by Heath McClure
There are fifteen days left until the celebration of Easter, the highest and holiest day of the Christian year. Easter is the celebration of the day (according to Christians) that a dead man got up and walked out of a grave. It’s an unbelievable story. It’s an outlandish tale. It’s a narrative that requires a wild and exotic imagination. That’s one of the reasons I believe this story will all of my heart. I long for a world without death. I yearn for fullness and wholeness and reconciliation with everyone and everything around me. I love stories about life and restoration and reunifying. It seems to be built into my DNA. I imagine what it would be like for all the deaths that have ever occurred to be reversed. I imagine the mending of every broken relationship. I imagine a world where everyone lived each for the other. I can see it. I can taste it. Sometimes my dreaming becomes a partial reality. And then sometimes reality stands and laughs at my dreams. However, in spite of this, I continue to imagine, dream, and hope. That’s what has drawn me to this story. It draws me still.
As I have written before, the forty days leading up to Easter is a period of time known as Lent. Lent is a time of reflection and re-evaluation. It’s a time to reflect on one’s life and purpose. For many Christians it’s a time to, once again, seriously consider the message of Jesus as found in the Scriptures. To wrestle with the ancient text and listen for the fresh Word of God to speak and to breathe life.
This is no simple task. Reading the Scriptures is not like painting by numbers or looking a word up in a dictionary. The serious student of the Scriptures must be someone who is committed beforehand to wrestling with the text. Engaging with the Scriptures is like mining for gold. Sometimes you can spend days and weeks feeling like you are getting nowhere. However, when you do find gold (even a little bit) it changes your life forever.
Recently, I was reading through the gospel of Matthew and came across a passage that has troubled me on more than one occasion. It is in Matthew chapter 10 and the occasion is Jesus’ sending out of the twelve Apostles. Jesus says, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn, ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law–a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.'” (Matthew 10:34-36)
Wait, what?
This doesn’t sound right at all. I have never seen this passage printed on a Sunday School poster. I have never heard an inspirational song with lyrics that are taken from this passage. This is no one’s favorite verse. Let’s face it. This passage is a downer. In addition to this, doesn’t it contradict several other things that Jesus said or things that were said about him? Didn’t Luke write of the angels proclamation of the coming of Jesus, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men”?(Luke 2:14) Didn’t Jesus himself say, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace‘? (John 16:33) What happened to “love one another” and “love your enemies” and “turn the other cheek” and nice quotable things like that? What was Jesus thinking? Which is it? Peace or a sword?
I think the answer can be found on the night before Jesus was betrayed by Judas; the night of the Last Supper. Here’s John’s account of what happened:
“Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciple’s feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” (John 13:3-5)
And then he said,
“Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so for that is what I am. Now that I , your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” (John 13:12-15)
And there it is.
This is a scandalous scene. It’s easy to miss the radical nature of what is going on here because the story is so familiar to us. Do you remember Peter’s reaction to all of this? Peter, at first, refuses to let Jesus was his feet. This was a task for a slave. This was the menial job of a household servant. This was simply not the way a leader was to behave. Someone who did things like this would not be taken seriously as a threat to the leviathan power of the Roman Empire.
And that, of course, is the point.
Jesus was showing his followers how to live. He had alluded to these things before:
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. NOT SO WITH YOU. INSTEAD, WHOEVER WANTS TO BECOME GREAT AMONG YOU MUST BE THE SERVANT OF ALL (emphasis mine)…for the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve….” (Matthew 20:25-28)
There was only one thing Jesus was changing with these words and actions: EVERYTHING.
The kingdoms of this world operate with cruel and authoritarian tyranny. What matters is power, brute strength, bigger guns, louder voices, the biggest bank accounts, and always having the upper hand. In the past, peace was achieved by the military or political overthrow of one’s enemies. That version of peace is just the absence of war achieved by war. That, says Jesus, is not peace. That way of doing things, according to Jesus, has to stop.
And that’s why Jesus says, “I did not come to bring peace to earth, but a sword.”
The sword is the sword of division. Division that separates those who follow the old way of doing things (war, murder, strife, jealousy, arrogance, pride, lust for power, etc.) and Jesus’ new way of being human in this world (fellowship, service, mutuality, humility, sacrifice, etc.). There will be those who simply do not want to exchange the former for the latter. However, “peace on earth” means embracing an entirely new way of being human. And it’s a way of being human that does not come naturally to us. It’s the way were originally created to be human. We were made to live in harmony with one another, with the created order, and with God. Obviously, something interrupted and infected that order. Jesus has come to restore that life-affirming order..
There is so much degradation in this world. There are so many ways we use one another and devalue and dehumanize one another. Jesus wants us to exchange that cruel paradigm for his program. A program of peace. Of downward mobility. Of service. Of genuine love and care and concern for the welfare of others. Yes, sometimes choosing Jesus’ way will separate us from the powerful. Many will find it easier to simply go with the flow. However, the only current that is worth following is the one that flows toward genuine peace and reconciliation with the entire cosmos. Let’s be a part of that division that seeks to make Jesus’ loving and all-embracing ecosystem a reality in our world and in our day. That’s a sword worth wielding. Peace on earth!
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