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Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.”

These words from our Gospel lesson today seem uncharacteristically harsh for Jesus, they seem out of character for the one whom we have come to know as the Prince of Peace, the one who greets his disciples Peace be with you, the one who tells his disciples to enter a house and say Peace be to this house, the one who tells us to love our neighbors—presumably including our familial neighbors—as we love ourselves. Matthew shows Jesus saying that not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass away from the law—and yet here Jesus is, apparently overturning the Fifth Commandment, Honor your father and your mother, saying instead, “I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother.” We should hardly be surprised if we find ourselves asking, “What is this all about?? How can this be part of the Good News of God's love that we have come to know in Jesus?”

Well, it may help us to know that Jesus is quoting here, quoting from the book of the prophet Micah. Listen to the Micah passage in full: “The faithful have disappeared from the land, and there is no one left who is upright; they all lie in wait for blood, and they hunt each other with nets. Their hands are skilled to do evil; the official and the judge ask for a bribe, and the powerful dictate what they desire; thus they pervert justice. … Put no trust in a friend, have no confidence in a loved one; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your embrace; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; your enemies are members of your own household. But as for me, I will look to the LORD, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.” (Micah 7:2-7)

What Micah is lamenting here is the lack of justice, the perversion of social life in his time because of the prevalence of greed and self-centeredness. All of Micah’s society, from the top levels of government to the most basic family relations, had gotten off-course, twisted, because the people chose their own short-sighted desires over the deep desires of God, God’s deep desire for the people to be righteous and generous and open-hearted in love. For Micah, the revelation of the righteous will of God does not cause this breakdown in society, but it exposes the breakdown, it exposes the unrighteousness, it exposes the greed and the twistedness hidden away in family and society—the revelation of the righteous will of God brings all that hidden yuck to the surface so that it can be healed.

And I think that’s what Jesus is talking about in this Gospel passage, too. Following Jesus, Matthew tells us, doesn't cause dissension so much as it brings a thirst for righteousness, it brings a hunger for genuine love, that exposes the unrighteousness and the un-genuineness of so many of our relationships and family systems and social structures. In his own lifetime, Jesus’ genuine love of God exposed the un-genuineness of the Pharisees’ religious rule-making. Jesus’ genuine love of God’s kingdom exposed the un-genuineness of Roman power politics and legalized brutality. Jesus’ genuine love for his disciples exposed the un-genuineness of so many of their relationships that tried to pass themselves off as love. And in the lives of his followers, too, Jesus’ genuine love exposes our un-genuineness and our unrighteousness and our unlovingness, it brings all of that yuck to the surface, so that it can be faced and named and confessed and healed.

And what heals our injustice and unrighteousness is setting our little loves in the context of a love that is greater than our own. Jesus says, “Whoever loves father or mother, or son or daughter, or wife or husband, or their very own self more than me is not worthy of me.” Loving Jesus, loving God in Jesus, has to come first, before any other love can really make sense.

Now there are two ways we can understand that: On the one hand, we can think of love as a finite quantity, like time or money, where we only have so much to give, and we have to give most of it to God first, and then share whatever is left over with father and mother and son and daughter and wife and husband and friends. That way makes it sound like the love of Jesus is a love we have instead of other loves. On the other hand, we can think of love as something that grows, something that multiplies as we share it, something that we have more of the more we give it away. If we think of love that way, then when we give our love to God first, our love grows in God, and in God we have even more love to give to father and mother and son and daughter and wife and husband and friends and relations and societies and strangers. If we take it that way, then the love of Jesus is a love that includes other loves, it brings other loves together and gives them the depth and the breadth and the height and the intensity and the generosity and the genuineness that they truly deserve. The love of God in Jesus is not a love that replaces other loves, but one that embraces other loves, and lifts them up, and makes them whole.

That’s why Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me”: because through the power of the Holy Spirit we are in Jesus and Jesus is in us—so that when we look for Jesus in the other person, when we let the Spirit in us open our eyes to see the other person as they are in God, when we really try to love the other person for Jesus’ sake and not just for the sake of our own gratification—then our love is taken up into a love that is greater than our own, then we become more free from the greed and the self-centeredness and the un-genuineness and the yuck that can twist our loves and set us against each other, then we become more free for generosity and justice and open-heartedness and having more love the more we give it away. The love of God in Jesus and the love of others isn’t an either/or—it’s a both/and. Loving God in Jesus first makes us able to love family and friends and strangers with a genuine and godly love.

And one of the ways we grow in our ability to love others in Jesus, to love others for Jesus’ sake, is through prayer. So I want to take you through a prayer experience, a spiritual exercise, that can help open up this channel of God’s love. You may want to do this prayer with me, as I speak it; you may want to think about it and take it home and do it yourself in your quiet time or your Bible study later in the day or later in the week—either way is fine. But I want you to try this prayer: Think of someone close to you; it could be a member of your family, or a friend, or someone you know from work or someone you know from school, it could even be a member of this parish; think of someone close to you—someone you’re not quite getting along with right now, someone with whom you’re experiencing some sort of conflict, some sort of dissension, some sort of falling-out. It may even be a conflict that you’re not even entirely aware of, something you’re trying to cover over and pretend that everything’s alright, but deep down you know that there’s something not right between you. Think of someone with whom you’re experiencing some kind of tension, and picture that person in your mind, and notice all the different feelings you have about them as you see them in your mind’s eye. Then imagine that Jesus is standing next to you, and that Jesus is also looking at this person; and then imagine that Jesus says to you, “I want you to see this person as I see them, I want you to look through my eyes and feel through my heart, and see how this person looks to me.” And then imagine that that actually happens: you see through Jesus’ eyes, and you feel through Jesus’ heart, and you know this other person with all the love and mercy and forgiveness and creativity and wisdom that Jesus himself has. You see that other person as Jesus sees them. What feelings do you have about that person now? Do you notice anything in your own soul that might have something to do with that conflict, that tension that you’ve been feeling with this person? Is there any ungenerosity, any un-genuineness, any injustice, any yuck in your own soul that Jesus’ love is bringing to the surface, so that you can see it and name it and confess it and allow it to be healed? Is there a greater love that Jesus wants to share with you? Stay there for a moment, feeling the love of Jesus holding both of you together, feeling your love taken up into a love that is greater than your own, so that you can love this other person in even a little bit of the way that Jesus loves them. Then say “Thank you” to God for this new insight, this new gift of love, then come out of your prayer and come back to here and now.

The Good News for us today is that Jesus calls us to a love that is genuine, a love that is righteous, a love that brings conflict and tension and yuck up to the surface so that it can be healed, a love that opens us up to a love that is greater than our own, a love that welcomes Jesus when it welcomes others, a love that loves God first and in God and through God and with God loves everybody else. That love is God’s gift to us, that love is today’s Gospel promise to us. May that love be so for each and every one of us.

In the Name of God: the Holy One, the Holy Word, the Holy Spirit. Amen.