3 Pentecost, A p 7, June 21,2020
21:8-21 Ps. 86:1-10, 16-17
Rom. 6:1b-11 Matt. 10:24-39
We can get very sentimental about a word like peace, but peace can become a silent complacency and false comfort in the static state of I know what I like and I like what I know, so don't upset my peace.
But today we have read the seeming contradictory words of Jesus when he is quoted as saying, "I did not come to bring peace, I came to bring a sword." And then we have read the rather frightening words of division, yes, family division. Families are supposed to be united and peaceful and not at war; "Jesus why would you bring a sword and not peace? Aren't you the Prince of Peace?"
And so I pose the question, when is peace no peace at all? And the answer? When peace is anchored in the perfection of God for each person and for the society of people who need to become their better angels.
Two days after the celebration of June 19th which commemorates the declaration of liberty and freedom from slavery arriving to the Black people in our country, we have been recently experiencing the Peace that is no peace. Why? Because the peace of God is anchored in perfection and God wants us to be in perfect peace.
In biblical times, the language of everyone, including the language of Jesus indicate to us that the world had made a terrible peace with the practice of slavery. The ancient economic virtue of slavery persisted and resisted for way too long progress toward the perfect peace of God.
And when people advance in and toward the perfect peace of God, there are revolutionary times when things don't seem so peaceful. Whenever true cultural and spiritual advances are occurring the peace of complacent blindness to taken for granted inhumanity gets upset and people get angry and are divided. "But we've always done it this way and we aren't bad people."
The peace of God is no peace to those who do not want to advance to a more perfect peace when a better way is shown.
Early Christ-centered Judaism was an advance in evangelism to the entire world. It seemed as though religious elites had promoted that God had only a few chosen people and God wasn't available to everyone in the world. Why would God be available to the Gentiles? And Jesus and his followers said, "Why not?" And the peace in the community of faith was shattered and division occurred between the synagogue and the Jesus Movement. The harsh words of the Gospel for today echo the big problem caused by offering salvation to the whole world. And Paul hearkening back to Abraham declared that God was truly a universalist, God was for everyone. And Paul saw that the meaning of Jesus the Christ, meant that God was for everyone.
And when we are offered a more perfect Peace from God and we refuse to advance to a more perfect peace, what happens? Joseph Campbell once said, "Yesterday's virtues can become tomorrow's vices." The once practiced exclusivity of thinking that God only belonged to a certain clan, became exposed as misrepresenting a loving God. In Jesus, it was revealed that God was for everyone. And when humanity finally begins to arrive at enlightenment in being humane, the ancient economic virtue of slavery has been exposed to be the wicked degrading practice of inhumanity to people who were created equal in God's image.
We as Americans, believe that our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were enlightened documents for humanity to advance toward their better angels and toward a more perfect peace with God and each other.
But just like Paul believed that people in his faith background were not living up to the universal faith of Abraham, it has over and over again been shown to us in actual American practice that we have not been living up to the high ideals of our founding principles of liberty and justice for all. And when the hypocrisy is revealed, when we are shown to be lacking in the practice of our ideals, especially toward minorities, toward women and people of color, the public peace has been upset. Why? Because in power relationships people fear the loss of power if actual equal justice is offered and lived towards all. People who have had wealth and power do not realize the motivating power of fear of loss in their own lives.
And these past weeks have been poignant and painful reminders that we have not yet achieved in full practice the perfect peace of God, we have not yet become the better angels that our Declaration of Independence and Constitution tried to write us to be.
So what do we do? Today, we give up the false peace of complacency and the ignorance based upon refusing to know each other in fully mutually beneficial ways. We accept the sword of division which Christ still brings today to force us to move on to better practice of the higher peace of God.
The perfect peace of God will always make us uncomfortable if we are settling for and tolerating the harm of anyone. The perfect peace of God will not let us be comfortable because we have been segregated and sheltered from having to interact with people who are different from us. America has for too long lived as separate gated communities of people with ethnic, social and economic differences and this betrays the peace of E pluribus unum. Out of the many one. Out of the many one, cannot just mean out of the many European descendents who came to America, the one. Because of the original born here, the native peoples and those who were brought here unwillingly as slaves, and the many waves of immigrants who have come here for a better freedom and economic well-being, our land is a land of differences, and the wonderful peace of God calls us to find a fuller peace and practice the best ways of celebrating the beauty of these differences.
The peace of Jesus came to Palestine as an unsettling sword of division to call the world to the greater peace of God. You and I are called to this greater Peace of God today. May we have grace in our nation to weather this unsettling time of confrontation with the humbling and humiliating reality of our failure, but let this be a sure indication to us that God loves us to perfect us in the perfect Peace of God. And for the sake of Christ, let us not give up on each other. Let us provoke each other to become our better angels in the perfect peace of God. Amen.
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