I Have Come Not To Bring Peace, But A Sword Proper 7A

 “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]

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[i] Micah 6:1-7:7, with Jesus portrayed as specifically quoting 7:6.

[ii] Matthew 10:7-8

[iii] Micah 7:8-17

[iv] Micah 7:18-20

[v] Hebrews 4:12

[vi] BCP 855

[vii] Sweeney, Jon M., and Burrows, Mark S., Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness & Light (Hampton Roads, Charlottesville, VA:2023) p.81

All You Can Do Is Laugh! Prop6A

 All You Can Do Is Laugh!

Really, it’s laughable. Truly laughable. Recall that Abraham and Sarah left their home and the Temple of the god and goddess Nana and Innana in the affluent city-state of Ur in the Sumerian Empire of King Sargon on the promise of another God, YHWH, to hit the road and keep going until they are told to stop and begin life all over again. Without any idea where they would end up. Today, such a “promise” would be considered utterly laughable!

 

But as chapter 18 of Genesis unfolds, it gets better. Abraham and Sarah are camped near the Oaks of Mamre. In the heat of the day, three visitors arrive. Following the nomadic code of hospitality to strangers, Abrham welcomes them, arranges for their feet to be washed, has Sarah prepare some bread and cheese for appetizers, gets a servant to work on a fatted calf, and returns to chat with the strangers – one of whom he addresses as “Lord.” It is the same word Abraham has used previously with YHWH.

 

Suddenly, the conversation takes a turn. ‘They said to him, “Where is your wife, Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.”’ Sarah is eavesdropping in the tent. She thinks to herself, Abe and I are very old, and I am past the time of bearing children. Then she laughs to herself. So she thinks.

 

The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” To make matters worse, Sarah denies laughing at the very thought of bearing a son. “Oh yes you did laugh,” says The Lord. Abraham, we are told, was one hundred years old. Time passes. The boy is born. Sarah says, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” Then, still laughing she says, “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” So, they named the boy Isaac, which means, “he who laughs.” Despite her doubt, and having lied to the Lord, the unstinting love, faithfulness and  compassion of the Lord follows through anyway.

 

It is all truely laughable! Yet, the point is made – nothing is too wonderful for the Lord! Sarah reminds us not to get upset, not to disbelieve the promises of the Lord, and whenever we feel overwhelmed by what we hear - it’s Okay to laugh!

 

Then there is Jesus in chapters 9 and 10 in Matthew. He needs help to move forward with God’s mission – to care for and to heal all manner of sickness, loneliness and oppression from the Empire and rapacious land owners, especially, as Jesus says later in chapter 25, for the least of these, our sisters and brothers. He says the harvest is plentiful – an interesting metaphor for such a needy, desperate, and oppressed class of people which includes aliens, people fleeing other countries on the slim hope that they might find labor and sustenance in Israel. Jesus puts out a plea for more workers. No qualifications are specified. No skills or previous experience with curing every dis-ease and sickness is necessary. He just needs people who can offer the kind of compassion his Father showed to Abraham and Sarah with others – all others.

 

Besides, look at the laughable company of his so-called disciples. There’s Matthew the tax collector. A tax collector! Essentially a toll booth operator who is in cahoots with the Romans. He and his fellow tax collectors are despised for fleecing people as they transport their goods to market. Then there is Simon the Cananaean, whose distinction is not that he comes from

the town of Cana, or is a Canaanite, a gentile, but that he is or was a Zealot, a militant political extremist – a follower of those who proposed armed insurrection against the very Romans who were Matthew’s employers. Just try to imagine Simon and Matthew working together. And finally, there is Judas Iscariot, “who betrayed him.” His presence among the disciples is a constant and sober reminder that those included in the mission carry the potential to oppose the very Christ who commissions them. A curious and motley crew if there ever was one. And yet, along with all those fishermen, they leave everything behind, like Abraham and Sarah, and follow Jesus on what on the surface appears to be a fool’s mission.

 

Note, they agree to follow Jesus even though he describes their mission as inherently dangerous – like being “sheep among wolves”! They follow him in his peaceful revolution on the promise that the coming Son of Man (10:23), whose presence symbolizes vindication and restoration for the people of God. A promise not unlike the one that created a family for Abraham and Sarah. Their mission is among crowds of onlookers, most of whom do not share the faith that Jesus and the disciples have, like sheep without a shepherd, and are curious observers of what Jesus teaches and does among them. Even though they have no faith, they are not to be rejected or attacked in the least, but are to be the primary subjects of the Lord’s endless compassion.

