Some Bible verses are to the point and easy to understand; we’ve loved them since childhood. Other verses can be deeper and more complicated in their meaning; we might not understand them till we’ve pondered them over a few decades of life experiences. The New Testament verses we read in worship on June 14 have been like that for me. Reading them as a kid, they always sounded strange.
The verses are Matthew 10:26-39 (read them here). They sounded strange to me because I always pictured Jesus as sweet and smiling, maybe some kids crawling on him, preaching about God’s love and encouraging more peace. And yet in the Matthew 10 passage, Jesus announces, “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.’” That doesn’t fit with the warm fuzzy image of Jesus we’ve put in our heads. What’s going on?
As always, Jesus knows more than we do. Indeed, Jesus knew that to build God’s kingdom, sometimes you have to kick down some tables and run some people off when they’re not living right. That’s what he did in Mark 11:15-18. Verse 18 there notes that it was such a disruptive bother to how things were done, the religious leaders “began looking for a way to kill him.” They didn’t like him causing a ruckus and trying to stop their routine, especially since they were the ones in authority. They especially hated how Jesus said that God did not like the way things were set up. They just wanted Jesus to be quiet and go away, so things could go back normal. But God didn’t like that normal, and part of Jesus’ mission was to help people realize that—to show them a better way.
In his wisdom, Jesus knew that many people would reject his message. He knew that it would cause division, since some people wouldn’t want to change. I think that’s what he meant in Matthew 10, when said that his message would cause division, like a sword. Some people would welcome it, whereas others would hate it. Maybe some of those folks were in the same families.
I think of that Matthew 10 passage these days as I see protests and arguments—on the streets and online—about things like true racial respect. It’s tempting to say, “I just wish all the craziness would stop so we can go back to normal.” But wanting everything to just settle down and go back to normal doesn’t support God’s peace, if normal means that people of color are mistreated in any way. Any society where brutal inequalities happen in areas like housing, law enforcement, education, medical care, and many others is not a society of God’s peace.
If we are actually serious about following God’s instruction to “seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:10-12), then it means we don’t avoid talking about issues of suffering if they are uncomfortable; we address them. To avoid talking about them enables mistreatment to continue. So we must be intentional about overcoming evil—even if it is sneaky and hard to notice, like systemic racism—with obvious welcoming good. There’s no getting around it, the actual Way of Jesus is not easy to follow. But that is the work that God is doing, building the kingdom of heaven. And it’s work that we are invited to join.