Saturday, June 24, 2023

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]



[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

No comments:

Post a Comment