 

Again, one has to laugh at the very thought of how Jesus goes about his Father’s business. One has to laugh at the utterly unqualified and truly diverse and curious band of merry men and women who followed Jesus, day after day. Just as he calls us to follow him, day after day. Not only to share in his mystical communion on Sundays. He is more interested in us working all other days of the week among those who are “sheep without a shepherd.” Those who are not part of his missionary disciples. Simply people in need of companionship in a world beset with very many problems. Not the least of which is the iron, authoritarian grip of Caeser’s Empire of greed, acquisition and consumption.

 

Yes, it is challenging and dangerous work to which Jesus calls us. And to survive in his mission, perhaps the single most important quality to have is that delightful sense of laughter that is Sarah’s wonderful contribution to the entire Biblical narrative! Although it may be laughable to think we can embody the compassion of Jesus, his Father and the Holy Spirit, without the laughter the work becomes truly unbearable. In a world that seems increasingly devoid of all laughter, we are called to be the vanguard – those who sustain a measure of hope in a world that rarely offers much evidence that such hope is justified.

 

But this is who Jesus calls us to be: a people who follow him and sustain his seemingly impossible dream that one day there will be justice and peace for all people; that we will be those people who always seek and serve Christ in all persons; that one day, the dignity of every human being, no matter who or what they appear to be, or say they are, will be respected, affirmed and loved – just as the God who is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishment accepts us and loves us just as we are, without one plea!

 

All we can do is laugh!

 

Become A Blessing for All Peoples

Become A Blessing for All People

There’s an awful lot on the table this week. In one corner, wearing the white trunks, we have Abram, Sarai, family members and people and creatures they have accumulated leave it all behind to go where YHWH sends them. They leave Ur of the Chaldees, in Sumer, a bustling metropolis. In many ways a modern city and an extraordinary religious center! Abram was evidently part of the huge Semitic minority that lived in this large Sumerian city-state. Ur had hot and cold running water, a sewer system, multistory buildings, paved roads, major temples, ornate furniture, and a variety of metal instruments. The Sumerians developed a sexagesimal system that divided the hour into 60 minutes, the minute into 60 seconds, and the circle into 360 degrees—a system that we still use today. There were well developed law codes and a standard system of weights and measures. It would be a significant city even by today’s standards.

 

All this made Ur part of the first empire history had ever seen under King Sargon some 2,300 years before the time of Christ. It also boasts being the home to the first named author and poet in history, Enheduana, Sargon’s daughter and high priestess at the Temple of the moon god, Nana – whose own daughter, Inana, was the goddess of love, war, fertility, divine law and political power. Whenever Enheduana was in danger of being cast out of the Temple by another pretender, it was Inana whom she would prod to destroy her enemies, and substantial fragments of two great hymns to Inana survive to this day: The Exaltation of Inana and a Hymn to Inana. Inana is pictured both as pining after a young shepherd boy on one hand, and as a ruthless warrior “grinding the skulls to dust and feeding on the corpses of her enemies.” [i] In her hymns such modern-day concerns such as exile, social disruption, gender-bending identities, the devastation of war, the terrifying forces of nature, and the art of poetry are discussed along with the powers of Inana: “To destroy and to create, to plant and to pluck out, are yours Inana. To turn men into women, to turn women into men, are yours, Inana…To turn brutes into weaklings and to make the powerful puny are yours, Inana. To reverse peaks and plains, to raise up and to reduce are yours, Inana, to assign and allot the crowns, throne, and staff of kings, are yours Inana.” [ii]

 

YHWH, Elohim, the God of Creation, says to Abram, “Go from your country, you and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” [iii]  Abram leaves all that Ur has to offer behind on a promise to become a blessing to all the families of the earth. He leaves all the wealth, all the social achievements of Ur, and all the idols of Nana and Inana, as well as his parent’s home in Haran behind, and leaves for he knows not where. That is a leap of faith. Thus, begins our story to become, like Abram, a blessing to all the peoples of the Earth.

