MUSINGS - February 12, 2019
TOUGH ROW TO HOE
Matthew 10:21-23
"Brother will hand over brother to death; a father will hand over his child. Children will rebel against their parents and kill them. Everyone will hate you because you are committed to me. But the person who patiently endures to the end will be saved. So when they persecute you in one city, flee to another. I can guarantee this truth: Before you have gone through every city in Israel, the Son of Man will come.
We are still,with this sculpture, in the midst of Christ's institutions to his disciples before sending then off on their own. However here he is predicting not their present trials but future hardships as well.
My mother had an expression, "That's a tough row to hoe." If you've never gardened, you might not understand. Long after the last rain when the sun has baked the earth, it can become as hard as bricks. Even in that condition, and maybe especially in those conditions, you still have to work the soil and remove the weeds. But is truly a tough row to hoe.
Christ is, metaphorically, telling hisdisciples that they will have a tough row to hoe. It is going to be hardship upon hardship. Pain and suffering and loss of life is not much of a pep talk.
These twelve men have left jobs and families to follow him. They were work-a-day men who were not terribly spiritually minded. When they began to understand that Jesus was the messiah, they were still expecting him to establish an earthly kingdom. They were expecting earthly rewards and places of power in this new kingdom. But now he tells them the truth of their future, if they continue to follow him. This was their chance to abandon him, but they didn't.
Things haven't changed that much for Christ's followers today. For the most part we in America a sheltered from being killed because we are his follower. That is not true in other parts of the world. But still families are divided and brother against brother still happens because we choose to follow Jesus. It still isn't much of a pep talk, is it? Our reward is eternal life and our goal is to bring others into that life also.
The question remains, are we willing to endure until the end?
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