Choosing
Christ’s Peace
Texts: Hebrews 11.29-12.2; Luke 12.49-56
The following of Christ is not for people who are allergic to making
choices. It is not for any who would rather keep their options
permanently open, or for those of us who prefer to spread our
allegiances around in order to keep things nice with important
allies. For when Christ calls, he calls us to choose.
The sacred texts we read just now were written in the midst of a world
that was, in many respects, just like the one that is arriving for us
with the ascendency of George Bush’s America. The world was ruled
by an imperial power, a power whose influence pervaded every sphere of
life, whether that be political, economic, domestic or spiritual.
Local cultural and religious organisations were tolerated, in the
public sphere, so long as their aims and practices did not conflict
with the agenda of Rome. Where local organisations did conflict
with Rome, its members could be charged with both the political crime
of sedition and the religious crime of blasphemy. For what Bush’s
America leaves implicit, Rome put out there for all to see: that
the accumulation and maintenance of absolute power is tantamount to
making oneself into a god who requires both obedience and
worship. In the world of first-century Rome, those arrested on
suspicion of either sedition or blasphemy were often held for long
periods without charge, questioned and even tortured without recourse
to adequate legal representation, pushed through a show-trial, and then
summarily executed. Ironically, or tragically (depending on your
point of view), this whole system of intimidation and repression had a
particular name in the first century: the pax romana, the ‘peace
of Rome’.
It is impossible to comprehend the words of Jesus in the gospel we read
just now, unless one understands that it was this ‘peace’, this pax
romana, that Luke wanted to challenge and contest. From the point
of view of the Evangelist, the peace offered by Rome was no peace at
all. It was a false peace, an uneasy peace. It was a peace
that demanded nothing less than the selling of one’s mind, soul and
body to the invader. If one were to accept the pax romana, one
would need to divest oneself of anything resembling an independent
thought or will or action. Theologically, accepting the peace of
Rome was tantamount to choosing Caesar, and all things Roman, as god.
For Christians, of course, this was impossible. For Christians
are those who, having heard the call of Christ to follow, have freely
and without compulsion chosen to give themselves over to Christ as Lord
and God. For Christians, there is only one authority in heaven
and earth, and that is Christ. Having been baptised into his
death, we have died to the basic principles of this world, to its false
forms of peace and justice, in order to look for a peace that is still
to come. The peace to come, in Christian understanding, is the
pax Christi, the peace of Christ. It is a cosmos in which people
honour each other with a radical hospitality and unconditional love,
very much after the manner of Christ himself. It is a peace in
which the poor are no longer poor, and the rich no longer rich.
It is a peace in which the colour of one’s skin and the accidents of
one’s progress through life are no longer reduced to function as
symbols of one’s worth (or lack of it). The peace of Christ is a
peace that the world cannot generate for itself. It is the gift
of God in Christ’s life, death and resurrection. It is a gift
that Christians learn to receive and recognise only through the
repeated discipline of immersing ourselves in the story of Christ’s
faith, hope and love (that is, by prayer and worship in the Christian
tradition). Furthermore, it is in the name of this peace
that Christians take up the responsibility to resist the false ‘peace’
of the various empire-builders that appear, again and again, in human
history.
When Christ speaks of bringing fire and a sword to the earth one must
recognise, therefore, that this is not a sword or a fire that may in
any way be compared to the fire or the sword of an imperial
power. It is not, in any sense whatsoever, a ‘shock and awe’
campaign like that of Bush in Iraq, nor a kill-them-all-by-night
campaign like that of Sharon in Palestine. No, the ‘sword’ that
Christ brings is nothing other than his vulnerable humanity, his faith,
his hope and his love. The fire he brings is nothing other than
that kindled by his passionate care for the poor, the marginalised, and
the victims. In a world such as that of Rome, or indeed of the
contemporary American empire, intangibles such as these are regarded as
far more dangerous than any kind of bomb, for they have the power to
un-do or even destroy the fears and anxieties upon which all such
regimes thrive and are founded.
Of course, the practise of Christ’s virtue is deeply costly for those
of us who have the faith and courage to follow that way. As
believers who look for a ‘better country’ than the one on offer in the
here and now, we resist the values and practices of the here and
now. And that is very dangerous. In the passage we read
from earlier, the writer to the Hebrews notes that those who practise
their faith in God’s coming peace are very often ridiculed, imprisoned,
beaten up, exiled, tortured, or even killed. Just as Christ was,
in fact. This is the baptism of which Christ speaks in
Luke. The baptism into suffering and death at the hands of the
powers-that-be for the sake of one’s hope that the whole world might be
resurrected in love. One’s hope in such things can even divide
families—those who long for something better from those who, whether
because of fear or brainwashing, are content to ingratiate themselves
towards the power of the imperium.
All of which leads me to ask a very old, but still very pertinent
question. If the way of Christ is to resist the Imperial Power
with prophetic perseverance and suffering love, why is it that church
folk are still amongst the most prominent beneficiaries of the current
world system? Why is it that our schools and educational
institutions receive so much support from both public and private
sectors, and why is it that church people are still amongst the most
wealthy and successful members of the community?
Perhaps I may be so bold as to answer this way. Many church
people
continue to be successful because they gave away
the actual following of Jesus long ago. Perhaps as long ago as
the Constantinian transformation of Christianity in the Roman Empire of
the fourth century. Manyt church people no longer resist the
values of the imperium because they have chosen the benefits of present
capitulation over the faith, hope and love of Christ toward a better
country. I’m not sure that I can put it any more starkly than
that.
Still, if that is what has occurred, then I weep for the church and I
weep for the world. Because the values of the current world
powers make only for misery, and on a terrifying scale. If, as
the advertisers constantly tell us, the only people worth two crumpets
in this world are white men and women of average intelligence, with
large bank accounts, European cars, and beautifully sculptured bodies,
then God help the rest of us! In a world with that kind of
pecking order, the rest of us are reduced to inanity. The rest of
us become fodder for an industry whose sole purpose and aim is to
enrich the elites. Now, for the people who work the sweatshops of
Asia and South America in order to, for example, create the uniforms of
our Olympian athletes, that fact is clear and obvious. For those
of us who live middle-class lives here in the West, it is not so
obvious. Unless, of course, one has read the stats on the
alarming increases in our community of mental illness, substance
addiction, paedophilia, family breakdown and suicide. Even then,
one can always blame the victim. And that is what we usually
do. Until we become victims ourselves. When that happens
one sees, often for the first time, that we are all perpetrators and
that we are all victims, duped into believing the usual propaganda
about middle-class progress.
Glory be to God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—as in the beginning, so now
and forever. Amen.
Garry
J. Deverell
11th Sunday after Pentecost
2004
back to homily index