A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart
Sheep in the Midst of Wolves
There are a pair of commemorations that fall a week apart in January: The Confession of Peter (January 18) and The Conversion of Paul (January 25). The book of Acts narrates the early life of the church first with Peter as the central apostolic figure, and then with Paul taking the reins. The apostles were those who were sent with a charge to proclaim the good news of God's kingdom, until Christ comes again. Peter takes up the mantle, in one way of understanding it, when he confesses Christ to be the Anointed One (see Matthew 16:13-19).
I will be talking a bit more about the Conversion of Paul on Sunday. But as I was looking ahead, I noticed the Gospel lesson for the commemoration is from Matthew 10:16-22:
Jesus said to the twelve, "See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved."
The warning for Paul, and for the Twelve, is an important caution for us, too, as we go about following where Christ calls us: "See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."
Fittingly, I thought of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose holiday was Monday. Dr. King gave a sermon that is found in the little volume Strength to Love. He titled it "A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart," basing his message on the need to be wise as serpents (tough-minded) and innocent as doves (tender-hearted). In invite you to read the whole sermon, which you can find here (I don't know the blog well, so I don't necessarily endorse it, but it was the only place I could find it in its entirety online).
Dr. King's point was that to resist evil, to work for justice and peace (all of which we own in our baptismal covenant), we must be neither soft-minded nor hard-hearted. It's a message that we need to hear today, too, because injustice continues to plague us. Here's an excerpt you might find helpful today:
A third way is open to our quest for freedom, namely nonviolent resistance, which combines tough mindedness and tenderheartedness and avoids the complacency and do-nothingness of the soft minded and the violence and bitterness of the hardhearted. ... Through nonviolent resistance we shall be able to oppose the unjust system and at the same time love the perpetrators of the system. We must work passionately and unrelentingly for full stature as citizens, but may it never be said, my friends, that to gain it we used the inferior methods of falsehood, malice, hate, and violence.
I am thankful that we worship a God who is both tough minded and tenderhearted. ... God is neither hardhearted nor soft minded. He is tough minded enough to transcend the world; he is tenderhearted enough to live in it. He does not leave us alone in our agonies and struggles. He seeks us in dark places and suffers with us and for us in our tragic prodigality.
At times we need to know that the Lord is a God of justice. When slumbering giants of injustice emerge in the Earth, we need to know that there is a God of power who can cut them down like the grass and leave them withering like the Greek herb. When our most tireless efforts fail to stop the surging sweep of oppression, we need to know that in this universe is a God whose matchless strength is a fit contrast to the sordid weakness of man. But there are also times when we need to know that God possesses love and mercy. When we are staggered by the chilly winds of adversity and battered by the raging storms of disappointment and when through our folly and sin we stray into some destructive far country and are frustrated because of a strange feeling of homesickness, we need to know that there is Someone who loves us, cares for us, understands us, and will give us another chance. When days grow dark and nights grow dreary, we can be thankful that our God combines in his nature a creative synthesis of love and justice that will lead us through life’s dark valleys and into sunlit pathways of hope and fulfillment.
Like the God we serve, like Christ, may we also be tough-minded enough to transcend the world, and tenderhearted enough to live in it.
