Dear Friends,
If you’re familiar with Godly Play’s Spiral Curriculum, then you know that there is always something new to be found in familiar stories. It’s why we expand on stories the way that we do as children grow, but it’s also why we as adults travel through a lectionary cycle. We need to hear the stories of our faith again. We are always growing and they are always revealing something new.
So, what will we find in the readings this week? Our Gospel reading this week includes one of the more startling lines in the Bible, at least to my eye. Though it also includes lines about how treasured we are, Jesus goes on to tell the disciples, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
What’s up with that? This is the same Jesus who, in the Gospel of John, says that he came that we may have life and have it abundantly. This is the God who comes in love, and who dies for the sake of that love. So, what’s with the sword? I think recent events offer a useful lens. Here’s what comes after:
For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
Let’s treat this like a parable. What’s inside the box? What is this gift? It’s not an easy one to open up.
What we have here is a call to reject simple affinities and easy connections. But part of what makes the passage difficult is the way the passage begins by pitting families against themselves. I tend to be that person in my family - less interested in keeping the peace if it means keeping quiet about something that’s just not okay - but I think most people, in most families, are peace keepers. It’s understandable. We are, after all, told to honor our mother and father. It turns out, Jesus says, that it’s not so simple.
The conflict Jesus declares that he comes to sow in our lives is about committing to what’s right. Follow him. Follow him, even when other people don’t like it. Even when it makes the people close to you upset. And right now we all have the opportunity to do exactly that.
When we speak out against dominant systems of power, people get upset. It might be other people you go to church with, it might be your friends or your family. It’s what happened to those who followed Jesus and it’s what happens when we listen to the prophets of our present moment. God has come close to people, creating prophets in many times and places, and today is no different, if we know how to listen.
Now for the tricky part - as if planning to drive a sword into your relationships wasn’t hard enough. If you’re attending church remotely this Sunday or reading the Gospel aloud as a family, a sword is the kind of thing that’s going to get kids’ attention. First, because it’s a sword - what kid doesn’t like swords? - and second, because this doesn’t sound like Jesus. Jesus may talk in puzzles a lot, but not puzzles like this one. How do we make it real?
Let’s try a game.
With little kids, this lesson might hide quietly in a game like Simon Says. We have to listen carefully - listen for those small distinctions - in order to know who to follow. Maybe there are a couple of “Simons” talking at once. Can they remember who to follow?
With older kids, there’s room to go a little deeper. How, we might ask, can we know who to listen to when there are people who want to mislead us? Do we know what God sounds like? If you don’t have time to assemble a version yourself, this Jesus or Kanye (Yeezus, as it were) guessing game offers an opportunity for kids to try their hands at this distinction, but you can do it with any assemblage of Bible and popular culture quotes. How do we train our ears on what is is Holy?
Personally, when I envision responding to this, I see myself sorting things. I like to sort. It feels like a wheat from the chaff moment, this dividing of brother from sister. Make of that what you will. Maybe your response supplies are full of scissors and string, strips of paper, figurines.
At a moment when so much is pulling us apart, Jesus comes to us in the lectionary to speak about division, not unity. Still, it’s a division built on love. Where will you choose to stand?
Steadfastly,
A. Bird