Not Peace, But Division

Sermon — August 17, 2025
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

Before Jesus was born, it was prophesied that he would come “to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:79) At his birth, the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth.” (Luke 2:14) During his ministry, Jesus ended more than one healing miracle with the words, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:50; 8:48) And he told his disciples that when they came to a new house on their journeys to spread the good news, to offer the greeting, “Peace be to this house!” (Luke 10:5)

So you could be excused for guessing the wrong answer to Jesus’ rhetorical question today: “Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth?” Jesus asks his disciples. (Luke 12:50) Based on the evidence so far, that’s exactly what you’d think! And just as the disciples were looking for peace two thousand years ago, we still yearn for it and pray for it now, in tumultuous times of our own.

But “No, I tell you!” Jesus says. I have come to bring not peace, “but rather division!” (12:51) And how about that. Division! Thanks, Jesus. Division is just what we need.

I don’t know whether there’s ever been a time when people lived together in harmony and concord, without polarization or conflict. The more I read about history, the clearer it becomes that we human beings have always been a pretty disagreeable bunch.

But I’ve certainly found that over the last few years, this sense of division really has increased. So Jesus’ words feel especially poignant these days. Many of our own families have been divided over questions of religion or politics—“father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother.” (Luke 12:53) If you asked people to list the top 10 things they think our society needs, I would be shocked if “division” made the list.

Yet that’s what Jesus says he’s come to bring.

And he did! Jesus himself became divided from his immediate family, prioritizing the new family of his followers over his mother and brothers during his ministry. (Luke 8:19–21) Many among the earliest generations of Christians became estranged from their families when they decided to convert. Even in medieval Europe, when all of society was Christian, there are still figures like St. Francis of Assisi, whose father was enraged by the ways in which Francis tried to live out the gospel. And certainly in our time, it’s relatively rare to find a family that’s not divided by the question of Jesus: the evangelical sibling or devoutly Catholic mother with whom you can’t quite talk about some things; the skeptical spouse who doesn’t want anything to do with God; the adult children you wish would find their way to church, or even, these days, the unchurched parents who can’t understand what their children see in Jesus.

And I think this is inevitable. I don’t think Jesus is saying that he wants division, per se, but that division is a consequence of what he’s come to do. Only a milquetoast Messiah could arrive to declare God’s reign on earth without causing any conflict. If Jesus comes to proclaim the kingdom of God, the only way that could not create division was if our world was already following that way of love and peace. If you look at the few times in history when Christianity seems not to come along with division, they tend to be the times when the Church has lost its way, times when we have simply baptized the values of the culture around us rather than challenging them at all.

But God’s message is not that the world is basically fine as it is. God’s message is that the world has gone wrong, and there are things we need to change. We pray always that God’s will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

And we’ve actually been told what it looks like when God’s will is done in heaven! We chanted it just now, in Psalm 82: “God takes his stand in the council of heaven; he gives judgment in the midst of the gods.” The New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan once called this “the single most important text in the Christian Bible.” And he said that because this psalm claims to explain the origins of monotheism itself. It tells a story of how God became the one god of the universe. God addresses the whole heavenly host, and asks the other gods: “How long will you judge unjustly, and show favor to the wicked?” (Psalm 82:1) God gives them the divine job description: “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 82:3–4)

And then God grades them by that rubric. God knows that the gods of the nations, the pagan gods of war and strength, aren’t going to defend the weak against the mighty, to protect the poor and humble from exploitation by the strong and arrogant. And so God says to them, “You are gods, and all of you children of the Most High; nevertheless, you shall die like mortals, and fall like any prince.” (Psalm 82:6–7) God’s will in the heavenly council is not peace, but division, precisely because not everyone is willing to follow the way of peace.

Jesus brings this message down to earth. He comes to bring division because the fire that he promises is the refining and purifying fire that John the Baptist foretold: a fire that burns away the violence and oppression of our world, and reveals God’s way of love. And on the one hand, this means that Christian life can mean a pretty significant break with the ordinary values of our society. And on the other hand, we Christians don’t always actually agree on what exactly this means. And so it’s inevitable that Jesus will bring division to the world.

There is good news here for us. But I think we have to be careful about how we understand it as good news. It’s good news because it means that disagreement or division within the church, or within our families or society, is not necessarily a sign that we’re doing something wrong. In fact, it can be a sign that we’re doing something right. Any challenge to the injustice of the world will always generate conflict.

But this should be a source of consolation, not of self-congratulation. It’s tempting to hear these kinds of words and pat ourselves on the back. “We’re divided, two against three, because we’re following Jesus, and they are not. We’re the ones defending the weak against the wicked people over there with whom we disagree.” To be clear, there are some people in our society who explicitly think that strength and might and greatness should be our values, and who really might oppose the vision of Psalm 82. But for the most part, the people with whom any of us disagree also think they are doing the right thing; just as we think we are defending the weak and helping the needy, they too think the same. And so even as we try to walk in God’s radical way of love, we need to do it with the kind of humility that admits that we could be wrong about some things.

That’s why I’m so comforted by the list we’re given of the “great cloud of witnesses today.” It’s too humid for me to take you through them all, but let me just say: Samson and Jephthah and David were not perfect people. They tried to do God’s will, but man, did they sometimes get things very wrong, over and over again, in more catastrophic ways than anyone in this room ever has.

But despite their failures and misdeeds, God worked through their lives. God extends that same grace to us, and to the people with whom we disagree. God gives us strength to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us,” doing our best to follow after Jesus, “the pioneer and perfect of our faith.” (Heb. 12:2) Jesus divides us, it’s true. But Jesus’ work is ultimately the work of reconciliation, and there will be a day when the truth will be revealed, and our divisions will cease. And so, I want to close with a prayer—one of my favorite prayers in our prayer book, a prayer “For the Social Order—In Times of Conflict”:

O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us,
in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront
one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work
together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.