11/4/51

Scripture: Matthew 10: 27-42

Text: Matthew 10: 34; “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

We are well accustomed to the belief that God can, and does, bring peace to the human soul when approached by the light of Christ’s touch upon our human lives. Many of us have sung, with assurance, the verses of a hymn which speak of “peace, peace, sweet peace --- the gift of God’s love.” Some of the stormy characters of history have been integrated into satisfying, wholesome living by the impact of the spirit of Christ on their tumultuous lives. They have been, like Paul, put upon a straight, sure, and satisfying path by the discovery of God in Christ.

Many of our lives find benediction in the “peace which passeth all understanding.” A Psalm exclaims “Great peace have they which love thy law.” [Psalm 119: 165]. The New Testament has frequent reference to this category of mind. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus.” [Romans 5: 1]. And it was our Master himself who said to his disciples, near the climax of the storm that raged about his mortal life, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” [John 14: 27].

Despite the assurance of this kind of peace and wholeness, there comes from the same Master the words about which we thought as they were read in this morning’s Scripture selection: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.” Toward the end of his life he also said: “He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” That seems a far cry from the message that floods much of the earth at the remembrance of his birth when at Christmastide the very angels of the heavens are seeming to herald “peace on earth -- good will --” -- In our thinking the symbols of peace and the sword are at opposite poles.

Yet long experience demonstrates that what may be called “peace of mind,” “integration of personality,” “personal salvation,” by no means entails cessation of other kinds of conflict. Sometimes the only way to achieve peace of mind and conscience is to plunge into a conflict on which one has reached some convictions. An exterior battle raged about the influence of the life of our Lord until violence finally deprived the earth of his mortal existence. Paul and the apostle Peter, and the martyrs of the early church, were at the center of a great deal of conflicting, stormy life.

Perhaps, as we look for the “subsoil wealth” in this apparent contradiction, we may see that Jesus was not bucking the consensus of Hebrew-Christian thinking; nor was he contradicting his statements that he was a messenger of peace. Perhaps we might be right to surmise that when Jesus frequently declared that the Messiah would not introduce a reign of peace and prosperity he was reminding his disciples that he does not wish them to live in a fool’s paradise. He makes no rosy, wild or delusive promises. He warns his adherents to expect tribulation in this world.

Along with the entirely real and satisfying gift of peace in the dedicated human soul, it is evident that there comes also unrest and discontent; and upon occasion conflict with, and danger from, other mortals and exterior forces.

Let us try to unravel just a little of this problem in the minutes that we have for meditation just now. It is a paradox, but a truth to say, “I know in whom I believe, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day,” [II Timothy 1: 12], and yet to realize that real living is a continuing struggle calling for aggressiveness as a character trait.

Our very concept of God, whose peace we may possess, grows painfully. The God of our childhood understanding seems inadequate until we realize that not God, but our childishness, is what is not enough. And we suffer the “growing pains” of conceiving a broader, more mature, understanding of God.

We may become rebellious over the tested principles of right which faith in God seem to impose. And for a time we do as we think we please, only to find ourselves in restlessness, in conflict, and convicted of sin.

A Navy chaplain is impressed by the number of midshipmen in the naval air training command who, in discussion meetings, will ask the chaplain, directly or in effect, “Why is it so hard to keep from sinning?” Many of those thoughtful young fellows seem to feel that there is a war going on within themselves. The chaplain, turning it over in his mind and experience, concludes that some of the trouble lies in their immature concept of what God really is. A young fellow may be 20 years of age, chronologically and physically, yet six, seven or eight years of age spiritually, with a child’s immature notion of God. And maybe he has not been able to endure growing up at that point of his nature.

An essayist on Bunyan remarks: “No sin against God can be little, because it is against the great God of heaven and earth. But, if the sinner can find a little god” ---- That’s it! If we have a little god -- a sort of idol of our own creation, or even a circumscribed, immature concept of the great, good God, then it is not beyond us to keep sinning. If we are satisfied to persist in our sinning, it may be because we have found little gods -- idols. Or it may be that we refuse to grow up in our sight of the one good God.

The ongoing concept of God comes not alone from reading the Bible. It is possible to read the Bible by dutifully scanning the pages -- getting over the ground. But we grow up, with whatever difficulty, in our thoughtful, meditative, studious reading of the Bible; always ready for some new, maturing illumination of passages that we may often have read before! “Study to show thyself approved, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing [rightly comprehending] the word of truth.” [II Timothy 2:15].

