Readings for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 15 – Year C – Track 2)
This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on August 17, 2025.
In our Gospel this morning, Jesus speaks provocatively, asking, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” (Luke 12:51). Provocative words indeed from the One whom we know as the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), the One whose birth the angels announced in the same Gospel of Luke with the words, “Peace on earth and good will to all ” (Luke 2:14), the One who in John’s Gospel says, “Peace I leave with you; my own peace I give you” (John 14:27). How do we make sense of this Prince of Peace saying I did not come to bring peace? Clearly, there are two different kinds of peace about which Jesus speaks.
In Jesus’s lifetime, the Roman empire reigned supreme, allowing many of the rich and powerful to comfortably enjoy what was called the Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome, the peace of the status quo which was built mostly upon violence and marginalization of the poor and vulnerable. This was the kind of peace that Jesus ultimately rejected in his life and ministry; and eventually Jesus was killed by the empire because of the threat he posed to this peace. As a Jewish prophet, Jesus was informed and inspired by the Hebrew concept of Shalom, which is often translated as “peace,” but it is not the Peace of Rome, not the Pax Romana. Rather, it is a holistic peace for all people, including especially the weak and vulnerable, the foreigner and stranger. The Shalom of God is expressed clearly in this morning’s Psalm in which the poet says, “Save the weak and the orphan; defend the humble and needy; rescue the weak and the poor; deliver them from the power of the wicked” (Psalm 82:2-3).
The fire and division of which Jesus and Jeremiah speak is not a fire of violence and destruction, but a cleansing fire, a controlled burn of divine love that clears away the dross while revealing that which is truly enduring and imperishable. It is a fire that creates division and distinction between those who champion the Pax Romana and those who work towards God’s Shalom, which is the Peace of Christ. The distinction that Jesus makes is not between conservative and liberal. It’s not a political distinction and it’s not even a distinction between Jew and Gentile or Christian and non-Christian. These categories don’t seem to matter all that much to Jesus; and perhaps they shouldn’t matter so much to us either.
For Jesus, the only key distinguishing characteristic of the Shalom people is that they care for others, especially the weak and vulnerable. This parish community recently enacted God’s Shalom, the Peace of Christ, by donating a trunkful of underwear for children in need as well as by giving $785 to help the Betty Chinn Foundation support the vulnerable among us here in Humboldt County. When we participate in these outreach projects, we are living into our call as Shalom people, manifesting the true Peace of Christ and subverting the violence of the Pax Romana.
Manifesting the true Peace of Christ also requires the difficult work of confronting how we may have been complicit in the violence of the Pax Romana ourselves so that we can begin the process of healing and growing in renewed community with those that were subject to that violence. We, as Shalom people, have begun that difficult journey of truth telling by partnering with a group of people who have historically been vulnerable in our county, the Asian community. Not only have we donated over $2,000 to the Eureka Chinatown Project, but we have also hosted a Lunar New Year event here and participated in community events with HAPI, Humboldt Asian and Pacific Islanders in Solidarity. We have been telling the truth about our own history in connection with the Chinese expulsion; and HAPI has befriended us and commended us for our truth-telling, and they invite us all to attend their Obon Festival this afternoon in Arcata.
Shalom people make significant sacrifices to ensure that all our included and protected in God’s family. Sometimes those are financial sacrifices and sometimes those sacrifices are more extreme, like that of 26-year-old Episcopal seminarian Jonathan Myrick Daniels who shielded a black teenage girl (named Ruby Sales) in Haynesville Alabama from a shotgun blast fired by a violent racist named Tom Coleman who was yelling obscenities and who happened to be a deputy sheriff, a supposed protector of the peace. Tom Coleman, who was later acquitted by an all-white jury, represents the Pax Romana that Jesus came to subvert and dismantle and ultimately burn down with his fire. Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a graduate of Virginia Military Institute, died instantly from that shotgun bullet and he represents the Shalom of God, the peace of Christ, which we are called to embody. Jonathan Daniels, a martyr, has joined the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us, urging us to lay aside every sin, and to run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, the Prince of Shalom, who empowers us with honesty and compassion to embody his holistic peace, not the Peace of Rome, but the Shalom of God. Amen.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 
Followers of Islam and Judaism generally believe that Jesus did exist but was not a divine being (albeit Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet). After all, how could any divine being place himself/itself down to the level of humans (and even lower, by some other standards)? How could any divine being not be a physical conqueror — far less allow himself to be publicly stripped naked, severely beaten and murdered in such a belittling manner?!
Yet, for many of us, all of that makes Jesus (ergo the Divine) even greater, not less so. Godly greatness need not be defined as the ability to destroy and harshly punish, as opposed to the willingness and compacity for compassionate forgiveness, non-violence and humility.
Jesus Christ was viciously murdered largely because he did not in the least behave in accordance with corrupted human conduct and expectation — and in particular because he was nowhere near being the angry and sometimes even bloodthirsty behemoth so many theists seemingly wanted or needed their Creator and savior to be and therefore believed he’d have to be.
Christ’s nature and teachings even left John the Baptist, who believed in him as the savior, bewildered by his apparently contradictory version of the Hebraic messiah, with which John had been raised. Perhaps most perplexing was the Biblical Jesus’ revolutionary teaching of non-violently offering the other cheek as the proper response to being physically assaulted by one’s enemy. The Biblical Jesus also most profoundly washed his disciples’ feet, the act clearly revealing that he took corporeal form to serve.
Christ was/is about compassion, charity and non-wealth. His teachings and practices epitomize so much of the primary component of socialism — do not hoard gratuitous resources, especially in the midst of great poverty. Yet, this is not practiced by a significant number of ‘Christians’, likely including many who idolize callous politicians standing for very little or nothing Jesus taught and represents.
Perhaps some ‘Christians’ even find inconvenient, if not plainly annoying, trying to reconcile the conspicuous inconsistency in the fundamental nature of the New Testament’s Jesus with the wrathful, vengeful and even jealous nature of the Old Testament’s God.
Prominent actually-Christlike Christian leaders/voices should often strongly-emphasize what Jesus fundamentally taught and demonstrated to his followers. However strange that sounds, institutional Christianity seems to need continuous reminding. They all should consider that the Biblical Jesus would not have rolled his eyes and sighed: ‘Oh, well. I’m against what the politician stands for, but what can you do when you dislike even more his political competition?’
Seriously, some of the best humanitarians that I, as a big fan of Christ’s unmistakable miracles and fundamental message, have met or heard about were/are atheists or agnostics who, quite ironically, would make better examples of many of Christ’s teachings/practices than too many ‘Christians’. Conversely, some of the worst human(e) beings I’ve met or heard about are the most devout believers/preachers of fundamental Biblical theology.
I agree and resonate with everything you shared. Thank you!