The Sword of the Lord
The Feast Day of William Laud
As Christians we read about the peace, the hope, the love that we are to share with and spread to the world. We are taught that the love we have in our hearts, the love that we reflect from God our Creator, is the penultimate fulfillment of our existence. We love the Lord our God above all else, but we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. How then do we understand passages like Matthew 10:34-36? Is there love here in the sword that Jesus brings? Is there peace here in the division of families? Is there hope in these passages?
The answer, for me, is a resounding yes. This is a passage that has so often been taken away from us because of the language that expresses it. As humans we are quick to remind ourselves that Jesus came to bring not peace, but a sword. What we fail to remember are the threads that are weaved throughout the Bible that find themselves woven around this fulfillment of prophecy. The prophecies of the divided home made by Micah before the exile in Babylon to the Spiritual Armor of Paul. How then do we interpret this passage in a way that is both contextually correct but also spiritually correct?
Beloved, we interpret this passage by understanding that the Sword of the Lord is the one given to us to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Beloved, we interpret this passage by understanding that the shoes on our feet whilst we wield the sword of the Gospel are shoes of peace. We remember that the divided house is not a house divided for no reason. No, Beloved, this divided house, this divided family, is a family divided through human failure.
A house, a family, divided by humans who simply do not see the Truth of the Christ. The son who considers his father a fool, and the daughter who opposes her mother, they are not doing so out of stubborn childishness. No, they are doing so because of the foolishness of the father. They are doing so because their parents refuse to change in the face of God’s call to Him. It is an older generation’s failure to heed and obey the Lord God, that caused Israel to fall into the hands of the Assyrians. It is an older generation’s failure to heed and obey the Lord God that causes the children, who do obey God’s Will, to leave the house of their parents and be set against them. God’s call is for us to love Him first and foremost, and to love one another. Is there love to be found when we turn away the hungry at the door and take their cloak while their back is turned to us?
Is it not the sword of the Lord that cuts us free from all earthly ties and allows us to open the door that our parents have shut? When we open these doors do we not risk ridicule from those parents, from those older generation that’s set in their earthly ways? It is not peace that is brought to homes when a child has to leave their family to follow Him. It is the clean cutting sword of the Lord that teaches us to shake the dust off of our shoes when we are no longer welcome in a place.
This is sword of conquest and kingdoms like Excalibur, this is a sword that is much more wonderful than that. It is a sword that we can hold on to when times are tough, for we know that we are doing what is right. It is tough, Beloved, but we cannot deny the Lord and His call to us in the darkness, just for the safety and comfort of home. We are called to the shining city on the hill, guiding the way for the world. That when times are their toughest, and we open the door to the return of our parents out of the cold darkness that the world has cast them into, that we may say to them, truly, “I love you. Welcome home.” And then wash their feet of the dust of the road, and forgive them as we have been forgiven.
The road is long and winding, full of tribulation and trial, full of snares and pitfalls. But our hope, my beloved friends, is always there leading our way, by our side - the sword of the Lord and the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Hope, the Gospel of Love. It leads us forward through the darkness, through the trials, through the tribulations. It leads us forward for we can lean on it being cut free of all obligation of this world being made anew in His Kingdom. Therefore, my friends, let us go forth and Bless the Lord, let us go forth and Love the Lord, and let us love one another as He first loved us. Going forth separate from the world, but as guides and shepherds and teachers of the Way forward to that shining city on the hill. Cut us free, Lord, that we may be ever better servants of you, amen.