Charles Kettering, of the General Motors corporation, has said, “Research is an organized method for keeping reasonably dissatisfied with what you have.” Well, our studying of the Bible and our study of human experience and thought, may well keep us growing through keeping us reasonably dissatisfied with what we are.

Jesus brings a sword of unrest that keeps us constantly on the search for a better, broader, maturing understanding of God.

His sword of dissatisfaction is also raised over our personal achievements. How tiresome it would be to be sentenced to the unrelieved company of the self-satisfied! How weak becomes the company of the church when the church becomes institutionalized, static, self-sufficient. Discontent is an uncomfortable, demanding, always necessary step in the progress of the church and Christian living.

When Dr. Richard Cabot was at middle age, he transferred his attention from the teaching and practice of medicine to pastoral psychology and the spiritual ministry to the sick. Often he faced his class, and began the sessions, with this statement: “Gentlemen: I have never been as good as I have been today; I will never be as bad again.” If that statement was literally true, it is likely that he grew steadily and mightily in his grasp of what God wanted him to achieve.

Haven’t you had the experience of coming to some moment of triumph, some achievement toward which you had struggled -- and then found, surprisingly soon, that it wasn’t enough? Perhaps in moments of disillusion and nostalgia, you look back and say, “That was the day. O that I might live it again.” And then you know that you can’t live it again -- you don’t even want to live it again! For what you really want is to do something much better!

In this light, we may see the marvelous, continuing allure of Jesus’ thought when he said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” [Matthew 5: 48]. That is a hard saying. In our immaturity we may toss about for an interpretation fitted to our taste; or we may discard it as not only uncomfortable but visionary and impractical. Or we may conclude [God reprove us!] that Jesus spoke with his “tongue in his cheek.” Usually, at the root of these easy conclusions is our own unwillingness to risk becoming dissatisfied with our present state of soul! If we are willing to brave the sword of dissatisfaction, we know that in Jesus’ demand for perfection is a constantly advancing demand for spiritual growth without limit!

Jesus Christ sends us the sword of discontent and conflict in social conditions. Let us no more be satisfied with half-truths here then in our individual selves. When one desires the kind of “arm-chair Christianity” in which one can rock and say, “Thank God we have the peace of God which passes all understanding” in the way things are now, then beware! The words of Jesus can not be squeezed dry of part of their meaning, and other meaning conveniently forgotten. To attempt that is to court, and produce, disaster in personal and social living.

Our world is full of social error and wrong; and we must not even suppose that we may escape struggle over it. We cannot accept the Lamb of God and ignore the Lion of the Tribe of Judah! Neither the individual, nor the church, may safely focus on minor questions, content with a diet of resolutions and committee concern over the stale appeal of past ideals. We must not be content to “muddle through” everything. The church should have an expressed conscience on slum housing, juvenile delinquency, adult delinquency and neglect, on international problems, in-group and out-group problems, displaced persons and dis-located nations. We ought to be witnessing pro testifying as pro testant Christian of issues that are even more vital to us in our spiritual freedom, than to those who accept authoritarian direction over the welfare of their souls.

Specifically, I think we should be testifying with vigor to our conviction that church and state must maintain separate spheres of control in our national life. The church’s control is to be the quickener of conscience in all of our personal and social living. The state is to be the administrator of our governmental life. I am one of thousands who are deeply convinced that our president is in error in his proposal to appoint a fully accredited governmental ambassador to an organized unit which is not a nation but the headquarters of a religious denomination [i.e. the Vatican].

Neither the president, nor the congress, ought make any move toward the establishment of one religious expression; nor toward the placing of one religious sect or denomination in a place of greater prominence and influence than another. To adhere to this principle is not “anti-” anything. It is “pro” religious freedom and “pro” religious responsibility. We do well to study the matter carefully and to act as citizens on the convictions arrived at through our struggle of mind.

To go back to our theme, this sword of unrest; the only peace of truth and consequence that comes to us personally, and in society, is the peace that comes after struggle -- often in the midst of struggle. It was in prison that Paul and his fellow Christian sang. It was in an agony of prayer in the garden of Gethsemane that our Lord said, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” [Matthew 26: 39]. It is in the struggle of the here and now, honestly engaged, that there comes sooner, or later, the “peace that passeth all understanding.”

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, November 4, 1951

Wisconsin Rapids, November 6, 1955

Wisconsin Rapids Moravian Church, June 17, 1956.