Not Peace But a Sword
June 9, 2020
Matthew 10:34
It’s a disturbing thing for Jesus to say for people like me
who claim to be adherents of Christian nonviolence: “Do not think that I have
come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Matthew 10:34. I confess to once trying to explain this quote away.[1]
I explained there that the verses that come right after this one all talk about
discord within families. I concluded that verse 34 is actually a later creation
not from Jesus himself that describes situations in Matthew’s community near
the end of the first century CE. I still think that’s correct, but when I
reread this passage recently something else struck me. It’s that something else
that I want to consider here.
I live in and am a citizen of the United States of America. I’m
white, my genetic heritage being slightly more Irish than anything else despite
my Scandinavian name. Late in my life I have grown in the realization that my
country is rotten to its core with racism. As I’ve said before, this country
was founded in racism, and a significant part of its economy from the beginning
was based on enslaved people from Africa whose skin was noticeably darker than
the skin of us Americans of European descent. We were racist in our genesis,
and we’re no or not much less racist today than we were four hundred years ago.
I won’t bother to give the details of American’s racist heritage here other
than to say that when I was young and in public school no one told me that
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, but they did. I won’t go
into the evidence of contemporary American racism other than to direct your
attention to the statistics on the racial imbalance in the ways the American
legal system treats Black as opposed to white people and to remind you that
Black Americans live in fear of the police while most white Americans don’t.
Please just accept that the United States of America is a deeply racist nation,
for most tragically it is.
Two weeks before I wrote these words four Minneapolis police
officers killed a Black man names George Floyd whom they had arrested. A cop
named Derek Chauvin pressed his knee onto Mr. Floyd’s neck for nearly nine
minutes, and Mr. Floyd died as a result. These facts are undisputed. In the wake
of the police murder of George Floyd protests against police brutality and
racism broke out all over the country. They continue as I write these words. There
have been demonstrations and marches on the east coast, the west coast, and in
a great many other places in between. There has been some violence and looting,
but most of the protests by far have been peaceful. There has been police
violence against peaceful protesters, but most police and National Guard men
and women called in to control the crowds have been peaceful too. Some of them
have even kneeled with protesters in memory of Mr. Floyd. President Trump has
reacted despicably to the protests calling only for more law enforcement
violence against the protesters. Most state and local authorities have reacted
better, not that it’s hard to be better than Trump.
The protests against the police killing of Mr. Floyd and
police brutality against Black Americans are huge, and they’ve already gone on
for a long time. They show no signs of letting up. All kinds of people are
protesting. Black people, Brown people, and white people. Woman and men. Young
and old. They are demanding justice for George Floyd. They are demanding reform
of police training and practice. Many of them are demanding defunding of police
departments. A few of them are demanding abolition of police departments
altogether. All I all these last two weeks of protest have truly been
remarkable. We white Americans, or at least some of us, are becoming more aware
of and informed about the specifics of American racism than we’ve ever been
before. Some of us are becoming more aware of our own racist attitudes, attitudes
we inhaled with American air when we were young even if no one actually taught
us racism. Many of us are becoming more aware of the truly radical nature of
the transformation this country needs if we are ever to overcome our centuries
old tradition of individual and institutional racism.
Some of us are coming to realize that the last thing our
country needs is peace. We don’t need or want violence, but calling for peace
carries a great risk. Peace can mean quiet. Quiet can mean inaction. Inaction
means that the sinful status quo of American racism remains in place and
nothing changes. We have a long, dishonorable history of nothing changing. Yes,
the Civil War ended slavery. Yes, Brown v. Board of Education made school
segregation illegal. Yes, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made racial
discrimination illegal across the country in many aspects of our national life.
Yes, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 sought to secure everyone’s right to vote.
Those are significant developments, and I don’t mean to suggest that they aren’t.
Yet Black Americans have demonstrated and even rioted against American racism for
over a century, and very little has actually changed. American racism is as
intractable as ever. Black people demonstrated, peace was restored, nothing changed.
Black people rioted, peace was restored, nothing changed.
To bring abut the transformation our country so badly needs
we don’t need Jesus’ peace, we need Jesus’ sword. A nonviolent, metaphorical
sword, but still a sword. The sword of justice, a sword to cut the Gordian knot
of American racism. A peaceful sword to suppress and root out white supremacy.
A peaceful sword to cut through the darkness of racism and let the light of
justice and equality in. A nonviolent sword to cut through white people’s
denial of their racism and their smug acquiescence in a racial reality that
privileges them in ways they won’t even recognize. A sword of the Word to get
us up and moving, open us to new possibilities, and make us agents of
transformation. We need peace in our hearts to sustain us in the struggles
ahead, but we must never let internal peace lead to external inaction.
So Jesus, bring the sword. We know you are always nonviolent
and want us to be nonviolent too, but come and cut through our ignorance and indifference.
Cut through our inertia and stagnation. Rouse your people to action. Make us
messengers of you peace, but today more than that make us agents of your
transformative justice. It’s way past time. Cut us loose, Lord. I pray that we
are ready.
[1]
See Sorenson, Thomas C., Liberating Christianity, Overcoming Obstacles to
Faith in the New Millennium, Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, Oregon,
2008, pp. 167-168.
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