Especially jarring, for me at least, is the part where Jesus said “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Did any of the rest of you hear that and think, “wait, what?” Jesus didn’t come to bring peace? But Jesus is the one we call the Prince of Peace. This is turn the other cheek, walk a mile with the other’s bag, proclaim release to the captives Jesus, what’s with the no peace but violence thing?
To make sense of this I think it’s helpful, as it so often is, to get a sense of this history. Because peace, even today is a pretty complex word. It seems simple, the absence of war. But think about the scope of it. New parents might long for “peace and quiet,” but it’s often quipped that the time to worry the most about toddlers is when they’re quiet. Peace talks may or may not lead to peace, and in fact historians make the argument the uneasy peace following World War One directly led to World War Two.
The word peace was equally as complex, and probably even more loaded, during Jesus’ time. Jesus lived during a period of the Roman Empire known as the Pax Romana or Peace of Rome. Stretching from 27 BCE to 180 CE, it was a period of Roman history marked by relative peacefulness and minimal expansion by the Roman Empire. Although, historian Walter Goffart noted the volume of Cambridge Ancient History that covers that time frame called it the Imperial Peace, “but peace is not what one finds in its pages.” In fact, the period of Pax Romana included the First Jewish–Roman War, the Kitos War, the Bar Kokhba Revolt, the Roman–Parthian War, Trajan's Roman–Parthian War, and Boudica's war in Britain. Which seems like a lot of war for a period known for its peace.
The other thing to keep in mind about the Pax Romana is this peace was not like how we might think of peace, where things are calm and safe, and people have the freedom to do what they want. It’s not like Rome knocked on Israel’s door and was like, hey guys, we’re going to establish a period of peace, want to join us. And the Jews were like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea! And then they all became Romans and lived happily ever after until Jesus showed up and spoiled the whole thing. Friends, the Jews were conquered. They did not want to become part of the Roman Empire, but they were. In fact of that list of wars I rattled off earlier, three of them were in Judea. Three. By the time Matthew got around to writing the Gospel we read today, the Temple had been destroyed by Rome, in a battle so violent that historians recount blood running in the streets. This is what is meant by the Peace of Rome. It was a peace kept in place by strength, by oppression, and by silencing—through violence—anyone who attempted to disturb that peace. Jesus died on a cross because that was the death of a political prisoner, Jesus died because he disrupted the peace.
Not only did he die for disturbing the peace, but the people in power warned him it would happen. The religious leadership, who were puppets put in place by the Romans, warned him, don’t heal on the Sabbath, don’t associate with outcasts, don’t gather the poor and downtrodden and promise them the kingdom of God. Jesus knew what he was doing, he knew what teaching, healing, and proclaiming the good news would do to Rome’s so-called peace. But Jesus did it anyway. He did it anyway because the Prince of Peace was concerned with bringing peace with a capital P. True Peace, lasting Peace, the kind of Peace that is freedom and hope and grace and life. Peace that is restorative and reparative and changes lives. The peace of Rome was a lower case peace, it was peace in the moment, peace that is more quiet, edged with cautious, peace like tip-toeing past a big dog so it doesn’t bite you, or biting your tongue against a bully so you don’t cause trouble. That’s not peace, its fear, but so often we label it peace. The Prince of Peace came to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. And what Jesus knew, and the disciples hadn’t understood yet, was that bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth was going to mean disturbing the peace in the process. Because the kingdom of heaven is capital P Peace, it is freedom, it is grace, it is hope, and joy, and life. It is restorative, it is reparative, it lifts up the lowly and casts down the mighty, and the lion lies down with the lamb and a little child shall lead them. It is all of those things. But to bring those things to life, the status quo is going to be disturbed. And if there’s one thing that humans don’t like, it’s change. Obviously this is going to anger the people in power, those who have the most to lose if the lowly get lifted up and the mighty cast down. But even some of the lowly are probably not going to like it. Because yeah, it isn’t much fun being lowly, but if that’s been your story, that you are a person who’s lowly, then changing to be something else, even if the change is good, is uncomfortable. As good as the good news of Jesus is, it is a different reality, a better one yes, but different, and different, no matter how good, is painful. And it’s going to disturb the peace.
So what’s the good news for us in this Gospel? Well, remember from last week, when I said the Gospel of Matthew is both a history of the life of Jesus and a guidebook for the followers of Jesus after his ascension? I think that’s key this week for seeing the good news. Because, honestly, I don’t think this was good news for the disciples at the time. Jesus said, don’t be afraid, but people are going to try to kill you, and no matter how I spin it, I can’t make that good news for them. But it is good news for us, and here’s why. It’s good news for us because it promises that when things get hard, it means we’re doing something right. It means that when we are bringing the kingdom of God, when we are calling our congresspeople who advocate for the poor, when we are opening the doors of our church to our neighbors and feeling like we’re not getting anything in return, when we find the courage to call out that friend who makes inappropriate comments, or offer to pray for a friend who’s hurting, when we step out of our comfort zone and it is uncomfortable, even painful, we can listen to these words of Jesus, we can hear that the disciple is not above the teacher, and we can know that we are doing it right. That Jesus was uncomfortable, so it makes sense that we will be uncomfortable, that Jesus needed time to rest and pray, and we need time to rest and pray, that Jesus faced opposition, and we will face opposition.
This may not feel like good news yet, but I think it is. For me at least, it’s wonderfully refreshing that Jesus has the confidence in us to be honest about the fact that being his follower is hard. He didn’t sell us a phony bill of goods, he spelled out the truth right off the bat. This will be hard, you will face struggle, but the kingdom of God in the end is worth every minute of the journey, because there is life at the end. And if it not life, then it is not yet the end. It’s not easy good news, it’s not really feel-good good news, but it is capital G Good News. It is good news that is freedom and hope and grace and life; that is restorative and reparative and changes lives. I think of it as the difference between a mentor and a ponzi scheme. A ponzi scheme says if you just do this one easy thing then everything will be amazing. But a mentor tells it like it is, a mentor is honest with you, coaxes you, sees more potential in you then you see in yourself, and challenges you to be more than you thought you were capable of. Growth like that is hard, and it’s painful, but man oh man is it worth it.
Dear friends in Christ, this is how highly Jesus thinks of you, how much potential he sees in you. He sees so much hope in you, so much power in you, so much life in you, that he is going to push you and challenge you and coax out of you more than you thought you could do. He’s not going to sugar-coat it for you because he thinks too highly of you for that, he trusts you enough to be honest with you about the struggles. So get out there, as Jesus commanded you, and proclaim that the good news of the kingdom of heaven has come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. It’s not going to be easy. It would be easier, certainly, to go along to get along. The status quo does not like to be changed, and people, including you, are going to resist being brought to new life. But trust me on this one; Jesus knows you can do it. And the gifts you will receive in the journey are worth way more than the challenges. Thanks be to God who gives us the power to be more than we know we can be. Amen.
Cambridge Ancient History quote from: Walter Goffart (1989,. Rome's Fall and After, Hambledon Press, p. 111
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