I loved the Peanuts when I was a kid. Who didn’t love the Christmas special, when the kids were getting their Christmas play ready and Charlie Brown’s worry about the over-commercialization of Christmas.

Now Lucy and Linus were going to be a part of the play. Do you remember Lucy, the domineering older sister who was also Charlie Brown’s nemesis with the football? And Linus always had his trusty blanket? In the special, Lucy is all about this Christmas play and she’s telling Linus he has to work hard to memorize his lines and be ready for his cue. And like any true little brother, he pushes back and says I don’t have to do this. He says, “Give me one good reason why I should.” And Lucy says, “I’ll give you five good reasons.” She shows him her hand, counting off her fingers and she curls them into a fist and threatens him with her knuckles. He responds with fear, “Those are good reasons.”

It’s kind of like David and Goliath, except David doesn’t have the sling shot and Goliath wants to put on a Christmas play and wants you to memorize those lines.

So, the tension between brother and sister resolves, but it resolves in a way that only Lucy is probably content with the situation. Linus knows that he’s still one mistake away from Lucy’s knuckles, right? So, so while Lucy might consider their situation as being at peace with each other again, this isn’t peace-peace.

This isn’t a deep down shalom of wholeness and completeness that is referred to many times in the Bible as the Peace of the Lord.  These are different versions of peace. So, one is Peace ala Lucy with underlying tensions and the other is Peace of the Lord with a deep down peace for all.

This peace ala Lucy thing, we don’t just do it as kids. In the Roman Empire, during this time and place of Jesus, their motto was Pax Romana or the Peace of Rome. They brought this peace everywhere they went by invading and crushing people into submission and calling it peace. It’s not unlike our Peace ala Lucy. Like Peace ala Lucy, Pax Romana worked for some and not others. The wealthy and powerful probably thought it was great. The slaves, the lower classes, the dissidents who didn’t want to be invaded, didn’t like it as much. The empire was highly functional and “peaceful” for a lot of people, but at the cost of a lot of bloodshed and pain on the margins of society.

In the gospel today, it’s important to know what kind of peace Jesus is talking about when he says he’s not here to bring peace, but division. We know what he’s not saying is that he’s not here to bring about the peace of the Lord on earth for the sake of all creation. Because we know that is what he came for. So, what is happening here?

This reading comes almost immediately after last week’s reading, which included a parable of a master coming home late after a wedding to find his servants up waiting for him and he delights in tying on an apron and serving them. Jesus is teaching about God’s love that is surprising and favoring the poor or for any of the ways we are lowly in our society’s eyes. It was a fun, almost light-hearted teaching.

So, what happens in the one paragraph that separates last week’s text and today’s? In that paragraph, Peter essentially asks, “Is this lesson for us or for other people?” Jesus responds by extending the metaphor of the master and the slaves. He gives two scenarios. Both involve a steward who was put in charge of the slaves while the master was away. One steward does as he should and takes care of everyone’s needs. The other steward thinks the master is going to be gone for a long time, so they’re just gonna kick back, laze about, and abuse the slaves by disregarding their needs. Jesus concludes this section by saying, “From those who have given much, much will be required. From those who have been entrusted much, much will be asked.”

So, leading into today’s text, Jesus is talking about abuses of power. Our other texts are also about the abuse of power. Or we could say it’s all about the ways humans exercise “Peace ala Lucy”, which is when those in power force their way regardless of the hurt and fear they cause.

So, when Jesus says “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division,” what is he saying? He’s still responding to Peter’s question, who is your teaching for? Jesus seems to be saying, “I’m here to change everything, transform everything. I’m not buying into this Pax Romana business. I’m here to as a baptism to cleanse the world of these false, painful ways humans live. I’m here to transform how you relate, including those core family relationships that can be full of toxic power dynamics – sons and fathers, daughters and mothers, MIL and DIL. How you care for each other will be remade…so yes, Peter, this is for you, too.” This is for all of us.

These dynamics show up in every kind of relationship. In our families to geopolitical realities. When I post this sermon today on our new blog, I’ll be linking an article that talks about this dynamic in a marriage. It is so good in the way it names the subtle ways we do this to each other and how undermining it can be.

These are hard words from Jesus, because we all do this. But they are also words that are full of promise for the Linuses of the world. Ultimately these are words of promise to us all. Afterall, the Peace ala Lucy is a thin peace, even if you’re Lucy.

It’s a thin peace if there are winners and losers, because the justice of the Lord will ultimately prevail. The unjust peace of Lucy cannot stand forever and is not full of the grace of God. The Peace of the Lord is the upside-down promise of God that Jesus had named just a couple paragraphs before; the Lord serving the slaves; the low made high and the high made low. In that space of connection we share in Christ, the distinctions we make in our social distinctions melt. That is the peace of the Lord, as we are all settled together on a strong foundation of God’s love.  

Jesus continues in his teaching, “You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” He’s saying, how are you not seeing what is happening right in front of you, in your lives and relationships? In your world?

A few months ago now, I mentioned some studies about empathy and people in power. I don’t expect you to remember, but we did talk about this, in case this rings a bell in your memory. Anyway, what these studies show, some of it using technology watching what physically happens in our brains, is that people in power literally have lower activity in their brains in the areas responsible for empathy. Which means, they literally don’t see or experience the pain of the people with less power.

So, when Jesus is asking why don’t you see? We can say, well, it’s how our brains work. But, once we know it’s how our brains work, don’t we then have a special obligation to consider that we might very well be the Lucy in a situation?

Like Jesus said, “to whom much has been given, much will be required.” Maybe we are indeed being asked to rise above our defaults, our comfortable ways, our natural Lucy-ness, and ask the Linuses of the world how they are doing and listen. As Lucys, we may not get it right away. We might think what the Linuses have to say is ridiculous. But, then again, us Lucys are the ones with parts of our brains literally turning off, so maybe we need to keep asking questions. Pray on it. Ask for God’s help to see with God’s eyes and not our own.

Jesus is teaching us this hard lesson, because God loves God’s children. God loves both the Lucys and Linuses. That is the promise of Jesus for us. We are loved. We are delighted in. We are provided for. We are accepted despite all the ways we miss the mark.

Always, that is true! And Jesus is trying to help us see how we go wrong, how we fail each other, and fall short of the commandment to love each other as Jesus loves us. The peace of the Lord is a far richer, deeper peace than our fake peace, the peace ala Lucy. The promise of God for us is so much greater than we can do for ourselves. That’s promise for us all, Lucys and Linuses alike.

AMEN