“Popular Christianity” Sunday Sermon / Mount Olive Lutheran Church / June 28th 2026 Season of Pentecost / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Matthew 10:34–42

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday June 28th 2026: Season of Pentecost / Matthew 10:34–42 “Popular Christianity”

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 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. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

“Whoever receives you receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me. The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends in our Gospel Reading today we hear Jesus say, “Whoever receives you receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me.” Jesus says this to His disciples after He says to them, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” You often hear Saint Paul quoted in Sermons and from the life of Saint Paul you probably know his conversion story best, where he went from Saul a learned Pharisee and zealous persecutor of the faithful Christians to a Christian preacher and zealous missionary to the none-Jewish gentiles. But today as way of illustrating what Jesus says to His disciples in the Gospel back then, and what He says to us in the Gospel Reading today, let’s look at a less familiar moment in this Saint Paul’s life as a preacher sent out by Jesus among strangers to share the Good News of Christ Jesus.     

This account comes from the Acts of the Apostles chapter 14, as I share this with you remember what Jesus said, “Whoever receives you receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me” and, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” here we go:

Now at Lystra [which was an ancient city in the Roman province of Galatia] there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and began walking. And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations He allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet He did not leave Himself without witness, for He did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” Even with these words they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.

But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.[1]

Two very different receptions for Saint Paul and his fellow apostle Barnabas; these responses give us a picture of two ditches one on either side of the road. On the one hand with the Galatians from Lystra who wanted to worship them as the Pagan gods Zeus and Hermes Saint Paul and Barnabas had to push back and correct their unfounded praise (the temptation here is to revel in the praise and to embrace it – which would be a breaking of the first Commandment “you shall have no other gods”). Paul and Barnabas had clearly been taught what Christ taught His disciples which we heard in last week’s Gospel Reading when Jesus teaches, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master.”[2] For all those sent out in the name of the Lord it is most important that Christ Jesus shines forth in all they say and do and yet those who are sent out are still sinners in need of forgiveness, who make missteps, fail at doing everything perfectly, and say things too hastily and perhaps in a way that can hurt our neighbour, so we who are but “unworthy servants,” in need of Jesus’ forgiveness are called to “do our duty” as commanded,[3] and to repent and seek forgiveness from our Lord and at times from those whom they’ve been sent to serve.  

On the other hand there are certainly times when the one sent out by the Lord is treated poorly by those they are sent out to. Now in our day they are not likely to be shot through with bullets—our modern equivalent of stones— dragged out of town and left for dead; but there will be those who seek to do the other part, the part where they work to “persuaded the crowds” against the ones sent by the Lord. As Saint James says in his Epistle “no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers,” Saint James says, “these things ought not to be so.”[4] For the one left for dead in the ditch outside of town, once they’ve stood up and brushed off the dust, the temptation is to bitterness, to despair, to give up. This is not what Jesus called His disciples to embrace, this is not what men like Saint Paul and his fellow Apostle Barnabas embraced. No they carried on, just as they were called to do.

So the one ditch is a warning for the hearer to avoid giving undo praise to the preachers that Jesus sends to them, and the other ditch is for the hearer to avoid hating the preachers sent to them for what they preach and teach. Our dear sainted Rev. Doctor Martin Luther in his Small Catechism in the Table of Duties quotes Saint Paul from 1st Thessalonians, “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.”[5] Maybe you say, ‘I don’t hate them for what they preach or teach,” I just don’t like them. Dear ones there is a poet, John Lydgate, that once wrote “All is not golde that outward shineth bright,”[6] another quote attributed to him is this, “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” All the people that a preacher are sent to will not always like them, this is true, also the ‘golden’ shiny popularity of a preacher should not be the measure of the man sent to you, for they come with the Word of God entrusted to them by the Lord and Scripture describes that Word as “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”[7] Unsurprisingly that sounds a lot like what Jesus, the Word of God, says about Himself in our Gospel today, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Being above reproach and popular are not the same thing.[8] If preachers were called to be universally popular in all they say and do, with everyone they come in contact with, especially in their preaching teaching and admonishments, Jesus would not say to us, “whoever does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.” The preachers that the Lord send to you— regardless of how popular they may be—are not actually called to popularity, they are called to faithfulness. And as our Lord knows popularity will not shield you from those who want to seek your harm. He faced this first hand Himself in all the plots that were brought against Him and in His crucifixion and death. Last week we heard Him say to us in the Gospel Reading, “If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.”[9] In the Gospel of Saint Mark Jesus says this will be “a testimony against them.”[10] Saint Paul, who was presumed dead, shook the dust off and went right back into town. He was particularly courageous in that way. What about you?

