Monday in the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 11, 2022

Matthew 10, 34-11, 1

Jesus said to his Apostles: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his 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 his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is righteous will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple — amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”  When Jesus finished giving these commands to his Twelve disciples, he went away from that place to teach and to preach in their towns.

A thought that comes to mind in reading the Lord’s words:  The other day I heard a man explaining to a bored-looking companion that religion was a distinct negative in world history.  For instance, he claimed, religion was behind most of the world’s wars.  Apart from the Moslem wars of conquest and the counter-attacks known as the Crusades, I cannot think of wars motivated by religion.  It could even be argued that Urban II’s primary goal for the First Crusade was to offshore the constant internecine fighting going on in Europe and he dangled religious reasons to promote this.  If we look at the wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we do not see religion starting them: Napoleon’s wars, the Crimean War, the Franco-Prussian War, the two World Wars, the various wars of Communist conquest.  One could try to argue that the Thirty Years War was fought about religion, but while religion had a part of play, this war was mostly about the balance of power in Western and Central Europe.  As a sign of how little a role religion played in this war, we only have to recall that Protestant Sweden and Catholic France were on the same side.

This leads us, in a way, to the Lord’s words in today’s Gospel Reading: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.”  One way to understand this is that for nearly the whole of human history, evil has reigned in the world.  The situation became so degenerate in the time before grace that the Lord called Satan “the ruler of this world”.  The Lord’s Incarnation and Birth signal a direct attack on the devil’s power here.  The Lord’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection destroy that power: “Now is the judgment of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12, 31).  The devil continues to rage through those humans who obey him, and so peace is not entirely restored to the world.  The assaults of the wicked on the righteous, through whom the wicked seek to injure the Lord, will continue until the end of the world: “The dragon was angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12, 17).  The “dragon” is the devil and the “woman” is Christ’s Bride, the Church.  And, “When the thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison and shall go forth and seduce the nations which are over the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog: and shall gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea” (Revelation 20, 7).  The “thousand years” is the time between the Incarnation of the Son of God and the end of the world.  Satan is “loosed”, that is, his raging shall become much more prominent in the world and his minions much more bold.  “Gog and Magog” are kings are kingdoms in Ezekiel 38 who are deadly enemies of the Jews and who will attack them in the last days.  They will be destroyed and an era of peace will be ushered in. 

To sum up, the Lord says that he did not come into the world to bring peace  and set people against each other in the sense that his triumph over evil restrains the devil but still allows him to rage.  He cannot win, but he can make terrible sounds.

“When the Lord says that he brings a “sword”, it is not to destroy the wicked at this time but to break the chains of the righteous struggling to serve God.  The “sword” will be used at the end of the world to compel the wicked to gather for judgment and to enter hell.

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”  “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”  These sayings are hard for those who value peace at any price, who would rather promote family or societal harmony by burying one’s beliefs in the earth (cf. Matthew 25, 25) than glorifying God by remaining true to his commandments.  We can think of “father or mother” here as anyone or anything to which we owe a certain allegiance or service.  Only God has an absolute claim on our allegiance or service.  Any other must fall in line with what we owe to him.  The “cross” here does not mean the everyday sufferings we all endure but that which we endure for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.  The “size” of the cross is relative and we cannot compare crosses.  One person’s cross may seem lesser than another’s, but we must keep in mind the story of the Widow’s Mite (Luke 22, 1-4).  In fact, even the handing of a cup of water for the sake of the Lord Jesus results in a heavenly prize: “And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple — amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

Every day we struggle to know the Lord’s will and to carry it out.  We fight against our fallen human nature which prefers inertia and sloth as well as temptations and the opposition of the wicked.  The Lord, who brandishes his sword — or, shepherd staff, if we would prefer — will guard us from all evil and bring us to the lasting peace in heaven: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more. Nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21, 4).