s reading: “I shout, ‘Violence and destruction!’”
Yet, these are words of warning the men of Sodom never heard.
Hearing them from Jeremiah’s lips, however, the Jews only mock him.
Jeremiah laments, “I have become a laughingstock all the day; every one mocks me.”
The men of Sodom and Gomorrah never experienced the grace of a preacher who preached among them. The Jews did, and they rejected this grace.
II.
Today, there are still some preachers who are willing to preach God’s grace in the form of a warning.
Like Jeremiah, these preachers sometimes wonder if it does any good.
Jeremiah reasons in verse nine, “I will not mention him [God], or speak any more in his name.” Why?
Jeremiah says this not because he is weary of the insults—though those are never easy to bear—but because his preaching seems to make men worse, not better.
You were not expecting me to say that. You come to church for self-improvement, to sing an inspirational song or hear a positive word that you can think about during the week.
Now you hear me say that the exposition of God’s word only makes things worse.
Surely, I’ve made a mistake.
Surely, I got up on the wrong side of the bed.
Surely, I misunderstand the purpose of the pulpit.
Yet the meaning of the word today is plain.
Jeremiah says in verse eight, “For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, ‘Violence and destruction!’ For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long.”
Another translation puts it, “So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long” (NIV).
In other words, Jeremiah’s preaching makes otherwise good, community-minded people lose their minds.
It gives them TDS, Truth Derangement Syndrome.
I am not concerned this morning about Jeremiah’s feelings.
I am certainly not trying to inspire sympathy in you for my own experience as a preacher either.
No. The point is to make you see what the word of God does to people, the rot it exposes in them, and their putrid, belching response to it.
To make you see what Jeremiah saw—the insult and the reproach—directed, yes, at him, but only in part at him.
The full measure of the insult and reproach is never directed at the preacher. It is directed at God.
Jesus warns not to give dogs what is holy or to cast pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6). Perhaps we should think twice about proclaiming the truth to a world that prefers its own lies.
Their response will only show them to be what they are: dogs and pigs—utterly clueless as to the value of what they’ve been given. Such are the men and women to whom God sends His prophets and preachers.
You have all had the experience of seeing someone attractive from a distance.
Perhaps you have gone out of your way to meet this person, to spend time with him or her, only to have your first impression ruined by the experience of who he or she turns out to be. Your hope and expectation did not survive first contact.
It is the same with most sinners. They do not survive first contact with the word of God.
However kind and nice they appear, they show themselves to be whitewashed tombs.
Share the gospel with them and that tomb will open, and the stench it emits will knock you over.
III.
Given this reality—and given Jesus’ words about it being more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah—wouldn’t it be better for the church not to preach the gospel?
Wouldn’t it be a grace to withhold this grace? After all, showing people who they really are is a sight no one ever wants to see.
But the church and her preachers, myself included, have always found it impossible to withhold this grace.
Jeremiah tried it and he found he couldn’t do it.
He says in verse nine, “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”
Each of us has a need to pick at sin—often the sins and faults of another—like a scab.
You’ve got an alcoholic in the family, so you leave AA pamphlets lying on the kitchen table.
Your wife has an affair. Your son says he’s gay.
You hit them with the word of God and they mock you with it.
“Let him who is without guilt cast the first stone,” the wife says to her husband. “Judge not lest ye be judged,” the son says to his father.
Here’s the thing—and Jeremiah knew this, and, as a preacher, I can tell you it’s true—all my preaching, all my crying out at wayward politicians and progressive preachers, and all your scolding and all your correction of lost sons, daughters, and errant spouses only increase the misery.
In our psalm today we sang, “Insults have broken my heart”—and some of your hearts are breaking, I know.
But what good is it if my words only break your heart and your response to them only breaks mine?
Paul reached this same impasse in his own ministry.
In this morning’s reading from Romans, he asks in despair, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?”
This is the echo of Jeremiah’s question: Should I say “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name”?
Our answer is the same as Jeremiah’s—the same as Paul’s—“By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
Moreover, how can we possibly stand aside and let the world continue to “live in it,” or a cherished son or daughter live in it?
IV.
There are two answers to that question.
The first answer is that the true Christian will find it impossible to keep silent.
The second answer is that despite his speaking out, the cherished son or daughter may very well choose to continue to “live in it.” The whole world may very well choose to continue to live in it.
This is the meaning of Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.”
Remember, He is speaking these words to His disciples as He is commissioning them to go out and preach in His name.
Jesus expects them to face opposition—the same opposition He faced, even from His own mother and brothers (Mark 3:21, 3:31-35).
He says, “For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
You have to face the fact that the world very much wants to continue living on its terms, in its sins—and that the world expects pride in them to be a means of grace.
Furthermore, you have to accept that Jesus said it would be this way: that your witness—your proclamation of the truth—will show you who people really are. And they will be worse for it, not better.
Jeremiah experienced this. Jesus experienced this. You will too.
Just this past week I noticed on one of the Woodbury forums that a Pride event is now scheduled at the North Green for June 28.
I have no direct evidence that this is being organized in response to the preaching coming from this pulpit or from your pastor making the front pages and the evening news, but I would not be surprised.
I preach against pride, but are people becoming humble? No, they organize a Pride event instead.
Well did Jeremiah say, “So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long” (NIV).
V.
Will I stop? How can I? How can you?
Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
That sword is His word. It cuts. It divides. It drives a wedge.
Jesus was hated for wielding it.
So were the prophets who came before Him.
So were the disciples who came after.
So is His church to this day.
But the good news is this. Jesus says, “Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
And Jeremiah says, “The Lord is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble.”
The psalmist says, “Draw near to me, redeem me, set me free because of my enemies!”
Finally, Jesus leaves us with these words, “So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven… and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.”
We are not above our Master, our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Paul means when he writes this morning, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”
We have to experience—live through—the death of this world. Yet all the while a fire burns within us, so we do and say all we can to call it back to life.
In this we show we are united with Christ. We die like Him. We rise like Him.
The proof is in our words and deeds. Both will burn from our union with Christ, but to the world we will appear obsessive, compulsive, like an old-fashioned prophet.
Are we willing to extend God’s grace to the world even though it will make matters worse?
To my knowledge, Woodbury never had a Pride event. Now we do. It would have been better had I never come here, or, having come, preached softer words to you.
But I grew weary with holding them in and I could not. So I came. So I preach. So must you. We are not above our Master. We are united with Him.
“Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.”
Preached on June 21, 2026, by the Rev. Jake Dell at First Congregational Church of Woodbury, Connecticut.
