Matthew 10:24-39
24 "A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; 25 it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household! 26 "So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. 27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. 28 Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 And even the hairs of your head are all counted. 31 So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. 32 "Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; 33 but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven. 34 "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36 and one's foes will be members of one's own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” I don’t like those words, not one bit. I don’t like them, because I don’t want them to be true. I don’t want to believe that Jesus came to start trouble, that Jesus came to stir the pot, to cause division, to set folks on edge and cause discomfort. I don’t like that. I want to find a way to erase these words from Jesus, to wash them out of my bible, to replace them with words that remind me (as they so often do every year around December) that Jesus is the “Prince of Peace.” I want a better translation of these words because they’re just too problematic for someone like me. You see, I value peace in the world, peace in the community, peace in the home. I think peace ought to be one of the highest aspirations of every follower of Jesus, but then Jesus has to go and say something like this…I don’t like it!
One might think that Jesus would clear things up with his following words, sort of explain away the whole “I didn’t come to bring peace” talk, but no. Instead, Jesus says words that would get him run out of communities like ours: “For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me…” Surely these can’t be the words of Jesus, right? After all, isn’t family the most sacred institution? Talk of family is all over our Christian culture isn’t it? It’s in the commandments! “Honor your father and mother.” But here’s Jesus saying “I’ve come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother…whoever loves their parents (either of them) more than me isn’t worthy of me, and whoever loves their kids (any of them) more than me isn’t worthy of me.” What’s gotten into Jesus?! What may be even worse about this less-than-family-friendly talk is that Jesus says one’s enemies will be members of one’s own household. So, Jesus came to set families against each other and to graft enemies into their family trees? I don’t like it.
I tell you something else I don’t like. All this talk about giving stuff up, about having to take up my cross, about having to give up my life. That’s what he says, “and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Look, Christianity is supposed to be easy; it’s supposed to make my life better, not tear it apart. Becoming a Christian is about being blessed, about having good morals and righteous values, not about causing trouble, splitting families, and losing my life! It supposed to be about clean living, raising godly children, retiring without debt, living a quiet life to a ripe, old age, and then passing on to the other side of heaven, where I’ll get a robe, a crown, and keys to a mansion. That’s what it’s supposed to be about! That’s what all this is about, right? Right…? But here’s Jesus talking about splitting families, taking in enemies, giving all of our hard-earned stuff away, and dying.
I imagine right after Jesus said all of these words, that he had more than one of the disciples pull him aside, sit him down, and say something like, “Now Jesus, I know you get passionate about this sort of stuff, but it’s not what we signed up for. Get back to talking about being blessed, about happy things, healing folks, telling nice stories, calling out the sins in others, and passing out food. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. If you keep it up with all this divisive stuff, we might just have to find a new messiah.”
I tell you, I just don’t like what Jesus has to say here. I don’t like it one bit. I don’t like it because I don’t want to believe it. I don’t like it because it is contrary to so much of what I believe and hold to be true about my faith. I don’t like it because it isn’t what I want to hear. But you know the biggest reason I don’t like it? You want to know what really makes me want to skip these words, to take a razor to these onion skin pages and cut them out, or at least a dark, permanent marker to cover them? What really troubles me most about these words from Jesus…is that they are true, and I know they’re true, and I can’t do a thing to change them.
I know they’re true because I know the rest of Jesus’ story. Most of you know it too. Jesus came teaching, healing, feeding, welcoming—he didn’t come swinging a sword, or leading an insurrection, yet they came, fully armed, with swords, and arrested him. Jesus came speaking the same message that can be found at the heart of the Hebrew Scriptures: “love God and love your neighbor as yourself,” yet the ones who loved to quote scripture and claim its authority hated him. Jesus came speaking about life, what it really means to be alive, about eternal life in the kingdom of God, that was closer than they could imagine, yet they killed him.
It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t come intending to bring peace; rather, when one comes preaching peace, preaching the kingdom of God, when one comes making a way for peace, when one comes with a message of love and inclusion, you had better believe swords will be drawn, because the message of the kingdom of God isn’t one folks generally want to hear. It’s one folks don’t want to hear because it calls us out on our inadequacies. It’s one we don’t want to hear because it shines a light on our shortcomings. It’s a message we don’t want to hear because it tells us that others are just the same as us and we are just the same as them, no matter how hard we work to tell ourselves we are better. We don’t like to hear these kinds of words form Jesus because they betray our true motives in life and religion; they show us to be selfish people, folks who value comfort over the hard work of equality, folks who value complacency over conviction, people who are satisfied with our slice of the pie even if there are so many others with empty plates.
Jesus didn’t come to bring peace, because peace doesn’t just happen. It isn’t a magic word to be spoken or a victory to be won by whoever has the biggest or most swords. Peace is the product of hard, faithful work that comes through discomfort and a shaking of the status quo, and those things—if only for a season—produce discord, frustrations, and in the worst cases, violence and terror. It’s because deep down, even those of us who preach peace only really want it if we can get it our way, and the Jesus way is so often counter to our way.
Jesus says, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Because if you truly seek to follow Christ, to do what he calls you to do, to be who he calls you to be, it may set you against your father as he clings to comfort of a rose-colored past. It may set you against your mother as she longs for your future to be one of comfort and safety rather than boldness and risk-taking in following Jesus. It may drive a deep wedge between you and your family as they fail to understand why you’re so passionate about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, and loving your enemies. It may cause you to welcome those who for years you’ve seen as enemies, as those who’ve hated you simply for who you are, and you may find them to be among your best friends. It may cause you to lose everything you’ve worked so hard for as you give it away without condition or question, as you strive to bring the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. It may cost you more than you have to spend, cause you pain and anguish, cause you to lose friends and family, and it may even cost you your very life. But do not be afraid. You wouldn’t be the first, because Jesus has been there; he’s still there.
Jesus says, “For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” I don’t like it, but I know it’s true. I just pray for the strength to understand it. Amen.
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