It’s one thing for the preacher to be brave? But do we all have to be brave? Will being faithful to Christ Jesus mean bringing cutting division — sometimes even within families — or can we focus on being popular instead? Can’t we find a popular sort of Christianity with a popular sort of Jesus that doesn’t divide, where there’s little to no conflict? That’s not what Jesus is saying in the Gospel. The preacher needs to embrace being faithful and the hearers need to support Him in that faithfulness and need to embrace it themselves. The Devil, the World, Sin and even our own fallen nature would love to drive a wedge between preacher and hearer, between the Christian and Jesus, between God’s Word and your heart: stand firm against this. What Jesus teaches His disciples in our Gospel Reading today is unity together with Him while standing against the World.

There was a fourth-century bishop, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria,[11]  known in Latin as Athanasius Contra Mundum which means in Latin “Athanasius Against the World” and so it is for each of us. This was true for Athanasius and it’s true for all of us who are in Christ because as Jesus hung naked, bloodied and beaten, nailed dying upon the cross of His crucifixion it was Iesus Christus Contra Mundum “Jesus Christ Against the World” and so as Saint Paul says, “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,” and for we who are the hearers of this preaching Paul continues to say, “but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”[12] Divided from the World, sadly even at times from family and close friends, but united in Christ providing we remain faithful to Him. This is neither one ditch nor the other ditch; this is the centre of the road that we are called to walk down in Christ. In the centre of the centre of that road is the Cross and Jesus crucified there upon it.

When you think on Jesus crucified, hung there upon the cross divided from the World while dying for the World; when you meditate on Jesus crucified, bleeding there upon the cross every sin laid upon Him including your every sin, He hangs there not seeking praise and popularity, He hangs there as one who wouldn’t turn to His left to become a popular bread king loved only for feeding the belly bread for today;[13] He hangs there as one who wouldn’t turn to His right to run away when people “persuaded the crowds” hard against Him, when they plotted against Him seeking His death. No, this Jesus was keeping in the centre, walking the straight and narrow path, calling preachers and hearers to do the same when He says, “whoever does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.” Your Jesus doesn’t teach this without knowing what was coming for Him, what His disciples and apostles would face, what you and I would face.

Be of good courage and take comfort in these worlds when you have been less than faithful, when you’ve taken complements that belong to God alone,[14] when you have been convinced to shut your mouth when God’s Word called you to speak, when you’ve been less than brave in the face of opposition. You’re Lord Jesus knows what these temptations are like; He resisted them without sin and in Him you have your forgiveness, repent, ask and you shall receive.

Dear ones we are not called to a counterfeit pandering form of Christianity seeking popularity first, bent to our own desires, fueled by worries and fears, we are instead called by Christ Jesus to be faithful to Him because He has first been faithful to us. As Saint James says, “friendship with the World is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the World makes himself an enemy of God.”[15] Remember the same Jesus who said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth,” also says that He came that “you may have peace” in Him. “In the World,” Jesus says, “you will have tribulation. But take heart; Jesus says, “I have overcome the World.”[16] Jesus rewards faithfulness not popularity. Amen.    

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Acts:8–23
[2] Matthew 10:24–25a
[3] Luke 17:10
[4] James 3:8–10
[5] 1 Thessalonians 5:12–13 
[6] Quotes for the Fast Lane, McGill-Queen’s University Press 2013, Page 30.
[7] Hebrews 4:12
[8] 1 Timothy 3:2
[9] Matthew 10:14
[10] Mark 6:11b
[11] Saint Athanasius of Alexandria (296–373 AD)
[12] 1 Corinthians 1:23–24
[13] John 6:15
[14] Romans 16:27
[15] James 4:4
[16] John 16:33

Photo Credit: image of Christ Crusified in middle of road from magnific.