Is your faith upsetting your family? If not why not? Is your faith upsetting your colleagues at your place of work? If not why not? The answer to these questions could be that it is because you’ve got something right or it could be that you got something wrong.
On 30 September 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain returned from the Munich conference brandishing a piece of paper and declaring “I believe it is peace for our time.” He had just met with the national leaders of France, Italy and NAZI Germany to decide a resolution to the threatening crisis in the Sudetenland, a largely German speaking region on the western border of Czechoslovakia. Rather than risk another European war, he signed a pact of nonaggression with Adolf Hitler and in agreement with France and Italy allowed the annexation of the Sudetenland by Germany.
Following his return from the Munich Conference, Neville Chamberlain addressed the crowds gathered before the steps of 10 Downing Street:
“”My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour.”
In contrast to Neville Chamberlain’s speech declaring ‘peace in our time’, Jesus Christ declared:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matt 10:34)
Jesus’s proclamation sounds like a war cry and the call to arms and it seems to contradict many of the other things that He said and did. For example His teaching in the Sermon on the Mount concerning nonresistance and forgiveness of our enemies. So, what do we make of it?
His proclamation about bringing a sword to the earth was a rhetorical device to highlight the fact that he had not come merely to endorse the prevailing Jewish religious status quo, but to speak and teach the truth. It is reminiscent of the call of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 6:9-10:
“Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
Neither Jesus nor the prophet Isaiah came to cause trouble, but they did come to stir hearts. If by speaking the truth and declaring God’s standards they incited opposition so then so be it. Soothing and acceptable words would be mere words of appeasement and not the truth. The truth would cause the hearts of the resistant to become calloused, their eyes dull and their ears blocked as a result of this hard-hitting teaching. Accepting the truth would divide families and communities, but Jesus was not going to compromise the truth for the sake of harmony and neither must we who declare ourselves to be His followers.
So I come back to the question I asked you at the beginning of this homily. Is your faith upsetting your family? If not why not? Is your faith upsetting your colleagues at your place of work? If not why not? Are you doing something right or are you doing something wrong? Are those around you genuinely respectful of your beliefs and possibly even admire them or are you consciously or sub-consciously down playing your beliefs and principles to simply to appeasethose who pose a threat to you?
Our Gospel reading presents us with a choice. There are to be no half measures in Christian discipleship. Jesus warns us:
“Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.” (Matt 10:32).
It is a sobering thought that we don’t need to use our lips to deny Jesus before others, but that we can also deny Jesus through our behaviour and our through our silence too.
An authentic Christian faith has a cutting edge without which it is useless to Christ.
Christianity is a religion of the Cross. Jesus has taught us that if the Cross was the consequence of obedience to His Father, then those who follow Him must expect the consequence of the Cross too.
According to a Government report published in 2017 concerning Christian asylum seekers fleeing Iran:
“The law prohibits Muslim citizens from changing or renouncing their religious beliefs. The only recognized conversions are from another religion to Islam. Apostasy from Islam is a crime punishable by death”
The report continues “By law, non-Muslims may not engage in public persuasion or attempted conversion of Muslims. These activities are considered proselytizing and punishable by death.”
A leader of an Iranian underground church proclaimed “Disciples choose Jesus over anything and everything else. Converts don’t. Converts run when the fire comes. Disciples don’t.”
Despite the horrific restrictions imposed upon it the Christian church in Iran has grown from 100,000 in 1994 to currently 3 million members.
It would seem that those who have counted the cost of following Christ and paid it willingly have been used by Him to build His Church.
May Christ give us His strength to live an authentic Christian life for Him.
Amen