Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Theme and Point

Love is a sword

Love not what we think it is. All love requires cutting off and the greatest expression of love is heroic self-sacrifice for that loved. The greater the thing loved the greater that sacrifice. God came to bring the sword of love, not peace.

Sword not peace

What make of shocking words today?

brings not peace b division. As Matthew sword.

when God says something shocking intent is think. uncomfortable

not ‘oh ya of course you didnt come for peace’

God is love, and therefore he must bring a sword, not peace, for love is a sword.

What is our Image of God

What?!?

These words shocked the ancients, but oh, how much more our post 1960s flower child time.

When ourself and find Jesus isn’t the softy

much more mysterious, beautiful, and mighty

We RIGHTLY God, who is love not cosmic dictator

throws self in harm

nurtures us

wants none to be lost

if only this truth if ...nothing stand up, nothing he doesn’t oppose, if he makes aim in life comfort .. cosmic teddy bear

a heavenly triviality

reality really isnt serious

lose faith uxurious great horror of evil.

Today God wakes us up from that lazy one-sided stupor like an old school drill sergeant

calls us to arm real evils.

maybe, just maybe, ....but REALLY WANT SUCH A LIFE?

do our tales and fictions happy golucky comfort?

today word takes a bit o stuffing out

Today tells us a bit about what love really is, and thus, who He is.

What is Love

Let start with something basic

most of you know is not a feeling.

there is no falling in or out....infatuation

infatuation can motivate you to love, but love is an act, not feel

There is love of humanity [cross] (for the greatest is to lay down one’s life)

THAT surely is not a bunch of jolly fun

So what is love if not a feeling?

Think about it, what connects ALL things we call love

...Simply willing good/existence/welfare something

lover: I love them vs I love them

willing good of the thing with you, experience of them, versus just willing the good of the thing.

Is it not obvious then why love is a striking sword?

Why Love Cuts

There is real evil in the world

If love is willing the good/welfare/existence, then it wills division....division from all the stuff that harms...

love wills the destruction of somethings destruction

Sounds complicated, but judge for yourself

a parent who actually loves their child, and not just loves their child liking them whats to cut their child off from all sorts of evil, even if the child likes that evil.

the parent, if they actually love, brings division even in their very family in this fallen world. Father against son, daughter against mother.

Love indeed is a battlefield…but for the sake of love

Life

The reality is we all face desires for evil

We find ourselves in a state of evil peace with it, then Christ shocks us awake.

bringing Christ in your life means bringing the sword into your inner life

first you must secure a foothold in your own soul before you can reach out and bring the sword of love to other people’s life.

love is a giving to the thing, love is sacrifice for us because we are limited

gift giving example

the most you can give is your own life (does violence to self)

sword of love cuts your very life down (like Christ, like the martyrs)

Don’t Hear What I’m Not Saying

This Spiritual War that is Love is not physical

As St. Paul says, our war is with Spirit not flesh…to reconcile all with Christ.

But this makes it far more serious than any physical conflict as Scripture tells us.

Christ, Paul, and the Apostles call us to a much higher plane of warfare

this is why Scripture is full of military analogies in both old and new testament. Not for physical conflict, which clerics are even forbidden to engage in, but for spiritual.

we do not struggle for land, for physical safety, nor money...

what is at stake are souls, not just our short very temporary lives.

Not all combat

Nor is this to discount the soldier or the officer who lays down his life physically for his people is indeed love

The thing of great nobility he did was not so much the exterior physical bloody fighting, but the willingness to put the good of others before even his own life resisting temptations of fear and selfishness.

END

God is love, and so God brings a sword to this fallen world, not earthly peace.

The peace of Love, which surpasses all understanding, that he gives, not as the world gives, is the promise of the end of things when God wipes away the last tear, and the corruption of the world collapses at the very end of all things.

Until that day, that day which approaches each of us, keep up the good fight

do not be smothered by a soft complacent peace with evil.

hold up the bold sword of love, for brother and sister

NOTES

Peace of the world is not an absolute good [Like much of Christ’s shocking statements, takes something we take for granted b/c of much truth in it, and shows where it goes wrong].

Church constantly calls for unity and end of partisanship

but don’t run from it just because something is partition or divisive, there are things far far far more important than getting along.

God himself introduced this warfare for the other option was just let evil win, a much worse state than division.

What brings division to is destroyed (house divided cannot stand). This world to be destroyed, but the Church to not. Hence divisions in the Church are not part of the Church.

in Matthew ‘sword’ rather than division, to emphasize the fight.

peace i leave you my peace I give you, not as the world gives.

peace of world is not an absolute good.

Euangelion

divide soul and flesh

love requires sacrifice, love of God=destruction of evil, beauty of heroic suffering