One with Christ
Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7 A)
June 21, 2020
The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, Ph.D., SCP
June 21, 2020
The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, Ph.D., SCP
Trinity Parish Church
Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. Said Mass on the Labyrinth
10:00 a.m. Live-streamed Mass with Antiphons
God, take away our hearts of stone
and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.
“I bring not to bring peace, but the
sword.” Ouch. When I first heard this saying of Jesus, I
remember thinking, “But he’s the Prince of Peace, not of War!” What made it hurt all the more: my early Sunday
School teachers saying: “You see? Jesus
is not a pacifist! Jesus actually supports our armed forces!” Double ouch.
Then I heard the line from St.
John’s Gospel, “Peace I leave with you—not as the world gives it—but my peace I
leave with you.” But what did that mean? Was the peace Jesus gives just an interior,
private thing and not a concrete description of our mutual relations? Again, ouch.
But in my heart, I knew that Peace
is good, and war is hell. Regardless of
how my reactionary Sunday School teachers quoted him, I knew that the heart of
Jesus was peace, real peace, not just some solipsistic serenity. I became a conscientious objector to war and
was so classified by my draft board. The teachings of Jesus led me there, and also
not to condemn those who became soldiers and police officers out of a sense of
duty and honor.
“I do not bring peace, but a sword” hurt
so much because it upset my childhood’s faith in Jesus as kind of a
superhero. If I but followed him,
everything would be OK, right? Didn’t he
say that if I had even a little tiny bit of faith, I could move mountains with
a word? Jesus was kind of a wacky great
uncle, giving me what I wanted, and demanding little, or at least not demanding
anything hard.
This childhood caricature is the
Jesus of the adult prosperity gospel: if
you follow Jesus, you’ll be in like flint with the big man upstairs, and you
will be healthy, wealthy, and honored.
If you don’t, you will be sorely punished with powerlessness and
poverty. This is a heresy. This is a magic Jesus, not the Jesus whose
words and stories are told in the Bible.
It is “buddy Jesus” smiling, winking, and giving us a thumbs up, not the
real one who struggled to find personal time for prayer, who hungered and
thirsted in the wilderness, and who followed God’s call even at great personal
cost. He pressed on to Jerusalem, there to
be consumed (as the author of today’s Psalm) by the zeal of defending the
holiness of God’s house. His disorderly
protest in the temple against its oppression of the poor led him ultimately to
dark Gethsemane and cruel Calvary.
Jesus is saying here, “I am not a magic
Jesus.” Just as his peace is not as the
world gives, the sword he brings is not as the world brings, wielded on his
behalf: it is wielded against him and
his followers instead.
Humanity
on its good days can bear only so much truth, and on its bad ones cannot bear
the truth at all. A person living in the
truth, however feebly, is bound to be an affront to the world of lies, and
attract enmity. The peace Jesus brings
gives us compassion for others, even those who wield a sword against us.
Jesus
is saying seek the truth and not fear; boldly witness to it, yet honestly expect
opposition. This simply acknowledges
the hard facts of life in a world of lies.
The disciple is no better than the
teacher. Jesus was rejected and killed; his
disciples should expect little better. If we are one with him, we will suffer
as he did, but also be raised in glory. We
are baptized into the death of Christ, but also into his new life.
Do not fear. God will care for us. Following the truth may bring conflict, so we
better get our priorities straight: at times we may appear to those dearest to
us to hate them. But love Jesus all the
same. That is part of being my disciple,
says Jesus—“take up a cross, just as I did.”
The
peace Jesus brings is companionship with him and with others. “Companionship”
comes from Latin cum panis, sharing
bread with someone. We walk the way with
others, not stand in opposition to them, even as we live in truth. Sectarian concern, partisan interest, an “us
vs. them” mentality works against this.
If we claim to have the truth against someone else’s lie, and actively
try to fix them and convince them of the error of their ways, to turn them from
being one of them to one of us, this is not only bad psychology and
poor salesmanship, it turns us into opponents, as antagonists, not comrades
walking the path together. It is the
difference between cold hearted sectarian propaganda and authentic, heart-felt
sharing of good news, evangelism.
This
is why in today’s Gospel, after saying not to fear the persecution that is sure
to come, Jesus tells us to not keep secrets or hidden doctrines, plans, and
teachings, and to tell publicly what he taught us privately. No special knowledge, privileged doctrine, or
insiders’ path for Jesus’ disciples!
It
is not about us vs. them. We are all in
this together, each with our own burdens.
And living in the truth means accepting sharing that truth with all,
without fear or favor. If they cannot
bear the truth, and turn against it and us, we must continue to see them as
members of our family, though they be separated. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know
what they are doing!”
In the name of Christ, Amen.
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