“I Have Come Not To Bring Peace, But A Sword”
The tenth chapter of Matthew presents many challenges: from
Jesus’s instructions to the disciples; his warnings that there will be
rejection and even death along the way; to his assertion that what they teach
and preach and do in his name will result in tearing families apart. There will
be a dividing line between those who choose to follow the way of Jesus, and
those who do not; one’s enemies will be members of one’s own household. “I
have come not to bring peace, but a sword!”
Jesus then likens what is happening in Israel in the first
century will be similar to what happened almost eight hundred years ago when
Micah, a younger contemporary of Isaiah, wrote that because of the
unfaithfulness of Jerusalem and her leaders, invasion from the east will divide
fathers and sons, mothers and daughters until one’s enemies divide one’s own
“household.” [i]
One could take Micah and Jesus as describing divisions
within families; within clans; within tribes; or, the “household” may represent
the nation of Israel itself. We need not think too hard to imagine these kinds
of divisions, as it has long been the case for the Church, and is presently
manifest throughout families, between political parties, and throughout our
entire nation, from sea to shining sea; not to mention between nations and
ideologies throughout the world.
In the midst of such social division and disintegration,
Jesus sends those who follow him to teach and preach the good news that the
kingdom of God ‘has come near,’ and to “cure the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.” [ii] As good as all that must have sounded, he
warns, that there will be those who will go to any and all lengths to preserve
the status quo; those who have a vested interest in seeing that people remain
unhealed, and demons remain unleashed! There will be concerted resistance to
this good news. As someone has paraphrased Jesus: I came not to bring the
peace of escapism, the peace that fails to confront the real issues of life,
the peace that makes for stagnant complacency, but the ‘sword’ that challenges
it.
This is why Jesus says to them and to us, “Do not worry”
(v.19); “have no fear” (v. 26); “do not fear” (v. 28); “Do not be afraid”
(v.31). Why? Because, “the spirit of your Father is with you”; “all
shall be revealed…there will be no darkness, no secrets”; “those who
kill the body cannot kill the soul”; “you are of great value to your Father.”
And as the ultimate promise, he says, “Whoever welcomes me, welcomes the One
who sent me” That is, we are not alone! The One, the One who is all in all,
Elohim, YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus, my Father, is your
father; as we pray, “our Father.”
Jesus remembers that Micah, the poet-prophet, wrote that
those who remain loyal to God, those who look to the Lord, those who wait for
the God of our salvation; our God will hear us, heal us, preserve us and
deliver us from all division and darkness; while our enemies, those who mock us
and resist the good news of the kingdom saying, “Where is your God?” will bear
the shame, and shall “lick dust like the snake.” [iii]
While those who teach and live the good news, God who is our Father will pardon our
failings, our iniquities, pass over our transgressions, and will not retain his
anger forever, “because he delights in showing clemency…compassion….and will
cast all our sins into the depths of the sea!” [iv]
That is, the good news Jesus urges us to teach and live in all that we say and
all that we do, is to work with Jesus, with his Father and our Father, to
reconcile the divisions that beset us on all sides; not to give into them, nor
perpetuate them, but to reconcile all manner of “us and them.” There is One
God, and One Faith, One God and Father of All. As in, “All”!
It will be some one hundred years after Jesus says, “I
come not to bring peace, but a sword,” that someone wrote a little treatise
simply titled “Hebrews,” which echoes this pronouncement, and reminds us all
that there is something even mightier than the sword: “Indeed, the word of
God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until
it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the
thoughts and intentions of the heart.” [v]
Thus, the importance of taking time out week by week to hear the reconciling
and healing word of God. The Word that was with God in the beginning. The Word
that became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood to reconcile as One
things that had been separated by our selfishness and intransigence. To heal
all divisions that we may be united in God our Father.
We are given the tasks to teach forgiveness and to heal all
that separates us from one another and from the love, compassion and
forgiveness of God. Our task, as outlined in our catechism in the Book of
Common Prayer, is to “continue Christ’s work of reconciliation in the
world.” [vi]
That is, not to sustain or maintain the divisions among God’s people, but to
reconcile, to rebuild, to restore a community of faithful teachers and doers of
the good news of God’s kingdom of love.
Do not be afraid. Have no fear. Do not worry. Do not fear.
Know that the Spirit of your Father is with you always, and in all ways. “But
as for me,” writes Micah, “I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the
God of my salvation; my God will hear me.”
Those who want to ‘look to the Lord,’ would do well to
consider what the thirteenth century Catholic Dominican preacher, theologian,
philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart once wrote:
So, you want to find God?
Then seek to become one in your
life.
Pay attention to what divides your
heart –
your pride, your vanity, your
selfishness.
As you remove these from yourself,
you’ll
find your way into the Oneness
that is God,
which is always within you.
So put aside all that distracts
you, and you’ll find
true nobility and rest,
blessedness
and contentment of heart.
There, you’ll find the divine ground
within you; there you’ll become
wholly still, wholly one with the
One. [vii]