Today is a day when many of us pastors wish we had arranged for a guest preacher. Or that we had scheduled a church picnic with a shortened service and only a brief homily on a "free" text. Jesus' words do not sit well. In Matthew they do not set up a barrier to discipleship as they do in Luke (14:25-27). But even here they feel like a slap across the face. Who really wants to talk to his or her congregation about the sword that Jesus brings into family dwellings? Who really wants to stress the willingness to give up honor and even life for the sake of Jesus? Such talk can be like a sword itself, unsettling and threatening to all of us. Congregations probably do not want to hear about it. Some of us do not want to preach about it either.

Many of us may also feel that there is not much tha…