Don’t think that I’ve come to bring peace to the earth. I haven’t come to bring peace but a sword.
Reflection
One of my jobs is assigning scriptures for devotions. I tend to do it randomly, so when I decided that this verse would be one of the scriptures, I was hoping that it didn’t land on me. As you can clearly see, it did! I assume there is a specific lesson somewhere here for me.
Let me confess something to you. Growing up, I was a bully. I wanted to be in control, to have older friends, and to prove that I was strong. I certainly was strong physically and I wasn’t afraid of a fight, but underneath I was afraid of not being liked or accepted, so I went with what I was good at – defense. When we think about it logically, being a bully to make friends and be accepted makes no sense; however, we are seeing this play out in our current government. Now as an adult I realize that the word sword as used in the Bible is not necessarily speaking of an instrument of violence. The sword can be representative of the tools that we have at our disposal to work through divisions. We can look to Ephesians 6 which talks about putting on the “armor of God” and the “sword of the Spirit” which is the Holy Word. We read that Jesus healed the man whose ear was cut off by a sword in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus commanded his followers to put down their swords and allow his arrest to happen.
So, you ask, why does Jesus say he did not come to bring peace but to bring a sword? It sounds like he was promoting violence. If we continue to read this chapter, we read about people being enemies with their own family members and turning against each other. Jesus was making the point that it is not easy to follow God. Doing the right thing can be difficult.
When I did some further research into these verses, the sword that is referred to here could be a large knife that people who fished for a living would use to cut the fish into various parts. People wanted Jesus to bring immediate peace to the world as the Messiah, but Jesus knew and could plainly see that this was not what was going to happen.
We know many did not believe in Jesus even though he performed miracles. We know that the scholars of the day were against his “radical” thoughts about taking care of the poor, speaking to women, welcoming the stranger, and wishing good for those who were enemies. We read in Luke 4 that people who Jesus grew up with in Nazareth wanted to throw him down the hill after he spoke in the synagogue. We continue to see these divisions play out – even amongst those of us who profess to be Christians.
We disagree about who should be included and who is worthy of our help and how we should help them. Are we using our power and status as a country to be bullies in the world? Are we using our status and power as natural born citizens to bully those who have immigrated here? Are we using our own wealth to help or to hurt the poor? Are we advocating for people’s rights whether or not they look, think, or act like we do? We know there are divisions. We see it with people’s attitudes toward MUMC for being a Reconciling Congregation, and we just have to look at our phones or turn on the news for about 2 seconds to see the divide. Jesus knew this would be the way things would go. He was just warning us to be prepared and to use our tools to further the kin-dom.
by Janet Waryck
For Pondering and Prayer
What “swords” do we need to continue to do the work of God to help others and to further the kin-dom? I think these can be individual and corporate answers. Again, let’s look at our star words along with Dr. King’s words to help us decide what we might need to work on to get there within ourselves and within the Church.
Prayer: Prince of Peace, show us the tools we have within us that will help us work toward peace in our homes, communities, and the world. Help us to know that sometimes peace has to be “hard fought” but help us to avoid violence in our fight. Give us wisdom and courage and help us to know you are with us when we work for your kin-dom. Amen.
P.S. – What did I learn by writing this? Well, on a practical level, I learned about the big knife. I was not aware of that simple explanation, which of course is typical of our reading of the Bible, even after we have read it any number of times. Suddenly we get an explanation that makes sense for that time and it really adds to our thought process about the scripture. And it is always good for me personally to think about when I was a bully and to now remember that people can and do change – and that I, like everyone else, am a beloved child of God.