 

In the other corner, wearing black trunks, are some snooty Pharisees who question just who sits at the table with Jesus.  Jesus sees Matthew, a despised tax collector, sitting at his tax table, and calls him, “Follow me.”  Matthew eats with Jesus and other tax collectors and sinners. Some Pharisees turn up their noses. To which Jesus replies, these are the people you and I are to welcome and care for according to Torah. Suddenly the narrative is interrupted when a man, a leader of a synagogue, begs Jesus to help with his daughter who is at home dead. Jesus leaves the meal, and on the way, unexpectedly, a woman who has suffered a flow of blood for twelve years reaches out to touch the hem of Jesus’s garment. Before she can, Jesus turns to her and says, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” – and suddenly she is healed. When he gets to the home of the leader of the synagogue, the town’s professional mourners are already tuning up their instruments and begin to wail. Jesus stops them and says the girl is only sleeping. They laugh at him. Then Jesus takes the girl by the hand – and suddenly, she rises! All in a day’s work for the Son of Man. Word of all of this, we are told, “spread throughout the district.” [iv]

 

We’re not told how the Pharisees react to all of this. They were good people, and very righteous in that they believed everyone ought to follow the same purity rules that the priests in the Jerusalem Temple were required to follow. They imagined that a country of “priests” would somehow prod the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus to dismiss the dreaded Roman Empire from their midst. They recognize Jesus as a “master,” as at least a co-equal of themselves. And at the same time, they just cannot fathom why Jesus would spend time with the hoi polloi off the streets: people they could not imagine being on God’s radar, despite all of Torah and all the Prophets who repeatedly point to the importance of caring for “the least” of our sisters and brothers – including sinners, tax collectors, and a woman with a flow of blood for twelve years. The good news: after the destruction of the Temple in 70ce (the common era), the Pharisees reorganized Jewish life from being a sacrificial cult into a people who seek justice, offer mercy to one and all, and walk humbly with their God. That is, ultimately, they follow what Jesus was doing – even if they did not formally become followers of his. It can be argued, if they were wearing the black trunks at the beginning of their journey, eventually they became a people who have been a blessing for people both inside and outside God’s community. They live lives of faith, hope and charity, while wearing the white trunks, and have been a blessing to others for at least the last two thousand years.

 

During which time, we need to remember, the Church of Jesus Christ morphed into becoming the Roman Empire that had crucified our master, and spending more and more time accumulating more power, more money, and more property for its self, desiring to become the very Empire they once resisted, rather than servants of the world’s most needy people in the name of Jesus. Rather than fulfilling God’s promise to be a blessing to all the peoples of the Earth

 

What we see is that some people, like the leader of the synagogue and the woman with a flow of blood, reach out for Jesus. While others, like Abram, like Matthew, and the fishermen James, John, Peter and Andrew, are called by Jesus to “follow” him. Jesus welcomes and accepts them all – even his social critics like the Pharisees. Like Abram, they all give up a lot and leave behind a settled life for a new and unknown life with the Son of God, Jesus, who lives a life of blessing for all people. Leaving us all to ponder: just where are we in these stories that stretch back nearly 4,000 years into the past? Are we reaching out? Are we being called to follow Jesusa who shows truly what it means to wear the white trunks and become a blessing for all the families and peoples of the Earth?

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[i] Helle, Shophus, The Complete Poems of Enheduana the world’s first author (Yale University Press, New Haven: 2023) p. xi

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Genesis 12:1-9.

[iv] Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

The School of Charity: Trinity Sunday 2023

 The School of Charity

The other day I sat outside at the Shrine of St. Anthony pondering just what there is to say about the Christian idea of God as Trinity and Unity all at once. Not at all sure, I headed back to the car and on the way I spied a small object on the ground: an orange Lego piece. I picked it up, looked at it, and thought, “That’s it. The Nicene Creed that describes God as Creator, Jesus and Holy Spirit all rolled into One Unity is the building block or cornerstone of who we are and what we are meant to be doing! I’ve held on to the Lego piece as a reminder.

 

As Bob Dorough once wrote for School House Rock, there is something magical about the number three. We speak of time as past, present and future. Yet, this does not really give us a full picture and understanding of time; such as when it feels as if time stands still; or time seems to speed up; certain times dissolve us into tears; other times give us great joy.

 

Three gives us heart, body and mind. Scripture, tradition and reason. We come from love, we return to love, and love is all around. Faith, hope and charity. Two people have a little baby, which makes three. A family. A unity of three. Which leads us directly to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A blessed trinity, and yet, a unity of three. An expression of the nature of how Christian’s view God, which itself has been re-stated since its formulaic development in the Nicene Creed in our liturgy. “Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer” is commonly used. Our Presiding Bishop likes to use, “Love, Liberating, and Life-giving God!” And the New Zealand Prayer Book describes our God as “Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, and Life-giver.” All are attempts to describe a Holy Family: God, Jesus and Spirit, a family, and yet a Unity: three experiences of the One God.

 

People try to use metaphors people to describe this. How can one God have three personae, some ask? It’s similar to water, that can also be ice, and can also be vapor, but is still water. No metaphor, however, gives a full picture and understanding of the One – the Unity, the One we call God. The vastness of God is indescribable. Similar to when one heads out to western Maryland, after ascending Sidling Hill, a long, steep, narrow mountain ridge in the Ridge-and-Valley character of the Appalachian Mountains, one eventually crests the top and begins a descent with a view of what seems an almost infinite valley with some minor hills that is indescribably beautiful. There are just not enough words to describe this view, just as no description of God can ever fully describe our experience of what some call the Divine Love or Charity of God.

 

And yet, we try. It confounds our fellow monotheists, Muslims and Jews, that we describe One God with three descriptors. And perhaps they are right. I have long struggled with this Trinitarian business most of my life, having once refused to sign a copy of the Nicene Creed at my confirmation – arguing that it seemed much too exclusive of other expressions of the mystery we call God. I was told to just sign it because a Bible with my name embossed in gold on the cover had already been purchased for presentation, and that “you wouldn’t want to embarrass your family not to be confirmed.” I signed it, which bothered me for a long time. I spent years fighting the urge to pick up the phone and ask that that piece of paper be pulled from the files of First Congregational Church, and sent to me so I could burn it and be done with it.

 

But as it turns out, the blessed Trinity is not done with me yet! Lately, I find that each time I recite it some new experience of Divine Charity emerges within me. Some dimension of God’s loving presence touches me at a deeper place than ever before. God, Jesus, and the Spirit are never through with us. Just as creation continues. New things seen and unseen continue to come into focus and become a new reality, especially with the aid of electron microscopes and the Hubble and Webb telescopes. The vastness of the universe only begins to suggest the even greater vastness and depths of the Creator; the One who is within all things and beyond all things all at once! That yes! Our God is beyond us and within us all at once all the time.

 

The deeper truth of it all is that the revelation of God is not dogma, not theology, not a doctrine – not even a belief. For us, the Revelation of God is a person – a person whose every story and statement gives us some deep truth about the life and will of our God – whom Evelyn Underhill long ago described as Divine Charity in her writings about the Creed. [i] We who are created in the image of God – imago Dei – are to become those people who abandon self-love and the greed and acquisition that grows out of such self-love, and become like Jesus, the human appearance of Divine Charity in flesh and blood like ourselves – we are to become a giving, sharing, self-emptying community of Divine Charity, sharing the unending, unqualified love of our Creator with all people, and all nations, especially with all those who are utterly unlike ourselves. Credo, which gets translated, “I believe,” in the creed, really means, “I commit myself, I turn over my self over, to the God of Divine Charity so that I too, like Jesus before me, can share the fullness of life and love with others. Jesus shows us how to serve others, and the Spirit gives us the strength and the courage to continue to do so. This is our faith. This is our hope. This is how we are meant to live as the image of God’s Divine Charity and Love.

 

Thus, writes Underhill, the importance of spending time in contemplation and prayer with the source of Divine Charity each day. We need to go within ourselves – our true selves as revealed by our God; our Love, Liberating and Life-giving God! It is like stained-glass windows, she writes. Viewed from outside, they remain dark, dirty, revealing no image to be seen. It is not until we go within a church that their beauty, their stories, their truths are revealed. She continues,  “We leave the outer world and enter the inner world; and at once we are surrounded by a radiance, a beauty that lies beyond the fringe of speech itself! The universal Light of God in which we live and move, and yet in reality always escapes us, pours through those windows; bathes us in an inconceivable color and splendor, and shows us things of which we have never dreamed before.” [ii] Like the universe, like the Earth, we are made new every day!

 

Like all of creation which continues to unfold, we too are still unsettled, still evolving, still changing, so that the deeper we go within our life with the Triune God, we are changed more and more into a people, a community, a church of Divine Charity that is open to and welcomes all people with no exception. Each time we recite the Creed, it becomes more and more a building block, the cornerstone of our very being, reminding us not only who we are, but whose we are, and what we are: reflections of the true light of God’s Divine self-giving Charity.

 

Back in 1964 I signed that paper with the Nicene Creed, grudgingly, and got my Bible. And I believe that I have been changed by doing so – or more precisely, changed by that which lives within it and behind it and beyond it. Together, we will continue to be changed into a people of Faith, Hope and Charity. Abide these three, writes St. Paul; but the greatest of these is Charity.

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[i] Underhill, Evelyn, The School of Charity, (Morehouse Publishers, Harrisburg PA:1934/1991) p.26

[ii] Ibid, p.27.